❝ But I'm only human
and I bleed when I fall down ❞
The Behavioral Analysis Unit gets called in to assist on a serial killer case in New York. That's where they meet Special Agent Skylar Brown, a former military recruit with a past guarded better th...
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[Reid]:John E. Douglas wrote: "We're all vulnerable. It doesn't matter how much you know, how experienced you are, how many suspect interrogations you've handled successfully. It doesn't matter if you understand the technique. Each of us can be gotten to — if you can just figure out where and how we're vulnerable."
Day one was hard. Every hour of the day was filled with extensive therapeutic measures. Diagnosis, medication, therapy, support group, exercise, medication, sleep. The same cycle repeated itself every day for ninety days.
By day eleven, Skylar had made peace with the fact that she had to go through this alone. Phone calls weren't the same as seeing her friends in person, but she managed. Fewer people around meant a full focus on herself. She tried to avoid work at all costs, though she sometimes caught herself scanning the news for word on the BAU's latest cases. She slowly started to go insane.
By day twenty-five, she spent most of her free time in the music room, playing piano and attempting to write her problems into songs. Her therapist told her that putting her pain into words could help. She tried. In the end, she tossed them back into her suitcase, knowing she would never show anyone. It was private.
On day thirty-eight, she was finally allowed visitations. Spencer came by. He taught her how to play chess. The people in the facility took a liking to him, which was why he came by regularly when there were no cases. He drove four hours to see her, spent four hours with her, and then drove back another four hours. Everything he did, he did for her. The therapists soon realized she had her support system in one person.
On day forty-nine, Skylar had a bad day. After weeks of doing great, she woke up and felt like she wanted to die again. The medication kept her nightmares at bay, but on this day, she dreamed about Joshua. Maybe they had adjusted her dose or something, but she wandered the halls like a zombie afterward and felt like he was lurking behind every corner. She was paranoid. The team called, but she didn't pick up. It was until eventually, a panic attack caused the nurses to sedate her. Skylar slept for two days.
On day fifty-five, she felt better. They had reached the topic of her body, how she could learn to love it again and how the scars were a sign of survival not of worthlessness. She spoke to other rape victims. She spoke to those who had self-harmed or attempted suicide or both. The tattoos and forms of self-expression she saw within these survivors were remarkable.
Eventually, on day sixty-eight, they talked about sex in group. Skylar kept quiet, listened, laughed, clapped. Before Joshua had first raped her, she had been with one guy. She hadn't been a virgin, but not experienced either. When asked how an orgasm felt like, she couldn't answer because she didn't know. She didn't know what it felt like to be so loved by someone, physically and mentally, that giving them every piece of yourself would be worth the while. She didn't know the feeling of her body being endlessly devoured, like a temple waiting to be cherished, to be worhsipped, to be prayed at. She didn't know what it was like to have a stable relationship with someone, share everything, even sex, and still love each other. It was the first night of many she dared to touch herself. In order to reclaim the worship of her body, the power sexuality wields, what it means to feel and be felt at the same time — and eventually, it worked.
