The Fading Trilogy: Fading, Freeing, Falling: Includes 2 BONUS short stories: Hoping and Finding Forever (71 page)

“Let’s go sit down, okay? She asked that I speak with you first.”

I don’t respond; I just follow behind her as she walks me back into the ER and takes me to a small room with a couch and a couple of chairs.

“Please, have a seat,” she says as she closes the door behind her.
Fuck.
Whatever this is, it has to be bad if I’m in here and not with her.
God, I just want to be with her.
I can’t even swallow; my throat has tightened so much.

Sitting down next to me on the couch, she lays her hand on my knee, and I can’t do anything but stare into her green eyes that are filled with sadness. I know she’s trying to hide it, to be professional, but I can see it.

“Your friend was brought here by ambulance,” she says softly. “There was an altercation. She’s fine. We haven’t found any major injuries at this time. She is pretty banged up though.” She takes a moment before continuing, “But . . . she was raped.”

Everything tunnels: my hearing, my vision. My heart thuds. Hard. I drop my head in my hands, and the tears just spill out. Allie continues to talk, but I’ve already heard all my soul can handle at this point. This girl is my fuckin’ heart, and I’m terrified to see what’s left of it.

I turn to look at the nurse when she hands me a tissue, but I don’t reach out to take it. I just look at her with no words.

“I’m so sorry. You can utilize this room for as long as you need, but it’s not going to be good for her to see you so upset. You need to be strong for her right now.”

I nod my head. She’s right. I’ve got to pull my shit together. I finally take the tissue from her hand. I could sit here and cry for the rest of my life if I allowed myself, but I need to see her. So that’s what I tell the nurse. “I need to see her.”

“Okay then.” She stands up and leads me out of the room and down a corridor that is lined with private patient rooms. When we stop outside one of the rooms, she opens the door. I walk in to see my girl’s bloody, swollen face. I know I can’t hide my horror, and she falls apart, sobbing. Rushing over to her, I wrap my arms around her head as much as I can since she’s wearing a neck brace. I can’t stop kissing the top of her head and telling her that I love her. My tears fall effortlessly from my eyes and into her hair. I just keep repeating it over and over as her body jerks with her wails.

She cries for a long time, but I never loosen my hold on her. I’ve never been so scared for anyone in my life. Candace is so strong and always keeps her emotions held tight. Hearing the pain that’s coming out of her is killing me.

Her body begins to shudder as she starts to quiet down. I loosen my grip on her and scan her face. It’s covered in scratches, and the whole right side is swollen with a black eye.
God, what happened?

I pull a chair up next to the bed and sit down. Finally noticing that there’s another nurse in the room, I turn to her and ask, “What’s going on? Is she okay?” I hold Candace’s hand tightly in mine and when I shift my eyes to it, I’m nauseated when I see her brittle nails. It’s as if someone has been sawing at them. They are covered in dried, cracked blood and worn down. There are chunks of flesh under what’s left of a couple of her nails. I jerk my head back to the nurse, not able to look any longer.

She asks Candace if she would be willing to go through a rape kit exam and she freaks out, snapping her head to me, saying, “No.”

“Candace, I really think you should do it. I get that you’re scared right now, but maybe in a few days you might feel differently about this.” I turn to the nurse and ask, “If she does this exam, then what?”

“If she decides to press charges, we will hand over the kit to the police. If not, we keep the kit here. If she changes her mind about prosecuting, then at that time, we will hand the kit over to the criminal lab.”

I squeeze her hand and assure her, “I’m right here. I think you should do this, sweetie.”

I watch as her eyes well with tears and then she slowly nods her head. I know she’s scared, but she’s strong.

The doctor comes in, and they take her for a couple of scans and x-rays while I wait in the room for her to return. When she leaves, I let go and cry. I try to get as much of it out as I can before she comes back and I have to shove all this pain back down. But I’m scared. I’m scared to know what this has done to her spirit. How will she ever heal from this?

