The Aftermath

Chapter Four

There is feeling you get when your body and your mind aren't connected anymore. Your mind stays rational, calm and aware. You body on the other hand panics, freezing up and shutting down.

                There is nothing you can do to force the two pieces to work in tandem again.  You just have to ride out the attack and pray that one day your mind and body reunite.

                My mind and body can't seem to agree on anything these days.  Ever since I was rescued from the Warehouse, I have been having panic attacks and my body has shut down out of fear.

                My mind is fine. I am not tortured from the experience. I have always been strong mentally.

                So right now my brain realizes that it stupid and ridiculous for me to sitting in fetal position on the floor, the stictches on my stomach throbbing, but I cannot seem to get up.

                Why am I freaking out?

                Because someone is coming over to see me. Someone I have never met before. For that reason I am curled up on the ground, shaking. 

                I sucked in a breath and started counting. Just the way my shrink told me too.  One. Two. Three. Four. Five. I could feel my body start to relax. My breathing returned to normal, my muscles unclenched.

                "Miss Reese?"

                My body seized up again.

                Two words.

                That is all it took to send me into a panic again.

                "Miss Ree- Shit! That is what I wasn't supposed to say!"

                I didn't recognize the voice bumbling over itself, I assumed it was my guest.

                I started my process over again.

                Fifteen seconds later my mind was control of my body again.

                I opened my eyes, although I didn't remember when I closed them, and I peered up at my guest.

                My heart squeezed in my chest.

                He was freaking HOT!

                My breathing sped up.

                He looked at me. His blue eyes were piercing.

                He cocked his head at me. His eyes ran up the length of the braces on my arms, his eyes suddenly drowning in sympathy.

                My attraction for him turned to anger. I hate it when people look at me like something to pity.  Before the warehouse I was a strong, independent, woman who no one, ever saw as someone needing help. I fended for myself since I moved out of my parents' grasp at the age of 19. Everyone knows my strength.

                But now, after spending four months in a warehouse, people look past it. All they see are the brusises on face, the braces on my arms, the stitches lining my stomach.

                I hate being defined by what the warehouse did to me, by how broken I am.

                The look in their eyes as the pity me for my brokenness, it is enough to make me wish that the warehouse has finished me off.