Antagonym

Chapter 20

If silence was ever thick, this was the moment. But, I could understand why. How do you respond to someone telling you they had been raped? Especially someone you know better than most people. There's so much pressure on saying the right thing. If someone like Axel, or Beck, or Seb said that to me, I would combust from anxiety over saying the wrong thing. I suppose that made me a shitty person, not knowing what I would say to someone else in my position, but it was the truth. Not all of us could speak eloquent wisdom like Sylvia. She was meant to help people, I was meant to keep it in.

Beck's pupils were still flickering to different spots of my face, searching for a cue to see if I was going to say something else or react oddly to his words. "I don't want to say 'sorry' because that seems like a gross misuse of an almost meaningless phrase, but I am truly sorry something that horrible happened to you. Danielle, if you want to talk about it, I'm more than ready to listen and help you through this. I meant it when I said I was here if you ever wanted to talk about it. I'm not going to run for the hills because of something that happened to you."

Beck was one thousand times a better person than I was because that seemed like the perfect response that I would never be bright enough to give. It was pure support and that's what I needed. "Thank you, Beckett," I whispered while closing my eyes. "I want to talk about it but I also really want to lay down."

Maybe I was stalling, but my hip was actually killing me from the short ride in the car. "Okay," Beck acknowledged while getting out of the vehicle. I was already getting out into the cold night when he rounded the car, having to help lift me up by my left bicep to release the strain on my hip. We made our way into the elevator and eventually into his apartment with my slight limp barely hindering my movements. As soon as he took me to his bedroom, I wasted no time laying on top of the white comforter, feeling the relief of the pressure on my leg dissipating in waves.

I watched Beck pull his sweatshirt over his head, hanging it on the back of a black desk chair. I tried not to think of the first time I'd been in this room, just as how when we walked through the atrium I kept my eyes away from the wall I'd been plastered against. Now definitely wasn't the time, but seeing the bottom of Beck's tanned abdomen when he removed his sweatshirt wasn't helping my focus. I knew I was recovering from an anxiety attack, but I couldn't help where my brain wondered.

I'm sure if I hadn't just confessed that I had been raped, Beck would have made a cheeky comment. It almost disappointed me that he didn't as he sat on the edge of the bed next to my waist, his legs crossed in his lap as he observed me. I brushed off his close proximity and stared at the white ceiling for a second. My secret was out there and there was no taking it back. It was a relief and a curse. I had lifted the weight off my shoulders while adding a whole knew type of anxiety that I wasn't completely familiar with.

"So my mom kicked me out when I was fifteen and a half. A few months later I happened to tear my ACL at hockey practice. Someone hit me while I was going to block a goal and my leg popped the wrong way. When I said I hadn't seen my mom since court, this was that case. She refused to get me the surgery because she didn't want me playing men's hockey. Finn sued her because I couldn't even fully walk correctly without a reconstruction surgery."

"My dad was ready to sign off on it, but my mother absolutely would not. Since I was living with Finn and Sylvia after being kicked out, the court eventually emancipated me so I could get the surgery. But, it pushed the date back dramatically and it wasn't until June when the season started in October. At the time I went to a private school, Notre Dame, so they had good athletic trainers," I paused, not knowing for sure if I could continue. I had already told Beck the intimate details of how my mother was a vindictive bitch that was ready to withhold a surgery to improve my quality of life, could I really go on?