Look After You (39 page)

I tell myself over and over that it
’s only been five days since my attack and that it will take some time to recover from it, but that doesn’t make it any easier to cope with, and as the days begin to roll by, my mind is struggling to get past the incident and it’s making me more panicked, frightened, and tense.

I feel like at any moment,
he is going to appear out of nowhere, resurrected back from the dead, and it’s an unnerving feeling. I am constantly on edge. I can’t even have Ashton look at me without any clothes on because I feel ashamed and disgusted with my own body. Like now for instance…

Ashton helps me out from the hospital bed and guides me into the en-suite so I can take a bath. I recoil from his touch the moment his hands touch my waist to steady my balance. He sighs sadly as he pulls his hands away from me and I grimace at his sadness.
 “I’m not going to hurt you, baby. I promise. I’m not him.” A shiver runs through me when the sound of
his
voice echoes inside my head, and suddenly, I’m being transported back there, on the floor, crying out from the whiplash he caused by slamming me against the wall. “
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, baby, I didn’t mean to hurt you...”

“Don’t call me baby,” I snap, taking a hesitant step back, cowering away from the one person I desperately don’t want to be frightened of.

Ashton holds his hand out to me, a sad smile placed on his lips. “Ava, bab-” he cuts himself off mid-speech and takes a calming breath before correcting himself. “Ava, I hate how terrified you look right now.” He takes a cautious step forward. “Of how terrified you’re looking at me. I’m not going to hurt you. I promise.”

“I’m sorry, I just…” He takes another step forward and gently grasps hold of my fingers with his. This time I don’t jump at his touch.

“I know, you don’t have to explain. It’s just going to take time. We’re going to get through this. It won’t be like this forever, I promise.” He positions his hand fully in mine and gently pulls me into the direction of the bathroom. Once I’m standing in the middle of the steam drizzled room, he locks the door behind him and turns to me.

Panic and bile fill my throat at the possibility of Ashton seeing my nake
d, bruised, and repulsive body. “Can you turn around, please?” I ask shakily, keeping a death grip hold onto the belt of my bathrobe.

His eyes widen at my request, then quickly fades into understanding. “You have nothing to be ashamed of,” he states lovingly, but it doesn’t stop me from clasping my fingers even tighter against the material, so tight that the belt begins to cut into my
broken ribs. I gasp out as a sharp pain shoots straight through my body, but the pain is not enough to ease my hold. My robe is my safety barrier, and I am not ready to let go. “Please?” I beg through labored breaths, my heart rate accelerating as the panic sets in.

He doesn’t turn around; instead he keeps himself concreted to the spot, his eyes never once leaving mine. I feel li
ghtheaded and nauseatingly ill. “Why?”

I take a frustrated breath and roll my eyes. “You know why,” I whisper urgently, wrapping my arms around my body, feelin
g ashamed to be in my own skin.

He takes a slow step towards me.
“I don’t know why, will you tell me, please?”

Without moving my neck, I trace my eyes down to my feet, clutching nervously at my robe, purp
osely avoiding his eye contact. “I’m disgusting, my body is revolting; I’m revolting,” I whimper. I can see Ashton approach out of the corner of my eye, but I still don’t look at him, I can’t.

“Look at me.” When I don’t remove my eyes from the tiled floor, I flinch when I see his hand reach for my chin, and he gently tilts my head up s
lightly until my eyes meet his. “You’re beautiful.”

“No,
I’m not. I’m ruined. He’s ruined me,” I whisper hoarsely. I try and look away from him, but he lifts my chin back up, training his eyes onto mine.

“You
’re not ruined, you’re beautiful. You’re just a little wounded, nothing that your doctor can’t fix.” He smiles, tenderly stroking his thumb against my bottom lip, and if I weren’t so fucked up, I might have even laughed at his comment.

“I love you, nothi
ng will ever change that, ever. Do you understand me? I love you. I would never hurt you. You’re so beautiful, inside and out. You’re my beautiful Ava; I just want to look after you. Will you let me?”

With a trembling smile, I begin to loosen my belt. “Okay, but can you keep your eyes on mine, please? It’s the only thing that’s keeping me calm right now.”

