Trish is back at home, lying on her side, feeling physically exhausted, but feeling exponentially more emotionally exhausted. Long story short, she is numb. She is nauseous, bloated, depressed, scared, traumatized and numb. Trish is hugging her body pillow, just wanting to sleep and to dissociate, at least temporarily. She is sick and tired of throwing up, sick and tired of the trauma, sick and tired of headaches, sick and tired of crying, and sick and tired of the emotional pain.
She just looks at Jace's side of the bed. She's just thankful for him. He is not blaming her, he listens to her, he shows her love and affection, he gives her what she needs, he makes sure she has what she needs, and puts her ahead of himself, though she thinks he should look after himself every now and then. He always remembers the little things.
She gets her AirPods, plants them in her ears, and turns on the Calm app, listening to white noise. She yawns and she feels her eyelids getting heavy and she falls asleep. Sleep is at least a temporary aide to that sickening feeling, and she is thankful for it. Jace's and her bed is a smart bed with heating and cooling technology and a way to elevate and raise the mattress, their bed has firm heating and cooling pillows, and her pillow is covered in a Blissy pillowcase. She is curled up in a fetal position and sleeping like a log.
Elsewhere, Jace just finished renovating a house and gets in his car. Before starting the car, he decides to text Trish, or according to his phone, Bride to be with the ring emoji. The text says, Hi, baby girl. I just want to text you to see if you feel any better. Let me know if I can help in any way or cheer you up. I love you more than life itself.
Jace's background picture on his phone is one of the photos from Kayleigh Spellman. More specifically, the picture of them kissing right after Jace proposed to Trish.
He drives home, and arrives home, checking on Trish, to find her asleep on their bed. She is a heavy sleeper, so he isn't worried about waking her up. She needs her rest. He takes a lightweight blanket from the end of their bed, covers her to her waist with it, and gives her a soft kiss on her cheek. He is actually pretty amazed at how he managed to not wake her up.
She looks so beautiful while she sleeps, he says under his breath.
He changes into Nike performance clothes and decides to get on the elliptical bike, with his AirPods in his ears while he is binge-watching episodes of Dexter on Netflix when notifications from Miami Newsletter blow up on his phone. He takes a look at it, discovering a serial stalker and sexual assailant is on the loose and has already attacked multiple women. There are some blurry surveillance stills on his face, but Jace immediately recognizes the man's face- it is Chuck McCoy. Chuck Fucking McCoy.
Jace has always hated Chuck's slimy, misogynistic, raping guts for harassing, assaulting, stalking, tormenting, and traumatizing his fiancée. He gets irate when people do things to hurt and traumatize people he cares about. Trish has PTSD because of Chuck and because of that, he has been determined to do everything in his power to protect her and comfort her.
FLASHBACK- January 2013. Trish is 15 years old. Her algebra grades have been slipping and her parents have been encouraging her to look for a tutor.*
Chuck says,
"I might be able to help you out, Trish."
Trish is hesitant at first. She does need a math tutor, but Chuck has a reputation for harassing her and other girls. She says,
"OK. Thank you, Chuck."
For about six weeks, Trish has been tutored by Chuck and her Algebra grades have improved significantly. She thinks she dislikes him less, because he tutored her and helped her with her Algebra. One day, Chuck brought her to his house, and his room has pictures of provocatively dressed women on the walls and Trish asks,
"What do you want to study first?"
Chuck says,
"How about this?"
He opens his computer, revealing pornography on PornHub. Trish is uncomfortable and shocked at what she's just seen- Chuck is showing her porn. She has no words. She is speechless. She isn't that surprised- Chuck's parents died in a car accident when he was young and he just lives with his uncle, who is addicted to pornography, hooks up with prostitutes, drinks, smokes weed, and did time in jail for public indecency and indecent exposure. His uncle's house has womens' bras everywhere and she feels sick. Looking back on it, no wonder he turned out the way he did.
Trish tries to swallow her discomfort and sits beside Chuck while he puts his hands on her thigh. She feels like she wants to vomit. She can barely handle the pornography in the video. She runs away from Chuck's house, with her backpack and her books and all.
The next day at school, Trish finds Jace and feels her stomach churn. She didn't sleep all last night and he asks her,
"You OK?"
She says,
"I don't know. I'm getting a weird feeling about Chuck."
Jace looks concerned.
"What did he do?"
Trish says,
"He invited me over to his house to study, which looks like a literal brothel with women's lingerie everywhere. But we didn't do any actual studying. He put a pornographic video and put his hand on my leg. I was speechless."
Jace says,
"That's not OK. Chuck sounds like he's grooming you."
"Grooming?"
