Miles to go before I sleep
All she wishes for is sleep.
For a while she wished to go back in time or for that past week to have never happened. But she had lost so much belief along with everything else that the hopelessness of the wish felt wretchedly impossible. And then she wondered about terminology. She had not lost anything besides the control over her body, the right to live without constant fear. Mostly her world had been brutally stolen, her trust, everything she thought she knew about herself and the world all gone leaving her bereft. And then sometimes she fears that nothing was stolen and he had only taken what she had willingly given him.
It's your fault. You made me do it.
But sleep, even just for a few hours felt reasonable. Surely she was owed a brief refuge in oblivion before the nightmares came.
She felt like a ghost, the centre of the storm as the aftershocks poisoned those around her. Maybe that was her fault as well.
She spent her days, without rest the days and nights ran together in one impossibly torturous stretch of reality, trying not to flinch at Maria's gentle concern. They flickered between what had become the scene of the crime and a stranger in her supposed friend's home.
Each set of walls the furthest thing from sanctuary. She was an outsider at Maria's a pathetic unstable wreck compared to the deservingly small woman who had escaped. She could never find the words to apologise. 'Sorry' withered and died on her tongue, her throat still hoarse from screaming. In her own 'home' she no longer needed to close her eyes to relive the worst night of her life.
She sat on cold sofas and stared at walls as Maria tentatively tried to tempt her to eat. But food tasted like ash in her throat and settled heavily in her stomach till she couldn't hold it inside any longer. Maria had tried to brush her hair away from her sweaty forehead as she heaved violently over the toilet. She had pushed the other woman away as she sobbed.
Her make shift flatmate did what she could constantly boiling the kettle and refilling stained mugs with coffee. The normalcy of it all made her want to scream and laugh hysterically. It was the only thing she could keep down, the only thing that kept her standing when she was beyond exhausted. And still she could not sleep.
There was an emergency supply of whiskey in one of her cupboards but no matter how much she craved it the time had gone. She should have never reached for the phone. She should have got blindly drunk and woke up the next afternoon and carried on like nothing had happened because now it would define her life for as long as she lived.
She saw the way they all looked at her as she ducked into a car, her neighbours and staff, couldn't help but torture herself with thoughts of the state of her reputation. For the longest time that was all she had.
And so her misery measured out in coffee spoons and acrid self-recrimination. All the while Leanne silently threatened and accused and didn't believe even though they had once been such good friends. And it was quite possibly all she deserved when the blonds husband seemed to be trying to act out yet another knight in shining armor fantasy. She wanted to reassure her that she could never let another man touch her again but Maria hovered in the kitchen like a good protective hostess.
No wonder Leanne hated her when she turned otherwise good men into sinners, when she was the harlot that men used like a toy when they needed a release.
She hoped to god that it had not been the same with Liam.
She was suspicious of how Peter suddenly wanted to touch her, hated how that was tainted now too when she had wanted him for so long. She had loved him and now when she needed him the most the thought of him comforting her made the panic and disgust grow till she was dizzy. His knuckles still bruised and swollen and she wondered if he believed that she had any honor left that needed defending. His eyes warm with pity and she had wanted to tear them from his skull.
She still ached, her bruises darkening overtime and she still hurt deep inside when she wasn't careful as she moved. Neither her body nor her mind would let her forget even for a second and she just needed a second to gather herself to breath. Instead every horror played against flock wallpaper and brickwork like the latest horror story. She thought she might drown in the enormity of it all, in the banal, everyday emptiness as she waited to be better.
If only she could sleep.