A Couple of Hours Later;
Hailey Ackles...
Today hadn't gone like any of us had expected. It is still hard to believe that after what Jonah had done to my sister-in-law, he was permitted bail and had actually paid it - and was now walking around a free-man, making Shay the prisoner. A prisoner in her own home and in some ways in her own head - she was trying to put on a brave face, trying to get us all to believe that she was coping and that she was fine. None of us were buying it.
How could we? Given that she had collapsed a couple of hours ago. Just one look at her and you can see the tragic weight loss, the sunken appearance of her normally bright eyes and the lifeless way she seemed to just slump into the corner of the sofa. As a nurse, it was clear to me that she was sinking into depression, and I didn't have a clue as to how to stop it from happening. Hell, it was akin to watching someone drowning but being unable to swim to save them. I wasn't at all used to the feeling of helplessness. I was always the one who knew what to do - knew how to treat pretty much any injury but this was out of my expertise.
I am terrified for her. This isn't a good path for her to be on and I have tried to think of off-ramps to pull her free, but she just seems unresponsive to anything that I suggest. Yes, it is frustrating, but I can't even imagine what it must feel like to have been violated in the way she was, or how you even begin to come to terms with such savagery, or how you find the strength to rebuild your life afterwards.
Who are we to get frustrated when we have never experienced such a brutal attack? That is the logical reasoning, right? Unfortunately, real life isn't always logical, and we are only human; we can become frustrated and disappointed in spite of knowing that we have no right to be.
It is frustrating and it is disappointing because Shayne has always been the strong one, the one who holds her head up no matter what and keeps on fighting. There hasn't been anything that has held her down before but it's as if Jonah has slipped invisible chains around her and has her tethered to him. And no matter how hard we try; we can't find the key to unchain her. I can only hope that the doctor helps tomorrow.
Curled up at the side of my husband, on the love seat in Shay's front room, we were watching some stand-up comedian on the comedy channel. Shay was curled up in the corner of the sofa, her body resting against Jeremy's, who was holding her firmly to his side. Out of all of us, she seems to react to him the easiest and the most - which makes sense, after being raped the mind sometimes latches on to the first person you see - the mind sort of creates a link that, that first person is your safe place, the one person who will protect you and it seems as if that person is Jeremy for Shayne. I don't think that he minds if I am being completely honest. I can see the way he is with her - patient, gentle, understanding, encouraging - basically everything positive that she needs right now.
I have tried everything I can think of to break her through the surface, even trying to coax her into starting my tattoo but she seems completely unresponsive, there is no drive there to do the one thing that has always been her go-to. Tattooing was her calling - there has never been a time when it hasn't pulled her from whatever she had going on, until now and that was what scared me more than anything.
What if she has lost all of her drive?
What if she never recovers?
My husband wasn't handling all of this very well - it is his nature to fix everything and the fact that he can't seem to get through to Shay is dragging him down, so in essence they are both drowning, and I am completely fucking helpless. I can't even save one of them. Snuggling further into Jay's side, if anything good has come from the attack on Shay, it is the fact that Jay and I seem to have worked through the lump of our issues.
We have both agreed to be more honest in the future - if we piss one another off, we are going to speak up, we are going to address these things as they arise. I am going to take some time off work, it's not like I don't have a ton of banked days off lying, just waiting to be used and we are going to stay in Scotland for a while. We haven't mentioned it to Shayne yet, but the house we had rented had come up for sale, we are just waiting for the contracts to be authorised and the house will be all ours.
Jay and I both love this part of the world - it is calming and for the most part private. Although right now, it wasn't exactly as private as it usually is. With the media having picked up on the story, there are reporters and paparazzi almost everywhere we turn. They want pictures of Shay and Jeremy together, they want to know what is going on with them, they want to know the back-story of what led to the rape, and they wanted to know what was next for the couple of the moment. It was utterly ridiculous, as if this whole ordeal wasn't stressful enough as it is, this just adds more stress and tension in an already volatile situation. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if that was part of the reason why Shayne has clammed up.
Being Jay's little sister, she was used to a certain level of attention from the media, but this was a whole new level that she hadn't asked for and it would be understandable if it was causing some sort of reluctance on her part. It had taken a while for me to get used to it when Jay first hit it big.
