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  “Since the doctor has ordered a CT scan and x-rays, we will need to wait until after those tests are run. When you get back, we will begin the exam.” She gives me a concerned look as she continues, “I want to let you know what to expect when you are taken for those tests. The nurses and techs will refrain from touching you as much as possible. I want you to try and stay calm and still. They will move you to and from this gurney by lifting the sheet that is underneath you. Okay?”

  Nodding my head, I respond, “Okay.”

  “The scans shouldn’t take that long, but your friend will have to stay here.”

  I look up at Jase before looking back at Julia, and ask, “He can’t come with me?”

  Shaking her head gently, she says, “No, I’m sorry.”

  Jase assures me that it will be okay, and all I can do is trust him. But I’m scared to be alone, even if it is for a little while. Feeling like I have lost control is making me very upset, when Dr. Langston returns to tell me they are ready to take me back.

  

  When I am wheeled back into the exam room, both Julia and Jase are there waiting for me.

  “You okay?” Jase asks as he comes to stand next to me.

  “Yeah.”

  Julia picks up the white box and opens it, pulling out several white envelopes and lays them down on one of the stainless steel carts that are in the room. “We are going to start by collecting your clothes, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  She walks to the private bathroom, and when she comes out she says, “Candace, I need for you to carefully remove all of your clothing, including your jewelry. I have laid down a large sheet of paper that is there to collect any evidence that may fall off of your clothes or body. Just stand on the paper while you undress, hand me each article of clothing as you remove it, and I will place each piece in a separate evidence bag. There is a hospital gown hanging on the door that you can change into.”

  “Do you want me to leave?” Jase asks.

  I grab onto his arm tightly, “No. I don’t want to be alone.”

  Jase nods and helps me off of the bed. I clutch onto the wool blanket that is still covering me, and I walk into the bathroom. I hand the blanket to Julia and step onto the paper that is lying on the floor. I look down at my body and start to cry. My shirt and bra are ripped and hanging off my shoulders. I quickly notice that I am bare from the waist down.

  I jerk around and frantically ask, “What happened to my pants?”

  “The EMTs collected them. We already have them.”

  I nod and look up at Jase as my body trembles.

  “It’s okay,” he reassures me.

  I slowly remove my tattered clothing and hand each piece to the nurse. The paper beneath my feet crumples with every movement as if it’s taunting me as a continuous reminder of the misery I feel. The last item I remove is my necklace, and I watch as it is placed inside a ziplock evidence bag. When I turn to pick up the hospital gown, I catch my reflection in the mirror. My body freezes as I observe the face staring back at me.

  My left eye is bruised and swollen and the whole side of my face is scratched and covered in dried blood and dirt. My eyes are bloodshot and puffy from all the crying. I hardly recognize myself. I turn away from my image in the reflection, slip on the hospital gown, and step off of the paper.

  I walk straight into Jase’s arms, and I let him hold me for a while as I hear Julia moving around the room. Jase rests his chin on the top of my head and runs his hands up and down my back. My arms are clutched tightly around his waist as I bury my face in his chest.

  “Candace,” I hear Julia say softly, “whenever you are ready, I need you to have a seat on the exam table behind the curtain.”

  I slowly pull away from Jase and lean the top of my head against him as I stare down at my bare feet. I realize I have no clothes here, and I look up at Jase and say, “I don’t have anything to wear.”

  “When the nurse called me, she told me to bring clothes with me. They are in my backpack,” he says.

  I walk across the room and sit on the exam table, never letting go of Jase’s hand. I go into a haze when the nurse begins to explain each procedure. I just nod my head as I feel cold metal digging under my finger nails; I don’t watch anything in particular because I don’t want to see what’s happening. Everything feels like it’s miles away from me. She begins swabbing my neck, my ears, my mouth, my breasts, my thighs.

  When I lie back on the table, she begins to take samples. My body is being poked and prodded—everywhere. Turning my head, I begin to zone in on a tiny piece of thread that is beginning to unravel from Jase’s shirt. I focus in on the tiny little holes that the thread used to occupy that are now hollowed.

