Authors: Amanda Bennett
I finished getting my groceries and left before I
had another chance of running into Riley. Although it wasn't awkward to see her
or even talk to her, I couldn't act the way I wanted around her and
that
was killing me. As I made my way
out to my car, I noticed a familiar blonde, headed in my direction. I wasn't
quite sure where I had seen her before, but I didn't have to wait long until
she recognized me.
"Tristan, is that you? Oh my gosh, it is. How
are you?" For the life of me I couldn't remember her name. This was going
to get real awkward, real quick. "You don't remember me do you?" I
could sense the irritation in her voice.
"I don't. I'm sorry."
"Oh that's okay. I'm Riley's mother's
attorney, Nancy."
Damn it. Now I remembered her, and as quickly as I
remembered her, I wanted to forget her. "That's right. How are you?"
I was silently hoping she wouldn't want to talk too long just in case Riley was
coming out anytime soon.
"I'm great now that I've run into you. I
haven't seen you since before Ms. Turner's passing. How have you been?"
"I'm good. I'm actually in a hurry though,
sorry." I was hoping she couldn't see through my fake enthusiasm in seeing
her.
"Oh really, that's a bummer. I was hoping we
could catch up. Maybe get some coffee or something?"
Was this girl serious? Even if my entire heart
didn't
belong to Riley, I would never be
interested in this girl. She was so far beyond my type it was laughable.
"I don't think so, Nancy. I'm sorry, but I need to get going." I had
finished putting my groceries in my trunk and was on my way to return the cart,
when Nancy grabbed my hand and pulled it close to her chest.
"Not even coffee, really?" She was trying
her hardest to be sexy, but forced sexy was the most unattractive thing I'd
ever seen.
I shook my head in mock amusement at her little
charade, but then I noticed what she had kept looking at behind me. My eyes
locked with hers and I quickly dropped Nancy's hand. I could tell by the look
on Riley's face that she knew exactly who Nancy was, but why was she giving
me
the evil stare. Did she really think
I was interested in Nancy, and then it dawned on me, she did.
"Riley, wait!"
"Goodbye Tristan." She closed her car
door and sped out of the parking lot like a bat outta hell. I ran over to my
car and tried to catch up to her, when I caught sight of the smirk Nancy wore
upon her face. That bitch was up to something and by getting Riley involved,
that put her in my line of sight and I had no problem destroying her just like
London.
I caught up to Riley at the gate and threw my car
in park before I ran towards her car. She had the window down ready to punch in
the code when I caught her hand. "Riley, please let me explain."
"Doesn't that always seem to be the case with
you, Tristan? There's always something you feel you
need
to explain."
"Well if you would just listen and stop being
so god damned stubborn, then maybe you would understand the situation."
"I don't need to understand the situation,
Tristan. I knew when she asked about you the other day that you two had met
before. I don't care what your relationship with her was, and I don't want to
know. I just want to live my life and not be bothered by you again.
Understand?"
I dropped her hand in shock. "You couldn't
possibly mean that?"
"I do, Tristan. Just leave me alone. Obviously
what I thought was there between us, clearly isn't the same for you, so please
just let me go."
"Riley, that's just not true. Please just let
me explain."
"I'm sorry Tristan, no."
I moved out of her way and let her ease through the
gate, leaving me in her wake of destruction. I knew she didn't really mean it,
but that didn't make it hurt any less. I stood there, watching her car
disappear down the street before I finally got back in mine and made my way
home. I knew what I needed to do, but I was going to need help doing it. I
needed to fight for her and not physically this time. I threw the car in park,
grabbed my groceries and ran up the steps to the front door.
"Grace, you here?"
"Yeah, what's up?"
"I need your help, Gracie. I need to win Riley
back. I need to prove to her that she can trust me. Please help me Grace?"
"Of course I will. Now let's devise a
plan."
"Maybe I should tell you what just happened
first."
After I filled Grace in on what happened at the
store, she was ready to kill Nancy herself. I got her calmed down enough to
help me put into effect the "get Riley back" plan and then we decided
to go get some lunch. The plan we came up with wasn't anything extravagant and
I just hoped that it would work without pushing Riley further away from me. I
guess we would see, soon.
My run-in with Tristan and Nancy still had me
worked up when I showed up to my appointment with Mr. Rollins. I guess it was a
good thing that I was going to have him to vent to about the whole situation.
As much as I didn't want to be jealous of whatever Tristan had with Nancy, I
was. I knew it was irrational to be mad over something that possibly happened
before he even knew me, but I still found it hard to look at him without
picturing them together.
I signed in with the receptionist at Mr. Rollins’
office and waited patiently for him to call me back. I picked up a magazine on
the table and pretended to skim through it as I waited, but honestly I couldn't
think of anything else but Tristan. I was pushing him away and I was aware of
it, but I was still in self-preservation mode and I wasn't willing to let him
break my heart into a thousand pieces. I just wasn't strong enough to handle
that right now.
"Riley."