"Guys, I am gonna head upstairs to bed," Shay suddenly announced. God, even her voice sounded lifeless - there was no emotion - it was simply like she wasn't at the helm anymore; autopilot was engaged, and she was tucked safely away inside herself, "you know where everything is - just make yourselves at home,"
"Goodnight, brat!" Jay said, trying to engage her in the way they always did.
"Goodnight!" Nothing, normally she'd call him a bitch or asshat, but there was no sign of their normal sibling ribbing.
We listened in silence as she climbed the stairs and waited for her bedroom door to close before we all seemed to let out a collective breath of ease. It wasn't that we were angry with her, it was just almost suffocating to watch her retreat so deeply into herself. Especially when we knew how full of life she had once been.
I don't think that any of us ever thought that there was anything on this planet capable of snuffing out her spark. Certainly not Jonah. The question then becomes - how long can I realistically hold my husband back from visiting a world of hurt on his sister's attacker? I know Jay, sometimes I think I know him better than I even know myself, and that means I know that right now, he is feeling massive waves of guilt. I say waves because I know his emotions will be swaying between the guilt, he feels at leaving his baby sister with that monster and the unrelenting anger and violence he wants to inflict on said attacker.
Yes, we have had our issues lately, but ultimately, I did actually believe that he was sorry for what he did, and I believe him when he says that he will never do it again. And while, yes it really does hurt me to know he actually slept with someone else, I can't walk away from him or our marriage. I won't walk away from all that we have built over the years of being together. As far as forgiveness goes - he knows it won't come over-night and he has been working really hard to earn my trust back. I love my husband and I love that he wants to protect and avenge his sister - it is what makes him one of a kind. And I get to call him my husband.
The Following Morning;
Jeremy Irvine...
The faded pastel-pink walls mismatched with the ivy-green seating and skirting of the large waiting-room in the doctor's office - making the room look and feel dated and abandoned. If it weren't for the busy hussle of the staff and the quiet murmurs of the patients, you'd be forgiven for assuming that this place was derelict. A large extremely thin LED screen was secured to the wall and played a series of announcements between patients' names and which room to go to. The radio speakers were playing an easy-listening station that was more for background noise than entertainment. The strong aroma of disinfectant permeated the air and burned at my nasal passage.
It never failed to amaze me the difference in G.P. offices between here and the states. Not to mention the fact that here it was entirely free to see your family doctor, Hell in Scotland, all prescriptions were free. Not something that we had in England. It amazed me if I am being honest. I mean it isn't like I can't afford my own medication, but I did feel awful for people who struggled to get, what should be a basic human right. It was why I did a lot of work for charities in my down time.
Jensen sat to the right of me, we had all agreed that it might be better if Hailey went into the appointment with Shay. We figured she might be more inclined to open up in front of another female. My new friend was fidgeting - his knee bobbing up and down frantically, he was chewing at his finger-nails and his eyes were darting all around the space. I knew that he was worried for his sister. Hell, I was worried for her.
I had taken the bedroom right next to hers last night - I didn't want to be too far in case she needed me. At first, I had assumed that she was asleep but it quickly became apparent that she had some sort of routine – for around 20 minutes she would be completely silent, as if she were sleeping and for the following half hour she would be moving around in her room, not making a noise that would alert the entire house but I had come to the conclusion that because I was on high alert, I had been listening for her, listening for the sound of her in distress.
"Do you think the Doctor will see she needs help?" Jensen asked glancing at me before going back to his anxious mannerisms.
"I can't see why he wouldn't," I admitted as suddenly a little girl approached me - around 15 years old, she appeared shy, and I noticed the novel in her hand, and instantly knew that she had recognized me.
"You're Daniel Grigori?" She asked, her voice barely above a whisper, her eyes dropping to the floor as she rocked on the balls of her feet.
"Yeah, I played Daniel," I replied, slowly moving my head so she was looking at me, "you're a Fallen fan?"
