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My body is sore, I’m tired, and the need to wash him away is becoming too much.
“Now,” Cole barks, and I hear a scuffle behind me.
“Willow, you’re going to regret this,” Logan shouts, sounding distant. Cole must have thrown him out into the stairwell. It doesn’t stop the whimper escaping from his threat.
My body is locked up tight, my chest heaving. I don’t want to bend down to retrieve my keys. It hurt too much walking up the stairs. I don’t want to imagine what it will feel like bending down for my keys.
I don’t have to worry. I feel Cole step close, bending down to pick up my keys. Although my body flinches at him being close, I can’t help but feel a sudden calmness at having him near. I feel safe for the first time since I woke up this morning.
Holding his hand out, he goes to give me the keys. When I go to grab them, however, my hands are visibly shaking and he notices.
“Here, let me,” he says softly, and opens the door for me.
“Thank you,” I whisper, stepping inside and taking the keys from him.
I feel so ashamed. He knows. He must have heard our argument. I can’t bear to even look at him.
What must he think of me?
“What happened, Low? Are you okay?”
His voice… Fuck, his voice. It’s so soothing, so deep, and the way ‘Low’ rolls off his tongue, it undoes me. A strangled sob tears painfully from my throat.
I look up, hating that his face is filled with pity and concern. I don’t deserve it. I don’t. I don’t know what’s right or wrong anymore. My heart and body are telling me one thing, but there’s still a place inside me that doesn’t believe that this has happened.
Not to me, and not because of Logan.
“I’m fine. I need to go,” I rush out, slamming the door in his face.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Being weak isn’t something I’m used to feeling. I’m a strong person, tough, and secure in my own body. I never actually considered being weak as an option.
But as I walk down the hall on unsteady legs, heading straight for the bathroom Allie and I share, I find out what feeling weak is really like. It’s a struggle; it’s an unseen pain that has me feeling fragile and powerless. Especially knowing that there’s nothing I can do to fix it. I don’t know how.
Turning the taps on to the hottest temperature, I slowly peel my clothes off, hating that every ache, every pain is just another slap in the face.
I hear Logan’s words reverberate through my mind.
Who do you think they’re going to believe?
You begged for it.
It all comes flooding in, echoing over and over. I step into the shower, trying to drown out his voice. I’m suddenly aware of how dirty I am, how soiled and filthy. It’s like I have a thousand leeches on me. I grab the cloth, squirting half a tub of shower gel on it before scrubbing at my skin until its red raw. I don’t care that I’m sore or that I’m hurting. I just need to wash him away, get him off me. It almost causes a frustrated scream to boil out.
By the time I’ve washed the shampoo out of my hair, I’m sitting in the tub. The water’s cold now, still spraying over me. Everything just keeps going round and round in my head as I sit there. I keep thinking of what I could have done differently, wishing I could go back and tell myself to go home the minute I first said I wanted to.
I fight the memories, trying to figure out the last thing I remember, apart from waking up this morning, and the only thing that is clear to me is the second bottle of beer Logan handed me. After that, everything is a blur. It’s like my memory has been erased or my mind is suppressing bad memories, trying to keep me safe emotionally.
Or you could have been drugged.
As soon as the thought pops up in my head, a scream bubbles out. How could I be so stupid? He raped me. Iknowhe raped me. He must have put something in my drink. It’s the only explanation. And now I’ve just scrubbed my body raw, washing away any evidence.
A frustrated sob escapes my mouth as I pull at my hair, angry at myself. Slowly, I get out of the shower, making sure to avoid the clothes I had on last night. I’m sure the police will need them for evidence.
You need to check if you were drunk or drugged first, and if you were, in fact, raped.
My jumbled thoughts aren’t doing me any favours. They’re just making everything worse, causing everything around me to spin out of control. The pain throbbing between my legs is still stinging, and I found spots of blood on the cloth when I washed myself. I’m unsure how I managed to get through it without throwing up.