“My eyes are going nowhere, beautiful, I promise.” Keeping my eyes transfixed on his, I unravel the belt and let the robe fall at my feet. He helps me into the bathtub and true to his word; his eyes never stray away from mine.

“Are you okay? Is it warm enough?” he asks, once I have gently lowered myself into the soapy water and allow the soothing heat to cover me from the chest down.

“I’m...it’s...perfect,” I say on a jittery stammer, only just beginning to calm from having to undress in front of him.

“Yes, you are,” he says, kneeling down to my level and I inwardly smile as his
words trigger a memory, a memory from months ago, when Lily was still in the hospital, and I was battling with my feelings for Ashton...

“You okay?”

I gulp as I take a glance at his beautiful finger as it continuously caresses my arm. His touch affects me immediately as a tremor of goose bumps feather up and down against my sensitive skin, leaving me breathles
s. I look up and meet his gaze.

“Yeah, I’m, great…perfect,” I stammer on my words as he looks me deep in the eyes with a m
ixture of hunger and affection.

“Yes, you are.” I almost swallow my own tongue at his compliment, and I have to turn away from him, smiling, trying my best to compose myself. My heart is on dangerous territory with this beautiful man, and I am extremely worried about the way he makes me feel. I know I should ask him to back off, but I can’t. He has become my daily addiction, and with Sebastian not here, I feel a pull, a magnetic pull that is too strong to stay away from.

I awaken from my day dream just when I see Ashton lean forward and instinctively, I cower away from him, even with the perfect memory still fresh in my mind. I don’t even mean to do it; it
’s just an automatic reflex.

“I’m just going place a kiss on your head,” he warns gently. It immediately puts me at ease, and I relax under his touch when he reaches over and presses a gen
tle kiss at the top of my head. “We’re going to get through this. I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”

I hope so, I really fucking hope so.

Epilogue

Three Months Later - May 2014

Sitting on the sofa in my therapist
’s office, waiting for my early morning appointment, I have to admit I have come a long way in just three months. After the incident, I quickly became somebody I didn’t recognize. I spent a while locked within the confinements of my own head, struggling to come to terms with what happened to me, struggling to come to terms with life. And to make matters worse, I couldn’t get the bastard out of my head. Whenever I closed my eyes he was always there, constantly haunting me from the goddamn grave and I spent a full month suffering with insomnia.

The first month was one of the hardest months of my life. I may have been recovering physically; my broken bones may have been healing, but emotionally? I was a mess. I was depressed, withdrawn; I didn
’t speak, I didn’t do anything, except for keeping myself captive inside the dark surroundings of my bedroom. I didn’t even mother or hold my own child. In fact, for a short period of time during my depression, I almost forgot Lily existed. I just became a living corpse, and I couldn’t care less about anybody or anything around me.

I swore to myself I would never shed another tear fo
r the rest of my existence, but a few weeks after the incident they began to fall and continued to do so for two weeks straight. They were tears of mourning, mourning for my sister, something that my body never allowed me to do when she died six months ago. Of course, I cried, but I never physically mourned for her and accepted her death. No, instead I had to wait until I was at the absolute brink of darkness for them to erupt, and it was soul wrecking stuff. It nearly pushed me over the edge. I wanted the pain of it all to go away, so I tried to take the easy way out. Thankfully, I was unsuccessful in my attempt at suicide by a long mile, but it was the one thing that shook me out of my depression. And the reason why it was unsuccessful is sat beside me right now - my savior; Ashton.

That boy just knows when to be in the right place at the right time. Just the thought of not being here right now, especially for my beautiful eight-month-old daughter, is too hard to comprehend. It isn’
t even worth thinking about it.

Sat on the tiled floor of my bathroom, I pick the bottle of pills up and just stare at them. They hold so many possibilities, yet they all have the same outcome; pain relief. They have the possibility to ease the pain or take the pain away altogether, and I have spent too long trying to ease my hurting that I desperately want it to go away, for an eternity. I can’t do this anymore, I’m not strong enough…

I unscrew the lid and pour the thirty pills slowly into the palm of my hand and gaze intensely at them, trying to decide how to take them. Should I swallow them one by one or throw the whole lot into my mouth? Do I take them with water or swallow them dry? Again, so many possibilities. Maybe that’s why Fran decided to hang herself. I mean, there is only one way to hang yourself; you grab a rope, hang it from a beam, wrap it around your neck and jump. It
’s simple. Less complicated. Do I have a rope? I look up to the shower rail and wonder if it would be strong enough to hold my weight up. No, it doesn’t. Maybe pills would be better. I glance back down at them and suddenly the pills are being smacked from out of my hand and I am startled when I see Ashton in front of me with a frantic look on his face, gripping me tightly.

