The Five by Lily White

Author:Lily White [White, Lily]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-03-19T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Justin - Present

While Rainey described for me one of the absolute worst days of her life, a song played in my head, the theme to Sesame Street to be exact, the dichotomy of such a happy tune against the backdrop of her horrible memories freezing me in place, scrambling my thoughts while I tried to gather myself together enough to counsel her regarding the trauma she’d endured.

This wasn’t a moment where a doctor would ask his patient how that memory made her feel. It was deeper than that, a precipice upon which the session could tip over, sending us both sliding into a depressive cavern with no possible way of climbing back.

That one day alone would have broken anybody. It didn’t matter how strong they were, how emotionally balanced. Surviving the heartache, the humiliation, the trauma of finding her mother dead on the floor, Rainey had proven how fierce her strength really was.

Quite frankly, had I experienced even one week of her life, I would have found myself strapped to a bed in a Thorazine haze once the doctors and nurses had wrestled me into a mental facility.

This woman had lived hard.

Had become hard.

Had fought tooth and nail to continue scrabbling forward while everything around her was falling apart.

Based on what she told me, it would only continue to get worse. I wasn’t sure I was prepared for it.

In no way did I excuse Rainey for how her actions and decisions had played a role in what was done to her, but she was young, disastrously so, her intellect questionable and her motives still not clear enough for me to comprehend where her story was ultimately heading.

Tapping my pen against my notepad, I watched her lying over the couch. She took that pose in the moments she was reliving a memory that haunted her.

“How did you act toward Paul after your mother died? Did you continue going over to his house?”

It wasn’t the best question, nothing that would dig into her psyche to pull all of her secrets to the surface, but it’s what I asked while I attempted to settle my thoughts.

I didn’t get turned on again, at least. Okay, maybe just a little bit when she described the train being run. Damn it. I wasn’t just going to Hell, I was driving the truck there myself.

“Not as often, but not because of what happened with my mom.”

“You were avoiding Rowan again, weren’t you?”

Rainey’s legs were bent with her feet on the couch, fingertips softly scraping over her thighs as the skirt of her sundress fell down. She touched the mark on her arm again, absent minded, so lost in thought that I wondered if she remembered I was sitting in the room.

“That and getting a job. My mom was dead. The bills needed to be paid. So I had to do something. They hired me at the convenience store on the corner. I wasn’t great at the job, but I muddled through.”

“Did Rowan go back to Megan?

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