The photos.
The videos.
He has photographic evidence of what I’ve become.
Humiliated. Hurt. Useless.
My throat clogs with a sob I so desperately work to hold back. I want to screamno, but at the same time, I want to go to him. I want to find safety in the danger he is.
Better the devil you know.
I drag a deep breath through aching lungs and walk through the apartment I share with Jess and Kari.
It’s empty.
It’s always empty now.
Jess is off with her boyfriend, and Kari’s off with hers.
I’ve shared an apartment with these girls since freshman year in college, best friends through years of fun and silly drama – but now everyone has left to settle in with their lives.
They don’t need to see my shame. They don’t want me here dragging them down.
They don’t need to see my train wreck.
I walk through my empty apartment and past a spartan living room. It was once loud, colorful, and full of trinkets; we used to live in a hive of scattered shoes, case files, textbooks – law for Jess, nursing for Kari – and stacks of DVDs that would tower perilously near the TV.
As a group, we’d have weekend-longFriendsmarathons and hate on Ross for being such a wimp all the time. We’d argue over whose turn it was to get the Rachel haircut – because it would be weird if we all did it at the same time. We’d discuss the times we skinny-dipped at the lake over the years, then as a mass of giggles, we’d dive off the couch and race back to the lake to do it again.
Best friends since my brother rocked up to the Turner house way back when Jess and I were just babies, the guys’ friendship helped shape ours, so by the time Kari and her brother turned up in the foster system and were taken in by the Turners, we were inseparable.
But now, as time goes on and their relationships evolve, the girls are slowly moving their things.
Kari took her dreamcatcher to Luc’s place, because she sleeps in his bed more than she sleeps in her own. Jess hardly even stops here anymore, because Kane has a big house across town and she wants to be with him all the time.
Understandable, of course. She’s in love, the real kind of love, and she spent far too long without him. But during that time of mourning, that time of misery and heartbreak, my sister and I bonded over something new. Something other than sisterhood, friendship, and the ability to swap clothes at absolutely any time we wanted.
In the cold months of the early half of this year, we bonded in silence and darkness. We sat together in her room or mine, and though we didn’t talk, we cried. And we slept. And more often than not, we did it in each other’s arms.
We made plans to not make plans.
We promised a lifetime of company, because we were both broken.
Two broken twins can sort of make up one single woman, right? And though it would be a miserable existence, there was never any judgment. Neither of us told the other toget over it.We never tried to push each other into the sunlight like our brothers so often do. We never made each other feel guilty for sleeping sixteen hours in one single day.
Because sleep is where she visited with Kane.
And sleep is where I tried to escape the constant thoughts on rotation in my brain.
I’m useless.
I’m broken.
I’m dead weight.
It was a double-edged sword, a dangerous game of Russian Roulette, because often, sleep led me to dark nightmares. Terrifying memories.
Memories;not made up ofwhat ifs,but factual moments in my life. Moments I can’t forget, no matter how much I try. No matter how many tears I shed, or days spent in silence, even though that club has now burned to the ground, the men I knew there won’t leave me be. Their fingertips still dig into my hips. Their thumbs still press against my throat. Their eyes, feral and hungry, continue to stare into mine.