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Chapter 9

I laid in my bed with the covers pulled tightly over my body. It was well into the afternoon but I didn’t feel like getting out of bed. Not having to go to work defeated the purpose and there wasn’t anything for me to do around the house. I couldn’t go out because I didn’t feel completely safe being outside alone there were just too many negative thoughts going through my mind every time that I even thought about stepping foot outside so I eventually just gave up on the whole idea entirely. So here I was, laying in my bed at one o’clock in the afternoon, hoping that Benji would call me. I know that I could just call him but I didn’t want to see desperate or clingy, that might frighten him off. Sure he seemed sincere about wanting to be with me but I still had some apprehensions and I was just trying to be careful with my emotions but I knew no matter how hard I tried, I wouldn’t be able to escape Benji, not that I wanted to, because I knew that he had a strong hold over me and anything he asked me to do, I would do. It sounds completely crazy.

I’d spent half the night thinking about me and Benji considering that I couldn’t get any sleep since every time I closed my eyes, the nightmare from the night before started to play in my head again. Things are going insanely fast with Benji. I’ve only known him a matter of days and we were already dating, strange under normal circumstances, now factor in my attack and you have a relationship that might seem so far fetched that no one would believe our story. Personally, I can barely believe that this is happening. Not that I’m complaining about Benji, I’m glad that he’s in my life, he seems so- I know this is gonna sound corny- but he seems so perfect. I had to laugh at that thought. I was already calling this man perfect and I hardly knew anything about him. At the moment, the only real thing that tied us together was my attack. If that hadn’t happened we’d have nothing; we wouldn’t have each other. For some strange reason, that thought scared me.

“I must be crazy,” I muttered to myself.

“I wouldn’t say so,” a male voice replied. I turned in my bed quickly to see who was there, ready to attack if need be. Slowly, everything that had happened to me had begun to work itself into my mind and I felt that I always needed to be ready to pounce. It’s not a healthy life style, I know, but for now, it’s the one that I feel most comfortable with. My heart calmed when I saw that it was Benji standing in my bedroom doorway.

“How’d you get in?” I asked him.

“I guess your sister didn’t lock the door after she left for school this morning because it was open,” Benji replied, leaning against the frame of the door, “so I didn’t think that you would mind if I just let myself in.”

“You know you scared the living shit out of me, right?”

“Sorry,” he said honestly. He was quiet for a moment but suddenly spoke up. “You feel like spending some time with me?”

“Aren’t I doing that now?” I asked with a smirk on my face. He rolled his eyes, smiling back at me.

“I mean, do you want to go out and get something to eat maybe,” he responded. “Or we could just walk around the park and just talk.”

“I don’t feel like going outside today,” I told him. He looked slightly disappointed. I looked at him before saying, “but that doesn’t mean that you can’t spend some time with me. I mean we can talk here and there‘s food in the kitchen.”

“Ok,” he replied. I smiled at him, he’s just so damn adorable. Everything about him was extremely attractive. His lips were my favorite though. I’ve always been a lip woman, I just love a beautiful set of lips and Benji definitely had a beautiful set of lips.

“Come on, come lay with me,” I stated. He looked at me for a moment first, probably checking to see if I was serious or not. Or maybe he was afraid he was going to invade my personal space. Gee, that didn’t seem to matter to him yesterday when he had me on his lap and when we eventually ended up falling asleep on the couch. “I don’t bite,” I said, patting a space next to me. Benji smiled and walked over to sit next to me on my bed. As I was laying there, I looked up at him and smiled, how did I get this lucky again?

“How’d ya sleep?” he asked running his thumb across my check. I closed my eyes and basked in the feeling that this simple gesture gave me.

“Not so well,” I replied honestly. “Every time I was just about to fall asleep, that fucking nightmare played through my mind.”

“It didn’t bother you yesterday on the couch.”

“You were here to protect me,” I answered. He looked at me for a moment.