“How many did you take?” he shouts hysterically, but I’m confused because I haven’t taken any pills, not yet. I cough dramatically as he forces his fingers inside my mouth, almost choking me, trying to remove the p
ills I never put into my mouth. “Jesus, Ava, how many did you take?”

I slap
his hands away heaving, my eyes wet with tears. “I haven’t taken any.”

His body sighs with relief
pulling me into his arms, and I flinch. He hasn’t touched me in over a month. “Were you really just going to leave me, leave your daughter?”

His words trigger something to stir within me, and it’s only when I glance down at the scattered pills on the bathroom floor that I come to understand the severity of my actions. Was I actually going to kill myself? The realization finally awakens me.

“Oh God! I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” I repeat the words over again, unable to comprehend what I was moments away from doing.

“You can’t leave me! Do you hear me, Ava? I love you, your daughter loves you, Caleb loves you, you can’t fucking leave us, you can’t.” He is rocking me to and fro, clutching hold of me, almost as if it
’s a matter of life and death. He pulls away and forces my eyes to look into his, his beautiful green eyes that are flooded with distraught tears. “We can’t do this anymore. I’m taking you to see a therapist first thing in the morning. We need to fix this. I need my Ava back.”

And the next day, he forced me to see a therapist, and I have been seeing Doctor Grace Campbell twice a week for the past nine weeks. It was intense at first, having a total stranger dissect my inner monsters, but eventually we began to work through them one by one and at the end of every week I could feel my spirit start to return. I can even say Avery’s name without wanting to kill myself. It’s hard, but it’s something, I guess.

I’m still not one hundred percent recovered, but it’s a work in progress and week-by-week my emotional state continues to improve. I don’t think I will ever be my old self again, but that’s fine, I don’t want to be my old self. I am focusing on being a new and improved self, a person who won’t be buried by the demons of my past. This time I will be the one to bury them, so deep in the ground that they
will never be able to return.

The secret
ary pops her head over her desk with a bright smile. “Miss Jacobson, Doctor Campbell will see you now.”

I turn to
Ashton. “See you in an hour?”

“I
’ll be here waiting for you,” Ashton replies. I smile as I stand and make my way to Doctor Campbell’s office. Ashton has been with me to every one of these appointments. I have no idea how he manages to get time off from the hospital, but without fail, he is always by my side.

I knock on the door before I enter. When I hear a gentle
, “Come in,” from inside, I walk inside and take a seat on the leather sofa in the middle of her office. It’s your standard therapist office. It’s very minimalist, with very little furniture, light and airy, with a wall behind her desk with college diplomas and doctorates from the highest level and of the best institutes. One thing I love about her office is that there isn’t a green plant in sight; she prefers to have fresh flowers delivered daily because she feels it promotes a happier energy. They were the only things that put me at ease during my first session, all those weeks ago.

Do
ctor Campbell is an elegant and beautiful woman, in her early forties. She’s very down to earth and kind-hearted, and I think this is why I was able to open up to her so easily. She takes a seat on the chair opposite me, crossing her legs over, with an electronic tablet perched lightly on her lap.

“Hello, Ava, you look well. How are you since our last session?” she asks in her usual, gentle tones, immediately creating a calming atmosphere within her office.

I sit further back in the leather interior with a genuine smile. “Yeah, I’m feeling really good at the moment.”

“That’s fantastic, Ava, just what
I like to hear from my patients.” She looks down at her notes briefly on her tablet before returning her eyes back to me. “In today’s session I want to discuss your relationship with Ashton.” She pauses for a brief moment, and I nod with acceptance. “How is your relationship?”

“
Yeah, it’s really good. He’s perfect; he’s been my rock throughout all of this. He’s the reason why I’m sat in your office right now. I feel very lucky to have him in my life.”

She thinks thoughtfully for a moment.
“Can you elaborate on why you feel lucky to have him in your life?”