"I really am, I just started re-reading the series again," heat flushed her features as she held her book up, "I was hoping that I could get your autograph?" She glanced back at whom I assumed was her mom who smiled encouragingly, "if you don't mind,"
"Not at all, do you have a pen?" I asked as she passed the book to me and then pulled the pen from her pocket and also handed it to me, "what's your name?"
"It's Amber,"
"It's nice to meet you Amber, I'm Jeremy," I offered as I quickly wrote a message to her and signed my name underneath before handing everything back to her.
"Nice to meet you too, thank you so much for this, I really love the series and the movie was amazing, you were so good as Daniel," she gushed as the heat stained her cheeks even more brightly.
"Thank you, it is always nice to hear that someone thinks I did a good job -,"
"Amber, come on, sweetheart, it's time to see the doctor," the woman I assumed was her mom called from the entrance to the hallway.
"It was nice to meet you Amber,"
"You too Dan - Jeremy, thank you so much, bye!"
"You're welcome, bye," I replied, catching the way some of the other patients were now looking at me, as if they were trying to figure out who I am. This was one of the reasons that I tried hard to keep myself to myself - it's not that I don't like to be noticed, because honestly, it is always nice to hear that someone has enjoyed your performance, but at times like this when it wasn't about me, I wished that I had more privacy.
I am worried for Shayne. I have been worried for her from the moment that bastard raped her. I can see her falling, see her losing the battle to stay adrift and I have no means to save her. I would give anything to be her knight in shining armour, but I fear that I am not making anything better for her.
Moving into her house while Jonah is out on bail just doesn't seem like enough. I mean, I don't think that he is quite stupid enough to do anything more than what he had done yesterday - and that was sitting across the street from her home, just watching. It's clear to me that he isn't stupid because there isn't a damn thing anyone can do about him sitting in his car on a street. As frustrating as that is, he knows that by just sitting there he is still controlling her to an extent. It is definitely at this time I wished that the UK still had the death penalty. I would love to see him fry for what he did, for what he took from her.
I know that Jensen and Hailey know what I am talking about when I say he took something from her. It was something fundamental to her character - her spark. The spark I had mistakenly compared to the insanity that had been my ex-girlfriend, the spark that made Shayne one of a kind. The spark that had drawn me to her in the first place. It was as if he had completely snuffed it out. Hell, it was more like he had killed the very essence of who she is...was. And I have no idea how to reignite that fire inside of her.
Suggesting that she train with me, had been a desperate effort into getting her to engage. To try and bring back some of the zest that had been in her before the attack. I am not entirely sure how we are going to do that when she won't leave the house, just getting her here this morning had been difficult because every time she tried to step over that threshold, it was as if the air was sucked clear from her lungs. Eventually, we had given her a cigarette to concentrate on and somehow, it worked, and I am not at all complaining about that fact because it got us here. And now she was tucked away in an unseen office talking to her doctor about what was going on. I can't help but wonder if she is being candid with him about what is happening to her - I don't know her as well as her brother and sister-in-law, obviously, but I like to think that I have grown closer to her than I had ever expected and a part of me believes that she knows she needs help.
It was at this exact moment that I looked up, my body going instantly on alert, letting me know that she was close and there she was - eyes red and swollen; clearly, she had been crying, and her face was still ashen white, but her eyes found mine and she stepped towards me as I rose and rushed to her side where she collapsed against my frame. Fuck, she was trembling.
What surprised me more than anything about the way we were with one another, was the fact that with Jessica - she had been clingy like Shayne was at the moment, but Jessica had, had no reason to be. I had always been open with her about who I was and what I wanted from our relationship, but she had been so paranoid that I was going to betray her, and, or leave her that she had suffocated me with her clinginess, and it had eventually pushed me away. With Shayne it was the exact opposite - she was clingy yes, but she had every reason in the book to be that way, she had been violated by a man she had spent 5 years with, that type of violation and betrayal wasn't something that you could just snap your fingers and be over. I knew that but what surprised me was that I didn't mind it. I liked being the one she sought out. I liked being the one she leaned on. I liked being her support.
It was at this moment that the words my dad had said to me, echoed through my mind - 'when you meet the love of your life; you will be surprised at what you are willing to do to keep that person safe and protected!'
Wait, did that mean that Shayne is the love of my life?