Chapter Seventy-Five

A breather Lorna's mind repeated. A breather. A damn breather wasn't enough to make her feel any better. Wasn't enough to undo what had already been done. What she'd already let happen to herself all those years earlier. She could have stopped it. She tried to stop it and failed. That was what she was fucking good at—was fucking failing. She failed at protecting herself, failed at school, failed at fucking life. What was the point of her damn existence? She wondered that quite a bit recently. The point of her life was empty—there didn't seem to be one the more she pondered over it. Certainly if her existence had a point, she wouldn't be requiring the help of a damn therapist in the first place.

Despite her reservations towards needing a breather, Lorna did use that time to suck in a large puff of air. She felt it slide all the way down her throat and into her lungs. A sense of relief followed but it only lasted a brief second before the discomfort set right back in. Her legs shifted in the chair she occupied and though she craved the soothing touch of her girlfriend, she didn't think that was what she deserved after sharing the disturbing past she experienced with both her and Dr. Washington.

The silence had lasted long enough she decided upon breathing in a few more times. She swallowed a coating of saliva from her tongue and cautiously turned her head from where it had been positioned for the past half hour. Her eyes now naturally looked straight ahead at the therapist, who was patiently waiting for her to speak on the other side of the wooden desk. Having Doctor Washington's eyes on her made the nerves she already felt intensify even further.

"It's um, it's cold in here. Really cold. A lot colder than your other office," Lorna told her, her stare having not faltered since she moved the direction of which way her head was positioned. It was likely a meaningless thing for her to say but those were the only words she could get to come out of her in the moment. Anything else was too much, too overbearing. Her mind still felt like it was frozen in place. Like talking about the incident somehow drained every last feeling, emotion, thought from her mind.

Poussey nodded encouragingly. Though Lorna's comment had nothing to do with the earlier discussion, it was a start. A start for her to finally find her voice after having appeared to be stuck in a trance for nearly the past forty minutes. "Yes, it is chillier in this office. I think because it's in a hospital that might be why. I don't know why they like to keep hospitals so cold. I guess to freeze out the patient's illnesses," she tried to lighten the mood with a small joke but it went unto deaf ears. At least in Lorna's case. However, shifting her eyes onto Nicky, she caught the small smirk that briefly lit up on her face and threw a sympathetic smile her way.

If only they could freeze out the insanity, Lorna bitterly thought. Maybe she wouldn't be so screwed up then. She snuffled and tensed her shoulders by bringing them forward for a couple of seconds. When they released she felt no difference. Just numb and over everything. "Can they freeze out the crazy?"

Curving up her eyebrow, Dr. Washington shift the positioning of her legs and swallowed uneasily. "Freeze out the crazy? What are you talking about, Lorna?" But just as quickly as the question slipped out of her, she realized what the brunette teen was hinting at and sighed. A frown molded onto her face and she gave Lorna a head shake. "You're not crazy, Lorna. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have made the comment I made."

"But I am. I am crazy," Lorna cried out, throwing her hands up in the air. "I feel crazy. So crazy."

Insane would be a better descriptor, she thought, but mutually the words were both the same. Crazy, insane, fucked up. All valid descriptors of Lorna Morello. All the same meaning and all the saneness she once displayed was long dissolved away. Was it her fault she was the way she was or was it her uncle? None of it mattered. She was insane and nothing could fix her anymore.

"Well, why do you feel crazy?" The therapist gently queried, quirking an eyebrow at her.

As Lorna fixed her eyes on the ceiling, seemingly trying to piece together a response, Doctor Washington glanced over at Nicky. A sigh made its way out when she observed the disheartened mien expressing on her face. Wanting to include her but not sure how, she reached for a dixie cup and filled it with water before carefully handing it over the table for her to grab.

Nicky gratefully took the cup and gave an appreciative nod towards her girlfriend's therapist. She hadn't realized how damn parched her mouth was until she'd nearly chugged the whole cup of water in one go. It felt amazing, the water sliding through her esophagus all the way until it reached her throat. The parched sensation rapidly washed away. Both literally and figuratively. She sighed, placing the empty cup onto the small end table on the other side of her chair and then returned her attention onto the brunette right next to her. Her arms yearned to wrap around Lorna but she refrained herself. Lorna needed time. She wasn't about to cause her any more tension or unease.

