Poppy/H.S

Chapter 8

Trigger Warning: mention of rape (not affecting the main characters, don't worry darlings)

I groan at the thought of waking up, mentally slapping myself for not shutting the blinds when I'm woken by the bright sunlight peeking through the wide-opened blinds. I debate getting up from the bed just to close them and eliminate the rays of sunlight painting my room bright. My bare feet touch my cold bedroom floor, making me hiss at the feeling. Still half-asleep, I navigate through the room, stopping once I've reached the final destination. I close the blinds with force, irritated it woke up on a Saturday, when my sleep should have been uninterrupted.

The past week was so hectic at work, I never managed to get lunch every day. I've had so many cases to study so that I would be able to fight like a tiger in court. Recently, I've been given a case of a woman who had been raped by her own husband multiple times. When I first talked to her on our first meeting, she only wanted to file for a divorce.

As we got to talk a little more about her husband and the reason why she wanted to divorce, my chest got tight with anxiety. It wasn't until I told her that participating in coitus involuntary is considered a major violation of law, even though she was married to the man who raped her. The middle-aged woman thought that once she had said I do to her husband at the alter, she had given him the full permission to touch her body whenever he wanted. She claimed her own mother had told her that before marriage. I couldn't believe what she was saying.

No man owns the body of a woman just because he had married her. Rape is a serious issue, and talking about it is considered taboo in society, but your family should always support you, no matter the consequences of the rape. Even though it's very difficult to find the evidence of rape, the victims should report it anyway.

The awareness of this problem should be risen, and it breaks my heart to see how many politicians just choose to ignore it and pass on such irrelevant and stupid bills instead of focusing on the real issue.

When I explained the violation of law the poor woman's husband had committed, she bursted into tears. It took her some time to take in the new fact, which, however, was a silver lining for the case of the divorce. It we get lucky and the judge has a good day, we could make him pay a lot of money. After stating the facts, she hugged me and thanked me, my eyes stinging with tears, too, as I was touched by her heart-warming words.

I close the blinds, sighing. I navigate through the room in the dark, trying to touch my bed with my right hand, feeling how much space I have to lay down. I get into the bed carefully, not wanted to fall off it when I can barely see the outlines of the headboard in the dark.

I roll onto my tummy, finding a comfortable position to continue my sleep. I close my eyes, the corners of my lips turning up at the pleasant feeling of spending my Sunday morning in bed.

It feels like my eyes were closed for just a few minutes, when I'm woken by the loud knock on the front door of my house. I furrow my eyebrows, groaning and cursing the person who decided to ruin the beginning of my weekend. I get out of the bed involuntarily, opening the blinds again and putting on the pink bathrobe hanging from my bedroom door. I think it's best that I cover my sleeping shorts and my favourite blue tank top with the bathrobe, since I have no idea who's waiting for me behind the front door. Even though it's autumn, I still wear my summer pyjamas, since I'm always hot at night.

After slipping into my matching pink slippers, I hurry to get to the front door, not wanting to let the impatient person, ringing the bell repeatedly, wait for longer. Even though they do deserve to wait for quite some time after waking me, my polite manners don't let me do so. I open the door to be met with a young boy, probably a teenager, holding a bouquet of flowers.