Fractures

Over the next week, you tried to be more…put together. It was an awful way to put it, but there really wasn’t another way to describe what you were doing. 

You’d started taking a sleeping aid to help you stay asleep at night so you wouldn’t wake your boyfriend up as much. And while it worked, it only meant that instead of waking up from the nightmares, you just had to live through them until the morning. 

You’d also started staying in more and more. Being in public had always made you anxious. So many strangers in such tight spaces. After that day, it’d only become worse for you. You always glanced into alleys before crossing in front of them, and were hyper aware of any suspicious-looking person and where they were at all times. It was exhausting. And now that Marc and Steven knew that something was up, you figured it would just be best to stay home. They must have found it annoying at some point in the relationship that you couldn’t help but flinch at everything when you went out. 

Marc and Steven, the attentive boyfriends that they were, noticed your change in behavior and began to try more obvious routes for getting you to seek help. 

Marc would bring up his therapy sessions in regular conversation much more. You could tell that he was trying to normalize the idea of seeing a therapist to you, but after years of strictly telling no one of what had happened that day made it hard to feel like therapy was a logical choice. 

Steven, for his part, would ask rather prying questions as to why you no longer wanted to go out unless you were going to work. 

“Don’t you want to go out and get some fresh air for a bit, love?” He’d ask, already with his coat half-on. 

“I’ll just open some of the windows, it’s okay,” you assured him, standing by the kitchen table in the comfy clothes you had changed into after work. 

“Are you sure? It’s really nice out for once.”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Are you feeling alright, love?” He’d then ask, taking his jacket off and letting concern take over. He’d come over to you and gently touch your face, feeling for a temperature. 

“I’m okay, Steven. I just don’t feel up to a walk right now,” you’d reply, letting your eyes fall shut as he stroked your face. 

“Why not?”

“It’d just be too tiring. Could we just stay in tonight and watch something? Maybe that new documentary about how the pyramids were built?” You’d suggest, and Steven would let it go. It had taken you a few rounds of this to figure out what Steven was doing. He was trying to edge you towards the realization that the reasons for your behavior may not have the most solid foundations. But they felt more than solid enough for you. If you could avoid the horrible anxiety that came with being in public, you would. 

But they stayed  true to their word and never once tried to outright pressure you. They would nudge and poke at you every now and then, but never gave you an ultimatum. 

And you tolerated it, because you loved them and knew that they were only trying to help because they loved you in return.

Marc had stopped asking if you wanted to see someone awhile ago, but Steven never stopped asking. He was nothing if not persistent, and you loved that about him, but you were starting to get a little fed up. 

It all came to a head a few weeks later at the crack of dawn. You’d switched from an organic sleep aid to a slightly stronger one that had a common side effect of making sleep dreamless. Unfortunately for you, you didn’t get the chance to experience that particular effect. So you were still stuck reliving the past every night as a result. 

One hopelessly long nightmare had you bursting out of bed in the morning in a rush to get to the toilet. It hurt and you were in pain. You were beneath him again, like you were every night, kicking and screaming and biting while he ravaged you. You cried for help, only to be hit and silenced. And no one ever came for you. No one ever came. 

You fought your way out of your boyfriend’s arms and practically ripped the bathroom door off of its hinges on your way in. You barely lifted the seat of the toilet before you were emptying the contents of your stomach. Which, admittedly, wasn’t much. 

Stomach acid burned your throat and you held onto the bowl for dear life. You could hear your boyfriend calling your name and getting out of bed distantly, but it was like you were hearing it through water, so tunneled was your focus. 

After a few minutes, nothing else was coming up, but you continued to wretch, courtesy of the violent images that still flooded your mind. Your stomach cramped in pain, disapproving of the abuse, but the longer your sick spell went on, the more you find yourself unable to breathe. You tried to gulp down air between all the gagging, but only managed to choke each time. 