When she is brought back into the room, I am by her side and holding her hand that I still can’t look at. I can’t even imagine how hard she must have fought for her hands to look the way they do.

The nurse talks to Candace about starting the rape kit then goes into the bathroom for a minute. When she returns, she looks at Candace and instructs, “Candace, I need for you to carefully remove all of your clothing, including your jewelry. I have laid down a large sheet of paper that is there to collect any evidence that may fall off of your clothes or body. Just stand on the paper while you undress, hand me each article of clothing as you remove it, and I will place each piece in a separate evidence bag. There is a hospital gown hanging on the door that you can change into.”

I look down at her and ask, “Do you want me to leave?”

“No. I don’t want to be alone.” She clings to me, and I see the fear and despondence in her eyes. I want to take it away, but I feel so helpless. I don’t know what to say to her, so I just help her off of the bed and walk her to the bathroom. She’s clutching a blanket to her and when she holds it out to hand to the nurse, I see she’s nearly naked. Her body is bloody and badly bruised. She begins to cry, and in a panic, turns around and asks where her pants are.

“The EMTs collected them. We already have them,” the nurse tells her.

Candace looks up at me, her whole body shaking, and I can barely get my voice out when I try to calm her and say, “It’s okay.”

She slowly starts taking off the remnants of her ripped up clothing, which isn’t much. Candace is such a small girl—tiny—and although she’s strong as hell, there would have been no way she could’ve fought off the guy who did this.
Fuck, who did this?

Slipping on the hospital gown, she walks straight into my arms, and I hold her; I cling so tightly to her.

“Candace, whenever you are ready, I need you to have a seat on the exam table behind the curtain,” the nurse instructs.

Looking up at me, her dirty face soaked in tears, she says, “I don’t have anything to wear.”

“When the nurse called me, she told me to bring clothes with me. They’re in my backpack.”

She nods and we walk over to the exam table. She steps up to sit down on it, never letting go of my hand. I hate that she is so scared. She’s never scared.

I concentrate on her face as the nurse starts collecting the evidence from underneath her nails. I watch as the life leaves her eyes and she completely zones out. It kills me to see her so void and incoherent right now. That her pain is so wrenching that she has to escape somewhere deep inside her head.

When she lies down, the nurse explains the internal exam that she’s about to do. I hear every word, but I know Candace isn’t hearing a thing. She just stares at my t-shirt as tears run freely down the side of her face.

My mind is consumed with a million questions, and I know that I will probably never get any answers. I don’t see Candace talking about this. Ever. I want to murder the piece of shit who did this to her.

I snap out of my internal rage when Candace screams, “Enough!” She’s freaking out and shrieks, “Get out!” Scrambling back on the table, trying to get away, she keeps screaming, “Stop touching me, and get the hell out!”

“Candace, calm down, sweetie.” I try to say this as calmly as I can, but seeing her reaction is throwing me into a panic as she yells at the nurse, who quickly collects everything and leaves the room.

Curling into a ball, she cries, “I want to go home.”

“What happened?” I ask, wondering what triggered her outburst.

Glaring at me, she says in a slow, stern voice, “I want my clothes, Jase.”

I don’t say anything because I don’t want to upset her any more, so I pick up my backpack, and when I turn around, the door opens and the nurse who spoke to me when I first got here steps in.

“Candace, Detective Patterson needs to ask you a few questions,” she says. “Can I send him in?”

Knowing that Candace needs space, I ask, “Can she at least get dressed first?”

“Of course,” she says, and then leaves the room.

I hand Candace the bag and watch as she drags herself to the bathroom. While she’s in there, someone knocks on the door. I open it to see an older man with a badge clipped to his belt standing there.

“Hi, I’m the detective that’s been assigned to this case.”

“She’s in the bathroom,” I say before Candace walks out.

“Ms. Parker,” he says. “I’m Detective Patterson. Do you mind if I ask you some questions?”