“
He’s stood beside me through everything, even at the hardest of times. While most men would have just walked away, he didn’t. He said we would get through this together, and he’s been there for me every step of the way.”

“
Am I right in saying that you love him?”

“
I’m madly in love with him; he’s the one, you know? I knew it from the moment I met him.”

“
Tell me more about Ashton. Your face lights up at the mere mention of his name, it’s refreshing to see your face with such joy, especially after such a traumatic time.” Well...I like this session even more if it means I get to talk about Ashton for a full hour.

“
What can I say? He’s gorgeous, I could just sit and stare at him at all day, I would if I could get away with it,” I say with a small chuckle. “He has a beautiful mind and an even more beautiful heart. And his eyes. He has these amazing green eyes, almost hypnotic that I can lose myself in them in an instant. He makes me laugh when nobody else can and he has this magic ability to make everything around me just disappear, all the demons and the bad shit.

“Granted, he wasn
’t able to get through to me for a while during my mental breakdown but eventually his persistence paid off. He saved me from making a stupid decision, a decision I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to make but I am slowly on the road to recovery, and it’s all because of him. He loves me in despite of my baggage. He loves me for me. We might have only been together for a short amount of time, but he’s the one I see myself growing old and gray with. I don’t know how I got so lucky to find him, but I am going to cherish him for the rest of my life.” Wow, talk about Ashton 101. His ears must be burning right now.

Docto
r Campbell smiles fondly at me. “Well it seems you certainly have yourself a keeper there. We have established you have a strong emotional relationship with Ashton, but how is your sexual relationship?”

I let out a long brea
th and give her a sad grimace. “Not good at all, it’s non-existent actually.”

“Well that is hardly surprising
, Ava, you have suffered a tremendous ordeal. Sexual intercourse in general is a big step for any couple but to add a history of sexual abuse into the mix, it makes a loving experience more complicated,” she explains, and of course I have to agree, it has made everything more complicated, to the extent that I even began to question his trust.

“I’m starting to feel that I am ready. Three months ago, the very thought of Ashton seeing me without any clothes on scared me, I felt disgusting to be in my own skin but recently, I’ve been feeling…you know…” I pause when the words become restricted at the back at my t
hroat with embarrassment.

“Sexually aroused?” Doctor Campbell elaborates for me, and as a grown woman I feel absolutely ridiculous that I cannot discuss se
x without turning crimson red.

“Um, well yeah. I mean is that healthy? I kind of feel like it should be too soon to feel this way, after what I went through.
”

“
There is no time scale on recovery. With some victims it can take only a matter of weeks, others it can take months. I have even known victims to be affected by their sexual abuse for years. It depends on each individual and their coping mechanism. Everybody is different. So to answer your question, yes it is healthy and if you think you’re ready to progress sexually with your relationship with Ashton, then I say, what are you waiting for?”

This causes me to laugh out with ease and with a semi blush I respond,
“Really?”

Her smile turns serious and she
leans closer to me. “Yes, Ava. What I see is that you have spent your entire teenage and adult life letting one person dictate how you should live, and now that he isn’t here to hurt you anymore, you have an opportunity to get your life back on track. It is your time for happiness, your time to live your life the way you want to live it, and if I were you, Ava, I would grasp hold of it with both hands. You have come such a long way, and it is astonishing to see the strength you have gained in just nine weeks.

“
You have fantastic instincts, so embrace them, trust them. You know your body better than anybody, and if your body is telling you that you’re ready, then it most likely means that you are ready.” The way she puts it seems simple enough, but there is still something niggling, a worry at the back of my mind that continues to stop me.

“
What if the problem isn’t with me, what if the problem lies with Ashton?” I ask a little anxiously, biting the pad of my thumb.

“
Are you saying he doesn’t want a sexual relationship with you?”

“
I don’t really know. It’s just we haven’t done anything for such a long time, I worry he doesn’t find me sexy anymore. He barely touches me, and when he kisses me, it’s as though he’s kissing his aunt,” I admit honestly, and I hope Doctor Campbell can shed some light on the issue and tell me I am just being paranoid.

“
Have you discussed this with Ashton?”

“
No.”

“
Have you discussed that you feel ready to progress your relationship to the next level?”

I cringe slightly as
I murmur a gentle, “No.”