"I don't know. I mean. I just I feel crazy. I'm like a tornado. Everywhere I go things get real fucked up. Because I'm fucked up. I'm the domino that ruins everything. A domino tornado that's what I am…no I'm a crazy domino tornado and I don't know how to live anymore. Live normally. I just feel so numb and confused and out of control and it's driving me to the point of insanity. No amount of therapy is gonna make me better, Dr. Washington. You should just write me off now," Lorna gestured a hand at her, shifting unnervingly in her seat.

She inched her head to the side and peered next to her at Nicky. Eyes saddened immensely to look her over. She felt shameful of her behavior towards Nicky earlier, even though she knew it was what was best. Nicky didn't need to be dirtied by her any longer. Nicky didn't fucking deserve any of the stress and pain she so easily caused her. But, yet, despite that—despite all of it—Nicky never complained, never backed away from her. Which only made the shame stronger. She didn't deserve Nicky.

"Write you off?" Dr. Washington rapidly shook her head at her client's heartrending disclosure. After all of what had happened to her—all of what had been done to her—Lorna still seemed to think everything was her own fault and that couldn't be farther from the truth. She closed her eyes for a quick second and swallowed a wad of saliva that had been formed at the bottom of her mouth. "That's not gonna happen, Lorna. I would never write you or any of my clients off for things that aren't any of their faults," her voice softly assured the young teenager.

The short-haired brunette woman inhaled a sharp breath and rummaged through one of her desk drawers for a peppermint teabag. Once she'd found one, she took it out and wheeled her chair over to a shelf slightly to the right of where she'd previously been sitting and grabbed the teakettle from the warming station. It was brought back with her to the teabag, set on the surface right beside it, and a paper cup was picked up from a stack on the other side of her desk. Both the water from the kettle and the teabag were placed inside the cup.

She cautiously handed it over the desk in Lorna's direction. "Take this, Lorna. It's peppermint tea. You're shivering, this'll help warm you up. And calm you. Do you ever think about trying yoga or meditation?"

Lorna took the cup and shook her head. What possible reason was there for her to do either of those two things? On top of every other damn thing she had to do or stress about the last thing she needed was more fucking shit to add to her list of shit to fucking do. "No. I don't have time for any more stuff. I'm already stressed and overwhelmed—that would just make it all worse. I feel like I can't even breathe most of the time. Everything is out of control, I just want control back. Please," her voice pleaded. To whom she had no clue but she truly desired to have control over her life again. Because right now it felt as if she was being suffocated. Constantly. Nonstop.

Observing her closely, Poussey frowned to see how tensed up she was suddenly getting once again. "It's okay, Lorna, no need to panic. You don't have to do anything you don't want to. It was only a suggestion. I still think it might help you with the stress but you don't have to do it if you don't want." She tried her best to reassure the young teen but quickly noticed her words were having no effect.

It wasn't long before her eyes witnessed the tremoring of Lorna's legs violently grow more intense. Her breathing fastened and became so loud that she could hear it halfway across the room. She sighed and got up from her desk, hurriedly making her way over to her client. The vacant seat on the right of Lorna, she settled herself into it, and turned so that she was facing the teen.

"Lorna, are you okay?"

"I, uh, I-I don't know."

Poussey nodded, arching her eyebrows worriedly. Out of the desire to bring comfort to her client, she wanted to place a hand on Lorna's arm as a way to steady and ground her but she refrained from doing so. Instead, she grabbed Lorna's teacup that was sat on the coaster on the table between their chairs and held it out in front of her, "Here. Take this tea and have a small sip, Lorna. You're having a panic attack. It's scary, I know, but it'll pass. You just need to relax or try to relax. And a little sip of your tea will help."

Lorna shook her head, tears finally forcing their way out, and she turned it towards her therapist. Staring desperately into her eyes. "I didn't, I didn't tell him I didn't want to be violated, Dr. Washington even though I didn't want to be. Is that – is that why—"

"No, no, no. Lorna, sweetie, no, that's not why it happened. It didn't happen because of anything you said or did. You're not the reason or the fault of why or how it happened. Okay? Do you understand that?"

"But he-he violated me because I didn't tell him not to. I let him touch me and-and have his way with me. I'm dirty. I'm so, so dirty. I got what I des—"

The older woman quickly interjected with a copious shake of her head. The shakiness in Lorna's voice strengthened her desire to comfort her with an embrace but she wouldn't do anything to provoke the trauma she'd endured and only a half hour ago had felt safe enough to share with the two of them. "You didn't deserve any of what was done to you, Lorna. He violated you because of his own sick desires. Not because of anything you did or didn't do. You are not at fault for what happened. I know it's hard for you to believe that, and that's okay, it'll take a lot of time for you to accept you're not at fault. But you need to be open about your feelings when you can, okay? Talking about it is what will help you work through it."

