A/N TRIGGER WARNING FOR DESCRIPTIONS OF UNDERAGE SEXUAL ABUSE/RAPE! This chapter is very heavy and it talks about some really terrible things. Please know I did not write it lightly but it is necessary for the plot of the story. The things Elyssa talks about should not be taken lightly, so please be mindful while reading.
This chapter's title was inspired by the song Unpack Your Heart sung by Phillip Phillips. Please read, review, and let me know what you think of the story.
A tense silence filled the air of the small blue car. Elyssa hadn't said anything more since agreeing to tell Solas everything. She didn't ask where he was taking her. She didn't continue to pick on him about his mode of transportation. She didn't do anything more than stare blankly out of the car window. Solas had sent Salem a text explaining that he wouldn't be making it to their weekly dinner because something came up. He knew at some point he was going to be confronted by the qunari woman, and he honestly didn't know what he was going to tell her. However, that was an issue he would deal with at a later time. His focus now was helping this brave young woman.
He didn't know where else to take her other than his house. He knew that there, they would have no prying eyes or ears to listen to what she had to tell him. Part of him was happy to finally be getting his questions answered, but a larger part - the part that cared for Elyssa deeply - was worried about what those answers were. He pulled into his garage and used the remote he kept in his car to close it behind him. He got out of the car and walked around to the passenger side to open Elyssa's door for her. She hadn't moved a muscle and was still staring at something he couldn't see. "Elyssa you don't have to do this," he told her softly.
His speaking seemed to pull her attention from the void she had been in. "I want to," she whispered, "I can't carry this by myself anymore. I just need someone, anyone, to understand and not hate me."
"I could never hate you for whatever you are about to tell me," Solas promised. He offered her his hand to help her out of the vehicle. She gripped it tightly, not letting go even after she had gotten out. Solas didn't say anything. Instead, he let her hold his hand. He would be lying if he said the feeling of her hand in his didn't bring him a sense of peace. He led her into his living room, where he had seen her scars for the first time. It seemed this was to be the place that secrets finally came out. She took a seat on the same couch as before, finally letting his hand go. Solas could see the shaking of her jeans as her legs trembled. She fidgeted with the long sleeves of her shirt. Her eyes seemed focused on the light tan color of his carpet. "Would you like some tea?" he asked, unsure of what to do. Should he sit? Should he stand?
"Not right now," Elyssa answered. She looked at him and chuckled, "Sit down, you seem nervous." She patted the seat next to her. He sat down where she had indicated and waited for the answers she was finally willing to give.
Elyssa took a deep breath. This was going to be harder than she thought. She hadn't told anyone about what happened since Anders, and even then, he didn't know the whole story. All he knew was that she hadn't had the best first experience with sex. He didn't know the details and he never would. Anders would never be able to handle the truth. Solas, however, she believed - and hoped - could. She turned so she was facing him and tucked one leg under her. Solas waited patiently for her to begin.
Here goes nothing, she thought to herself. One more deep breath to still her racing heart. One more glance at the man with the kind blue eyes. One more reassurance that she was doing the right thing. She was ready.
"I was ten years old," she began, "I hadn't been ten for very long, it seems like when it happened, but it's hard to remember exactly when it began," Solas looked at her in confusion but thankfully asked no questions. She appreciated his silence. "Ten years old is too young to understand right from wrong completely. You don't know which touches are appropriate and which are not. You don't know why you're being told to keep this or that a secret. In a way, it all seems sort of like a game. Especially when nothing like that had happened before,"
Another deep breath. She thought back to that time years ago, to everything she had been through since then. Was that a scar that was ever going to fade? "Do you know what else ten years old is too young to know about?"
"I'm afraid not," Solas murmured. His heart pounded in his chest. He had seen her picture, he knew where this was leading. Still, he hoped and prayed to whatever gods would listen that he was wrong.
