TW here for some not very graphic descriptions of conversion therapy. Lots of love! Enjoy the chapter xx
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Shelby's hands were in Toni's hair, on her hips, tracing down her neck and it was fucking bliss.
While the single bed mattress on the floor was a bit limiting, Shelby and Toni made it work, especially as it had been weeks of meeting up at the basketball court. They didn't have to because the location faking app worked, but Toni still insisted. Just as precaution until everything died down.
But holy shit was she glad that Shelby had finally said enough is enough.
Toni pulled away, breathless from her position above Shelby who was pinned beneath her. "Are you sure this is okay?" It had been a while since they had done anything this heated.
Shelby, equally breathless, looked up at her with something akin to murder in her eyes. "Toni, I love you, but this is very very clearly okay. Just, don't stop." Toni didn't miss the hint of a question in Shelby's own eyes, it was enough to reassure her that they could stop whenever, which Toni preferred to being asked.
Understanding that it is rude to leave a girl hanging, Toni dipped her head back down planting open mouthed kisses down Shelby's neck, her collar bone, her-
"Toni!" The door opened before Toni and Shelby could do anything about their position. "I was wondering if- Oh my goodness!" Martha's hands flew up to cover her eyes in record time.
"Oh my God!" Shelby squeaked, slamming her own eyes closed. A reflex that Toni thought was very helpful for their situation.
"Martha!" Toni shouted, flattening herself down on top of Shelby to cover her girlfriend's bare chest. It was an interesting position. The things she did for love. Honestly.
They were lucky that the only item of clothing that was removed was Shelby's top. Her bra was technically still on but... was not necessarily useful at the time of interruption.
"This is my bedroom Toni!"
Toni looked at the flushed face below her, "Is there any reason I am getting all of the blame here?" Her eyes wandering back up to Martha, who still looked traumatised, her hand so tight over eyes that her fingertips were going white.
"Yes. Shelby was kind enough not to... Expose you." Martha shuddered.
Shelby looked a little offended.
Toni jumped in to defend her girlfriend, "Excuse me, It is an honour to see-"
Shelby slapped her hand over Toni's mouth her eyes snapping open, "Shut the fuck up Toni. I swear to God."
A little ungrateful. She tried. "Okay Martha just, keep your eyes closed one second."
"Toni I can promise you that there is nothing that would actually make me open them again and risk seeing-" Martha gestured blindly to the complete wrong part of her bedroom, "-that again."
Toni lifted up from Shelby and helped her get her clothes in order again. Shelby's pupils were blown her lips where swollen and red. Fuck, she cursed Martha for interrupting them.
"Okay, Martha, Sorry. We are decent," Toni announced.
Shelby looked incredibly sheepish. She looked at her feet like her purple toenails were the most interesting in the world. "Martha, I am so sorry..." Shelby was at a loss for words.
Toni jumped in, "It was, you know, heat of the moment, these things happen. We are all women here, it's nothing you haven't seen before."
Martha opened her eyes, flinching a little before realising that both Toni and Shelby were fully clothed. "Not true. I have not seen Shelby's boobs before, well, I had not seen Shelby's boo-"
"Okay! We get it!" Shelby looked so mortified that Toni wasn't sure if she was going to burst into tears. She reached over and slipped her fingers between Shelby's, grasping her hand and squeezing it for comfort.
"Marty, I promise it will not happen again. It's just... I'm sure you get it! With Marcus, who I have yet to even meet by the way." Toni decided to throw Martha under the bus, to get Shelby from underneath it before she combusted.
Martha looked around, wide eyed. "Toni! Keep your voice down," She dropped her voice into a whisper. "My mom doesn't know yet. And we are taking things slow anyway."
"Very slow." Toni remarked. She had first heard about this guy 6 months ago and Martha still hadn't referred to him as her boyfriend.
"Some of us don't just skip straight from acquaintances," She waved at them, "to this. There is a friends and romance stage in between. We are there."
"Okay," Toni accepted. Things took however long they needed to take. She got that. "Well, you will get it. And maybe, one day, I will walk in on you two and criticise his- uh- well I guess that's a little extreme. Not quite on par with what you saw today. Anyway, a full circle moment was what I was getting at there."
Toni opened her mouth to continue her tangent, but Shelby gave her hand a squeeze. "Maybe quit while you're ahead babe."
"Am I ahead?" Toni questioned quietly.
Shelby hesitated. "Y-yeah. Sure you are." The peck on the cheek made Toni forgive her lack of sincerity.
Toni took a deep breath and shook off her nerves. God, this was embarrassing. Now that the initial shock had worn off she was feeling a bit uncomfortable. "I'm really sorry Marty. Can we just forget this? Please?"
Martha looked deep in thought. "Yeah, just, the basement is nearly done. It's one week guys," she sighed.
Shelby and Toni both nodded rapidly at the same time. "Yep," Shelby affirmed, her voice a little more high pitched than normal, "We can do a week."