Brown eyes averted onto the liquid sloshing about in the cup held between her two hands. The cup was warm from the tea, instantly warming her freezing cold palms. She swallowed thickly and lifted the cup slowly to her mouth for a small sip. It warmed her throat the whole way down, she noticed the second she drank the tea. Of course focusing on the tea was only to distract her from going any deeper on the topic of her demented uncle, she knew. She couldn't think about that any longer, it just made her feel so unbelievably gross. Sticky, dirtied, nasty. No matter what anyone else thought or said, Lorna knew she was the only reason the incident occurred. She should have tried harder to stop him. But she didn't because she was fucking weak. Weak and pathetic. Not fucking good enough to be with a person who truly loved and cared for her like Nicky had.

Several more sips of tea were taken before Lorna settled the cup back where it previously sat on the coaster. Legs switched positions so that the one that had been underneath was now crossed over the other. Lorna turned her head and gazed beside her at Nicky. Within a couple of seconds, Nicky's head was turned in the same direction and her brown eyes melded into Lorna's. The desire to say something to her was there but she didn't know what to say. How to say anything, really. After having shared the uncle incident, she didn't feel she was worthy of ever speaking to Nicky again.

Having not spoken directly to Lorna since right before the therapy session, Nicky couldn't keep quiet anymore. With everything that had been revealed to her in such a short timeframe, she needed to say something. Needed to show Lorna she cared, that she was right there with her and wasn't going anywhere. And though the desire to hold her hand or wrap an arm around her waist was strong, Nicky did her best to refrain from giving in. She wasn't about to do anything that would unintentionally push Lorna away.

"Lorna, babe, I'm—I am so sorry you had to go through something so scary and horrific. And I'm even sorrier that you—that you felt you had to keep this all to yourself for three…no four years. God. Jesus fucking Christ."

Nicky did her best to keep her voice soft and gentle but the thought of someone—a fucking relative for fucking hell's sake—abusing Lorna, her Lorna, her sweet and precious Lorna, in the sickest, most fucked-up way possible made the entirety of the blood inside her boil. Made her skin crawl, her insides churn. Made her crave revenge. She wanted to find this uncle of hers and torture him so much worse than what he'd done to Lorna. To find him and tie him down so she could cut off his disturbed manhood. The part of him that he clearly thought made him superior to others, to fucking angelic Lorna of all fucking people. She wanted to cut that off and make him eat it.

He needed to pay for all the fucking pain he caused Lorna. The pain she spent years and years hiding from everyone. Covering up by self-destructing even further. Starving herself and nearly dying and none of them fucking noticed until now. They all failed Lorna. It wasn't just her uncle or her piece of shit father. It was everyone, Nicky bitterly thought. Even herself. She failed Lorna. Lorna was her girlfriend, her best friend, her soul and she fucking failed to piece together any of the damn signs. She failed to notice just how deeply fucking scarred the love of her life was and she was peeved with herself. So very peeved. She knew Lorna better than anyone—she should have seen this. She should have fucking seen this.

The silent battle in her mind caused an apprehensive expression to manifest on her face.

Lorna noticed this and frowned. A knot twisted its way through her gut. Her pain was rubbing off on Nicky and she didn't like it. She really was a fucking domino tornado. Anywhere she want, destruction followed. Air exhaled loudly through her mouth; she finally decided on moving one of her hands from her lap and brought it closer to Nicky until it found its way onto one of her hands. She patted it softly and then picked Nicky's hand up in hers, squeezing it tightly. Carrying it over to her chest and carefully placing it near her heart. Lorna held it there for a while before she broke the silence.

"It's okay, hon. I mean it happened a long time ago. I'm over it now. I just don't like to talk about it. Or think about it. But it's okay."

"No," the older teen gritted her teeth. She maneuvered their hands so that hers was cradling Lorna's now and the tips of her fingers tenderly ran along the flesh of it. Her head shook at the words her girlfriend spoke echoing through her mind. None of it was okay. Absolutely none of it and she wasn't going to fucking allow Lorna to say that shit.

But before she could speak up again, a throat was cleared and she slightly tilted her head in direction of where it originated from. Not surprisingly she found the culprit to be Lorna's therapist. Who, as she stared at her, gave her a firm stare back and gestured her hands towards her sides—motioning her hands up and down in the air as if to wordlessly remind her to breathe. Nicky grumbled but complied and did exactly that—sucked a couple of drawn out breaths until she felt the anger subside a decent amount.

