The Road Less Traveled (Editing)

Chapter 15

Playlist:
Praying by Kesha
This Time by Jonathan Rhys Meyers
Priceless by FOR KING & COUNTRY

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   As I got out of the shower that evening, I dried my hair on autopilot as my mind raced.
   The events of the last weekend felt like a lifetime. I wasn't sure how to process what I was feeling. I had oscillated back and forth from joy then terror, lust, and embarrassment. I had made steps forward, and I felt like I had also been dragged back.
   Friday night I had been delusional enough to think I was happy with not going to parties, not going out to concerts, happy with constantly watching my back. I had applied to schools far and wide in the hopes that running away would solve my problems. I had been afraid to go out. I had been afraid to talk to strangers. Today, seventy-two hours later, I had sat outside and talked to a stranger, danced with a guy, stayed out all night, and I was flirting with people. Shouldn't I feel more scared? Shouldn't I be terrified to be seen with a guy? Shouldn't I be watching my back more than ever? I didn't know.
  I turned off the hair dryer.
   I leaned forward. Who are you? I asked myself as I looked in the mirror. I wasn't sure I recognized the girl there anymore. She looked like me. The same green eyes and dark hair. The same ugly scar through her eyebrow. The same smattering of light freckles across the bridge of her nose. But something had altered. I didn't know how, but somehow the girl in the mirror wasn't haunted the way I was. It was the eyes, I decided. The haunted, animalistic wariness that had been my constant companion for the better part of the last year was disappearing. The girl in the mirror was still me, she was just changing from who I had been.
   The only thing I could attribute the change to was the arguments and discussions with Iris and Harrison, even Hero. Somehow, those paired with the encounter with Ian and the break in had all culminated in the breaking of a dam somewhere deep inside me.
   The water was loose now, and the deluge was exorcising the demons I had been carrying with me for so long.
   I smiled, gripping the sides of the sink, as I imagined the black horned beings that represented my doubts, fears, guilt, and blame being drowned in the rushing water. I let those waters that had erupted from my soul wash over it, scrubbing away all the ugly things I had dragging it down.
   And for the first time, I allowed myself to believe what everyone had been telling me. Over the last year, I had been hunted. I had been haunted. I had blamed myself and I was beginning to realize that I wasn't at fault.

I wasn't at fault.

   I laughed out loud, a fragile, shaky laugh, comprised of half disbelief, half relief. It was like the clouds opened up and an angel descended, slapping me on the head with his golden trumpet. Took you long enough, dumbass, Internal Virginia said rolling her eyes.
   I looked down at my hands, tightly gripping the sides of the sink. I hadn't asked for the relationship to grow abusive. I hadn't asked to be stalked. I had done everything in my power to get away from the situation. I was not the bad guy here. I had made a mistake. I couldn't keep blaming myself for it.
   I had been telling myself to move forward. Thinking back on what I had believed was my determination to move forward, I realized I had been teasing myself with it. Because now, standing wrapped in a towel in my bathroom, I was on the precipice of truly moving forward. The fear was slowly leaching out of me, replaced by an iron hard determination and even rage. Ian had stolen so much from me. The time for change was long past, and while I couldn't get back what he had taken from me, I could prevent him from taking anything else from me.
   "Virginia? Your bedding is in the dryer." Harrison's soft voice called through the bathroom door, breaking my reverie.
   "Thanks. I'll be out soon." I called.
   I took one last look in the mirror, giving my reflection a small smile. The girl I had been was dead. It was time to let the past die with her.