You felt a burning touch on your shoulder and flung yourself away from it, your back colliding painfully with the edge of the bathtub. You’re coughing and hyperventilating, body trembling and eyes watering with the effort. Your chest felt tight and your heart quick. You only realized that you were in the midst of a full blown panic attack when you felt your pulse behind your eyes and saw the edges of your vision turning black from lack of air. 

It became both easier and harder after you knew what was happening to you. You’d had panic attacks before, and you knew how to soothe yourself through them. But it had been a long time since your last one, and this would definitely be the first one you had in front of your boyfriend. You blinked hard and clutched your chest, trying and failing to get your breathing under control. 

“It’s alright, love. You’re okay,” Steven tried to reassure you, openly concerned. He knelt on the bathroom floor in front of you and placed a hand on your knee. You flinched and drew your knees up to your chest. 

“Please, don’t…” you choked out, wiping your tears with shaking hands. “Don’t touch me, please, Steven…”

“Alright,” he replied immediately, withdrawing his hand. “I’m sorry, love. I won’t touch you again, I promise.” 

There was a lapse of silence, in which Steven never left your side while you rocked back and forth on the floor, hugging yourself and trying to calm down. He’d moved to sit next to you, his legs stretched out in front of him. He was careful not to touch you, but stayed close nonetheless. His presence was steady, and he never stopped talking.

He told you about how Gus’ tank needed cleaning at some point this week. And that he should take a trip to the pet shop soon to get a new water filter, too. And maybe while he was out, he could pick out some postcards to send to Layla over in Cairo. 

He talked about what options you had for breakfast that morning. There was pancake mix in the cabinet, but you were all out of soy milk. He could try to use his powdered milk substitute, but he didn’t know if it would make the batter a weird consistency. There was also some leftover takeout from a week ago, but he figured that it might have gone bad by now.

Steven droned on and on, and you found the mundane one-sided conversation calming. Everything was okay. You were here, in your boyfriend’s flat. Steven would make breakfast later, and you would busy yourself making coffee and tea. You had all of your clothes on, and the tile was cool beneath your bare feet. That day was years ago. You were okay. You were safe. 

You let out an exhausted sigh and leaned into Steven’s shoulder. Your eyes and face were puffy from crying, but you were thoroughly finished. The muscles in your arms and hands still spasmed occasionally, but from experience you knew that that would stop in the next few minutes. 

“Feeling better, love?” Steven asked, cautiously snaking an arm around your middle. You sniffled and nodded, letting your eyes fall shut. 

You sat like that for a long time, cuddled up to Steven’s side on the floor. Steven moved first. He gently nudged you away and got to his feet with a grunt. On his way past the toilet, he shut the seat and flushed it. Within a few minutes, you were handed a glass of water from the sink and helped to your feet. You migrated to sitting on top of the closed toilet while Steven stood by the counter and stared into his reflection. 

“What’s he saying?” You asked after another long silence. Steven never stared into the mirror that long unless Marc was talking to him. 

At the sound of your voice, he flashed you a sheepish smile and shook his head. 

“Nothing, sweetheart,” he was quick to say, but you saw the way his eyes flicked back to the mirror again before he smiled at you. 

You sighed and set the glass of water down on the counter. You left Steven in the bathroom to go looking for clothes to change into. You’d practically soaked your pajamas in sweat. 

After attacks as severe as the one you’d just had, you always felt like you were standing on the edge of a precipice— unstable and slightly nauseous. 

Unable to stand not being surrounded by soft and warm things for even a moment, you didn’t hesitate to go right into Steven’s drawers and pull out one of his sweaters to wear for the day. 

Your hands had finally stopped shaking by the time you met your boyfriend in the kitchen where he was making toast with jam. 

After putting the kettle on and getting out two mugs, you took a seat at the table and watched Steven move around the kitchen. 

“I thought that maybe some toast would be better than pancakes for your stomach this morning. I didn’t want to give you anything too heavy just in case it made you sick again,” he was saying, but you barely heard him. You accepted the plate of toast he handed to you and ate it on autopilot.

Everything had been feeling just a little unreal lately. Maybe it had something to do with the sleeping aids you’d been taking, or the prolonged nightmares, but more and more you began to feel less like a whole person. 

