Trying To Heal

Chapter Twenty-Two

April

Sparrow lopes a tiny hill, her hooves dulled and saturated with bungling, dried moss. On the flat land, her gallops slow, near a naked tree with a pool of radiant leaves clustering its' base. Derek mounts off, assisting me to the ground.

I breathe in the refreshing, autumn air, needling my nostrils. A beautiful scrape. The loud sigh momentarily drains the uneasiness of a lifetime. "That was amazing."

He lowers to the floor, crossing his legs, inclining against the prickly trunk. Sparrow nestles to his left, her head on his lap. I sit to his right. She shoves her head closer to my lap instead.

I remember why I asked for this. To discuss with him privately. Aachchie's scolding, rude outburst fogs my eyes, and I try to push down the clog constricting my throat with full force. "How was everything while I was in a coma?"

He watches a rabbit, not so far from us, hops through the grass to its' hole. "It depends on everyone."

I tilt my head, inquisitive. "How was it for you?"

He is silent for a moment, gathering every muster of strength he could. "I was drowning."

"Oh," I whisper. He said that yesterday.

"Oh," he murmurs.

The thickness maintains.

I can feel the wheels in his head coiling. "When I first attempted suicide, I could not understand its emotional responses. But ... I—" He pauses, his jaw stiffening and shifting to show a swallow of a vulnerable block "—When I saw you in Luke's arms—" He pauses again, his eyebrows hunched together, almost touching, trapped in a flashback "—Unconscious. Blood all over you. Life stopped for me."

The brims of my eyes water.

"I saw you in the hospital," he says under a breath, "and that was when I finally understood the emotional responses. For the first time in my entire life, I was afraid. I was frightened to lose someone I love to suicide."

I close my eyes, my lips trembling. Thankfully, no tear falls.

"I forgot how to live," he confesses distantly. "I routinely exercise each morning. That was quite dismantled. I was ... too lazy, I suppose, to continue. I was also in a reading slump. In other words, it was quite shit for me. However, I had a period of reflection to discover a part of me that I never thought I was capable of."

I firmly mold my lips together to eliminate the quivers. "I'm—I'm sorry."

Instinctively, he rapidly whirls his attention to me. "Do not ever say you're sorry. You have done nothing wrong."

My throat tightens. "It's clear I have."

"No, April." This time, his words are pronounced too harshly. "It was not your fault."

"But everyone felt like—"

"It does not matter how it was for everyone. It never counts to your picture." He detects the change in my expression. "What happened?"

"What?"

"Who hurt you?"

"No one."

"Bullshit. You look like you are going to cry. What happened, April?"

I hesitate.

Derek rethinks. "You don't have to tell me if you're not comfortable—"

"You know Rhett?"

The colour of his skin turns into ice at the cursed name.

"He ..." I inhale a sharp breath, folding my legs to my chest, my chin on my knees. "He sexually assaulted me."