seeing a therapist for depression. Some people think my parents are splitting up, some people think my brother is gay. After a while they just stop asking questions and let me get on with whatever it is I feel like I need to do. That, as I keep reminding myself, is to move on. Grieve, accept what happened and move on from it. Depressed is a lot more acceptable in this world than rape victim.
I’m going to start therapy too. Individual, one on one, no holds barred, make-me-better therapy. I know I said I was against it before, but I think it’s a good idea now. I feel better that I’ve opened up to the group, and I feel like I can do that again to a stranger, as long as I feel comfortable with them. Someone non threatening and completely non judgemental, like Ethan, for instance. I could easily open up to him.
I find myself thinking about him sometimes. There is so much pain amongst the other members of our group, I wonder if what I feel is valid enough. How can you measure pain? I wonder too, how some of these people can even move on with what’s happened to them. I makes me weep with despair at the things human beings are capable of. The things we do to each other in the name of need or selfishness or religion or war.
I Google Ethan. I don’t know his surname so I try keywords that eventually bring up a story I know instantly is his. I can’t finish the article. After I’m done, I rush to the bathroom and only just make it to the toilet bowl before I’m sick.
I feel so guilty that I’ve undermined his trust, that I delete my browser history, shut the laptop, pull out the cord and stand for a moment looking at it, as though half expecting it to disappear completely into thin air just because I want it to. I have the words going around my head, but now is the last time I need a cynical reminder. Time only goes forward.
I’m angry at myself for knowing something about him he hasn’t told me. The feeling fades a little as the day goes on, and I attempt to find argument to justify it - I already knew because I saw it on the news when it first came out or I just happened to mention you to a friend and they told me - but the lies seem worse than telling the truth. I find myself thinking more about it than is probably healthy, but at least it serves to take my mind off what is my usual topic of thought: having to see Jason Fleitman again.
I feel an urgent need to tell Ethan what I’ve done and apologize to him. It feels like looking through contacts of friends on facebook only to meet them after doing so, and knowing more about their lives than you have any right to, only in this case, it’s a million times worse.
The words stick in my head and won’t go away. Lacerations. Multiple fractures. Fourteen week old baby. The newspapers shouldn’t be allowed to print this shit. There was nothing at all after what happened to me.
I picture Ethan, and I picture everything that he has lost. I see him receiving the news, I see him at his dead wife’s side identifying her mutilated body, and I see the inside of him, his heart and his soul, ripped out and scarred completely, and I wonder if he’ll ever be able to overcome it.
I wonder too, if I have the strength I want to have to help him.
Chapter Seventeen
Ethan
1 6 November 2015. Sixty four days after.
This is the day it all begins again. Alice is two months dead. The new year is now less than that away, and I feel like I’ve been re-born. I’ve been running about twenty five miles a week, working the bag every morning, doing push ups, pull ups, squats, bench presses, thrusts, anything at all to keep myself in shape. To prepare myself for the fight. I’ve practically converted the basement into a gym, and I spend a lot of time down there now I’ve managed to hook up an internet connection too. Martin leaves me alone, just so long as I’m not planning on killing myself again, which I’m pretty sure he’s convinced I’m not. The gun is hidden in a box of
I’m going to start therapy too. Individual, one on one, no holds barred, make-me-better therapy. I know I said I was against it before, but I think it’s a good idea now. I feel better that I’ve opened up to the group, and I feel like I can do that again to a stranger, as long as I feel comfortable with them. Someone non threatening and completely non judgemental, like Ethan, for instance. I could easily open up to him.
I find myself thinking about him sometimes. There is so much pain amongst the other members of our group, I wonder if what I feel is valid enough. How can you measure pain? I wonder too, how some of these people can even move on with what’s happened to them. I makes me weep with despair at the things human beings are capable of. The things we do to each other in the name of need or selfishness or religion or war.
I Google Ethan. I don’t know his surname so I try keywords that eventually bring up a story I know instantly is his. I can’t finish the article. After I’m done, I rush to the bathroom and only just make it to the toilet bowl before I’m sick.
I feel so guilty that I’ve undermined his trust, that I delete my browser history, shut the laptop, pull out the cord and stand for a moment looking at it, as though half expecting it to disappear completely into thin air just because I want it to. I have the words going around my head, but now is the last time I need a cynical reminder. Time only goes forward.
I’m angry at myself for knowing something about him he hasn’t told me. The feeling fades a little as the day goes on, and I attempt to find argument to justify it - I already knew because I saw it on the news when it first came out or I just happened to mention you to a friend and they told me - but the lies seem worse than telling the truth. I find myself thinking more about it than is probably healthy, but at least it serves to take my mind off what is my usual topic of thought: having to see Jason Fleitman again.
I feel an urgent need to tell Ethan what I’ve done and apologize to him. It feels like looking through contacts of friends on facebook only to meet them after doing so, and knowing more about their lives than you have any right to, only in this case, it’s a million times worse.
The words stick in my head and won’t go away. Lacerations. Multiple fractures. Fourteen week old baby. The newspapers shouldn’t be allowed to print this shit. There was nothing at all after what happened to me.
I picture Ethan, and I picture everything that he has lost. I see him receiving the news, I see him at his dead wife’s side identifying her mutilated body, and I see the inside of him, his heart and his soul, ripped out and scarred completely, and I wonder if he’ll ever be able to overcome it.
I wonder too, if I have the strength I want to have to help him.
Chapter Seventeen
Ethan
1 6 November 2015. Sixty four days after.
This is the day it all begins again. Alice is two months dead. The new year is now less than that away, and I feel like I’ve been re-born. I’ve been running about twenty five miles a week, working the bag every morning, doing push ups, pull ups, squats, bench presses, thrusts, anything at all to keep myself in shape. To prepare myself for the fight. I’ve practically converted the basement into a gym, and I spend a lot of time down there now I’ve managed to hook up an internet connection too. Martin leaves me alone, just so long as I’m not planning on killing myself again, which I’m pretty sure he’s convinced I’m not. The gun is hidden in a box of
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