Never Alone

Chapter 34

Chapter Thirty-Four

The campsite was situated at the end of a long, twisting road. We pulled up to it just as the sun was starting to set. As soon as the motor home was parked at our spot for the night, we headed over to the patio off the back of the cabin where Dr. Crimm had checked us in. A large barbeque was billowing smoke into the sky and drawing in campers from the campsites for dinner. We sat at a circular table in the back, watching the families as they ate their hot dogs and burgers.

Dr. Crimm sat with us, her hair pulled up in a ponytail and her white doctor's coat nowhere to be seen. She was one of us, laughing as a little girl in a tutu spun around like a ballerina, only stopping long enough to take a bite of her hot dog before starting her dance again. Out there in the middle of nowhere it was easy to envision starting over and hard to imagine not wanting to be a part of this world any longer. These were snapshots of a life we could all survive, and for the first time in a long time, I think we all wanted to try.

"Did you always want to be a psychiatrist?" Aideen asked, hugging her legs against the chilly evening air.

Dr. Crimm shook her head. "No. At one time I wanted to be a police officer, but then everything changed." She set down her soda and brushed her bangs from her eyes. "I was seventeen when I went to a party on the campus at my older sister's school. We made a responsible choice. When I was ready to go home, we called campus security to escort me to my car."

The night went on around us, but our table was hanging on her every word. She paused, her thumb rubbing the scars on her wrists as if they held the memories of that night inside them. "The security guard walked me to my car and then when we were alone, he raped me. I'd had a few drinks, and since I was underage and making the choice to get into my car and drive home, he told me I was breaking the law and that the police wouldn't listen to a liar and a criminal. I believed him."

"He was supposed to protect you," Shima said, her voice filled with dismay and disbelief.

"I struggled with that for a long time. If I couldn't trust the people who were there to protect me, who could I trust? I broke it down in my head time after time, day after day and night after night, until I was convinced that I couldn't even trust myself. I thought I could undo what he'd done to me if I took back control of my body, as if maybe he'd left this diminutive monster inside me and I needed an army of my own conquests to fight it and take back what was always mine. It's not uncommon for women who are raped to act out sexually afterward—some even continue to sleep with their rapists if it's someone they know, but on their terms. It's a struggle for power I can't even begin to wrap my head around now that I've crawled out of that dark place.

"Each time, I thought I would feel better, but I left the bed feeling worse. I grew to hate myself. I trusted no one and that meant I put up all these walls to keep people out, so my world shrunk smaller and smaller while my sins grew bigger and bigger, and eventually I felt like it was more than I could ever balance out. One night I took a man to bed thinking maybe he'd be the one to fix me, and instead he hurt me. I got him out before he could do more than just break my skin and leave a few bruises, but that was when I knew I'd lost all control, and the harder I tried to get a hold on it, the more slippery it seemed to become.

"I filled my bathtub with hot water, added a cup of bleach and climbed in fully clothed, desperate to get the filth off of me. I was trying to clean my soul by scrubbing my skin, but no matter how hard I scoured, it only ever felt dirtier." Her eyes lifted to mine and I knew she had seen my secret that first time we met in the hospital. She had seen the scabs and scars from my efforts to rid myself of Levi's touch. She'd known what I had struggled with and still felt like I was worth saving.