It Will All Work Out (Intersex gxg)

Chapter 42

Amber's POV

We took the bus to school on Monday, and Lynn nervously stood near us, ignoring the glares from Nicky and Leigh. None of us cared, because even as we stood there waiting, Harper was at the police station, so I was pretty sure Nicky and Leigh wouldn't be on the bus home. I might have even been hoping for the girls to get yanked out of school in front of everyone, though obviously that wasn't our call. Harper had called us last night after she finally had her talk with Otis, and told us he had already tried using the self defense angle with her until she told him she knew about the rape for hire plan, and at that point he folded and corroborated everything.

The weekend had been productive, once I finally calmed down. I was sobbing in Shay's arms for almost an hour after we got all of her belongings unpacked from Harper's car at the hotel. It was a temporary unpacking, as the very next day we brought everything back to my house, but sleeping cuddled up with Shay had given me the first good night's sleep I'd had since the attack. With her moving into the house with me, I envisioned many more.

But first, we had work to do at my place. Amy ran the gym for the day, while Owen came to move furniture, stripping everything out of my old room so we could rip up the carpet that was soaked with Otis' blood. The two other bedrooms that were up there, beyond my mom's, were guest rooms. Shay and I picked the largest one and we got a new queen sized bed for it since the room was too small for anything larger, and then started making it ours. I moved my clothes over to the second guest bedroom because we needed the extra closet space, and we put all of Shay's things in our new room. I spent a lot of time in her clothes, so it made more sense to have them closer. We even hung the ice cream pictures that she'd brought from her parents' house, though only the small ones still. One day we'd get the big ones hung, just not yet.

While we did all that, Kate installed new locks on the doors for us, just because we had no idea how many spare keys were out there, and we wanted to control that. I gave some new spare keys to Owen, Kate, Gloria, and Harper, and then gave another to Owen for Amy. Those were the only people I trusted, though I had one more made for my mom when she was ready. We got a new chain for the door, and a door bar that could brace against the floor too. It wasn't perfect, but we were getting there.

With all that done, we were pretty well set. Yes, we'd paint the room at some point, Shay would need some black walls in there, but that could wait until we had a whole weekend off. We'd finally been on our own last night, the first night of many I hoped, and it was glorious. Having Shay at home made it feel so much better. The house didn't feel dark anymore, though a few night lights helped with that, and hearing our laughter echoing through the room was such a welcome change that I found myself crying happy tears a few times because of the new atmosphere.

We hadn't done much else. Kate had driven us to the supermarket once the locks were done, and we stocked the house with all our favorites. But we still ordered pizza for the first night, just because we were all exhausted from setting everything up. We just snuggled and watched a few movies while enjoying the occasional kiss. I wasn't sure how long my mom was going to be in rehab, or if she'd even agree to go for that matter, but if Shay was here with me, I knew we'd get through it either way.

The best part of having Shay there though, was going to bed. We put the door bar on the front door, locked everything up, and then retreated to our new bed in what had become our joint bedroom. In preparation for painting the walls black, we had gotten some soft bamboo sheets in a cream color that made me smile when I crawled underneath them. They were nice and soft, and would match perfectly with the walls. Shay met me in the middle of the bed, her arms stretched out wide and I just scooted over to let her wrap me up.

My nightmares weren't as bad with her holding me, and she was careful to gently kiss my throat every night, where the worst of the bruising still was, just to make me feel better. Honestly, I didn't want to tell her, but the whole experience with Otis made me terrified of how I might react to her wanting to be intimate. Don't get me wrong, I still wanted to, but I didn't think I'd be ready for a while. I had the first of many therapy appointments scheduled for after school let out, and before Shay's graduation, and I hoped that would be a good step towards overcoming it, but in the meantime, I couldn't do more than kiss her and hold her. But I planned to do both of those things every day until I was ready to do a lot more.