  I suddenly become very cold. My knees begin to quiver, and my heart is pounding. I look down and over my knees. I see Julia’s lips moving as she is talking to me, but I can’t seem to focus in on her voice. I watch as she opens yet another white envelope and pulls out a small black plastic comb. Jerking my feet out of the stir-ups, I clumsily shuffle myself back on the table and sit up. Pure panic. That is all I can feel. Panic.

  “Enough!” I shout. I feel like I am losing control of myself, and I desperately want everything around me to stop. “Get out!” I yell at Julia as she looks at me in shock. I can almost taste the venom in my voice. “Stop touching me, and get the hell out!”

  “Candace. Calm down, sweetie,” Jase says. His eyes are wide, and I can tell he is freaked out.

  “I’ll be right outside,” the nurse says, and she quickly places the sealed envelopes in the box and leaves the room.

  I draw my knees up to my chest. “I want to go home.”

  “What happened?”

  “I want my clothes, Jase,” I say as I look him straight on.

  He doesn’t say a word; he simply walks over to his backpack that is lying on the ground next to the chair. When he picks it up, I see the door crack open.

  “Candace, Detective Patterson needs to ask you a few questions,” Allie says. “Can I send him in?”

  “Can she at least get dressed first?” Jase answers for me.

  “Of course,” she says, and she gently closes the door behind her.

  Jase walks over to me and sets the bag in front of me. Grabbing it, I walk into the bathroom. I pick up a hand towel that is folded up on the cold sterile counter and turn on the faucet. I soak the towel in warm water and begin to clean my face. I suck in a tight breath between my teeth at the stinging of the opened flesh on my face. I do my best to wipe the grime off. Taking a new towel, I pat my face dry. I slip off my gown and start putting on my bra and underwear. When I finish dressing, I walk back into the room, and Jase is standing next to some guy. He appears to be around my father’s age. He is tall and fit with short greying hair. He’s wearing charcoal slacks and a navy button up dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up toward his elbows. I notice a shiny gold badge that is clipped to the waistband of his pants. He looks up at me and takes a step forward.

  “Ms. Parker,” he says. “I’m Detective Patterson. Do you mind if I ask you some questions?”

  Shaking my head slightly, I ask, “Right now?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I’ve already told the nurse everything. Why can’t you just ask her?” I am so exhausted and am starting to lose my patience. I just want to leave. “Look, I don’t want to press charges or anything like that, so . . .”

  “Ma’am, I know this is difficult, but there’s a good chance we can catch this guy and the fact that we have a witness—”

  “What?” I interrupt him.

  “Yes, they called the police.”

  My mind is in overdrive, and I feel myself shutting down. “I just want to go,” I say, barely whispering.

  “Well, if you change your mind, here is my card. You can call me at anytime, okay? You might find that you feel differently once a little time has passed.” He steps towards me, pulls out a card from his back pocket, and hands it t
o me. I don’t even look at it before shoving it into my pocket. He takes a step back and nods his head, “Well, thanks for your time.” He turns to look at Jase and reaches out his hand. Jase shakes his hand and gives him a nod in return.

  As Detective Patterson is leaving, Allie comes back with a tray of bandages, ointment, and other small items I can’t quite identify.

  “I’m just going to clean up and bandage these cuts for you, okay?”

  I silently nod my head and return to the table to sit down. I watch her as she washes her hands and puts on a pair of sterile latex gloves. She starts cleaning my wounds and covers them up. Once she is finished, she asks me if I want to take the morning after pill. My eyes dart to hers as I quickly try to think if I really need it. I feel my stomach hollow out, and I suddenly turn cold. He didn’t use a condom. Christ, he didn’t use a condom.

  I whisper softly, “I think so.” I can hardly move, let alone speak.

  I hear Jase mutter an obscenity, and when I turn my head to look at him, he is sitting in the chair with his head in his hands.

