The Fall

Chapter 25

Sage

"I had a nightmare or memory from the night I overdosed... the night I was raped." I paced Dr. Lo's office, dressed in a tank top and flannel shorts. I woke up covered in sweat and gasping for air as though I was still being choked. After changing my clothes and sheets, I decided sleep was not an option and sat outside the doc's office all night.

"What do you remember?" She asks cautiously eyeing me. I paused my pacing and dragged my hands down my face. "I remember three voices.. at first. One of them I think I know." I paced again, my eyes locked on the windows as the sun just peaks through the clouds. "They... forced themselves into my mouth, the three each took turns, I think. I fought a little as much as I could and..." My hands went to my throat and I found myself staring at my reflection through the glass.

"It's alright, Sage." Lo whispered, her voice soothing away the fear of that moment. "Sometimes it takes time to fully process something so traumatizing happening to us." I closed my eyes as tears fell down my face and I couldn't breathe, those hands on my neck and tightening. "Sage, hey, take a breath. You're having a panic attack."

I'm faintly aware of hands on me, soft, cool hands taken my own and placing them on something warm. My vision is darkened as Lo steps in front of me, her mouth moving, but her shoulders are rising drastically. "Breathe." I force myself to focus on copying her movements, my breaths rising and falling with hers and that weight on my chest eases.

"Sorry about that." I grumbled as I drop on the couch. She grabs a water from her mini fridge and hands it to me. "Small sips and don't apologize for working through your trauma, Sage. Every patient in this facility has a story. Some darker than others, but no one's journey to get to a place of healing is perfect." I found myself smiling at that as I sip my water. Lo sits on the edge of her desk regarding me with concern. "Your family is set to show up tomorrow. Are you sure you're up to it?"

Setting the bottle on the table beside me, I sighed and for the first time in a long time I'm not afraid of facing my family and the pain I've put myself and them through. "I'm ready, Lo. I need to be able to face my demons head on, starting with my deepest trauma." Everything that happened to me goes back to him... to a man who I stupidly allowed to prey on me, groom me in his sick little game.

"I went over the notes from your group sessions and you briefly touched on being sexualized at a young age." She stares at me, blue eyes assessing me, but there's nothing clinical about it and that warms me. My feet guide me to the large windows in her office as I gaze at the snowflakes falling freely. "I had my first sexual experience at fourteen with him, you know." My fingertips graze the glass and I get lost in the memory of that day. In his touch, his praise, me naively thinking I could play this game against my mother.

"He taught me how to give blow jobs. Even then I hated him because he was having an affair with my mother." I brushed the tears falling down my cheeks and turn back to Lo. "It's not our session time, but thank you for letting me talk to you, Lo." She folds me into her arms and for the first time in years, I felt safe with an adult.

When I got back to my room, Linds stepped out of our bathroom in a bathrobe and drying her hair. "Hey, where'd you go?" I yawned and ransacked the mini fridge she somehow managed to smuggle in our room for a coffee drink. "I had a rough night and ended up outside docs office all night." Popping the cap open I chug it and I know I'll pay for it later so I grab the mango slices she stole from the kitchen and eat those as well.

"Well you missed out on a hell of a poker night." Lindsey chuckled as she throws on a familiar looking Harvard crew and leggings. "You won back my stuff, didn't you?" I raise my brow at her and she smirks and throws her closet door open and wheeled out two suitcases, Louis Vuitton suitcases to be exact. I press my hands to my cheeks as she opens them and there's all the items Presley confiscated from me.