Page 39 of Keeping Her Under (Deranged Highway, #1)

“I can’t…” I cry as I bury my head into the crook of her neck.

But for the first time, I don’t know if I’m saying I can’t kill her.

Or if I’m admitting to myself, I can’t do this any longer.

“I think you should do it,” Asher says as he sits at my kitchen table. He holds up a hand before I can flip out on him. “We all heal differently, remember? This could be what she needs.”

“It isn’t healing!” I hiss, but I’m careful not to raise my voice too much. Summer’s asleep on the couch, and I don’t want to wake her. It’s the only time she seems at peace.

“Says who?” Asher demands.

“Says everyone! Being in a locked-in state is horrifying for most people. She’ll be trapped, unable to move except for her eyelids.”

“Did you tell her this?”

“Yes!”

“And what did she say?”

I run a hand through my hair. Nearly all of it is grey now; the stress has taken its toll.

“She said it’s the perfect compromise because she knows I’ll take care of her.

” I tried to tell her I can do that now, but she told me it wasn’t the same.

She wakes up every morning, wishing she didn’t, already feeling like such a failure.

But if she could give it all up – every worry, every decision, every goddamn choice…

If she could be dead without dying… That is what she wants.

“Okay, so she’s consented,” Asher says.

“She’s not in her right state of mind! Her brain has shrunk due to the depression, affecting her amygdala and hippocampus.

” I recall the MRI scans of her brain. How blatant the physical changes have become.

I tried to explain to her that it was just like any broken bone or enlarged spleen; it’s an organ that needs to heal.

I told her that learning to be happy again while also healing from her depression was like a person learning to dance with a broken leg.

Any bit of progression was utterly amazing, an iceberg of achievement.

But it didn’t help. I’ve read all the papers.

I’ve met with so many specialists. Nothing is helping.

“Regardless,” Asher says, “helping someone isn’t about forcing them to do what is comfortable for you. It’s about listening to them. To what they need.”

My heart breaks as his words hammer into me. I glance over at my angel. Everything inside of me wants to resist this. It’s telling me it isn’t right. It isn’t healthy.

But is this? I’m forcing her to live in more and more stress every day. Cell atrophy and straight-up loss is difficult to reverse.

Shuddering, I collapse against the counter. Asher stands up and walks over to me. As I fall apart, he holds me without a word. But he knows what I’ve decided. It’s time to stop putting myself first.

Summer has begged me for years to listen to her. To let her heal how she needs to heal.

It might still feel wrong to do this, but I’m not the one suffering from it. I don’t get to choose how someone else heals.

After I tell Summer that I’ll do it, she smiles for the first time in years. We even have sex and spend the day together outside of the house. I don’t remember the last time we did either of those things.

She laughs as she walks with me through the park, our hands entwined. The sun is shining. The flowers are blooming. I’m tempted to go back on my word about putting her under. She seems happy now. Or at least, there is the hope of us being happy again if she’d just give us another chance.

But I know that is foolish thinking.

I know that there is often a happy period before another suicide attempt. She isn’t happy because of me. She’s happy because she knows it’s about to be over. That I’m about to give her peace.

The day is so beautiful it hurts.

So happy, I want to curl up and cry.

But I keep my tears at bay. I focus on the present and on building the most memories out of this single day. I drink in her laughter and her joy. She gets me a recording teddy bear, and once we’re back home, she tells it how much she loves me.

“I love you too,” I say before making love to her on the living room floor.

Then, all too soon, it is time.

I promised.

She holds my hand. My heart. My soul.

I lead her into our room, where everything is ready.

“Thank you,” she says to me before kissing me long and slow. “I love you so much for taking care of me.”

She lies down on our bed.

I want to ask her, “How can you do this to me? How can you leave me behind? Aren’t I enough to make you happy?”

But I don’t. Because I already know she loves me. Her depression has just advanced too far.

“I love you,” she whispers right before I begin.

I choke on a cry. “I love you too, Mrs. Slader.”

She does not answer.

Closing her eyes, she falls back into a coma.

But oh, dear God, she smiles.

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This book is for everyone who was told they wore something too revealing or they gave the wrong signals or they ‘chose’ to be drunk. This is for everyone who was told “regret doesn’t mean rape” when it wasn’t fucking regret. It was consent taken from you when you couldn’t give it.

You didn’t cause anything.

They chose to be vile.

You just happened to be their target.

So know that it is not your shame and secret to bear.

It is theirs.

You, dear reader, did nothing wrong.

There are so many things I want to talk about here. Unfortunately, I’m not going to be able to cover all the research I did for this book in one go, so if there’s a specific question about anything within, please feel free to reach out.

I know a lot of mainstream readers will ask why I wrote about a coma patient, and it’s because many victims go into denial.

“I wasn’t aware, so do I really have the right to be this bothered by it?

” “It wasn’t violent.” “I didn’t fight back.