“Right now?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’ve already told the nurse everything. Why can’t you just ask her?” I can tell she’s at her end, and I just want to get her out of here. She shakes her head, and says, “Look, I don’t want to press charges or anything like that, so . . .”

Fuck.
I knew she would do this. She avoids everything, but her words feel like a goddamn stab to my lungs.

“Ma’am, I know this is difficult, but there’s a good chance we can catch this guy, and the fact that we have a witness—”

She hangs her head and completely shuts down as he continues to talk. When he hands her his card, she shoves it in her pocket. I shake the detective’s hand as he walks out, and as soon as he leaves, another nurse walks back in.
Christ, it’s never-ending.

“I’m just going to clean up and bandage these cuts for you, okay?”

I take a seat in one of the chairs across from Candace. The nurse is cleaning up her face when I hear her ask Candace if she needs the morning after pill. My head snaps up, and I stare at Candace as she sits there for a second, revulsion plastered all over her face. “I think so,” she whispers.

“Fucker,” I mutter and drop my head in my hands, trying my hardest to control my anger and not start throwing my fist into the walls. I have
never
—not in my whole life—felt the wrath that I feel right now.

The nurse keeps talking, but I don’t hear what she’s telling Candace. I’m too focused on settling myself down, trying to weaken the erratic pounding of my heart. Once all the discharge papers are signed, I can’t hold Candace tight enough to me as I walk her out to my car. She cringes in pain as I help her up into her seat. I reach over her and strap the seatbelt across her lap. Tears flood her eyes when I reach out to touch her face, wincing when I make contact, and then letting her head fall into my hand. She begins weeping, and I just stare at her—desolate. I wish I could do something to help her. I wish she would’ve come to my place tonight like I had asked her to. I could throw a thousand worthless wishes into the air, but none of them would change this nightmare, so I quit tormenting myself. I kiss her shoulder before closing the door.

She’s silent as she stares out the window while I drive her back to my place. The misery is palpable; the way life can change in a matter of a moment. I look over at her as she sits there—lifeless—and I desperately want to make it all disappear.

I help her out of the car and hold her hand as we walk into the building. She keeps a death grip on my hand but doesn’t speak. When I unlock the door to my apartment, she lets go of me and heads straight to my bathroom, closing the door behind her. It feels like there are bricks in the pit of my stomach, razor sharp. The past few hours are a complete haze. I hear the water to the shower turn on as I sit down on the couch. I wish I knew what to say, what to do, but I feel so helpless.

Laying my head back, I hear her start to cry. Dropping my head in my hands, I can’t stop my own tears from falling.
Fuck.
When her cries turn into howling sobs, I leap off the couch and rush into the bathroom.

I look at her through the steamed glass, on her knees, at the bottom of the shower. I feel like all the air is sucked out of my lungs. Seeing her like this is almost unbearable, so I quickly kick off my shoes and socks, open the shower door, and wrap my arms around her from behind as she breaks. I don’t know what else to do, so I just cover her bruised and cut body with mine.

I have no clue what the hell really happened, and knowing Candace, she will never say. He beat the shit out of her, that much is evident. Rage roils in my gut when I think about what he did to her. I know I have to keep it together though, ‘cause she’s going to need me.

Listening to her wails is excruciating. I love this girl more than anything, and to see her in this much pain kills me. I’m so scared for her; I’m afraid of what this has done to her. I know there is nothing I could possibly say, so I just cling to her as she falls apart in my arms.

When she exhausts herself and quiets down, she remains frozen in my hold. I don’t think twice when I stand to get my body wash. Still in my gym shorts and t-shirt, I begin to clean her as she sits there, vacant, on the bottom of my shower. When I finish washing her hair, she finally looks up at me, and I see it. Desperation.

I shut the water off, strip out of my wet clothes, and grab some towels. Drying her off, I help her change. She just cries and apologizes as if she’s a burden. I pick her up and carry her to my bed. Tucking her into me, I wrap myself around her and never loosen my grip.