This is a very short update with something quick that I felt I needed to address in the story before I moved it any further. There are some references to the sexual assault that Paige experienced in this chapter, so be warned.
There will be more references to her trauma and experiences (because you don't just get over wildly traumatizing events from one day to another), but this is the chapter that will be focused on mainly that - it will be touched on a couple more times before the steadily approaching end of the story, though.
I cried writing one of the epilogues - yes, there will be multiple.
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I raised my brow at Allen as he walked to me, arms full of stuff, and began setting it down on the table in front of me. A stress ball. A pitcher of water and a plastic cup. Notepad and pencil. Tissues. All placed around the little desk in Allen's emergency office.
He smiled softly at me and knelt in front of me as I was in the office chair. "You good?"
I shrugged and looked down at my hands. "Yeah, I guess."
He kissed my forehead. "No worries. He's a professional, there to help you. I have some emails I need to answer with regards to all the Alpha stuff, but I'm two rooms over, should you need me."
I smiled carefully up at him, then looked at the screen. I was waiting in the video chat room that the link the therapist had sent me had taken me to, waiting for him to show up on the call.
Allen left the room, leaving me to twiddle my thumbs. I picked up a tissue from the box and began separating the layers of paper, and then ripping the see-through thin paper sheets apart, letting them drop from between my fingers onto the floor one by one. Tripped my foot against the carpet.
The rest of my family had come back ereyesterday, tiptoeing around me and vaguely offering support. No one was comfortable mentioning it. Including me. We'd eaten dinner together for two nights, watched a movie in the living room. It was, by the way, incredible how my Nana no longer sent evil glances Allen's way. Turns out all he needed to do to win her approval was save me out of an icy lake and then save me from the clutches of an insane kidnapper.
Talk about standards, Nana.
A noise sounded from the screen, and then a very pixelated image of a man with dark skin and dark hair showed up on the screen. "Hello there Paige. I'm Nirajit! I'm very honored to be talking to you." He had some sort of Indian-ish accent.
He started out with some slow-ball questions. Where I'd grown up, my immediate family history. Then he began to get closer to the issue at hand. "Paige, if you're comfortable with it, could you begin to describe how you experienced the assault? I've been given a general overview by your mate, but the most important thing is of course how you're feeling, what you experienced - perhaps the things you experienced, which you might not have felt comfortable telling Alpha Allen, because they were too painful or private."
No one had asked that of me yet. To go through it again. My hands were shaking in my lap as I explained. Being thrown from car to car. Being dragged into a murky storage building. I managed to keep it together up until the point where I had to talk about him, them, all of them touching me.
"It felt like they thought they owned my body. I was... I wasn't even the real target. To all of them, I was just a means to an end. I wasn't a human being, I wasn't Paige. I don't know why, but it just makes it so much worse to know that it could have been anyone. No matter who Allen's mate had been, they would've done something like this. It's not like I have to feel like the most important person or whatever, it's just so... it's terrifying to know there are people who would do that to total strangers, for no reason other than to hurt someone that stranger is close to. And I also just have this feeling of, like... why me? If it could have been anyone, why did it have to be me? It's not that I wanted it to happen to someone else, but why did it have to be me?" The tears were rolling.
Nirajit talked to me, calmly and in a way that I could understand. That my feelings were normal. That a lot of people, especially women, had experienced what I had and dealt with the same feelings, like you had been personally victimized by the universe in spite of the fact that it could have been anyone. The fear, the deep bone rattling fear that comes along with knowing how horribly people can treat other people for no real reason at all. How some sick, twisted people don't see women as human beings, as autonomous conscious people.
"How have you been coping since you got home?" he then asked. "Have there been any panic attacks? Have you had the sensation of being safe?"
"I... I freaked out in the hospital as I was being discharged. A man sat in a seat next to me and his leg touched mine, and I know it was just his leg put it just felt so... so..." I clutched my hands. "He was in my space."
Nirajit nodded, and I could hear the keys of his laptop clicking as he wrote something on the other end of the line. "And how did you deal with that?
"What do you mean?"
"How did you de-escalate the situation? Were you given medication, did you use a strategy to ground yourself?"
"Allen helped me. He was at my side and then the world was back around me where it belonged."
The tapping sound appeared again in the speaker of the laptop in front of me. "And how have your relations with Allen been since your return? Do you feel it's the same as before your kidnapping?"
"He... he's just as affectionate. Protective. There for me, just as he always is." I shrugged.
"I know that the incident happened fairly recently, but some assault survivors do turn to hypersexuality as a means to get a sense of control over their own bodies again. To feel like they're in charge of their sexual experiences once more. Have you and Alpha Allen done anything like that? Have you been intimate since the incident, or does the wound still feel too fresh for you?"
"I, uhm..." I blushed and wrapped my arms around myself. Nirajit reminded me that I didn't have to answer if I wasn't comfortable doing so. I told him that it wasn't that, that I just needed a moment to think. Then he'd glanced at the clock at the corner of his screen, and said that our time was essentially up and that he had another patient to speak to.
Although he had given me homework. "Before our next session a week from now, I'd like for you to try to formulate a sense of your new relationship to your body. It changes fundamentally after an assault. Get a sense of your body and sexuality - perhaps speak with your partner about it, too. We'll take it from there next week, and then we can start looking at how we can heal the relationship to your body. Coping strategies and self care. Goodbye."
He left the chatroom, and I was alone in the little office Allen had allowed me full disposal over for my therapy talk. I closed the laptop and began to gather up the ripped up tissue pieces and snotty tissues.
Allen was exactly where he'd said he'd be – in the couch by the fireplace of our bedroom in the cabin. I knocked on the door to get his attention.
His expression turned from deep concentration on his computer to poorly concealed concern when he met my eyes. "Hey there, Love. How was therapy? How are you?"
I shrugged "It was fine. He's nice. He gave me homework, aha." I said and wrapped my arms around myself.
Allen tapped the seat beside him, and so I closed the bedroom door behind me and sat next to him, resting my head against his side. "What kind of homework?"
I bit my lip and sighed. "Just to, y'know, get a sense of how I feel about myself, my relationship with my body."
"Oh," he said and closed the computer in front of him down a little, so it was still turned on but you couldn't see the screen. "Okay. Is that... I don't know. How do you feel?"
I shook my head. "I'm not sure I know yet." I huddled a little closer to him, and he reached his hand down to take mine.
"Okay," he said, nuzzling my hand with his thumb. He kissed the top of my head. "I love you. I'm here for you. Always and forever, until my dying breath."
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A/N
So the guy I was seeing was a wad.
Who the fuck brings a friend on a date? Why?
Anyway, hint taken that he doesn't like me. Now I just need to get my stupid brain to fully understand that we don't like him either.
Have I been looking up weddingdresses for sale on Facebook Marketplace with a deep sense of hopelessness and emptiness in my heart all night? Possibly.
Alright, Love yas <3