MADMAN'S HAVEN

31

Saturday, January 11th

Dolores sat next to me on my couch. It was Saturday already, and after my long week of both terrifying and glorifying happenings, I was in heavy need of my closest friend's nearness in company of a bottle of red, bittersweet wine.

I finally dared to tell Dolores about the situation with Donald, and most of the evening was spent talking about how monstrous and filled with hatred he was. Dolores started crying when I told her about his crude way of forcing himself onto me in the small, dark supply storage inside the actual hospital walls.

I had not heard any more from the beast thankfully, and I hadn't seen him around either. Not at work, not outside my door, nowhere.

Dolores looked at me as she sipped from her big glass of red alcohol. The emotion-filled conversation about Donald and his violent actions was finally over. It was not a secret anymore, and I was released from the last shame and loneliness. Even if Brandon already knew all about what happened to me, it was completely different. It was nothing like talking to Dolores. She was my dearest friend, she was a woman, and she was from the real outside world. Her devoted existence wasn't forbidden for me, and that was the biggest difference.

Dolores looked pleased, and happy as always where she sat opposed to me in my living room, but somewhere inside her deep, ocean-blue eyes, I could still glimpse a whit of worry or concern.

My stomach twisted by the thoughts of commencing another depressing subject. This was supposed to be a nice and cozy evening spent with my favorite person. What I wanted was to celebrate my returning sense of sanity and substantiality. I didn't want to drown myself in the misery again when I was finally reaching out of it.

"What's on your mind?" I asked out while I grinned, trying not to make the moment too serious.

Dolores looked hesitant as she shook her head and looked at me with friendly eyes.

"There's just been so much going on in your life lately, and it feels like you're leaving so much out when you talk to me. I feel like there's more to the story, and I want you to speak to me about everything, Beverly," Dolores turned grave as she spoke, but I refused to let this ruin the comfortable atmosphere between us.

Even if she was right, there was only one thing I couldn't talk to her about. Otherwise, I told her everything, and the last thing I wanted was for her to feel deficient as a friend.

"You know my work is very confidential, but beyond that, I always tell you everything! You know that," I responded and smiled.

Dolores decided to leave the moment for what it was and answered me with one last sentence to assure my contention.

"I know, and I trust you, but you must remember that I know you better than yourself and I can read right through you when there's something hidden," Her confident way of owning me made me giggle, and together we enjoyed the settled moment of caring friendship. I knew she had a strong power of sensing my being, but in this case with Brandon, I was so shut I couldn't barely admit to myself what I was feeling.

"You told me you've been throwing up again. Do you think it's the abstinence from your sleeping drugs?" Speaking of another thing I had been lying about lately. Dolores only believed I used drugs for my sleep, she didn't know I went down into a deep relapse of heavy abuse.

I swallowed hard and shook my head in response. I did in fact not believe my recent vomiting was because of abstinence. It was my body's way of releasing the inner chaos, the nightmares, and the trauma. It was just another proof that I was on my way back to stability.

"No I don't think so. I believe it's just my body's way of getting rid of all the previous chaos," I said.

"Probably. I mean it's not the first time," She filled in, referring to my earlier situations in life that haunted me in similar physical ways for a very long time.

"True," I answered shortly, then we both allowed the silence to speak. Dolores looked thoughtful as she stared into her glass of wine, and after a couple seconds of thinking, she broke the silence again.

"May I ask, Beverly? When you were with Donald, did you use any protection?"

My whole world turned upside down only by hearing her question, and it was not out of vacillation. I did indeed use protection every time I was with Donald, so being impregnated by him was nothing for me to be worried about.

But then there was this other man. The very familiar one whom I shared every inch of my body with several times, completely without any use of protection. My heart started to hammer my ribcage and I swallowed the crawling anxiety. I could not have Dolores noticing my reaction, I just couldn't handle being confronted right now.

"Of course we did, Dolores," I replied shortly to hide every chance of glance from my worrying inside. I took another sip from the almost empty glass of wine and I swallowed another lump of misery.

Dolores looked back at me without further concern and thankfully left the horrifying subject out of the world.

"Good," She finished, and copied my motion of pouring another sip of wine down her throat.

How could I be so stupid? The heavy affection and addictive attraction brought me into no further thought than to just let the deity get under my skin. There was no thought of consequences, not even a bit of hesitation. I was so deep inside the devotion, that I didn't care about anything else than just to get him inside of me.

A shower of disgrace washed over me with realization.

Dolores's assumption couldn't possibly be right.