"Sex, Solas," Elyssa could hear the bitter resentment in her voice, "A ten-year-old little girl is too young to know about sex," She felt drops of water fall onto her hands folded in her lap, "I was too young to know what it was we were doing," Faster the tears fell as she remembered everything. Her chest heaved in hard sobs and she lost what little control she had.
Solas pulled the distraught girl onto his lap. There he held her tightly against him and let her sob into his shoulder. His heart cried out for her. It would seem she had more in common with him than he had known. The things he experienced at the hands of Andruil weren't things he would wish upon anyone, much less a young girl. At least he had not been a child when she had shown him how bad sex could be. Who would destroy the innocence of a child like that? Who would force a little girl to grow up too fast? Angry tears welled in his eyes. He couldn't believe someone would hurt this beautiful spirited girl that way. His arms were wound around her in a protective embrace. He couldn't change the past, but he could help her now. He could give her a safe place to share her silence and unpack her heart. Perhaps then he could help ensure her future was better than her past. "Elyssa, I'm so sorry," he whispered, her ashen hair muffling his voice.
"You don't have anything to apologize for," she gasped in between sobs, "You didn't do it,"
"Who did?" Solas prodded softly, "He needs to pay for what he did," He couldn't help the low growl that arose from him. What he wouldn't do to get his hands on the son of a bitch that could take a child's innocence that way.
Elyssa waited until her breathing was under control. She hadn't really cried about what had happened to her since it happened, and never in the presence of someone else. She hadn't been able to. Every day, she was forced to act as if nothing had happened. To act like she was okay for the sake of someone else. No one ever thought that maybe she needed someone to tell her it was alright to not be okay. To finally release the tears she had spent years holding in felt strangely liberating; like losing a piece of yourself you never wanted to begin with but had always been there. Her chest already felt lighter, the world just a little brighter. But there was more she hadn't shared with Solas. More she needed to get off of her chest.
"'They,'" she said.
"Pardon me?" Solas asked. His voice was low, deep, and menacing. He understood what she had meant and he wasn't pleased about it. A shiver ran through Elyssa. She didn't know he possessed the level of anger his eyes held now. He was like a wolf, hungry, and eager for a kill. She was glad it was not her this wolf's anger was directed at.
"'Who are they?'" she answered, "That is the question you should have asked." More deep breaths. It was alright. She was okay. She could do this. She could be brave enough to share her story with someone that cared for her. "I was ten when my grandfather began touching me. He had always seemed like a kind man, always laughing and joking. I liked that about him. At home, my mother had always been so sad or angry. My stepdad did his best to appease her, but it almost always ended up with them screaming at each other. It was so nice to be around someone who laughed and smiled instead of yelled and argued," Her eyelids closed and she was back to a time when things were a little simpler. Before she was forced to grow up and realize how dark the world was. "I can't remember exactly when it began," she admitted, "I just remember enjoying watching him play his video games or getting a piggyback ride while we walked down the road to the store near where we used to live. We had been doing that as long as I can remember." Elyssa opened her eyes, but she could still see the innocent little girl she had once been. And the man who had taken that innocence away.
"Then, one day he paused his games, and we did things I didn't realize weren't okay. One day he was reaching up and touching me when he was giving me a piggyback ride and telling me not to tell anyone else," her voice was quiet, filled with sorrow for the little girl she had once been. What she wouldn't give to be that girl again, for the world to be a little bit brighter.
Solas' hands dug into Elyssa's back unintentionally. What kind of sick bastard did that to their granddaughter? What kind of world did they live in where someone could do something like that and not suffer the consequences? Instead, it was an innocent little girl made to suffer. He could feel Elyssa tense at the unexpected pressure of his fingers biting into her. With a deep breath, he eased the tension from his hands and waited for her to continue.