Trish has heard the word before. Her dad is a police officer and has handled a lot of cases with pedophiles, rapists, and child pornographers, but she had no idea she would fall victim to it herself. From then on, Chuck got more and more sexually aggressive with Trish and waited until she wasn't looking before he touched her inappropriately, and made advances of an inappropriate and sexual nature at her whenever he had the opportunity and he took it too far when he forced himself on her while she was dressing for gym class, before he sought vengeance after her for getting him expelled.
FLASHBACK ENDS*
Chuck could still be out there, hunting for Trish. He is determined to protect her. She is a victim. He signs up for alerts on his phone so he can be aware if Chuck is nearby and/or assaults other women nearby. On the other hand, Trish rises from her fetal position and stretches around, feeling hesitant about getting up. She is startled by a light knock.
"Come in,"
she says, tired.
Jace walks in, with a sympathetic smile.
"Hi, princess. Are you feeling any better?"
She says,
"I took a nap, to dissociate, at least temporarily."
Jace sits before her on their bed. She and Jace are about to kiss when Trish's phone vibrates in her pocket, she is getting the same notification from Miami Newsletter that Jace got of Chuck, the serial rapist and predator wreaking havoc on several Miami women.
She has a very visceral reaction, feeling herself having a panic attack. She can very well bet on the fact that Chuck knows she is engaged to Jace and is anxious that he's going to hurt her again, or worse, hurt her fiancé. How is this going to affect her relationship with her fiancé? Hasn't Chuck done enough to her already? She is getting palpitations, is shaking, has chest pain, is nauseous, and can't breathe.
She is terrified and retraumatized and has no idea why she woke up from her nap. She bolts to the bathroom and throws up, despite eating very little breakfast and not even drinking so much as coffee. Jace is standing just before the doorway, watching her throw up violently and then she feels an intense cramping in her abdomen and her back, and she feels an intense need to relieve herself and she throws up again and finds bleeding in her uterus. Jace knocks on the door and he asks,
"Trish, what's happening?"
She says,
"I don't know, my abdomen and my lower back are killing me. Jace, I think you need to take me to the emergency room."
He picks her up like a bride and drives her to the hospital and Trish is laying on the cot with him, in a hospital gown, latching onto his hand.
"Jace,"
she whispers, trying to fight the tears welling in her eyes.
"I hate the Emergency room."
He says,
"I know, mi vida. I don't blame you."
He comforts her with a kiss on her temple. A doctor comes in, with a clipboard. She says,
"I appreciate your patience. Ms. De La Rosa, I apologize, but you've suffered a miscarriage. The embryo couldn't survive."
She bursts into tears again and she throws herself at her fiancé, crying hysterically. Can she catch a break? Her rapist came back and is stalking and tormenting her, came to her job with a firearm, was raped again, got pregnant from her rapist, and now had a miscarriage?
A few days later, Trish is packing her stuff up in a suitcase. She needs some space to get back into a good headspace. Trish goes to call an Uber and Jace tells her,
"I'm sorry for how you're feeling, Trish. I'll miss you when you're gone."
Trish wipes some tears from her eyes with her hand.
"I'll miss you, too. I love you, Jace, more than anything. I just need some time to process to shut down, and I don't want to shut you out."
He says,
"I know. I love you, too, and I'm glad you're taking care of yourself."
She says,
"It's only temporary, I promise. I love you. I'll text you and call you when I can."
Tears streaming down her face. It breaks her heart to leave her fiancé, who she loves more than anything else in the world, even temporarily, but she needs to heal. Her Uber arrives and she hugs and kisses Jace, and he kisses her cheek, and she despondently gets into the car. She is in her room, with a camera everywhere except for the bathroom. She thinks, I guess twenty-four seven surveillance is necessary in a place like this.
Meanwhile, Jace is already missing her just as much as she's missing him. He knows it's for the best, and he wants her to heal, but it breaks his heart to see her cry and suffer the way she is right now. She has PTSD and needs help that he can't give her, as heartbreaking as it is for him to admit. She doesn't blame him for that, she knows he's doing the best he can to support her.
He knows she loves him and he loves her back. He is at a bar, drinking scotch and tequila and already feeling a little tipsy. Jace feels a tap on his shoulder and looks at his side. He sees a skinny-looking white girl with shoulder-length brown hair with short, choppy bangs, small brown eyes, and a big nose in a tube top and leggings giving him a seductive, almost calculated-looking smile while sipping a Martini. He feels like he knows this girl from somewhere, as she looks extremely familiar, but he can't remember where.
This girl can't stop looking at him. She flashes him that smile that seems almost glued to her face. Who is this girl? Why does she look familiar?
She asks him,
"What's a man as handsome as yourself doing here alone at a bar?"
Jace says,
"I'm going through some shit right now. My fiancée is going through some turmoil and checked herself into a hospital today. I miss her a lot, and it's affecting me as much as it's affecting her."
