"Shh, Rae… It's just me."
"Not tonight," I argued feebly. I knew I was talking out loud in reality, but I was too lost in my delusion to really care. This had never happened before, and I was scared. As scared as I had been on all those dark nights in my room, all the nights when I'd been in so much pain for the pleasure of someone else.
The nights when my dad had come in my room after he'd made sure my mom had passed out somewhere (she was into hard drugs and an alcoholic – she was a physical and emotional abuser, too, and I carried both types of bruises) and came to get me.
"Shh," he said again, but I kept arguing.
"No, Daddy," I begged. "Not tonight. Please."
"Jasmine Rachel," he said sternly, pretending for a moment not to be a monster; for once, he was acting like a father. But I was in trouble, not him.
I gave in, knowing that if I didn't, he'd only make sure to hurt me even more if I kept the fighting going.
And then I was submerged in the memory – no, this was even stronger; I was actually reliving the nights of him with me in the darkness. I could feel the pain, the fear, like it was really happening. And to me, it really was.
I let him climb into bed with me, touch me in ways that I knew he didn't even touch my mom. Ways that could make a moan escape my mouth, as much as I hated what he was doing. I just couldn't fight my body when it disconnected like that; it was too strong, and it wanted this too badly.
But at the moment, I was crying, begging, "No, don't do this, please," but he continued as if he couldn't even hear me.
"Stop, Daddy, stop it. Daddy, you're hurting me!"
But he pressed on, ignoring everything that came out of my mouth unless it made him happy.
And suddenly, there was something freezing in my hands. The fear was still violent inside, but the hallucination was losing its strength.
"Focus on the cold, Rae," someone was saying gently. "Good girl, sweetie… good."
The last thing I saw before I surfaced back into reality was the greedy look in my father's eyes, felt the last of the fear and nausea and pain vanish, and then my dad was gone.
I blinked my eyes open, and Zack was there, bending down to get to eyelevel with me, looking into my eyes. He smiled when I looked at him, a small, kind smile. "Okay?" he asked. He was so quiet that I wouldn't have heard him unless I'd seen his lips move.
I looked at him and tried to nod, but as I glanced down at his hands removing the ice from mine, my eyes filled with hot tears. Seconds later, my entire body was trembling, hard. Zack reached out for me, and I collapsed onto his chest. His strong arms wound around my frail form and held me tightly, tighter than I'd ever been held in my life.
I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed until I had no tears left, and all I could do was keep crying without the tears. I cried for my mom, and I cried for my dad, and what I'd done to the band and my whole family. I cried about my problems with food and I cried because I could never stop cutting myself. I cried for Daniel and Alex and Tanya, and I cried for Rian and for Jack and I cried for accidentally making Zack fall in love with me even though I couldn't handle it.
Finally, though, I pulled myself together enough to breathe normally. His hands were running all over me, my hair, my arms, my back, trying to soothe me. I looked at him and my hand closed around one of his, pulling it down to my lap. With my other hand, I reached around the back of his neck and slowly pulled his face down to mine.
We stared at each other for five whole seconds before he tilted his head to the left and slowly put his lips to mine.
It was gentle, but I could feel all of our unspoken feelings, all the secrets I'd kept, all the times he'd stayed strong for me, the times both of us had pretended that everything was okay, spilling out in the form of this kiss.
This beautiful, beautiful kiss.