✔️ COMPLETE
It's been three years since Josie Montes' sister was murdered.
Three years since Josie was the last person to ever see her; three years of nightmares and guilt. Now Josie wants to take control of her life again. Attending Helmond Univers...
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November 2021
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The first few weeks felt empty. Maybe even months. They felt never-ending and horrible to get through, as if the mere act of getting up and out of bed in the morning felt like the biggest battle of them all. All days were the same, a mixture of numbness, excruciating pain, denial, and different glimpses of everything that had happened that day at the cabin. Josie went through such a wide spectrum of emotions that day that thinking back on it, it felt like a fever dream. For each day spent at rehab, she slowly came to terms with everything, while slowly remembering new details of everything.
"Getting help with the effects of trauma can seem like a big step," Josie's therapist, Ed, had said during one of their first meetings. "But it doesn't have to be a frightening prospect."
Josie had only looked at him, thinking that her simply being at rehabilitation to get proper mental help after what happened in March, said enough.
"Do you feel comfortable talking about your experience with our trauma group?" he had asked, taking his glasses off his old nose and smiling at Josie. "They're a hit."
Josie took her time answering. "Would I have to talk for the first few meetings?"
"You only talk when you're ready to do so."
Josie listened to him, and it took her about five group meetings to finally start talking. It got easier to talk about everything, how Marcela's "death" when Josie was 16 had fucked her up just as much as her actual murder. She hadn't realised how nice it was to get everything off her chest until it was all out there. It was nice to be around people who truly knew how she felt, who were going through something similar to her. Though nothing anyone else at the centre had gone through exactly what Josie had.
The first few weeks following the incident at the cabin, Marcela and her death was all over the news. An unsolved murder had finally been resolved, though the outcome was much more sinister and sad than anyone would have originally thought. Josie refused to look at any of it, and her papai always turned off the telly when someone was talking about it. It was the constant coverage and the buzzing of Josie's phone that had her ultimately decide to go into rehab. Her papai was getting help as well, not having had a clue what his wife had gotten up to this whole time and that his oldest daughter had been alive. They both struggled immensely, and knew it would be for the best if Josie went away someplace just to get away from everything.
