Separately Together

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Survive for Dixon 1/2

"Can you tell me what happened? Just go over what happened that night?" Mrs. Terry's voice soothes me as I lay on the table with my eyes closed. The last thing I wanted to do right now thought about anything that happened that night. I wanted to keep it as far away from me as mentally possible.

"I w- was in a basement." I start already feeling the tears building behind my eyes. It was lost on me how this was supposed to be therapeutic. "H- He was there." The first tear rolls down my cheeks as the memories come rushing through prying their way inside of me no matter how hard I tried to block them out.

I gasp as I'm sent back to that god-awful night when everything in my life was ripped away from me by the hands of my rapist. I had no control over what my brain was making me see, I was back there and stuck with no way out.

"What are you doing?"

"No don't touch her!"

The feeling of his hands running all over my body, the feeling of him inside of me.

The bag was placed over my head as people shoved me and Dixon in a car, taking us to get the ransom money they so desperately needed.

"She didn't have any underwear on ... practically asking for it."

The Forefather men run when the rest of The Voiceless show up. Harley offers Vickers a fair fight.

Vickers pulls a knife and sticks Harley in the stomach. I pick up the gun Harley laid down and shoot Vickers.

Blood ...

Blood ...

Blood ...

"Remember, you promised." He coughs.

Blood ...

Blood ...

On my hands ...

On his face ...

"You did what needed to be done, girl." Ben picks me up from cradling Harley's limp body.

I shoot up from the table gasping for air, "I'm sorry. I just can't." I stand up and run out of her office as quickly as my legs would take me. I grab at my neck clawing at it trying to make the air come back. This wasn't real ...

None of it, that night never happened, it was all another nightmare.

Please God let this be a nightmare, one I can wake up from and be okay, everything will be okay as soon as I open my eyes. I would wake up and feel him pull me to him whispering words of encouragement in my ear. He would remind me that it was just a nightmare and all of it was fake.

I sob, ugly cry, and bang my fist on the stirring wheel of my car.

For Dixon ...

Pull through for Dixon. She was the only reason I hadn't put myself in the crazy ward by now. She needed me, Gale could only do so much, she needed to know I was alright. She held some form of guilt in her, some form of thought that she could have done more to stop what happened to me and her brother, but she couldn't have. Me going crazy on her wouldn't help that guilt plus she would end up back in the system and I could never let that happen, I would never forgive myself if I let her down like that.

I turn the radio on ad blare the only song I have listened to for half a year now.

The song he made me sing him in that truck.

I scream the lyrics on the way home, hoping that they will help me mask how much all of this hurts. How all of this was cutting me so deep I could breathe anymore.

I promised him but I can't fulfill that promise, I'm going to therapy to try to help myself fulfill it because it was the last thing, he said to me. I had already contacted a publishing agency and sent my book in even though I had a panic attack afterward, but the bakery still sat unopened, and the local bar still had not heard me sing.

How was it fair that I was still making memories, crappy ones, but still memories without him in them. I was the person that was going to be there for him through everything, but he had left me with nothing to do.

That was a lie, he had left me, Dixon. He had left me something to preoccupy my thoughts, someone to look after. I hear a knock on my window, and I realize I was home. When did I get here? Did I blank out all the way here?

I glance up through the window to see Jared standing there with a frown casting his disprovable on me. I smile sheepishly and turn the music down. He acted like he was my dad.

"You're going to blow your eardrums listening to your music like that." He says as soon as I step out of the car. I glance at Harley's truck parked beside mine and my bones rattle again, and I try to cough my lungs clean from all of the hurt lodged in them.

No one understood what I was going through. No one ...

Even though Finnic tried to be there for me, and Liz did her best as well, no one got through. I was stuck in my head because he wasn't here to talk me out of it. He wasn't here to pull me back to reality and wake me up with new sensations and feelings only he could provide me with.

I love him so much it hurts and if he ever wakes up, I'm going to shout those words to the rooftops.

My social anxiety has got better because without Harley here beside me nothing mattered anymore. No one's opinion of me mattered. Nothing made sense and I dang sure didn't care about anyone else's thoughts when I had a million in my head already. I think depression has taken the anxiety's place. For the most part, I do catch myself now and again twisting my fingers in anticipation and worrying about hurting other people's feelings by simply existing.

My therapist has helped me get through my social anxiety but when it comes to getting to the trauma, I went through that night she hasn't made it through even the first layer yet. I don't know if she ever will.

"There isn't anything work-hearing anyways," I say under my breath.

Jared has been crashing on the couch ever since we were told Harley was in a coma with little chance of waking up.

I think Ben ordered him to, but he doesn't seem bothered with it like he had been last time. His face held a long scar along his jaw now, another reminder of that night. Gale has been sleeping in the guest room and I've been sleeping in Harley's bed. the smell of him consuming me every night.

I noticed a week after everything happened when Dixon pried me away from Harley's bedside that the smell of him dimmed the nightmares down. I hated that I would wake Dixon with them, especially since she had been having some of her own.

Ben had made himself more present, Killian too. I think they feel like they have to step in to fill the void of Harley in my life, in his honor.

Lily was getting so big; she was nearly crawling around, and I admit that I haven't been as present as I should be, but I didn't want to taint the little girl's happiness with my dull spirit because I knew she felt my hurt I could see it in her eyes.

Sara and Natalie have reached out with a couple of text messages, but I have ignored them, even though Asher sent me a few.

Mr. and Mrs. Ivory had brought some food bye and it just made matters worse like everyone assumed him dead, which I might as well be, the chances of waking up from a coma decrease the longer they stay in one.

I started back working at Queens Bakery a few months ago because I needed a distraction and I could open up the bakery yet, I just couldn't bring myself to even step into the place we shared our first real moment. The night that everything turned to ash around me, and no one could put it out. It just kept burning and burning.

I graduated from culinary school, but I didn't attend the ceremony. I had been beside Harley, and I couldn't pull myself away from him long enough to go, plus I wasn't too excited about the idea of having to stand up in front of all of those people anyways.

My mother hovered for the first few weeks, but I made her stop coming around, she could see through my façade, and right now I just wanted to hide behind it.

-.-.-.-.-
Don't forget to vote and comment. Thank you❤️