Your boyfriends usually helped with the feeling, but you couldn’t help but dwell on the fact that the only reason you’d become this way was because someone couldn’t take no for an answer. 

How powerful it must make a person feel to be able to destroy the lives of others so easily, and then go on about their day as if it was normal. Although at this point, you supposed it was. 

Time had slipped away from you that day, but it couldn’t have lasted more than an hour. So that was how long it took. 

Sixty minutes and your entire life was completely and utterly altered. And the worst feeling in the world was knowing that there was probably something you could have done to stop it. 

But you hadn’t done a thing besides scream and cry like a helpless little girl. A little girl that no one was coming to save. 

You’re only brought back to the present by Steven calling your name repeatedly. He’d finished his toast and walked around the table to crouch down beside your chair. “Yeah?” You asked, struggling to meet his gaze. 

“I know you’ve had a rough go of it this morning, but I think it bears repeating that maybe it’s about time you talked to someone.”

“Steven,” you began to plead, but your voice fizzled out when he took your hands in his. 

Steven caressed the backs of your hands with his thumbs gently. He looked beautiful at that moment, crouching beside your chair. The morning sun trickled in through the kitchen window and absorbed into his tanned skin. He hadn’t combed his hair yet, the dark curls still a mess atop his head. His eyebrows were drawn together in a look of concern, the corner of his mouth tilted down slightly. His day clothes draped over his form, soft and wrinkled, and he looked like warmth incarnate. “What are you so afraid of, love?” 

“I’m not…” Your heart stuttered to a stop in your chest, your lips parting to protest, but you came up with nothing. Anything that you could think to say would have been a lie. Why it had taken you this long to realize, you didn’t know. 

You were afraid. 

Of what? You didn’t think you could admit that even to yourself, much less to your wonderful boyfriend who only wanted to help— and to whom you’d only been a burden these past few weeks. 

“Sweetheart?” He prompted, still waiting for an answer. When none came, he sighed and stood, moving into the living room. You turned back to your food, now gone cold. The kettle was still sputtering away on the stove, not quite done yet. 

When Steven came back, he slid your plate away from you and placed his laptop down. He clicked over to a tab that displayed a list of staff from a private practice. You watched as he scrolled back to the top of the page and clicked on a picture of a woman who looked like she came from a stock photo, dread curling and transforming in the pit of your stomach. 

“Look, I did a smidge of research and found this therapist who owns a practice not too far from here. It’s maybe a five or ten minute walk from the looks of it. She specializes in PTSD, which maybe you don’t have since you’ve never been diagnosed, but…” His voice faded into the background as you stared at the screen. 

The kettle was screaming now, and your face felt hot. You clutched the fabric of your pants in tight fists to keep your hands from shaking. You watched Steven rush to the stove to turn the burner off, and when he turned, you were out of your chair. 

“So what do you think?” He asked, his nervous smile dropping from his face when he was met with a glare. 

“What the hell is wrong with you, Steven?” 

“W-What?” He replied, looking as confused as ever. 

“I’ve told you I don’t know how many times that I’m not going to therapy. What made you think it was a good idea to do research on who would make a good therapist for me, without ever knowing what I’ve been through?” You knew on some level that you were being unfair to him. He only wanted to help, and you hadn’t been the most cooperative or willing to receive it. But something about Steven assuming that if he just found you a therapist that you would suddenly want to go made your blood boil. 

“I would never make you go if you didn’t want to, but you’ve been suffering, love!” He argued, cowering against the stove under your pinning gaze. “I don't know how to help you. You won’t go to therapy, you won’t talk to me or Marc, and every time I try to bring it up you just get angry with me. I just don’t know what else to do!”

You rounded the table and approached him slowly, trying to keep your anger under control. “I have my own reasons for not wanting to talk about it. Why can’t you respect that?”

“Because whatever your reasons may be, this clearly isn’t a healthy way of dealing with things. You can’t just push everyone away and take pills to go to sleep and expect your problems to go away.” 