I placed the magazine back on the table and stood
when I heard Mr. Rollins call my name. "Hi, Mr. Rollins."
He led me into his office and pointed at a small
black leather couch and a matching chair. "Please, sit wherever you're comfortable."
I opted for the couch. I was exhausted from
everything that had happened this morning and I just needed to relax a little
bit. I sat back and kicked my feet up on the small coffee table in front of me,
but quickly pulled them back when I realized maybe he didn't mean
that
comfortable.
"It's okay, Riley. You can put your feet up. I
actually encourage it. So, tell me how you've been over the last twenty four
hours."
"Well, I made it to my mother's house okay,
but then I had a mini breakdown after I went in the ocean."
"You went in?"
"I did."
"Well I would say that's progress. Did you
have flashbacks of the times with your father at the beach?"
"Yes, and that's what caused the breakdown. I
made my way back to the deck and collapsed, but I cried, so I guess that's a
good thing. The rest of the night was a bit of a blur, but this morning started
out okay. That was until I ran into Tristan at the local market. Oh and did you
know that Blake signed herself out?"
"Yes, I did. I was waiting to see you today
before I told you. I'm not sure where she went, but she left shortly after you.
So, how did things go with Tristan?"
I watched as Mr. Rollins made notes in his small
pad of paper as I spoke. "It was fine at first. A lot of residual feelings
came to the surface when I saw him, but I think I handled them well. It wasn't
until I saw him with this girl Nancy, that I lost control of my emotions. After
that, I basically told him to leave me alone, for good."
"And is that what you really want?" I
shook my head, but didn't say anything. "Riley, life with Tristan is going
to be complicated, but you have to decide whether or not it's worth the risk.
Now, not to discard that situation, because we will definitely get back to
that, but let's start with your past for now."
I hesitantly nodded my head, "What do you want
to know?" This was the part I was dreading the most, but if it meant I was
free of that place then I was willing to answer any questions he had.
"Let's start with the first foster home you
remember. Tell me about your experience there."
"Well, the first home I remember was actually
quite nice. The mom and dad were amazing people. They rarely yelled and they
only had two other kids, so I even had my own room. I think I was maybe four or
five, but I didn't get to stay there long."
"And why is that?"
"Well from what I can remember, the dad got
laid off and the mom was just a homemaker, they couldn't support me and their
actual kids, so they gave me back."
"How did that make you feel?"
I gave Mr. Rollins a disgusted look. "Really?
I need you to try and not shrink me Mr. Rollins, or this is going to go
nowhere. I need to feel as though I'm talking to a friend not a shrink."
"Dully noted. You still have to answer the
question though." He smiled.
"I don't know, sad I guess. I don't think I
knew any better at the time."
"Okay well that's a real mature answer, Riley.
Now tell me about your second home."
"Do we really have to go through all of them,
there's a lot?"
"I know Riley, but I'm trying to find a point
in your life when it triggered your suicidal thoughts."
"Well we can skip right to that if ya
want."
"You know when it started?"
"Yeah, why? Is that unusual?"
"Kind of, yeah. Most people want to bury those
thoughts or even deny that they ever had them."
"Well I'm not denying anything. The night that
I ended up on that cliff, that wasn't the first time I wanted to end my life. I
have thought about it since I was ten."
"Now, what triggered it? That's a really young
age to want to kill yourself."
"His name was Gavin. He was fifteen, and I was
only ten. He was one of the older siblings in my third foster home." I sat
back and crossed my feet over one another. "He was really nice when I
first showed up, and he even introduced me to a lot of his friends. Nothing
happened until after my third month there. His parents were rarely ever home
and almost always left him in charge of the rest of us."
"And how many of there were you, not counting
their actual children?"
"There were five of us and then their two kids
Gavin and Gabby. Gabby was thirteen and was almost always at her friend's
house. One night Gavin snuck into my room. I thought he just couldn't sleep and
wanted to hang out until he could fall asleep, but man was I wrong. That night
he didn't do too much, but touch me a little bit. I tried to scream out, but he
covered my mouth with his hand and told me that this is how I would be able to
stay at their house with them. I had already been to two other homes and I
really didn't want to move again, so I listened to him." I glanced up at
Mr. Rollins who was still scribbling notes down on his pad, so I continued.
"The next night was the first night he raped
me. He had brought duct tape in with him and his small wooden baseball bat. You
know the ones you get at baseball games?" Mr. Rollins nodded. "He put
the tape over my mouth before he rolled me over burying my face in the pillow.
He said it was so I wouldn't scream." I stopped, trying to catch my
breath. I had never told anybody what I was telling Mr. Rollins and it was overwhelming.
"How many times a week would this
happen?"
I let my eyes flutter shut as I tried to regain my
composure and talk about it without being affected. When I opened them back up,
Mr. Rollins was staring at me. "Sometimes it was only twice a week and
sometimes it was four or five times. I don't remember all of them."
"I think you do, Riley. I think you do, and
that's why you're trying to generalize it all. You're emotionally disconnecting
yourself from it and I need you to connect with it. The only way you're ever
going to get better and heal, is to deal with it head on."
