Who am I?

Chapter 24.

We were all waiting in Pippa's apartment to see what was going to come of the phone call. I was bouncing my leg up and down, chewing on my lip. I couldn't believe that this had happened to Ray, my sweet innocent Ray. I looked over at her, and grabbed her hand when I saw how scared she looked. Of course she was scared, how could I expect her to be anything different? She forced out a smile at me, and I felt proud knowing that I had made her smile, even if it was forced. We stayed like that, me and Ray on the couch and Lin in the kitchen with Pippa talking to the police.

They had been in there for a while, with only our anxiety to keep us company as we were both too frightened to talk. I felt horrible for what I had done, and I felt even worse for not noticing what was going on in her life. I just can't believe that her father, the man that was more of a father to me than my own, my old father.

"Okay thank you officer." Pippa hung up the phone while walking into the room. We both stood up when she entered, wanting to know what just happened. She looked at us before sighing and sitting down on one of the chairs. We followed suit and sat back down on the couch.

"What did they say? Is he going to jail? Do they believe me? Oh god, they don't believe me do they? No! He's going to come back to me and, and..."She was full on panicking now and I reached over and pulled her into a hug, holding her tight, telling her to relax, that everything was okay.

"Honey, Ray, they believed you and he's going to jail, you're going to be okay. We will make sure you are okay." Pippa reached over and started to rub her back, both of us feeling relief when she finally stopped breathing so hard, collapsing in relief and exhaustion in my arms. We stayed like that for a couple minutes until I realized that Lin had never come back into the room with Pippa.

"Hey Pippa, where'd Lin go?" I looked over Ray's head at her, confused. She just smiled at me amused laughing a little to herself.

"Oh, he is in the kitchen, eating all my food!" She yelled the ending, making sure that Lin could hear her. He must have because a second later his head stuck out of the doorway, looking like a confused little puppy. I looked down at his hands to see they were full of pizza goldfish. I wrinkled my nose up in disgust at his food choice. Pippa just motioned for him to put the food down and come over to talk with us. He did come over, but took the goldfish with him. We all just scoffed at him (except Ray, who actually liked the pizza flavor), Ray finally coming out form my hug, laying against me instead.

"Okay, so here is the current plan, the police are going over to arrest him right now, and he will be taken to a holding cell. Ray, you will have to testify to a judge that the abuse did in fact happen, but that shouldn't be too hard as it will only be for a couple minutes and it can all be done in his office. While all of that is happening you will be working to become an emaciated adult like you wanted. Lin talked to Vanessa over the phone and it sounds like you can stay in your apartment with your mother. Sound good Honey?" We all looked over at Ray, and while she did look a little overwhelmed, she also looked happy to finally be free of him. I smiled and pulled her a little closer to me, ignoring the look the Lin and Pippa shared.

"That sounds great, thank you guys so much, all of you." My smile dropped a little at this, knowing that this was partially my fault, if I had never left maybe I would have been here to catch it sooner, and if I had never made her tag along with me then she wouldn't be put through so much change all at once.

"No, Ray I'm sorry, if I had stayed then maybe you wouldn't have had to be in this mess for so long, and I should never had run or even made you come with me. This is all my fault, and I know that it won't make anything better but I'm sorry... I'm so fucking sorry." I was crying at the end of it, not looking at anyone for fear of what their expressions would be. I felt Ray get up and it made me cry even more, thinking that she couldn't even stand to look at me after I had admitted all that. Instead of walking away she crouched down and put her hands on my shoulders before shaking me, making me look at her.

"Marti, even if you did leave, I wasn't strong enough to tell you, and your parents were going to take you with you consent or not. And about what happened last night, I'm not mad. I'm never mad. I don't get mad, you know that. Marti, I'm fine. None of this was your fault. It was mine. I never spoke up and that's my fault." She smiled sweetly, every word she said was drenched in truth. Why was she so pure? She should hate me. She doesn't even hate her dad. Pippa had said that one of the first things she had said to her when they had gotten to her was house was "I don't want you to think he is a bad guy. He's just under a lot of stress, he's just angry." My god, how could she be so forgiving?

"Marti, I'm fine." I looked at her in disbelief, how could she be fine? I wasn't fine and it didn't even happen to me.

"Show me what he did to you." I was practically begging, I needed to see how bad it was, I just needed too.

"What?" She looked at me in shock, I never have acted like this before, but this had never happened before.

"Show me!"

"No! Marti, I'm not showing off my scars and bruises." She looked angry now, but I just couldn't take not knowing what had happened. I just had to see it for myself.

"He's hit you recently?" I was on my feet now, completely pissed that this very happened. How could someone treat their daughter like that? And not only their daughter, but one of the most pure and kind person in the world.

"What? No...That's not what I meant!" Ray said, backing away.

"Ray...I'm sorry." I was immediately filled with guilt when I saw her back away like that, almost like she was afraid of me, like she thought I was going to hit her. That was something that I could never take.

"Stop apologizing!"

"Why? That's all you ever do!" How could she be so hypocritical? I was just concerned about her, I just wanted to help and she was mad at me for that.

"Marti! Stop it!" Lin yelled, done with the bickering. I hadn't even realized the tears that were spilling over Ray's cheeks. She hadn't cried yet, had she? I made her cry.

"Marti, you need to calm down." Lin said, hands on my cheeks, "We have to go now. You need some sleep."

I looked at Ray regretfully as the tears started to fall over her eyes and down her face like little rivers of sorrow. I had to look away when Lin started to lead me away, and I made myself a promise that I would never let anything like this happen to her again, that no matter what I would never let anything hurt her.