Her attention was brought back to Lorna and she cautiously reached her other hand over to lovingly cup around one of her cheeks. "It's not okay what happened to you, doll. Not at all. Your uncle had no right to fuck—to hurt you like he did and it's not even legal for him to have done what he fu—what he did," she tried her damnedest not to let her anger get the best of her. The anger wouldn't help comfort Lorna like she had been wanting to do with the words she spoke, she knew. It wasn't easy to suppress herself from swearing—something that was innate within her—but she tried and that was all she could do, really, was try.

Not legal. Not legal? Eyes squinted as she timidly moved her head back in direction of her therapist. What the hell did not legal mean? Legal wasn't even a thought that had popped in her mind until Nicky mentioned it now. Was she so naïve—so fucking clueless—that she hadn't even known what was done to her or, as she felt, what she let happen to herself was against the law? "Did-did I do something that, that uh, that broke the law? Am I—can I go to jail for what happened?" Her voice tremored as she brought some of her many whirling questions to light.

"Oh fuck," Nicky whispered to herself and covered her mouth. She hadn't meant to make Lorna feel bad about anything and yet, somehow, she managed to do exactly that. The hand that was still held in hers she lifted it up and carefully brought it up to her lips, allowing them to press a comforting peck over each of Lorna's pale knuckles.

Watching the pair of them, Doctor Washington sighed and shook her head at Lorna. "No, you did not do anything. You're not at fault for what your uncle did to you. He's the one who hurt you and he's the one who broke the law because of that. The only person who should go to jail for the incident is your uncle. You are innocent in all of this, Lorna."

"Her dad should go to jail too, I mean he fucking let his brother molest her. He told him to punish her and pretty much gave that sick, evil, demon of a man permission to fucking do such vile, cruel things to Lorna. To fucking Lorna. Lorna is an angel, a fucking angel who doesn't deserve any of the sick shit that was ever done to her. It's not fucking fair. None of this is fucking fair," Nicky spitefully interjected, unable to fight the rage any longer. She couldn't take it. Any of it. Lorna was dealt way too much fucking shit for one person and not a damn ounce of it was fair.

Infuriated tears lined Nicky's eyes and she didn't care to stop them from falling. All that mattered to her was defending Lorna. The one person who showed her what it was like to love and be loved. The one person who had the purest, most precious, heart there was and she was fucking abused in one of the cruelest, fucked up, ways. How the hell was that even fucking remotely fair? She questioned angrily in her head. It wasn't. Not one damn fucking damn bit, her head shook furiously.

"Nicky, stop, please," Lorna pleaded, grabbing the hand that was wrapped around hers and carefully switching the positions of them so that hers was now holding the other. She turned her head and peered fiercely into her girlfriend's big brown eyes. Eyes that held anger and rage. Anger and rage that she wished she could make disappear.

A breath was slowly drawn in, Nicky bit down on the side of her cheek and let the air take its time exhaling back through her nose. She needed to keep as calm as was possible. Lorna needed her more than she needed revenge.

"Nobody is gonna go to jail, hon. My dad's too sick and maybe will die and my uncle won't be around anymore. There's no reason to get the law involved or nothin'. It happened a long time ago anyway, who the hell would believe me? No one. I am just a crazy little girl," she deterred her eyes away, letting them focus down on her thighs and simultaneously, a sigh made its way through. That's all she truly was—a crazy little girl who made up a web of lies around her. What kind of credibility could someone like her really have?

"A crazy little girl? Have they told that to you before, Lorna?" Doctor Washington chimed her way back into the conversation with a ponderous query. Still sitting on the chair next to Lorna's, she faced her with her body contorted slightly to the left. Eyebrows were curved up over her concerned dark brown eyes.

Lorna swallowed uneasily and returned the stare with a puzzled mien displayed upon her face. "Did who tell me?" It was stupid of her to pretend she didn't know exactly who her therapist was referring to but her brain was working overtime that she didn't allow herself to even process what was coming from her own mouth.

"Your dad and uncle. Did they call you a crazy little girl?"

Her body rapidly tensed up at the question. She lifted her free hand up and slicked back her hair with it, hoping to somehow soothe away her building nerves. All the questions her therapist had been asking her continued to bring forth memories she didn't want to remember. Memories she didn't want to relive. The anguish, the fear, the terror each memory reignited made Lorna wish she could poof herself the hell off the planet. It felt like she was being incessantly trampled by a flock of elephants if that were even a thing. No matter how hard she tried to fight it off, it refused to cease.

