Page 37 of Phoenix
“No—"
“Doesn’t surprise me, he still gets emotional over that poor mutt,” she continues, cutting me off as she talks, “loved that thing more than air!”
“Lou,” Warren laughs at her, “do you ever draw breath?”
“Sorry,” she says, pausing to smile sheepishly at me. “My mouth tends to run away from me.”
“It’s ok, sis,” Warren says and awkwardly brushes back some stray hairs away from her face, “shows you’re happy. Lou used to be so quiet, so withdrawn from the world, she was like…” He looks at me with a wince. “Never mind.”
I shake my head but choose to remain silent. This was always my defense system, and for the six years I was living with a psychopath, it more or less worked. I was never struck, assaulted, or sexually abused in that house. But I was held against my will. For years.
We’re led out to a patio on the beachfront, and I have to admit it is breathtakingly beautiful. Izzy is already sitting at a table with her dog on a lead, even though she’s not really holding onto it that tightly. However, it is on its back with its tongue hanging out the side of its mouth and its belly on show. She catches me staring with a grace of a smile because I can admit it looks more ridiculous than ferocious.
“This is Stella at her scariest,” she says as she shakes her head. “Hey, Stella, quick! There are murderers, thieves, and monsters coming!” She all but shouts. We turn to look at the dog who merely flaps its tail half-heartedly before continuing to lie on her back. “See, she’s cool, I promise.”
“H-how old is she?” I ask.
“Three,” she replies with a casual shrug of her shoulder, “she’s been this way since we picked her up as a lanky puppy. Her original owner saved her from a puppy farm but was then sent overseas with the army, so they rehomed her. She’s been my rock ever since. Do you wanna stroke her?”
“I-I don’t know,” I mumble as I edge closer, not even realizing the fact that I’ve let go of Warren’s hand.
“I sometimes use her with some of my clients,” she continues talking as I take a nervous seat beside her. “I’m a school counsellor, but I also see people outside of work. They find Stella soothing. She’s actually got her dog therapist certificate.”
“Oh,” I murmur, looking at the silly dog who has now closed her eyes, so could well be going to sleep.
“You said she was your rock?” I venture as I find myself wanting to run my hand through her fur.
“She was, yes,” she replies with a smile that tells me she’s not worried about talking about it. “Well, her and my husband, Theo. But Stella never argues with me, so she marginally wins.”
“That’s good,” I reply, not really knowing what else to say to that.
“You’ve been through a lot, huh?” she turns to ask me, not in a pitying way, but in a matter-of-fact way. “I can relate. So can Lou. We should form a survivor’s club or something. Stella could be our ridiculous mascot.”
“What happened to you?” I blurt out before I can even stop myself. She falters for a moment, and I want to run and hide. I even look over at the door for my quickest escape route, but she answers before I can move.
“It’s ok, you don’t need to run to him,” she says with a smile, jutting her chin out toward Warren, “I don’t mind talking about it, and he’ll rescue you when he thinks you need it. I think you’ve found your own rock with that one.” I relax a little and nod my head in agreement. “A lot of things happened, stuff that no one should have to go through. It took me a long time to realize I didn’t deserve what happened to me. Lou’s the same. When a man rapes you, a little part of you always questions whether it was your fault, but it never is, Jess, never.”
“I-I wasn’t raped,” I mumble, almost feeling ashamed of the fact.
“But something was taken from you, wasn’t it?” she says with concern.
“Yes,” I whisper as I look at my hands and begin to fidget with a piece of loose cotton. “But sometimes, I feel like I don’t deserve to feel as bad as I do. I was never physically hurt, never struck, never sexually abused; he never even lost his temper with me. I didn’t have it that bad, did I?”
“You feel guilty for hurting as much as you do?” she asks.
“Sometimes,” I admit. “When they first questioned me, it felt like I was a fraud. They made me feel like I had stayed there of my own free will. They all kept asking me, ‘Why didn’t you try and run?’ And when I looked at my parents, I could tell…I could tell they wanted to ask me the same thing. Why didn’t I run? Why didn’t I scream? Why hadn’t I done what Tammy had done and tried to get help? Surely, I asked to be kept for so long, didn’t I?”
“I understand,” she says as she turns back to face the ocean, “I lived with the abuse for years and never said anything. For a long time, I didn’t know why. Why did I not say anything?”
“When did you?” I ask, so desperately wanting to know the answer.
“When I found someone who I knew would listen; someone who I finally felt safe with,” she says, now looking back at me with a smile that asks for nothing. “Fear is a powerful thing. And what I feared more than anything, was finally telling someone what was going on, only to have that someone, whoever it was, not believe me. For someone to ignore all the pain you’ve been going through and to somehow validate that abuse by calling you a liar. I feared that more than anything else.”
“They asked me what he did to me. Did he hurt me in any way? Did he rape me? Sexually abuse me. And when I said no, one of them sighed,” I tell her, now with tears rolling down my cheeks. “I felt ashamed, as if I had caused all this pain to everyone when all along I had been taken care of. Like I didn’t deserve to feel the way I did; that my tears were fake. They looked at me like I’d merely been to some sort of holiday camp while my parents had been put through hell.”
“Did they offer you counseling?”
“I went to two sessions,” I admit, “but I’d already given up.”