She trails along his shoulder, her fingers like ants crawling around on a log, and she says,
"Well, why would your fiancée leave you? She's probably cheating."
Jace asks her,
"Who are you? I recognize your face from somewhere, but I can't remember where that is."
She says,
"Tell me your name, Prince Charming."
He says,
"I'm Jace."
He might be tipsy right now, but he is sober enough to put two and two together to remember this girl. She is none other than Margo Rodriguez. Margo Rodriguez used to bully Trish by starting rumors about her all the time. In sophomore year, Margo and Trish both liked Trent Jackson, but Trent asked Trish to homecoming and the two dated for two weeks. Then out of jealousy and malice, Margo started a vicious rumor that Trish had sex with Trent and he got pubic lice from her, and then he liked her ability to start rumors and he started cheating on Trish with Margo.
Margo used to call Trish every name in the book from "slut", "whore," "puta," "fatty" "fatass," "retarded," "retard," "tart," "wench," "hermaphrodite," "dyke," and also cheated on Trent by having sex with Chuck at one point, and Margo and her friends, who were gang affiliates, cornered Trish when Chuck was reported to the principal for touching her inappropriately and put threatening notes in her locker and later jumped her when she was using the bathroom. Margo ended up dropping out, her parents kicked her out of the house, and she ended up joining the same gang her friends were in and working as a prostitute and stripper to make ends meet.
Jace refuses to associate himself with a girl who mercilessly bullied his fiancée in high school. He says,
"Unfortunately, I remember you. You're Margo. You bullied my fiancée Trish and made her life hell."
"She deserved it. She liked my boyfriends and squealed to the principal when Chuck touched her with his dick."
"She didn't want him to."
He asks for another bottle of Jack Daniels. He is now intoxicated and feeling out of it. Margo smiles fiendishly. Jace is sexy as hell to her, and now she can revenge on Trish for getting her in trouble, liking her boyfriends, and getting one of her sex partners in trouble.
Jace is now dead drunk and fatigued, and Margo discovers he forgot to lock his car. She drives him to her gang members' house, brings him to her room, and undresses him, taking his shirt off, and she takes her cami off, revealing her bra, and rubs her bra-covered breasts on his nipples, licking his lips, enclosed in the strong taste of liquor, and making out with him, unzipping his pants, feeling his crotch area and making out with him.
Waking up hours later, Jace's head feels heavy. His heart feels heavier, now that Trish is going through her trauma and hurting. He feels Margo sleeping on his chest, her dry skin on her hands on his torso. What happened last night? Why is there a naked girl who's not Trish sleeping on him? Did he cheat on Trish? The last thing he remembers is drinking and unfortunately, getting reacquainted with his fiancée's tormenter.
He quickly puts his clothes back on and drives back to his apartment and he calls Ally on FaceTime. Ally says,
"Jace! I'm so glad to hear from you! I've been worried sick about Trish! I'm supposed to plan her bridal shower and I've been distracted, constantly worrying about her."
Jace says,
"Yeah, she's going through a lot of shit right now. She checked into a mental hospital yesterday, because she needs to sort through her feelings."
Ally says,
"I can only imagine what she's going through. I'm sure it's hard on you, too."
He says,
"Yeah, it is. If Trish goes through something upsetting, I feel her pain, too."
She says,
"I'm so sorry, Jace. I'm here if you need to talk."
Jace tells her,
"Thanks, Ally. There's something I want to ask you about, too."
Ally asks,
"What happened?"
He says,
"I read this Insider story in the news about this guy who's engaged, and his fiancée is going through some shitty situations and needs some space to heal. He was drinking to numb the pain and he opened up to someone from his past who he woke up naked next to the morning after."
Ally's face is terror-stricken.
"That's terrible. For the guy and his fiancée, too."
"Do you think he cheated on his fiancée?"
Ally says,
"No, this guy was sexually assaulted. That's not his fault."
There is a pregnant pause from what Ally said. He was sexually assaulted. He ponders this for a moment. Jace was drunk, depressed, and he was fatigued, and ultimately, too intoxicated to consent to what Margo did to him.
"Jace, are you OK?"
He says,
"Yeah. I just had to do some thinking about this one. This wasn't an Insider story, last night, after Trish left for the hospital, I went to a bar to drink because I was upset. I got reacquainted with her old bully, Margo."
Ally says,
"The one who's a gang member who bullied Trish?"
Jace says,
"Yeah. That's her. She seduced me, I had too much to drink, and I passed out, I think and I woke up naked next to her."
Ally's terror-stricken facial expression returns to her face.
"Jace! That's horrible! I'm so sorry you're going through that. Go to a hospital and get a rape exam now!"
Chapter 8 down! Sorry it took me a while, I was back at work and I had some writer's block! If you like the story, remember to follow, favorite, and review it! Love you all, my readers!
