Woe it's Wenclair

Home?

Wednesday

I find myself back in the cold, dark crypt most of the time. I see his face. I feel the cold stone against my bare body. I feel his hands.

I don't want to feel him anymore.

Enid must be scared to touch me, but I crave her smooth, comforting hands. They're nothing like his.

She's nothing like him. She never will be.

The therapist says it's okay for me to not know exactly how to feel. I'm not used to that. Usually, I know exactly how I feel. Obviously I feel horrible, but it's so much deeper than just that. She tries to get me to express my feelings through art or writing. I don't want to write anything.

I find myself thinking. Perhaps it's past thinking, more like just living in my head. Something like derealization, the therapist says.

They pump me with drugs, and that helps the aching, but they can't help the real pain. I just want it to be gone. I just wish this never happened.

The therapist talks to me about regret. I don't think she's ever felt it. Not really.

She talks so much, it's like she's the patient. Like her words will fit in the holes that were cracked open in my head that day. Like something will stick.

I was hoping for something, at first, some string of words that could give me some sort of relief. I was desperate. But now I see she's just a doctor, talking about feelings, like she understands them when she doesn't. Like my pain can be sorted into conditions and symptoms, mere words on a piece of paper.

I get restless.

I want to stop seeing him. I want to stop feeling his hands over me. I want to rip his head off of his stupid, disgusting body. I want to cut his mouth out and stab his voice box so that he can't talk to me the way he did.

I hate him. I hate what he did. I hate that what he did still affects me when he's rotting in the ground somewhere. I hate that I know it will affect me for as long as I live.

I hate that he saw my body. I hate what he said, I hate what he did to me, I hate how powerless I was.

I scream. I scream even when the tears blind me, and nothing comes out of my throat anymore, I scream because I need to do something, and this is what I know.

It scares Enid.

The therapist says anger is a regular part of recovery for victims of sexual assault.

I wish the therapist wouldn't treat me like I'm some sort of fucking object she can predict the actions of as easily as the weather.

I won't talk to her. I just glare. I wish it would hurt her. But she just nods and mutters "unresponsive" while checking off something on her clipboard.

They put me on medication. Multiple morning and night pills of different shapes and colors the nurses shove in my mouth.

I'm being discharged soon. I don't know how long it's been.

I'm worried about Enid. She said she wasn't angry at me, and I suppose that's a relief, but I can't help but think it's my fault.

The therapist keeps drilling in the sentence "It's not your fault" through her words and the stack of sexual assault survivor pamphlets.

It just feels like a lie. The fact remains that if I didn't go there, it wouldn't have happened. I don't think I can make myself believe anything else but that.

But in other ways, I don't regret what I did. It saved Enid. Maybe. I can't be sure. There's no way to know what he might have done, or what he lied about. There's only what happened. And Enid is alive. That's what matters, really.

I don't know. I don't know if I'm sure about anything, anymore, regarding myself.

My parents have been here for a while. I don't want them to be. Not that they're doing anything wrong or anything. I just hate seeing them look at me in the way they do. I hate not being able to do anything about it.

There's also the fact that I just feel so weak. I've been highly trained in many martial arts, fought monsters, and escaped death too many times to count, all to have this happen to me. Sure he's dead now, but the damage was done.

I feel embarrassed. Shameful. This isn't who they raised. I know that's not what they're thinking, but I can't help but feel it.

I just can't see a way forward. Everything is foggy and insurmountable.

"Wens? Love? Can you hear me?" A voice speaks, barely louder than my thoughts.

I open my eyes and turn my head towards the source.

"Hey," she speaks softly.

"Hi," I croak.

"How is your throat?"

"Alright," I answer. I can handle a few words at a time now.

"Yeah? That's good. The doctor says your levels are good enough to go home now.

I immediately freeze. I don't want to go home. Enid will have to go back to school and I'll be alone. I'll be alone and I'll be back with him again, I'll be in that crypt forever.

"No." I shake my head in desperation.

"What? Hey, are you okay?"

"I don't want- I don't want to."

"Wednesday, dear, are you alright?" Mother asks, walking over.

I find it harder to breathe by the second, everything is getting blurry.

Enid finds my hand, squeezing it gently.

"Wens, it's going to be okay, we don't have to do anything you don't want to do right now."

I look at her, searching her eyes for any sort of lies. I find none.

"Okay," I respond.

"Just breathe, okay?"

I nod and try to focus on that.

"So, you don't want to leave?" Mother asks.

"I- I don't-" I try to lay down my thoughts in the form of words.

"I don't want to be alone."

"You won't be, me and your father will always-"

Father mutters, "She means Enid, Tish."

"I see," Mother smiles.

My cheeks get red and I look to Enid for her reaction.

"I- of course, Lo- Wednesday," Enid mutters, red in the face. "I won't leave you."

I stare at her, grateful.

"So..." Mother starts, breaking the silence. "Enid. Perhaps you could stay at our home? Gomez and I could help with your homework, I'm sure Lurch could drive to get it every so often."

"Yes! I mean- yes, I would love to," Enid smiles, looking between me and my parents.

"We're thinking of leaving in an hour or so, is that all right, my little viper?"

I nod, still staring at Enid. "Yes."