Darcy was learning to separate her body from herself. It mattered what happened to it but she had to separate it to survive the rape. Purity and virginity had been so important to her and now it was just gone. But she wasn't gone. Her integrity wasn't gone.
She held her head higher at school, except when she ran into Emma Nelson. The girl had daggers for her and rightfully so. She'd so screwed Snake over. She'd lashed out and hurt a good man. But people get hurt. She was sorry.
Walking along the Toronto streets every day after school, hugging herself. It felt good to walk. To feel the breeze against her cheek. To be alone. She was piecing things back together.
Not looking where she was going most of the time, looking off at the lake, at the office buildings rising to the sky, the glass smooth and blue. At the park benches and grass, at the pigeons, at the school kids in uniforms running along, hearing their school shoes scrape the sidewalk.
She ran smack into someone and she looked up. She recognized this person but couldn't place him. He was tall, had an easy sexy smile, wide eyes.
"Sorry," she mumbled, hugging herself tighter, looking down.
"It's okay. Don't worry about it," The voice. The eyes. She got it. She had run smack into Craig Manning. He used to go to her school and live here.
"Are you Craig Manning?" she said, looking at him. She was pretty sure that he was.
"Yeah," he ducked his head and smiled.
"I…I thought so. I listen to that song…"My Window"…that song…I listen to it a lot," she said, feeling like an idiot. She listened to that song every day, liking something that was sad about it. It made her feel better.
"You do? Thanks. I mean, I'm glad you like it," She wouldn't look at him.
"You're Darcy, right?" he said gently, and she did look up at him, her eyes narrowed. She didn't think he knew who she was.
"Yeah. How'd you know?"
"I knew you had dated Spinner and everything,"
"Oh," She was getting ready to bail. Craig Manning, that was cool. And he knew who she was. She thought of the "My Window" song and couldn't believe she was standing here chatting with the person who wrote it.
"Listen, I was just gonna go get something to eat at the Dot or somewhere. Want to join me?" he said, and her eyes widened.
"Join you? Uh, yeah. Sure. I'd like to," She berated herself for sounding like such an idiot fan girl but she couldn't help it. He had written that song, her crying herself to sleep song. Her anchor song. It was like meeting your favorite author or favorite actor or something so friggin' dorky like that.
They headed to the Dot and she was happy at finally feeling like she could get out of her head. Craig Manning was a nice distraction. She wished she could do something creative like that, like writing or singing or drawing, some activity that she could lose herself in.
"So, how are things going?" he said, their coffees in front of them, a boat of fries loaded with ketchup between them. Darcy knew she wouldn't eat any of the fries. Her stomach couldn't handle that grease.
Her face kind of crumbled at the question. It wasn't going very well. Maybe it was slowly getting better. Her eyes shimmered with tears and she looked down and mumbled, "okay,"