It'd been a week. Sara had been living with her for an entire week.

Being careful. Helping her heal. Scheduling in home accupuncture appointments. She was trying everything she could think of. Everything possible to distract Charlotte. Everything to take her mind off it. To keep her from thinking, to help her forget. To help her hide from the truth. And it was okay. She wanted to hide. Charlotte King wanted everything but for the truth to be true.

Charlotte was angry. She was livid. Looking at her was like looking at a covered pot of boiling water. And Charlotte King was about to boil over. The sad part was that she was still too injured to have any physical sort of release. Like beating the crap out of a pillow? It would help her emotionally and physically, but as yet it was like asking her to climb Mount Everest.

She was pissed.

So Sara made her write.

"I'm not doin' that hippie, New Age crap," she scowled at her.

"Well, there's not much else you can do. You wanna talk about it," she began

"No."

"We can talk about it," she continued as if Charlotte hadn't spoken. "But what you want to do is kick someone's ass, and you can't right now. You're eaten up with rage, with no way of letting it out. You start screamin' your face is gonna hurt. You start punching things, you're gonna end up back in the hospital getting stitches or a new cast. "

"So," she dropped a book looking notebook in front of Charlotte, "you can write."

"At least write about what you're feeling."

"You're not gonna read it." It was a statement, not a question.

"Not unless you want me to. Which you,"

"Definitely not," she answered.

She'd started Charlotte off with a topic suggestion, "What sucks about this?"

Then left the room.

The loud slashing sounds of a pen to paper let her know that Charlotte was giving the notebook what for.

Sara sat on the couch, eating the remains of breakfast. She planned ahead now, to have Charlotte help her bake some food. It would give her something to do.

A loud shattering startled Sara out of her planning. Rushing to the bedroom she saw Charlotte standing by her dresser, glass everywhere.

Charlotte cheeks were so red they looked almost purple with rage. There were tears in her eyes.

"I see you found the mirror."

She said nothing else, just started to sweep up the glass, hoping Charlotte would speak.

"I wanna rip his face off," she growled. "And do a slow job of removing other things."

Sara grinned and laughed. "I volunteer to assist."

Charlotte smiled back, but it was a hollow smile.

Silence fell again.

Cooly, Charlotte regarded Sara, stooped over, cleaning the mess she'd made and realized aloud,

"It happened to you ten years ago, and you're still messed up."

"I don't want to-" she stopped herself.

Sara paused. "You don't wanna end up like me." Her face was dark, tone sullen and hurt.

"I didn't say that."

"You don't have to."

"Look, my point is that this isn't working. I keep thinking about it."

"It happened." Sara shrugged.

"It's like it keeps happening."

"That happens, too."

"Is this what it's going to be like?" She asked. "Every damn day? I lived through it once, and that was damn over enough. It keeps happening. I feel him touching me. I can smell him," she sneered at if she smelled the man now. "I keep seeing flashes of it, happening over and over again."

'And that's with you here." She emphasized the words. She didn't want to think of how much worse things would be if her friend were not there, usually right next to her, every waking second.

Sara sighed, feeling inadequate, not realizing how Charlotte had meant the statement about her being there. She took it as meaning she was no help at all. That's what it seemed like. Maybe she should be working harder. The truth was she wanted to spare Charlotte the reality that she'd lived. But Charlotte was going through it now. Either alone or with company it was going to happen. It was inevitable.

But Sara'd been fighting it. Hoping that her presence, her forethought would help Charlotte's healing process. But it wasn't enough. She couldn't keep Charlotte from suffering. That had been her sole goal. She was failing.

Charlotte blinked and stared at her.

"There's nothing you can do, is there?"

There was a slight tinge of hope in Charlotte's voice, and that hope hurt Sara like a slap.

When Sara didn't answer, Charlotte added, "Docs usually have that look when there's nothing that can be done. I seen it before."

Sara sighed. "I thought there was. I wish you could just skip this. Get over it."

"You said getting over it isn't realistic."

"It's not, not in the way you think of 'getting over things'. The best you can hope for is maybe to go for a day without thinking about it."

Charlotte's eyes widened like a hurt puppy. Sara wasn't sure if she were about to bawl or start screaming.

She was seeing the horror that her life had turned into. Her new reality. One where this horror never leaves her.

Sara swallowed. No one had prepared her for that. She, like many, had thought that it would go away, eventually would stop thinking about it. And she'd tried to forget. She'd succeeded. For years she kept the memory so suppressed she'd forgotten it even happened. Until one day, when it all came flooding back.

No, she did not want that reality for Charlotte.

"Char," she started.

Charlotte held up a hand- then winced at the movement, hissing in a breath of pain. "Don't."

"Don't tell me that I need to "see someone" or "talk to someone"." She shook her head. "I won't. I'm not going to talk about this. Ever. Never again."

Sara looked down. This is a mistake. But Charlotte wasn't ready to hear that yet. Sara took a deep breath in. Wait. Be patient. Patience was not one of her strong points.

"This son-of-a-bitch ruined my life," she growled.

Sara could tell her the callus, heartless things she'd been told by so-called experts when she'd expressed the same sentiment. They went through her mind, "Don't let someone else control your life. Don't give your rapist that much power. The only person who can make you feel inferior is you, you can choose how you feel, etc.

Or Sara's least favorite, "Look at your rape as a positive. Think of all the positive things that have come of it. Like, for example, if you'd never been raped, you wouldn't have learned what that experience felt like, or how to relate to people who've been sexually abused."

All from certified therapists. Fucking assholes.

So she looked at Charlotte, knowing exactly how her friend felt, how angry, how furious and devestated, and answered her honestly.

"Yup," she answered.

Then she looked over at the phone. She hated to admit that she'd failed. But she knew it was time to call Cooper.