Disclaimer: see chapter 1.
Warning: There are more mentions of sexual assault (again minor-on-minor; new – female-on-female) so tread lightly if that might be triggering for you.
A/N: Since so many of you asked so nicely, I've decided to add a chapter or two more to this story. It will still be angsty and the ending will likely be bittersweet at best so consider yourselves forewarned.
Emma sat on the floor of the shower, arms wrapped tightly around her legs, head buried in her knees, and sobbed as the water burned its way down her back. She couldn't, or rather didn't want to, believe she had finally had sex, after thirty-two years of trying desperately to be the pristine little virgin. She felt bile rising up the back of her throat and scrambled out of the shower just in time to lose all of the dinner Will had made for her. Sitting on the tile was cold, sending wracking shivers through her body, so she crawled back into the shower, hissing as the blistering water hit her skin.
She felt numb now, and that scared her. She tried to cry, tried to feel the revulsion again, hell she even tried to feel happiness, contentment but there was nothing. She could hear Will outside the bathroom door, but his words were unintelligible over the thundering water and she wanted to keep it that way. She wasn't ready to face him yet.
A mishmash of thoughts flitted through Emma's mind as she sat, tightly curled in on herself, not even noticing the scalding water any more. The time in high school after her junior prom when her boyfriend had tried to convince her to go to third base in the back of his dad's Ford Pinto. A little peach schnapps had gone a long way when she was sixteen and before she knew it, her underwear was off and his pants were unzipped. It was her ninth grade science teacher who had saved her, knocking on the window and bringing her back to her senses as he told them to move along. She had shut down after that slap of reality and turned so in on herself; people thought she was mentally unbalanced. She heard the murmurs in the lunchroom, the laughter, felt a visceral pang when she heard the word "tease" whispered at her back in the hall and she withdrew further.
No one had gotten that close to her again until her first year of college. Emma shut her eyes tight and let out a strangled cry as the memory hit her full force. She had been to three rush events for Sigma Theta Nu and was working her way through the pledging process. They promised no hazing, just good, old-fashioned fun, and Emma had decided that she needed to get out more; it had been years since she had let anyone get close to her. She had pulled away from her parents and brother as she had grown up through high school and she was beginning to feel lonely. It was the final night of the pledge week and up until now, Emma had felt totally comfortable with the other girls in the sorority; they had been nothing but kind and understanding when she backed out of an event or chose to sit on the sidelines. Now she was sitting, blindfolded and alone on a bed in a strange house with a twinge of fear beginning to burrow its way into her chest.
Her hands were, as yet, unbound so the fear hadn't really gotten a good hold of her yet. She heard the door click open and she tensed, head swivelling towards a doorway she could not see.
"Hey Emma," the voice came from behind her, which startled Emma; she had assumed she was alone. "Everything is almost over; you'll be my sister soon!" Emma struggled to match a face with the voice and her hands started to tremble ever so slightly in her lap. "Don't be scared Emma," the voice admonished, "No one is going to hurt you." It was Valerie, Emma realized, the chapter president. The hand that touched her shoulder sent a spike of fear up her spine regardless and Emma pulled away but not quickly enough and Valerie's hands were suddenly inside Emma's shirt. Another pair of unidentified hands grasped her thighs and pinned her to the bed as Emma fought to free herself.
"Stop! Please! I don't want to do this!"
Over the sound of the water Will heard her cries for mercy and, abandoning all pretence of waiting and being gentlemanly, he shoved his shoulder into the door until the lock cracked and the door swung inwards. Will could just see the outline of her body through the foggy glass of the shower door. She was hunched over, sitting on the floor with the water pouring down around her.
"Emma?" Will was afraid to scare her. "Em, it's me – it's Will. I'm going to open the shower door, okay?" Emma didn't move, didn't so much as acknowledge his presence in the bathroom and that frightened him. Carefully, Will slid the door back and reached in to shut off the water, pulling back with a curse when the blazing hot water touched his skin. He managed to get the water off before he looked down at Emma, so small and broken, her skin an angry red from the hour she'd spent in the water. Will took a fluffy white towel from the rack behind him and slowly eased himself into the shower with her. Gently, he wrapped her in the towel and she looked up at him with cold, dead eyes as he lifted her into his arms.
Will stepped out of the shower and stood her up on the cold tile, using the towel to quickly dry her off as she stood, unmoving and zombie-like. On the surface, Will kept calm, speaking quietly to her and trying to be business-like as he towelled her body dry. Underneath it all, inside his head, he was screaming. The vacant look in her eyes as he slipped an old t-shirt of his over her head and helped her into a pair of flannel pyjama pants had him worried that she might have suffered some sort of psychotic break. Will led her back to the bed and laid her down; Emma moved robotically, doing exactly what Will asked of her and nothing more. Will pulled blankets up around her now shivering form and cupped her face in his hands,
"Please Emma. Say something, anything. Just talk to me," Will pleaded with her. Emma finally met his eyes and she poured more of her shattered soul into him, baring the rest of her scars for him to see. The tenor with which she recounted all of her past unwanted sexual experiences was mechanistic and unfeeling, Will could all but see the wall she had built to shelter herself from these memories. Tonight he had stormed that wall and now it was crumbling around the edges, pulling Emma down with it.
When Emma woke, Will was not in bed with her and, before the stab of sadness could get its claws into her, Emma pulled her walls a little tighter around herself. She was unsure of the time, she couldn't remember falling asleep, and only the raw pain deep inside her, marking her soul, let her know that last night was not a dream. She slid from the bed, and went in search of Will.
She found him on the couch, lying on his back, staring unseeingly at the ceiling fan as it spun lazily above him.
"Hi," was all she could manage to say, but it was enough to startle Will back to reality and he sat up quickly, turning to face her. A quick glance at the window over his shoulder told Emma it was nearly dawn, the pure blackness lightened with just a hint of grey around the edges. She stood in the doorway of the living room, unsure what do say or do, scared of rejection.
"Hi," Will replied, and he was across the room in three steps, just shy of touching her, waiting for permission. Emma closed the gap between them, leaning into Will's chest, praying he wouldn't pull away. Immediately, Will closed his arms around her small body, stroking her back and placing feather-light kisses in her hair. "I…" Will started, leaning back so he could see Emma's face, "I called Dr. Shane," he said in a rush. A myriad of emotions played across Emma's face in the next moments - shock, anger, sadness and finally, resignation; Will had never seen her so conflicted. "I'm sorry Em. I didn't know what else to do. I didn't tell her anything. I just said there was kind of a crisis and you needed to see her today."
Emma nodded woodenly and felt the numbness that had frightened her last night creep back in; this time, she welcomed it.
A/N: I'm a bit of a sadistic bitch today apparently…hope you enjoyed the next installment, I'll do my best to stop torturing Emma so much in the next chapter. I've never written angst before, but I think I kind of like it. Thank you to all of my reviewers, each and every one of you is sincerely appreciated.
As an aside, I'd like to mention that my portrayal of sorority life here is purely FICTIONAL. My apologies for perpetuating stereotypes of hazing and pledge mistreatment and as a former member of a sorority myself, I feel a little guilty about what I've done here but I can live with it because it's fiction.