*****

   That night, as I snuggled up to Harrison in her bed, we talked.
   "For someone in such a wild situation, you're really calm." She said, punching her pillow to her standards.
   "I'm not calm. I'm angry." I said, trying to put my emotions and thoughts into words that could convey what I was feeling.
   "I am too." Harri said softly.
   "He's taken so much from me. And I'm finally realizing that the only thing I'm at fault for is letting it go on so long. I feel like I let myself be a bit of a victim." I confessed.
   "You didn't let yourself be a victim. You just had to find your strength." Harrison defended. "Besides, the police and legal system told you not to engage. If you had it could've been worse." She said reasonably, flopping down onto her now fluffed pillow.
   "Be that as it may." I shrugged, rolling over to face her. "There's a difference between not engaging  and being weak."
   "We all knew the strength was there. He just stole your knowledge of it for awhile, too."
   "He stole a lot from me." I said, the anger bubbling up inside me, binding to the iron-hard core of determination that was growing in me.
   "I know I said it before, but after this weekend, I really am done. He's going down one way or another. I refuse to be the victim anymore. He doesn't get to take anything else from me. I'm not hiding now. I'm not running away. I let him hunt me like an animal for so long, I stopped being Virginia. I don't know who I am anymore, but I know it's time I find myself again." I said, wanting her of all people to understand.
   "Before him, I had this plan for how my life would go. College with you, get my degree, grad school, start working, save the world. It was straight forward. It was reasonable. Ish. But then he happened. He dragged me away from that path. Sure I never quit school or anything, but my grades did suffer some and I think that's impacting my applications to grad school. That wasn't in my plan. And that plan has been apart of me for so long, it's like I've lost part of myself."
   "I wouldn't go quite so far as to say you lost yourself. Parts of yourself, yes. But the Virginia I know is still there. Under the fear and the pain. She's been biding her time, rebuilding her armor. Sharpening her weapons. And now she's ready." She mused. I rolled my eyes at her flowery language. She must have been reading her poetry books again.
   "Which poet have you been reading now?" I teased.
   "Not a poet, but John Muir. I should give you one of his books, you'd actually enjoy it. He's all about nature. But that's not my point. I know you've been through the blender this year. I know you've been worried about your soul, your spirit, whatever it is that makes you who you are. And I want you to know I think you don't need to worry. At your center I still recognize you." Harrison said.
   "I'm not so sure I recognize me." I admitted thinking back to earlier in the bathroom.
   "Of course not. You've got all those thoughts and doubts bouncing around in your head. That's why you keep me around. I'm your voice of reason." Harrison said primly as I snorted.
   "Voice of reason? Says the girl who went cliff jumping in October without a wetsuit!" I said, remembering how blue her lips were from the frigid water.
   "Pfft, you went with me!" Harri said waving a hand noncommittally "Besides, technicalities."
   "Elaborate then, Oh Mighty Voice of Reason." I said propping my head up on my hand.
   "Well, lets examine the facts. Before the douche canoe, you loved animals, hiking, and your family. You were fearless, upright and good, kind, altruistic, and a nerd." She pointed out.
   "Not that much of a nerd." I grumbled.
   "You made me go with you to Harry Potter, Star Trek, and the Star Wars premieres. At midnight. In costume. So shut up."
   "Well, who else was gonna be Dumblewhore with me?" I grinned, "Besides you were on board for all the Harry Potter movies, and don't pretend you don't have a Kylo Ren kink."
   "True, and I still blame you for that." She rolled her eyes, "In any case, back to you. Today, you still love animals. You'll help anyone in need. You hate reality TV. You've got an old man crush on Sir David Attenborough. You're fiercely loyal. You love your family. You're happiest when you're hiking. Sure, you may have been fearful for a time, but that made you smart. Everything else from before is still there. It's still the same. You may be a bit harder, worn around the edges, and a bit more reserved, but I know that wherever the Virginia you think you were went, parts of her are still there. Like I said, she's just been gathering strength. She'll be back."
   It felt weird to be talking like this, even with Harrison. I felt slightly insane referring to myself like I was someone else, but really, we are different people at different points in our lives. I wasn't who I had been, no one was always the same. Sometimes the change was for the worse, like when I had lost my strength. Other times, like now, the change was for the better.
   "So what happens now?" Harrison asked.
   "Now? I move on. I pray that they catch the son of a bitch. Moving on doesn't mean I won't continue watching my back. I'll just have to keep an eye out more since I'll be out more."
   "That's logical."
   "If they catch him, then that's it Harri. I can go back and start over. I can stop watching my back all the fucking time. I can get a job again where he can't harass me or get me fired. I can go hiking without fear of him following me. I can go to concerts, out to  movies, clubs, wherever I want!- and not worry he'll be in the apartment when I come back. If he's in jail, I'm free." I said, the longing for freedom made my chest ache with desire.
   "Like you said: one way or another he's going down. Detective Rodriguez said he posted plainclothes officers on the street and a marked squad car out front until they've got more information. He can't get to you here again. And if he does, they'll nail the son of a bitch and lock him up because they'd have caught him in the act. They'll get him soon. I can feel it. And then you're free to move on, emotionally, physically, mentally." Harrison said, reaching out to wrap an arm around me.
   I nodded. I could only hope she was right.

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A/N