No Shame (Book 2 - No Regrets)

Chapter Sixty-Seven - Futile Effort

KATIE'S POV

There is no clear-cut "right" reaction one should have when finding out someone they love was assaulted.

I thought I knew how my parents would react. How Dominick would react. I had imagined their reactions, just as I had imagined telling them, so many times. I did not know what I feared most, their devastation, if they believed me; or their anger or indifference, if they didn't.

Even now, I don't know what would have been worse. No one slept much, if any, last night. Mom went from inconsolable crying to being sick in the bathroom to raging at the world. Dad was a silent but I saw the storm within him, he only started to cry when he thought I couldn't or wouldn't hear him. However, I knew, I had never seen him or heard him cry, it was such a foreign sound.

Dominick stayed the night but he left mentally, his expression and eyes were void of anything. He was sitting at the kitchen table when I finally went upstairs to my room and he was still sitting there when I came back after giving up on sleeping. He didn't say a word to me, he hardly would look at me.

Dad asked me this morning at breakfast if I wanted to go to school today, but I knew it wasn't a question. If I had said I did, he would have said something about thinking it's best I stay home. Truthfully, even if my parents wouldn't have protested the idea, I wouldn't have wanted to go to school. Everyone is acting differently, they're talking to me differently, looking at me differently, and just existing differently. I feel like I'm in a foreign place, everything around me is moving as if it were any other regular day but the way of the movement is all weird.

Last night, they had a lot of questions; and I had answers but some I kept within myself. This morning, they didn't push for answers. No one brought the topic up again, instead my parents had their usual mundane-morning conversation while waiting for the coffee to brew. Dad went off to work at his usual time, Dominick left shortly after, and shortly after that Mom and I left.

Mom asked me to come into the firm with her today. "I don't have much to do today, just a little tidying up in my office from the last couple cases. Maybe we can grab lunch afterwards, wherever you want." she said as we pulled out of the driveway.

When we reached the firm, I noticed the receptionist started to stand up to say something to Mom but quickly sat back down. If Mom had shot the receptionist a look, she quickly had replaced it with a polite smile by the time I looked over. We passed a couple of the paralegals who all offered polite greetings and waves. I waved back as I quickly followed behind Mom's hurried footsteps. Another lawyer at the firm was waiting at Mom's office, "Hey, I got-" the woman starts but quickly stops. Once again, if Mom did anything I was too late to catch it.
"Can we talk in your office?" She asks.

"If you have time." Mom says.

The other lawyer checks the watch on her wrist, "I got time. I have a meeting with a client in thirty minutes but I've already reviewed the material."

"Great, I won't keep you long anyway." Mom says. She turns to me, "I need to handle a quick business thing." She says. She reaches into her purse and pulls a couple dollar bills from her wallet, "While I'm doing that, can you get me a bag of crackers from the break room? You can get yourself a snack as well, if you want."

I take the money and make my way toward the break room. The firm and I are no strangers to one another. When I was younger, Mom would sometimes bring me up in the afternoons during the summer after whatever day-camp I was enrolled with got out for the day. She'd set me at a corner table in the break room with a laptop and headphones to entertain myself while she attended to some work tasks. Typically Dad would be able to pick me up. On rare occasions, Dominick would ride the bus and pick me up, then we'd take the bus back home. Dominick wasn't often in charge of watching me, not due to lack of trust, my parents just didn't want to put the responsibility on him too often.