"You want to know something though?" Elyssa whispered, "I didn't mind it. Part of me was so happy to be getting any kind of attention that wasn't me being yelled at, that I didn't listen to the other part of me that whispered maybe it wasn't okay for him to touch me like that. That maybe I shouldn't be seeing and learning about the things he was teaching me. That he shouldn't be in my room at night, waking me up to do things," Her chest heaved again. She had never admitted that to anyone before, not even herself. Hearing it now for the first time was strange, like having a fog suddenly lifted and seeing things she didn't know were there before.
"My life wasn't horrible. My parents didn't always fight. Sometimes we had good days where we all got along. We would play board games or watch movies on our crappy tv. We would be a family - a good one. But those good days couldn't erase all the fighting and pain from the bad days." Elyssa's lip quivered as she thought about the good times she'd had with her parents and sisters. Her stepdad may not have been the man to help create her, but he tried his best to raise her as if she were. Her mother wasn't always bitter and angry at how life had turned out for her. Her sisters weren't always insufferable brats that took whatever they wanted without thinking of how she felt. Some days they had all been happy together; and those were some of the best days of her life. But those days were so few and so far between.
With a heavy sigh, she continued her story. "I was the oldest, I knew that money was tight, even at such a young age. I knew it was my responsibility to help out however I could. So I never really asked for things. I took care of my sisters whenever I needed to," Elyssa took a deep, shaky breath before continuing. "Still, it hurt to see how much more my mother cared about my sisters. She hardly ever yelled at them, it seemed. They always got what they wanted. I was the one that never really got to watch what I wanted or play a game when I wanted. I never really got presents for my birthday or other holidays because they always came first."
Elyssa started at Solas with pleading eyes. Silently, she begged him to understand that she had tried to be a good person. She hadn't meant to be so jealous of her siblings. She hadn't meant to resent her mother so much. She had just been a kid. "So when he gave me attention that my sisters didn't get, I felt special. I didn't understand it was so bad."
"Ssshhh," Solas soothed the girl, "it's okay, vhenan," The word slipped from his mouth before he could stop it. Once he had said it though, he knew that he loved her, and it terrified him. She was a student, so much younger, and with so much on her shoulders. She didn't need him adding his burdens to it. She didn't need to have to deal with the scars he had from his past, both physical and emotional. She didn't need his love. Nor, could he fathom, did she want it.
Elyssa stared blankly at him, seeming not to have heard him. "It wasn't until the day my grandmother walked in on us that I fully understood what had been happening for months. By that time, I was nearly eleven," Solas gasped at the realization that it had gone on so long for her. For almost a year, she'd had to bear the silence of what was happening to her. "I was supposed to have been watching him play a video game, and she had been coming to tell us dinner was ready. None of us were prepared for what she walked in on." He felt Elyssa wind her arms tightly around him. A crushing grip squeezed his heart. It seemed as though she'd never had anyone to draw strength from like this before. Solas prayed she hadn't been bearing this burden alone all these years. "She was pissed," Elyssa continued with a snort, "She told me to go get my mother. I still remember the smell of the pork chops my mother was cooking, how she stood on the left side of the counter over the little electric grill she had cooked them on, and how angry she sounded when she asked why I was crying," She rested her face on his shoulder, her cheek fitting perfectly into the space between his collarbone and arm. How he wished he could erase all of her pain. "The worst part about it though? The absolute worst thing is, my mother didn't ask me if I was okay. No, she asked my sisters. It hadn't ever happened to them. It had happened to me, but she didn't seem to care,"
"I'm so sorry," Solas choked, "I'm so sorry that this happened to you,"
"My grandmother kicked him out for like a week," Elyssa scoffed bitterly, "then asked me if I was okay with him coming back. What was I supposed to do, tell my grandmother no? So he moved back in and we all acted like nothing ever happened. The only thing that he suffered was the scar he has to carry above his eyebrow from where my grandmother broke a lamp throwing it at him."
"You continued to live in the same house as him?" Solas gasped.