“Do you want me to spend the night?” he asked. “If it helps you sleep, I don’t mind at all.”

“I can’t ask you to do that.”

“Well, you’re not asking, I’m offering,” he replied seriously.

“You don’t even have any extra clothes,” I reasoned. He laughed softly.

“We could go to my place and I can get some,” he answered. “It’s not like I’m a million miles away from here.”

“I’m not exactly prepared for the outside world at the moment,” I told him, motioning my arm over my attire which was basically an old t-shirt and a worn out pair of sweat pants that had become my pajamas. The t-shirt even had a few stains on it that I couldn’t identify or remove in the wash. The gray sweat pants I was wearing even had a few holes in them. Basically, I looked like a bum.

“You look great,” Benji stated. I wanted to smack him upside the head and asked it he’s had his eyes checked recently because I have no idea what he was seeing, but it was definitely not something attractive.

“Are you crazy? I look like a bum!”

“A cute bum.”

“Benjamin!”

“What!?” he questioned defensively with a smile on his face. I smacked him lightly on the arm and he pouted. “Ouch.”

“Ya big baby,” I mocked as I climbed out of my bed. “I’m gonna take a shower then I guess we can go get you some clothes from your place,” I stated as I walked over to my dresser and started gathering clothing to wear. Nothing special, just something that didn’t make me look like a bum. I settled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. I walked into the bathroom that was connected to my room and shut and locked the door. I didn’t want Benji to come in after me, not that I thought that he would. He’s very well aware of what happened to me and he really seems to want to take care of me. But still, no matter how I wanted to trust him completely, there was a small part of me that wouldn’t completely allow myself to do that.

Repercussions from the attack were starting to take control of my mind, my guess is that this started happening sometime during the night because yesterday, I wouldn’t have locked the door. I know I wouldn’t have. I turned on the water and let it run for a moment. Was I starting to push Benji away already? That was the last thing that I wanted to do but some how it seems like my mind was starting to do just that. The change was subtle but it was there. I stripped my clothing from my body and stepped into the shower, letting the warm water run down my body. I had woken up several time last night and each time I found myself in the shower scrubbing my body until it was red. No matter what I did, I just couldn’t get the feel of my attacker off of me, even though he hadn’t actually rapped me, the way he’d groped me had done the same damage.

Looking down at my hands and my body, I realized that I had been scrubbing myself furiously and my skin was quickly becoming red and raw again. I let the bar of soap fall out of my hand and hit the tiled floor. I’d expected myself to shower like that, I had done it half a dozen times already but there was something about this time that sparked something, some kind of force in my mind, that caused me to completely break. My back leaned against the cool tiles of my shower and by body slowly slid down. Tears had started to escape my eyes and I ran my fingers through my wet hair. Loud sobs started to escape my lips and that’s when I realized what was happening to me: I was having an emotional break down.

“Angela!?” I heard Benji yell as he banged on the door. I guess my sobs had been loud enough for Benji to have heard in the other room. I wrapped my arms around my legs and continued to sob. I just couldn’t get myself to stop. “Angela!” Benji called again as he continued his assault on my door. “Angela are you alright?” Benji questioned through the door, but I think he already knew the answer. “Open the door,” I heard him say as he tried to turn the door knob. I was paralyzed in my spot on the shower floor, I couldn’t move. All I could do was sit there and cry. Suddenly I heard my door come crashing open and I knew that Benji had broken down the door. Benji slid his arm in through the curtain of my shower, blindly reaching for the controls to the water. Finally he found them and turned off the water. A towel was suddenly thrown over the pole that was holding up the shower curtain.

“Benji?” I whispered.

“Yeah?” he answered, his voice filled with fear and concern. I sat there for a moment before standing up and grabbing the towel that he had thrown over the rod for me and wrapping it around my shivering body. I stepped out of the shower and Benji looked at me nervously. “You okay?” he asked.

I shook my head before answering, “I need help.”