I didn't come awake all at once. It was more like blurry images and snatches of conversations. Over a prolonged period of time. Whispers echoed in my head while remenents of memories teased the edges of my mind. Memories that scared me and I hid from them, burrowing deeper into the darkness that held nothing but an empty wasteland.
Eventually my mind decided it was time to wake up and forced me out of my self-imposed hidey hole. I think what broke through the veil of darkness was the sound of my mother reading to me. Little House On the Prarie. She read it to me when I was little and even made me sit through a binge month of the show. Her voice was low and soft and it made me remember being sick as a little girl and her reading to me for hours. I missed that.
"M...mo..."
I heard the book drop and then her smell was right in front of me. She smelled like vanilla. She didn't use perfumes or body sprays. Instead, she used a few drops of vanilla extract. I always thought it was strange, but it worked for her.
"Shhh, sweetie, Mama's right here. Daryl, get the nurse." Her hands stroked my face, a cool balm to my fevered skin. "It's okay, baby girl, you're okay."
My eyes fluttered open and all I saw was blurry outlines of things. I squinted, but the more I tried to focus, the worse my head hurt and I gave up after a minute.
"She's awake?" a voice asked. "I've paged the doctor. He should be here soon." The more she talked, the closer she got to where I lay. "Well now, little miss, you gave us all quite a scare."
I did?
"Mmm...moo..."
"Shush, now. Let the nurse check you out."
"Listen to you mother, poppet." My dad's hand found mine and squeezed.
The next few minutes flew by as first the nurse and then the doctor ran me through a few tests and scheduled another CT. I'd been out for about a week according to the nurse whose name I couldn't remember.
Once all that was done, my head hurt something awful. All I wanted to do was go to sleep even though I'd just woke up from a week long siesta. It's funny how the body heals itself.
I was scared too. My vision was still blurry. I couldn't make anything out except for distorted figures. The doctor tried to come off reassuring, but I heard the doubt in his voice. I'd suffered a major concussion and that could be the reason I was having vision issues. But he wanted to run another scan of my brain. What if I was really hurt and I lost my vision?
It had to come from him slamming my head into the ground so many times...wait, what?
Image after image slammed into me. Memories of fighting a silent attacker, of being beaten, of being...
My blood pressure monster started beeping loudly as my anxiety rose. Had I been raped? No, no, no...
"Honey, what is it, where does it hurt?" my mom asked.
"W...wa...was I...rrr.aa..."
"No." My dad squeezed my hand. "Father Donavan's nephew heard you screaming and came running. He chased your attack off before he managed to do that."
Father Donavan had a nephew?
"Hee..." I broke off, exhausted. Even my words were slurred. Which scared me more than I wanted to admit out loud. What if something bad had happened to my brain?
"It's okay, sweetie." My mom's lips brushed my forehead. "You're safe now. No one is going to hurt you again. They'll have to go through me first."
I closed my eyes. I was too tired to worry about any of it and slipped back into the oblivion of sleep.
***
