Living with Jennifer Lawrence

[76:] Forever Changed

*WARNING: somewhat graphic/possibly triggering content, read at your own discretion*

Maddie

I sit bolt upright, startled with the feeling of being displaced.

I look around, disoriented.

I'm in someone's bedroom, in someone's bed, and I don't know how I got here. Then I remember and it all comes crashing down in a thousand jagged pieces. I jerk back the covers, and I'm not wearing all of my clothes. I start to worry. I'm just wearing my shirt. My underwear is off. I frantically look for my clothes and eventually find them tossed on the floor.

“Brandon?”

No answer.

When I try to get up, a sharp pain blooms behind my left eye and spreads over my head. I can't feel anything from the neck down because the pain is so severe it leaves the rest of me numb. I stumble out of the bedroom, and make my way down a small staircase. And the bottom of the steps, I call out to him again. Still no answer.

My coat hangs over a hook near the front door where my shoes were sitting, lined up perfectly, right where I left them last night. I hadn't remembered placing them there. I put them on and it's still dark out, the sun should be coming out soon.

* * *

I went to use the bathroom.

When I get inside, I remove my jacket, and start to realize what happened to me. My shirt is on inside out and I'm bleeding. My period isn't for another few weeks, and it's never hurt like this before.

I don't have the time or sense to think about what I should do. I clean myself up and walk out, trying my best to mask the shaking of my limbs by folding my arms across my chest. A voice inside me screams: Open your mouth! Tell somebody! You need to go to a hospital!

Instead, I walk over sleeping bodies and empty beer cans and get into my car to drive home. I hadn't been driving long, but ever since I've gotten the ability and freedom to so do, I've been able to go wherever I wanted.

I wish I didn't.

* * *

I made it home by the time the sun rose. At first, I had squint my eyes in order to see.

Everything is exactly how it was before I left, but I feel different.

And everyone is asleep. I crawl into bed. Surprisingly, I haven't cried yet.

I just feel numb.

* * *

“How was the movie?” Jen asked. Mornings are usually the same in the Hutcherson-Lawrence household. Breakfast before we leave for school, and then my parents do whatever they do while me and Jason are at school.

I tell her what I pray happened, what I desperately wish would have happened.

“Oh, we just went to see Justice League. Crystal thinks Henry Cavill is hot. He's the guy that plays superman.”

“No one bothered you?”

“N-no,” I said, trying to hide my stutter. “We ate popcorn and candy.”

“Glad you had fun.” Jen lifted Ryan out of his high chair. Using her baby voice, she said, “Look who's walking better. I love you so much.” She proceeded to kiss him all over his face and his smiled very wide. I couldn't bear to look.

* * *

I couldn't concentrate in any of my classes, either.

I barely picked at my food during lunch. Sometimes Jen packs food for us, other times I eat whatever the school cafeteria is serving that day.

Today, my friend Leah decided to sit with me. Our conversation went nowhere. I had no desire to talk.

How am I supposed to tell my parents?

* * *

I couldn't think of a single person I could vent to.

What would people think? Did this actually happen to me? I hardly believed it. Was it my fault? It had to be. I took the drinks he gave me.

My mind was conflicted. I was confused. I felt as if it were my fault. I felt dirty. I felt great shame.

For weeks after, I often tossed and turned in my sleep. It was like I became an insomniac all of a sudden. And when sleep did come, I was tortured by nightmares.

I think Jen knew something was off when she tried to hug me one day, which was something she usually did, and I screamed. I gave her a poor excuse. “Oh, I didn't see you. You startled me. I'm fine, promise.”

I tried so hard to remember the night in its entirety. The last thing I remember was us kissing on his sofa, and then I was standing in the kitchen talking to him. Then the sound of breaking glass and the sensation of being carried. I was leaning against the countertop, holding a glass of whatever Brandon had poured for me. Things went blurry and the glass slipped from my hand, crashed into pieces at my feet. And I was falling, and then floating, being lifted.

Trust me when I tell you that I don't remember it. At all. Not a solitary moment of it.

The kiss. Breaking glass. Falling and floating. Brown colored eyes.

These are the things I know.

* * *

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