“How can you know what’s healthy for me?” You were yelling now, and you could see that even Steven’s patience was running out. 

“I don’t know what’s healthy for you, but I do know it’s not this!” He stopped leaning on the stove and stood to his full height, something Steven rarely did. You knew he was angry if he stopped constantly curling in on himself. “I know you’re traumatized and afraid, but if you could just tell me what’s got you so scared, maybe I could help you better.”

As soon as you opened your mouth, you knew you would regret the words that came out of your mouth. Nothing spoken in anger was ever meant to see the light of day, but here you were, red faced and ready to lash out. 

“You want to know what has me so afraid to talk to a shrink, huh, Steven?” You started, stepping into his personal space and crowding him against the kitchen counter. “Because not a damn thing can be done for people like me. For people who got raped because some prick couldn’t take no for an answer and now I have to live with the fact if I had just done something different, anything, that maybe it wouldn’t have happened to me. Maybe I’m terrified of seeing a therapist because they’re just going to tell me what I already know— that now I’m tainted and broken because it was my fucking fault!” 

You watched as Steven’s face crumpled into a mixture of guilt and horror and shoved down the sick spark of satisfaction that you felt. He was only trying to help, and here you were lashing out in an attempt to hurt him. 

His face twitched and suddenly you were being grabbed by the shoulders. You flinched and instinctively tried to push him away. 

“It was not your fault!” Marc exclaimed, jaw set and eyes hard. 

“Let me go~”

“Did you fucking hear me? None of that was your fault. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you.”

You gripped Marc’s wrists tightly, your anger fizzled out and replaced with disbelief. “But I~”

He shook his head, even going so far as to shake you a little. “No buts. Rape is never the victim’s fault, baby, no matter the circumstances.”

Before you could open your mouth again, he was crushing you against his body, arms squeezed solidly around you. 

“Marc, please…” you pleaded with him, trying to push him away. 

“I don’t care how many times I have to say it. It wasn’t your fault. You did nothing wrong.” One of his arms was firmly around your waist while the other came up your back so his hand could cradle the back of your head. 

Your eyes burned with more tears, and you could only remember one other time that you’d cried so much in so little time. You buried your face in Marc’s shoulder, and finally let it all go. 

“That should have never happened to you, baby. But just because it did doesn’t make you any less of a person. You’re not tainted or broken or weak or whatever the hell else you’ve been thinking about yourself.”

His words only made you cry harder, and you could do nothing but follow him when he guided you to the floor. He sat with his legs crossed and pulled you onto his lap, maintaining that strong and tight hold. 

“You’re strong, and whole, and loved, sweetheart. You are. And I’ll say it as many times as you need to hear it, until you believe me. And then I’ll say it some more, because it’s nothing but the truth.”

You laughed a little and grasped at one of his arms weakly, now thoroughly grounded in the present. Marc released you for a moment so you could wipe your eyes before he took your face in his hands to make you look at him. When your eyes met his, you could see nothing but love and devotion and determination.

“What if I see this therapist, and I don't like her?” You whispered. 

Marc brushed away the last of your tears with his thumbs, never taking his eyes off of yours. “Then we’ll find you a new one, until we find one that you like.”

“What if therapy doesn’t fix me?” 

“This is not about ‘fixing’ you, baby. This is about improving your mental health. Therapy doesn’t fix anything, it just helps you to cope.” 

You opened your mouth to say something else, but Marc just leaned in and pressed his lips against yours for a long moment. When he pulled away, Steven was smiling at you. 

“I know you're nervous and scared, but we’ll be here every step of the way, love. You’re not doing this alone,” he assured you. 

And on the floor of your kitchen at barely seven in the morning, you realized that Steven wasn’t just talking about therapy, or your nightmares, or trauma. Yes, you weren’t alone in those things, but you also weren’t alone in life. 

Marc and Steven would never leave your side, and you didn’t want them to. They meant the world to you, and the fact that they would go to such lengths to make sure that you would be okay only solidified the love you knew you had for them. 

“I love you two so fucking much.”

“We love you, too.”