Page 123 of Isolation

“I do understand,” I start apprehensively. “The past doesn’t matter to me. I want us to move forward. I understand if you need to start slow. We can try therapy first—”

Raven crawls back towards me. She lies down on the couch, facing away from me. I lie down next to her and pull her into my arms, perplexity resonating within me.

Her tranquility is eerie. She is so calm that I have no idea how to handle her.

“Milo,” Raven speaks in a soft voice. “I hoped not to tell you because I knew you were going to ask me to go to therapy, or you were going to blame yourself. But it seems like if I don’t tell you, you are still going to keep trying to find a way to fix me, and you can’t.”

Turning her over, I lie sideways to look at her face. “Tell me."

Raven looks nervous. Her eyes dart to me, but then she looks away. “When I first moved to Paris, I stayed with my mom for a few weeks before moving out to room with girls from the internship I was doing.”

Of all the times I went to Paris, Raven only met me once; the first time.

She was staying with her mom before moving into the dorms. She had no choice but to see me because Theressa invited me over for dinner. After she moved into the dorms, Raven refused to see me again.

“When I lived with Mom, she was too busy with her parties and her life. And it was the first time in my life that I didn’t have Reid’s friendship. With everything that happened right before… he was the person I needed the most,” Raven looks at me nervously.

“I get it,” I encourage her to continue.

“I kept having these nightmares. I’d wake up every night, screaming—” Raven’s eyes dart back to my face again.

I stroke her cheek. “I am not offended if the nightmares are about me. Talk to me.”

We have to talk about her trauma, even if I am the man who caused it.Raven bites her bottom lip.

“I kept having the same nightmare… It was about the night before I left for Paris. It was about… what happened between us. The setting or the backdrop would be different, but it would always end the same, with you on top of me. I wouldn’t be able to breathe. I’d wake up, and I’d feel paralyzed, like I am still trapped in the dream. Sometimes, I’d dream that I climaxed which would make me shudder and break down in tears. Other times, I wouldn’t even be able to tell if I was dreaming or if it was real.”

It’s an awful topic, but if that night is her trigger then I have to understand it better. And I have to ask her all of those hard questions.

“Why that night?" I whisper. "It happened other times before that night and after you moved back. What made you have nightmares about that night specifically?”

Raven shrugs.“I guess it was the first time it truly wasn’t my choice. Even after I came back, none of the other times felt as out of control as that night. Maybe it’s because I was younger. I don’t know. I just… it was the moment the concept of safety and trust felt eradicated. No matter what I do, I can’t shake that feeling away. It felt… violent between us.”

It was.

I figured the same thing that very night. I saw the look on Raven’s face, and I knew everything was about to change. I truly terrified her within that one moment.

I wait to see if Raven will add anything more. When she doesn't, I gently stroke her cheek. “I am sorry. You know I wasn’t—”

“I know,” she says softly. “It took me a long time to understand how differently we perceived the same situation.”

“Me too,” I whisper. “I feel like you are a part of me, like you are my own body and soul. I didn’t understand that you couldn't see it that way.”

It sounds ridiculous as I verbalize it, but it’s the truth. It’s difficult to view what happened as a violation when I believe she is a part of me.

“Milo, I get it. I can choose to understand what happened between us, but I can’t help how it makes me feel. Understanding something does not take away the pain or the trauma from that moment. I can’t stop the memory from terrorizing my mind.”

“You are right. You can’t,” I sigh.

Raven is right.She can’t help how she feels about that situation, nor can she force her mind to feel okay about it.And I have no idea how to make it okay again. Which is why I think we need professional help.

But Raven seems against that idea.

“I thought… you reacted positively," I try to explain. "On some level, I thought you were fighting yourself and needed me to decide so you wouldn’t have to.”

Raven takes a deep breath. “It made it worse. It tipped the iceberg when I reacted positively to a moment that truly scared me. I just needed to leave after it all happened. I was barely thinking straight when I flew out to Paris. And since Mom was barely there, I didn’t realize how bad it was getting until I moved in with the other two girls. I’d wake up screaming, and one time I started punching the wall next to my bed till my knuckles bled. The girls didn’t want to live with me anymore, so I moved out.”

“Rave—”