  “Okay, I will put in the order for that, and we can also take a few other preventive steps to safeguard against STDs,” she says as she lays her hand on my knee. She gives me a reassuring look, and all I can do is continue to nod my head like an idiot.

  

  About an hour later, Jase has his arm around my waist as we leave the hospital and head to his SUV. He unlocks the car and opens the door for me. He helps me up into the seat and shuts the door. I watch him in a daze as he walks around the front of the car and climbs into the driver’s seat. I start to feel the anxiety build in my stomach at the thought of going home. I know when I get there I’m going to have to explain all of this to Kimber. God, I don’t want anyone to know. I just want to pretend like this never happened. I want to hide from this nightmare.

  “Can I spend the night at your place?” I ask as I stare at my fidgeting hands in my lap.

  He reaches over, takes my hand, and gives it a squeeze. “Of course.”

  Chapter Seven

  I walk into Jase’s apartment, and without a second thought, head straight toward the bathroom. I feel completely filthy, and the urge to scrub every inch of my body overwhelms me. I don’t say a word to Jase as I close the door behind me. Reaching into the shower, I turn on the water. Purposely avoiding looking at myself in the mirror, I start removing my clothes. The bathroom quickly fills with steam. I open the large glass door and step into the scalding hot water. Standing underneath the showerhead, I let the water pelt against my body. I brace both of my hands against the wall of slick tile and let my head fall down. My face is hot, and I know I’m crying even though I can’t feel my tears as they mesh with the water running down my face.

  Time is frozen as I stand here in this position. My chest aches, and my whole body feels broken. My stomach burns, and I swear to God I can start to feel my soul begin to break. Piece by piece I begin to lose myself. My chest is crumbling into painful shards of what used to be me. Violent sobs wrack my body, and I slowly collapse on the wet tile beneath me. Sitting there on my knees, with one hand on the floor balancing myself, and the other pressed against my chest, I try desperately to gasp in breaths between my wails.

  I know I am no longer alone when I feel arms wrapping around me and a heavy chest on my back. Jase holds me tighter than anyone has ever held me, and I begin to cry harder. I sit here, on the bottom of the shower, and everything I know about myself, everything I love, everything I am begins to fade.

  My tears run dry, and Jase and I sit in silence under the water. He loosens his hold on me, and I continue to rest on my knees—frozen. Jase takes the body wash and starts to rub it into my skin. All of my energy has disappeared, so I don’t protest; I just let him take care of me.

  After he washes my hair, I open my eyes and look at him for the first time. He is soaking wet in his gym shorts and t-shirt. He turns the water off and strips out of his clothes, leaving them on the floor of the shower as he steps out. Wrapping a towel around his waist, he grabs another and drapes it over my shoulders as he helps me stand up. He walks me over to the toilet and sits me down.

  “I’ll be right back,” he says as he walks out of the bathroom. When he returns, he is wearing a pair of dry gym shorts and is carrying a handful of clothes for me. Grabbing a hand towel, he kneels down in front of me and starts wiping my face. I look into his eyes, and I can see the worry in them. I reach up and rake my fingers through the wet hair on top of his head and grip tightly as I drop my head and begin to cry again.

  “I’m so sorry,” I manage to say through my tears.

  He takes my hand from his head and kisses it. Leaning his forehead against mine and holding my face between his two hands, he says, “You . . . don’t you ever be sorry for this.”

  We sit like this for a while before he dries me off and helps me put on one of his shirts and a pair of his boxers. We walk to his room and slide into bed. Wrapping me in his arms, I lay my head on his chest and listen to the rhythmic sound of his heartbeat. I release a silent prayer that when I wake up, this will have never happened—it will have only been a horrendous nightmare. I hold on tightly to that prayer as my eyelids become heavy, and I slowly drift into a restless sleep.

  

  I jolt awake and can hardly catch my breath. My hands are shaking, and when I look up, I see Jase on his knees next to me.

  “Are you okay?” he asks, looking completely freaked out.

