ᴀᴘʜʀᴏᴅɪᴛᴇ // $ᴜɪᴄɪᴅᴇʙᴏʏ$

Chapter Twenty Nine

APHRODITE

I paced my room slowly because I didn't know what else to do. I was bored out of my mind. But maybe being alone and bored is a blessing for once, I thought as I sat down on the floor with care. My body was still a little sore. I hated that I was still feeling the effects of what happened, what I let happen. I was sore. I had aches. I had bruises in embarrassing places.

I wondered if it was rational thinking when you felt pretty good feeling all those things. But then again, what had been rational lately?

Outside, my body felt good. I felt weird satisfaction when the aches ran through me, when the bruises snipped at me if I applied too much pressure near the area, when the soreness between my legs only reminded me of a job well done.

Yes, outside, my body felt pretty good. Inside, however, was much more confusing and questioning.

I wanted to be free. I wanted to feel normal again. I grasped at the ends of my blonde hair and began twisting them.

I had sex with Scott. I had sex with a man who kidnapped me. I had sex with Aristos' cousin.

Scott, the murderer, the kidnapper, the criminal.

What the hell did that say about me?

What do you call a woman who slept with someone who had kidnapped you? What do you call a woman who had sex with their man's cousin? What could you say was going on inside my mind when I had been intimate with someone who could be seen as a monster? How could I have had an orgasm with the very man who threatened my life? Scott had kidnapped me, for god's sake. And who knows what havoc he was causing during the times he was away from the warehouse?

I took a deep breath and wondered, as I always did when I thought back to what had happened between us, if there was something deep inside me that was just as crazy and wrong as my own mom.

And just as I did every time I started going down that road, I shook my head and beat the thoughts back. I was a fighter before I was kidnapped by Scott. Granted, I was ignorant and ignored the issues that I should have dealt with a long time ago, but I did fight and make something of myself. That last trial of depression was almost my undoing. But I won this round, and I had come to terms with all the dysfunctions of my life, all the hidden realizations. I had stepped up.

But I had won. It was all that mattered. I was slowly healing and I could feel my soul returning to me again.

I would be damned if I let Scott have any kind of power over me because of me giving my body to him. I was done with hell. I was done with sadness. If it ever came back– and I knew it would– I would fight hard like I knew I could. I would eventually be free of all that turmoil, all that shame and self-doubt. I would be able to look in the mirror someday and see a woman who had risen above the abuse, above the manipulation. I would love myself someday soon and know myself completely. The road to redemption was long, but I would travel it because I had to. Scott's hands may have left their marks on my skin from fast, hard sex, but they would fade and cease to exist.

And when I realized how I was feeling, thinking, and acting right now, I discovered that I was proud and excited, but my anxiety level was unusually high. I put a hand to my chest and forced myself to take a very big, very relaxing breath. I knew I had suffered from anxiety for the last several years. I knew simple, meaningless things like traffic, disorder, and left opened cabinets could make it spike. But it had always been something I'd lived with. Tons of people had anxiety. I was no different from the average American woman.

My Xanax had helped with it in the past. And because I hadn't taken it in a very long time, I could only assume that my anxiety today had something to do with that. But it would be fine, I told myself. My body was still getting used to being without the pills that had been my lifeline when cutting myself was no longer an option. And I would adjust.