Elyssa nodded, "We had to. We didn't have anywhere else to go. Then we moved to where we are now when my stepdad got a new job. I was about twelve then," That seemed like it was it, like that was all there was to be said, but Solas hadn't missed the fact that she had said more than one person had abused her.
"Elyssa… you said 'they' earlier," he hesitantly reminded her.
"I'm getting to that," she whispered. "I was twelve the second time it happened, but it wasn't my grandfather this time. It was my uncle, or well, one of my mother's closest friends. I grew up calling him my uncle. I was dog-sitting for him, trying to help him out so he could get stuff done without his dog getting under his feet, and I've always loved animals so I didn't mind." In her mind's eye now was a little girl, trying her best to move on from something she still didn't completely understand. She had clung to the need to feel loved and accepted, accepting the love of a dog that was always so happy to see her as the best she was going to get.
"He wanted to be a photographer, so I was also helping him with his portfolio. Most of the pictures were innocent until they weren't. Before I knew it, I found myself in the same situation as before. But this time I knew it was wrong. I was so scared though. Everyone reacted so negatively when it happened before that I didn't even know who I could talk to about it."
"Elyssa, are you telling me no one knew about it then?"
"No one knew at all until just now…" she whispered, "I've never told anyone else it happened again."
"Elyssa, they need to be reprimanded," Solas said, "They shouldn't be able to get away with something like that."
"Solas, I can't," tears flowed from her eyes once more, "I can't stand more people looking at me with pity and disgust. It's bad enough I get that at home. It's even worse that Anders throws what little he knows in my face whenever he's angry at me. And then who knows what you're going to do? I just… I can't," She hadn't meant to let it slip that she was worried about his reaction. He didn't need to know how much she cared.
Solas gently pushed her away, just enough to look at her with blue eyes swimming with so many complex emotions. "Elyssa I'm not going anywhere," he reassured her sternly. "The only difference that what you've told me happened makes is that I understand you better. It just makes me more amazed that someone like you can exist."
"So you understand that I'm broken," she sniffled, "that I'm damaged goods," Elyssa phrased her words with the inflection of rhetorical questions.
Solas responded quietly. "No, you're neither of these things. You're strong and very brave for telling me this." Once more he pulled her into his embrace, "I'm so proud of you."
She felt warm and safe for once in her life. She felt at peace. She felt like she had a chance of being happy. In Solas' arms, she felt that maybe the world wasn't such a bad place. It didn't matter that he was ten years older and her teacher. All that mattered at that moment was that he was accepting her, even after she had told him everything. She couldn't understand why this beautiful, kind man was accepting her. She didn't want to understand it. She just wanted to enjoy the feeling of being loved for a few moments more before it all went away. She could ask that much of the world that was cruel enough to take her innocence, yet kind enough to give her someone like Solas.
Solas held Elyssa in his arms until the sun outside his window fell and streetlamps came on. She was soft and warm against him. More than that, Solas finally knew what had been troubling her all this time. To have gone through what she described and still be able to laugh and smile was a testament to her strength. To let someone in, to share her secrets spoke volumes for her bravery. Despite the cruelty the world had shown her, she still chose to show others kindness and laughter. She was rare and marvelous and beautiful.
Too soon, Elyssa pulled away. "It's getting late," she commented, "I need to go home. My cat needs to be fed." She chuckled to herself. Of all the reasons to go home, that was the one she went with.
"Ah, yes I suppose it is getting rather late," Solas agreed, "I'll see you out," There was a chilling emptiness inside her as soon as she removed herself from Solas' lap. Solas stood up and led Elyssa to the front door. "Thank you for telling me about everything," Solas murmured. "It means a great deal that you would trust me in such a way."
"Thank you for listening." she laid a gentle hand on Solas' forearm. A small gesture of her appreciation, blurring the lines between teacher and student that much further. Morphing them into two people that needed each other more than they could realize, changing them from student and teacher to just Solas and Elyssa.