"I have dealt with it. That's precisely why I
don't
want to talk about it. It's
pointless."
"It's not pointless Riley. It made you who you
are today and obviously you're not happy with who you are today."
"That's not true." I sat straight up and
pulled my knees to my chest.
"Do you see how you just reacted to that? I've
watched you closely over the last month and whenever you don't want to deal
with something or when something "real" comes up, you shut down. You
pull your knees to your chest and you shut down. Don't shut down Riley."
I untangled my arms from around my knees and slowly
placed my feet back on the ground. "Fine. What do you want to know?"
"Riley, do you blame your parents for what
happened to you?"
I shook my head, even though I did. "Of course
I do. If they would've just figured their shit out, then I wouldn't have been
stuck in that shit hole, and I wouldn't have been around for that dickhead to
do what he wanted with me." Now I was getting angry. "I guess now
things have changed a bit, but yeah, I still kind of blame them. More so my
father than my mother, now that I know what I know."
"And what is that?"
I reached into my back pocket and retrieved the
letter my mother had sent me. I knew Mr. Rollins wanted to read it, so I just
let him. I sat back and watched him as he took in every word just like I had,
in shock. It wasn't long before he was asking a whole new round of questions.
"First, I'm sorry for your loss Riley. Losing
a parent is terrible all in itself, but knowing that that person was wrongly
accused and you never got the chance to even know the truth, well I can only
guess at how that would make you feel."
"It pisses me off, that's what. Why didn't she
reach out to me sooner? She had ample opportunity to find me, to save me."
"Is that what you wanted or want now, Riley?
To be saved?"
"No. I don't think so. Look, I know I had a
shitty childhood and I can't blame my mother for that, but it just seems
unfair. I met her lawyer Nancy yesterday. She had known my mom since she was
ten. She knew what kind of person she was, and as much as I want to believe
that she was a horrible person, I get the feeling that she was actually quite
amazing. Even her neighbor thought so."
"Do you think maybe she had tried to find you
before now?"
"No."
"Not at all?"
"No." I firmly crossed my arms over my
chest.
"Okay. So tell me more about the third foster
home. Something must've happened, because eventually you were put into another
home, right?"
"Yeah. I finally told the mom. I didn't want
to, but he started getting physically abusive with me. I had just turned
eleven. They didn't throw me a party or anything, but we had cake and I was
just excited that someone wanted to celebrate my birthday with me. After cake,
the parents sent us outside to play. I was swinging on the metal swing set out
back when Gavin grabbed the chains and pulled the swing back to him. Before I
knew what was going on, he had punched me in my back and pushed me to the ground.
That was also the day I broke my wrist. I made up some excuse about how I fell
playing, but I think the mom knew better."
I took in a deep breath and glanced at the small
clock on the wall.
"Don't worry about the time. I had you blocked
out for two hours today."
"Okay." I whispered. I turned and lay
back on the small decorative pillow that was next to me. Flashes of those
memories flew through my mind and I was starting to feel queasy.
"Please, continue Riley."
"After that day, the abuse only got worse and
it started happening more often than not. I tried to fight back plenty of
times, but that only seemed to fuel his fire. Six months after my birthday and
the wrist incident, he came into my room one night with his bat again. He duct
taped my mouth like always, but before he forced himself on me, he decided to
take the bat to my ribs, shins and back. I couldn't tell you how many bones
broke, because afterwards he raped me again and then left. The next morning I
stumbled downstairs and told the mom
everything
that had been happening. She blamed me, just like Gavin said she would.
Needless to say, I went to another home."
"I'm so sorry, Riley. I can tell that these
memories are painful, but I'm glad you're actually opening up. That's a huge
step for someone like you."
"Someone like me?" I was confused.
"Yes, victims."
"Let's get one thing straight here, Mr.
Rollins. I'm not nor will I ever be, a victim. It happened, I dealt with it and
I'm stronger and more cautious now because of it."
"Okay, if that's the case then how many
relationships have you had Riley?"
"You mean romantic ones?"
"Yes."
I rolled my eyes in irritation. "Two. No wait,
one. Um..."
"That's what I thought. Don't you see? You may
have dealt with this in your own way, but you've never gotten over it. It still
haunts you, I can tell. You haven't had a relationship with anyone because you
don't know how. Am I wrong?"
"I know how to have a relationship. I just
chose not to."
"Why? Don't you get lonely?"
"Sure, who doesn't get lonely at times? Relationships
scare me though, friendships too."
"Why?"
"Because they make people vulnerable and I
won't allow myself to be vulnerable again, ever."
"Riley, vulnerability isn't always a bad
thing. When you meet the right person, you're supposed to be a little bit
vulnerable. It allows people to love you and trust you."
"I don't need to be loved or trusted."
"Sure you do. We all do. You must've trusted
Tristan at one point, because you told him some things before you started
opening up in group. Am I right?" I nodded in agreement.