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The next few months were a whirlwind between reliving all of my trauma in court and trying to mentally deal with it on my own. Noah had claimed he noticed a change in me and he kept hinting at me going to therapy, but I was trying to cope without it. It was hard because Noah was my solace, but often I was cranky and irritable between not ever being able to get my mind off of Ryan and also not getting a lot of sleep. Scarlett was still waking up every few hours to eat, and although Noah was very much involved, my independence was getting the best of me and I was practically drowning instead of asking for more help.
The legal battle with Ryan was relatively short. As soon as he was well enough, they transferred him from the hospital, straight to jail, where he was going to stay without bail. At first, he was charged with attempted murder. However, he ended up taking a plea deal. For the name of his partner that was involved in the crimes against me, they would drop his charge from attempted murder, down to aggravated malicious wounding. In the state of Virginia, it was punishable between 20 years to life. Come to find out, his 'partner' wasn't anyone that we actually knew. Ryan had taken advantage of a dedicated, drug-addicted fan and offered him a substantial amount of cash and cocaine in exchange for his help. Although he never actually touched me, he was the look out when they were breaking in, and he just stood by and watched as Ryan raped me and then left me for dead. He was also going to be going away for a very long time. The charges against Noah and his assault on Ryan were eventually dropped, taking such a weight off of my shoulders that he was no longer going to be missing any more time out on Scarlett or our marriage.
Instead of truly trying to cope with everything that took place, I was actively searching for a job, really missing interviewing bands and the journalism. Noah didn't like the idea of me going back to work full time while Scarlett was this small, so I agreed to just take per diem work until she was at least a year old. I wanted to keep my mind busy, because when it wasn't occupied, that's when the demons began to show their ugly faces. I just wanted to try and get back into our normal routine, before all of the chaos struck.
Of course with everything going on with me, I commended Noah for being so patient and so supportive. Our intimacy was unfortunately on the back burner. I truly felt terrible, between my flash backs of the things that Ryan did and being so exhausted all the time. I was lucky that my husband wasn't making me feel pressured, but I knew this wasn't fair to him and I really needed to try and be more emotionally available to him.
Bad Omens was beginning to make new music again but Noah was only committing a couple nights a week to studio time, more concerned with being home with us for now. Scarlett was growing every day and she was extremely healthy. It was blowing my mind how practically every week she was changing and she truly was a spitting image of her father. She was already so smart...alert when someone was talking to her and constantly looking all around her. She was starting to get chubby, in her cheeks and the little folds in her arms and around her knees, and I loved it. The only thing she seemed to inherit from me was the dimples, but a lot of our friends would say they saw resemblance to me in her quite a bit. Seeing Noah as a girl dad was one of the most beautiful things I could ever witness. Noah was usually a very private man, but with our story that became viral over night, and Bad Omens fans very much aware that Scarlett existed, people were showing a lot of positive support and surprisingly extremely respectful when we were out in public. I was never a huge fan of paparazzi myself, but there was one day I had to take a screenshot of an article I came across online.
