23
Idon’t knock as I turn the key and open the door. Darkness greets me on the other side and a noise akin to a child weeping, not a tantrum or a wail, but a soft, sorrow filled cry, one that seeps into your skin and buries itself into your soul. It’s a cry of pain, pure, unadulterated pain and with each sob and intake of breath I feel that pain burrowing its way into my marrow.
“Aurora?” I whisper to the darkness.
With the curtains drawn all the way and all the lights off I can barely see into the room, but I can just about make out the outline of her body beneath the blankets on the bed.
The sobs stop when she hears my voice and she rolls onto her back, inhaling sharply.
“Why are you here?”
“I want to help, Rory, please let me help.”
“There’s nothing you can do, Wren.”
“They hurt me too,” I say to her, “and I would do it again, take it all again if it meant protecting you.”
“But it didn’t protect me, did it?” She snaps, sitting up abruptly, “Because before I even knew you were there, they had already done everything you’d never even dream of happening to you. They’d already takeneverything.They ripped me apart.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why?” She asks.
“Why am I sorry?”
“Yes, why are you sorry, Wren?”
“Because this never should have happened.”
“Did you do it?” She asks. “Did you strap me down and hurt me Wren? Did you tell them to take me? Did you tell them to take turns?”
“No, Rory.”
“Then why are you sorry, everyone keeps saying they’re sorry. Sorry it happened. Sorry no one came sooner, but ultimately, what does an apology fix?”
I stay silent as she sits there in the middle of the bed, her body barely visible in the shadows of the bedroom but her breathing is heavy and filled with so much grief.
Ryker was right. She was broken and I didn’t know how to help. I wanted to help. I wanted to fix it.
I would never be able to take it away but I wanted to get revenge, I wanted to get her through this.
“I came from nothing,” she continues, “I had nothing, but I was starting to get something. I moved away from the only place I knew as home, to get away from the trouble I knew would follow me if I didn’t. I was going to be a teacher, Wren. A teacher but how can I ever do any of that now?”
“You still can, Rory, this does not define you.” I cross the room and pause before her, “can I sit?”
She sighs, “Sure.”
“Ryker,” I say, “He’s helping you?”
She shrugs, “Some.”
“What else can we do? Whatever it is, I’ll do it, Rory.”
She needed a therapist, a doctor, she needed help and I couldn’t give her everything, but I would do as much as I possibly could.
She deserved the life she was fighting so damn hard for, she deserved everything she had worked to get and this, I needed to believe this was only going to be a set back, a huge one, one that will stay with her forever, but I knew she could be what she wanted to be.
I knew it. She just needed to believe it. It wasn’t that easy, I knew that, I was suffering with my own troubles that would no doubt stay with me forever, like this will her, but there has to be a way I can help her.