  “I don’t know,” I say. I’m really confused, and my heart is pounding. “What happened?”

  Jase lets out a deep breath as he falls back on his heels, sitting next to me. “You were having a nightmare. You scared the shit out of me, screaming and thrashing around.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t even know what I was dreaming about,” I say as a slowly lie down on my side and try to calm my erratic breathing.

  Lying down facing me, Jase asks, “How are you feeling?”

  “Numb,” I answer and close my eyes. Maybe I cried out all the emotions I had, because I can’t seem to feel much right now. When I open my eyes, Jase is staring at me with concern written all over his face. I really wish he wouldn’t look at me like that; it makes me feel weird, like I’m suddenly different now. I know that I am, but can we just pretend that I’m not?

  “What time is it?” I ask.

  He rolls on his back, reaches over to his nightstand, and swipes his phone. “It’s almost three in the afternoon,” he says as he rolls back to me.

  “Three?”

  “Yeah, we didn’t even leave the hospital till after five this morning,” he says, and then reaches his arms out as a request to hold me. I scoot over and allow the embrace. He kisses the top of my head before asking, “Do you want to talk about it?”

  I haven’t spoken one word to Jase about what happened last night. I’m not sure I can. But I know that I don’t want to. I swallow hard against the lump in my throat and simply shake my head. How am I supposed to talk about it? What do I even say?

  The tears start to well in my eyes; the tears I thought I no longer had. It’s hard to fight them with the tightness in my throat. Jase must feel my body trembling when he kisses the top of my head and whispers, “I’m sorry, sweetie. I didn’t mean to push you.”

  As the tears spill over, I silently curse my unanswered prayer. I try hard not to cry, but it only makes my body jerk as I try and hiccup the sobs back. Jase moves one of his hands up from my back, cups my head, and whispers in my ear, “Please don’t hurt yourself like this, Candace. Just let it out. It’s just me here.”

  I shove my head harder and deeper into his chest as a desperate attempt to hide. Hide from the cloud that is suddenly looming over me. He tightens his grip on me, and I let it out. I lie against his chest and just cry. I cry like a baby—helpless. I’m so desperate for someone to save me. To make it all go away.

  The heat of Jase’s bare chest against my wet, teary face suddenly
makes my skin burn. I push back off of him and cup my cheek, unable to stop the free-flowing tears. He removes my hand and looks at the cuts on my face.

  “I’ll be right back, sweetie,” he says as he jumps out of bed. I hear him in the bathroom, and when he returns, he’s holding a large square bandage and some ointment. He sits on the bed in front of me and starts tending to the scratches on my face. Once he is done, he adheres the bandage to my cheek, then walks to his closet, and throws on a t-shirt.

  “You hungry?” he asks.

  “No,” I say as I shake my head and lie back down. “I just want to go back to bed.”

  Walking towards me, he says, “You really should eat. Just try.”

  I lie there with my eyes closed. “Please, Jase.”

  He doesn’t say another word. He simply crawls back into bed behind me and holds me until I fall asleep.

  Drifting in and out, I’m finding it hard to shut my brain off. Every time I close my eyes I picture Jack on top of me. The more I try and fight the thoughts, the more vivid they become. He’s right here with me, right here inside my head. I close my eyes again, and I can hear the ripping of my shirt as Jack fists the fabric. I quickly sit up in the bed and grab my breast where he bit me. I can feel the sharp pain shooting through me again. Why can’t he leave me alone? Why can’t I get away from him? My gut is in knots, and I am shaking. I jump out of bed, run to the bathroom, and empty the contents of my stomach into the toilet. Since I haven’t eaten in over a day, there’s hardly anything left in me. I begin dry heaving painfully. My whole body is convulsing, and tears are streaming down my face. I close my eyes, and I see Jack’s murderous glare as he’s ripping off my underwear. I hear frantic screams. My mind is in overdrive, and I can hardly focus, but the screams are piercing. I cover my ears and shuffle back into the corner on my bottom. I have no idea where all the noise is coming from, but it’s scaring me.