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Toni loved Martha, but it was so nice to have her own space again. The basement was actually really cool. The walls were predominately exposed brick and the stripped back look really suited Toni. She had never had that big a room before. The Blackburn's even got her a double bed. A lot of the time she just laid there, listening to music in the starfish position. It was too much room for her to even know what to do with it.
Shelby came over two days after Toni moved into the basement.
"Wow," she said, "This is so roomy!" She flopped down on the bed, "And this bed is so comfy!"
"I have never known comfort like that bed before." Toni agreed jokingly. But there was a lot of truth behind the statement. And while she joked about it, every time she laid in that bed she almost wanted to cry. It was hers. No one was going to kick her out.
Shelby picked up on some of the unintentional heaviness in the statement, she pet the bed beside her an scooted over. "I did actually want to ask you about something."
Oh no. Toni knew what this was. The talk they had been avoiding for weeks. Circling around it every time the conversation veered in that direction.
Toni manoeuvred herself into position, lying on the bed propped up by the abundance of pillows that she had been provided with. Shelby moved up so that she was lying on Toni's chest, Toni's arm instinctively fell around her.
"I was wondering if we could talk? Properly?"
Dread coiled around Toni's gut. They'd had weeks of banter, flirting and messing around, and Toni loved it. It was light, it was fun, there were no heavy feelings in the way for the first time in their relationship.
But she knew they needed to talk.
Shelby had been exceptionally patient with Toni. While Shelby shared some things about her time in the camp, Toni couldn't bring herself to talk about Carol yet. About her mother or anything else that still haunted her dreams.
There was also an incredibly selfish part of her that didn't want to hear what Shelby had gone through. She knew it was partly her fault that Shelby had gone there to begin with and the thought actually hearing everything out loud, outside of her imagination, made her feel sick.
Because as long as Shelby didn't say it out loud, Toni could pretend that none of it had happened. Occasionally, she could even convince herself that Carol never existed and her and Shelby were just sneaking around for the thrill of it, that Shelby hadn't been mentally tortured and Toni hadn't allowed it to happen.
There was no way around it. They couldn't just dance around it forever.
"Yeah... Let's talk." She had to force the words out.
"If you're not ready-"
"I can do it," Toni reassured.
Shelby started. It was as bad as Toni had imagined. Silent tears fell from Toni's eyes as Shelby emotionally recounted 2 months of what can only be described as severe psychological abuse.
Bible readings
Role play
Daily affirmations
Toni tried to keep it together, but she found herself needing to stand up and take a few deep breaths to stop herself from being sick when Shelby got to a therapy session where she had to recount her entire childhood, trauma's and relationships in order to determine where her feelings of 'SSA' stemmed from.
"Are you okay?" Shelby asked Toni guiltily as she dry heaved. She had no control over the visceral reaction that her body had. She took a shuddering breath and paced around with her hands on her head for a while until her stomach untangled itself from the knot it was in.
"I'm fine. Sorry. I'm okay. Keep going."
Shelby looked reluctant but kept going. Toni figured she needed to get this out and felt guilty for making it hard for Shelby to open up properly for the sake of her own selfish desires to keep the relationship light.
Shelby talked for an nearly an hour. Pausing occasionally to wait for Toni when she buried her head in Shelby's hair or hopped off the bed to pace for a bit, recognising that she couldn't listen properly when she was too upset. Understanding that Toni struggled to keep her attention centred especially when her brain was overloaded with information. Toni knew that she had googled post-concussion syndrome because she treated her like Martha did. With a great deal of patience.
Shelby finished her story with a sigh. As though she could finally let her breath go because she could finally pass some of the weight of her experiences on to someone else's shoulders for a bit.
"Are you okay?" Toni asked her, stroking her hair.
"Yeah. I'm sorry. That was... a lot," Shelby looked down at her hands sheepishly.
Toni kissed her head. "It's fine. I'm sorry for not listening earlier. You needed this and I was just too selfish to realise it."
Shelby shook her head. "No, I wasn't ready either. I just wanted you for a little bit, without this cloud over out heads. Without you thinking that every time I kissed you I would be thinking about camp."
"Were you?"
"Not recently."
Toni bit her lip, ashamed that she hadn't picked up on that. If it was Toni, Shelby would have immediately noticed that something was wrong.
"Hey, it's not your fault, it was just hammered into me; I just needed to adjust. If anything, you helped."
Like that.
"I'm sorry I didn't realise."
Shelby took Toni's face in her hands. "Toni, it's fine. Kissing you was and is one of my favourite things. We weren't doing anything I didn't want to do. I can't help what pops into my head sometimes and neither can you." She planted an obnoxiously loud kiss on Toni's lips and rolled back over to her side of the bed.
Toni could sense that she was waiting for her to open up abut Carol, and she tried to, but the words wouldn't come out.
"It's okay if you're not ready," Shelby reassured her.
"No, I, uh, I am, I'm just not..." she tried to put how she felt into words, "I'm not ready to be vulnerable about it. I can talk about it but-"
"Just facts," Shelby completed her sentence with a knowing look.