” “I did smile at him.” “I did put myself into a vulnerable position around them.” “She was hot.”

This is why Summer is in a coma. No one can say it wasn’t rape.

“But she put herself into that position by crashing her car.” So what.

“She gave him a look.” So what. “She was completely out of it, so it was a victimless crime.” Fuck you.

“She didn’t say no.” Fuck you again. “She didn’t go to the police. ” FUCK YOU.

So if you get pissed that Summer’s in a coma but then you victim blame anyone who was drunk or “deserving of it” when they were raped, you’re the reason I wrote this book. And if you didn’t get it, my message to you is: FUCK. YOU.

And if you’re now trying to claim they’re not the same, wanting to say one rape is better than the other by claiming one “isn’t as bad”, then, you guessed: FUCK. YOU. You are part of the reason rapists get off so easily. “It’s not rape unless...” No. Rape is rape. Fuck you.

As for why she stays with him – it isn’t uncommon for victims to stay with their spouse or partner who raped them. It isn’t uncommon for victims to make them breakfast or take care of them in the morning or even date them or engage in consensual sex after1.

We do this as a way to compartmentalize and get on with our lives because we know justice won’t likely come.

One in four women are sexually assaulted.

One in eighteen men. One in six children.

Which means that either 1 out of 9 people are rapists or 1 out of 27 people are rapists, with an average of 3 rapes under their belt.

So either we have a lot of rapists or we have a system that allows for a lot of serial rapists.

I don’t even know which of those two options sound better. Do you?

So we all do what we have to to survive on our own. And for some of us, that means making light of the situation by refusing to call it rape. Refusing to let it affect us.

Is that healthy? From an outsider’s perspective, definitely not.

But multiple studies have shown that victims who do this suffer less trauma and panic attacks.

They have healthier lives after the fact.

Though studies do not say what happens when that lie shatters and the truth comes out.

Nor that this is best for everyone. Personally, I refused to call my assaults what they were for years.

I was eight years old for one of them. I was a doctor’s patient for another.

But I did not want to be a victim. I do not mind carrying that label now. I was a victim and I am a survivor.

And no one gets to say how someone else heals.

All the Black statistics I mentioned in this are true.

In the US, whites make up 60% of the population but 70% of adult arrests; Black people make up 12% of the population and 26% of arrests2.

When it comes to kids, every race but one has a lower arrest rate for kids than adults.

70% of adults arrested are white, but only 62% of kids arrested are white.

Indigenous adults make up for 2.4% of adult arrests and 2.

2% for kids. Asians 1.3% of adults and 1.

1% of kids. Which makes sense. Kids are more likely to be let off with a warning, and their crimes aren’t as serious.

But with Black people, they make up 26% of the adults arrested, yet 34% of the kids’.

Black juveniles are twice as likely to be tried as adults, even for non-violent misdemeanors.

The data strongly hints at racism towards Black children and at privilege towards whites.

In Florida, 75% of the children charged as adults are people of colour; half of the charges were for misdemeanors3.

White adults are 24-26% more likely to receive a probationary sentence rather than jail time.

Black males are incarcerated for longer – their jail terms being 4.

7% more than whites on average. For kids sentenced to less than 18 months, Black people receive a harsher sentence (6.

8% longer) than whites4. 40% of people on death row are Black even though they only make up 26% of arrests5.

All this data shows that there is strong racism directed towards Black people from a young age, especially since arrest rates from kids to adults typically rise, not fall.

This means that the 26% Black arrest rate to 12% of the population is highly misrepresentative of Black criminals and that the 70% of white adults arrested should actually be higher due to the privilege of their leniency.

For research on wrongful convictions (as mentioned in Keeping Her Under), see here6.

The brain does physically change due to depression. We often forget that, at the end of the day, it’s nothing but an organ and that mental illnesses are still illnesses. Just like how the flu or HIV impacts your body, so do they.

Chronic depression leads to multiple abnormalities in the brain, such as with the amygdala, OFC, middle frontal cortex, thalamas, and hippocampus7.

Fiber connections are also hindered, and cell atrophy and loss are common symptoms of depression.

Activity in the central executive network during social or emotional tasks are decreased.

The ability to regulate serotonin, dopamine, and other neurotransmitters becomes psychically altered. These changes can be seen in MRI scans.

If someone had two broken legs, we wouldn’t call them lazy for not running a marathon.

We wouldn’t even call them lazy if they ask someone to get them something that’s out of reach.

People with depression are not “just sad”; they are suffering from a disease that is physically eating away at their brain.

Just like the zombie fungus that attacks ants8, it is constantly trying to get its hosts to give up and die because that is what it needs to survive.

Some notable treatments that have been shown to repair the brain: exercise, forest bathing9, socialising, looking at flowers, the colour green, listening to music, and nostalgic hobbies.

Also: comas for depression is an actual thing10.

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Step into the Shadow Domain...

Only start the series here if you can handle pitch black