"My dad always called me crazy. He, he still does. My uncle liked to call me little princess and I told him to stop but he didn't ever listen to me. Neither of them ever listened."

Poussey bit down on her lower lip. She could easily feel her own emotions threatening to rear their way out and needed to keep herself in check. It wasn't her place to get upset or angry over what any of her clients had shared with her, she silently reminded herself. With a sharp inhalation of air, she swallowed down the feelings and gave a solemn nod to the young brunette beside her. "I'm sorry, Lorna. I'm so sorry you've had to endure so much pain and at the hands of people who were supposed to protect you from it. Not dish it out to you. I'm sorry they didn't listen to you and respect what you asked of them. It sounds to me like they had their own agendas. All they cared about was themselves and what they wanted. They didn't care what it was doing to you. That's not okay. Not even a little bit."

"I don't understand. Are ya sayin' that none of what happened is normal? I mean I-I thought all kids had an uncle like mine? He was that way to Franny, too. But you're saying it's not normal. I'm confused." Eyes remained squinted as they kept their focus on the therapist beside her. Her hand reached for her cup from the the end-table and she shakily lifted it to her mouth, sipping it slowly.

No amount of tea could make any of what she shared today undo itself. But the room was still so cold and the tea so warm. Her body craved the warmth so regardless, she sipped it and sipped it until the cup was left barren. After, it was casually tossed into the trash bin a few feet away and her lungs released a deep huff of air through the nostrils of her nose.

Head shaking distastefully at the comment slipped out of her girlfriend's mouth, Nicky squeezed her hand warmly around the one she held. The shit those two men put in Lorna's fucking head, she thought. Fuck did it cause her rage to get continuously fiercer. Made her seek for revenge even more desirable. Lorna was the damn sweetest person to exist and all anyone did was fucking abuse her for it. How the hell was that okay to ignore, to continue to allow to happen? How the fuck did none of them notice any of this sooner?

So many goddamn questions ran through her mind at once. It only encouraged her anger, her fury, her fucking need for payback to grow. But as she shifted her head and her eyes gazed down on Lorna, she felt her heart ache. And the fury, the anger, and desperation for revenge all sucked back inside of her. Now wasn't the time to be thinking of any of that shit she concluded once she'd observed the blatant distress oozing from her precious Lorna's eyes.

Instead, she let her attention go right back onto Lorna. She released her hand from hers and moved it out in front of her to delicately frame around the soft flesh of Lorna's cheek. "Oh, Lorna," her voice spoke no louder than a mere whisper. A loose strand of hair had fallen over Lorna's eyes and Nicky traced a thumb up to it to brush softly away with. "Oh, doll…sweet, precious, doll."

Nose snuffled. Lorna closed her eyes and longed for Nicky's affection to be enough to make everything right in the world again. But it didn't because it was impossible. She knew that. She fucking knew that. But for once she just wanted things to be normal. To be like every other teenager's life in the world. Well, maybe not every teenager but the majority of. Of course, now, it was too late for that. What was done was done and there was no plausible way to go back in time to change it. Any of it. It didn't matter how much she wished or how damn hard she pleaded with God. The incident happened and there was no undoing it. No going back and changing anything.

"No, Lorna, what happened to you is not a normal thing that all children deal with. Is that, too, what your uncle and dad made you think? Did they tell you it was normal what your uncle was doing?"

Both teens turned their heads towards the therapist. Lorna with trepidation and Nicky with fury still lurking in the background.

However, after a couple of seconds, Nicky refocused her stare on Lorna and stroked her thumb from one side of her forehead to the other. She couldn't begin to imagine how difficult this all was on the younger girl. To have such a deep, dark, secret finally brought to light. It had to have been taking a toll on Lorna, she thought. By how shaky she appeared to be throughout the session was enough to confirm her suspicions and worries.

"I mean I guess. I don't know. I just assumed. Can we please be done? I can't talk about this anymore, it's making me think about things I don't wanna think about. And I want the hell outta this hospital, please. Please, Dr. Washington, please let me leave and go home. I just wanna go home and I don't have a home anymore. I have to go to the Chapman's home but they don't even want me. Why do I have to stay with people who don't want me? I already lived through that with my fucking dad. Why do I have to live with strangers who don't want me too? Am I, Am I that fucking unlovable? I wish I was the one who died from cancer instead of my mom because then, then, I wouldn't have to burden anyone ever again."

Nicky's eyes widened in tears and she shared an apprehensive look with the therapist before throwing her arms securely around Lorna's waist, pulling her as close as she could have her.