"Yeah," Toni sighed.
Toni told the shortest possible version of the story. "When I got back to Carol's, that same night you left, she had a social worker there ready to send me away. The social worker - Melanie, she's really nice actually- uh..."
"The social worker was there," Shelby prompted gently when Toni lost her place.
Toni pressed forward, "Right, yeah. She didn't believe me at first when I told her about Carol's abuse but eventually she did and she sent Carol to the bathroom to do a drug test but there was an honest to God mistake on Melanie's part and Carol found me and locked us in my room together."
Toni heard Shelby's breath quicken, she placed her hand on her thigh to comfort her and continued. "She went on to have a villain style monologue about her childhood and told me that, essentially, her dad was abusive to her mother and her mother was abusive to Carol and her little brother. Carol ended up killing her and repeating the same exact pattern of abuse on all of her fosters. I'm pretty sure one is dead." Toni stopped for a moment, her chest heaving. "And so is my mother."
Shelby's eyebrows pulled together in sympathy that Toni wasn't really ready for. "Oh, Toni, I'm-" Shelby seemed to suddenly remember that fact and stopped. Merely brushing the tears off of Toni's cheeks that she didn't realise had fallen instead.
The next part was hard because Toni hated that Shelby was also apart of this. "Um," her voice cracked, "Carol is also the one that told Dave. About us."
She swung her head around to see if Shelby was okay.
Shelby puffed out a deep breath and nodded sadly. But Toni noticed her her fists were clenched white.
"I'm sorry Shelby. I'm really fucking sorry."
Shelby scrubbed her eyes and shook her head softly. "It would have happened either way. Some way."
Toni kissed their now joined hands and continued. "Melanie cottoned on the fact that Carol had me cornered and came knocking at the door. I think that was when Carol realised she was fucked either way."
"What did she do?" Shelby pried gently.
"I was out for most of it. All I remember was the punch to the stomach and the kick in the head. After that it's totally blank. thankfully."
Toni saw Shelby open her mouth to speak and based on her expression it was probably something that was going to make Toni cry. So she cut in before she could speak. "Broken rib, Punctured lung, head injury, broken wrist and other cuts and bruises." She rushed to get the words out, her brain telling her to stop but pushing on for Shelby's sake. She knew it was killing Shelby not knowing. "I was in a medically induced coma for a few days, precautionary, and in the hospital for a further 5. I know you've googled post concussion syndrome, so, yeah. That's it really." She finished quickly.
Thankfully, Shelby kept her response practical as Toni was one loving look away from a breakdown. "What are your post concussion symptoms?"
"It took me a minute to read again properly. I can read it just doesn't sink into my head smoothly. They said it was a bit like dyslexia. My fuse is a bit shorter, as if it wasn't short enough to begin with," she scoffed angrily. "My attention span is all over the place and my mind drifts... those two are probably related. It is getting better though," she added.
Shelby was silent for a while and Toni panicked that she had overloaded her. Maybe Shelby just wanted to tell her own story? Was it too much for her? Shelby only just got back from being literally psychologically tortured and had only just finished telling the story of it and Toni had completely unloaded all of her burdens onto her. Her chest simmered with regret.
"I can actually hear your internal self-hate monologue Toni. It's okay. I'm just processing."
Toni's whole body relaxed.
Shelby spoke again about a minute later, her voice a little bit wobbly. "I am so sorry that my dad called Carol. None of this would have happened if-"
Toni did not let Shelby go and further than that, "No. Absolutely not. Firstly you should not have to apologise for your dad's actions. Secondly, look around. It worked out. I have a home, a family and I have you. It was all I wanted. The post concussion syndrome will go, the memories will fade and, one day, soon, we will both get the hell out of here and you won't have to think about Dave and his stupid backwards ideas again."
She faltered towards the end. The fact that Shelby was still in it punched her in the gut, as it it often did. The fact that, Toni was free, and happy, and Shelby's happiness and freedom was over a year of reach.
Sometimes it just seemed impossible. If Toni could flip the story and have Shelby free and happy and Toni still with Carol, she would do it in a heartbeat. No questions asked.
Shelby rubbed her thumb across the back of Toni's hand. "It's just a little while."
"It's fourteen months, Shelby. How are you going to live there for fourteen months?" Suddenly their plan the sneak around and stay together seemed childish and naive, how was it ever going to work?
"Toni, I've done it my whole life. I will find a way. I will keep my head down, do pageants talk about the boys in my school and just get through it." Shelby had the determination in her eyes that Toni knew and loved. She was so strong, if anyone could do it, it would be her.
"I'll always be here Shelby. I swear. You are it for me. Whether you text me, call me, send a smoke signal, I'm there."
"God," Shelby drawled, "I love you but that was so corny."
Toni didn't even look over, she saw right through Shelby. She closed her eyes and sighed, Shelby's hand still clasped in her own "Ah, you thought it was quite charming really."
Shelby chuckled and replied under her breath, "maybe a little."