“I get it. But, babe, nothing you did led to that.”
When she doesn’t say anything and refrains from looking at me as she starts walking out of the bathroom, I grab ahold of her because I need to know that she agrees with me.
“Wait. You know that, right?”
God. She doesn’t agree with me. I can see the guilt in her eyes. How could she possibly think this?
“Come here,” I tell her as I sit on the bed, taking her hand and pulling her towards me. “Tell me you don’t think that.”
When she doesn’t respond, I say, “Babe, there is nothing you could have possibly done to deserve that.”
She turns away from me as I say this, and when I tug her back to me, she’s crying.
Fuck.
How did I not know that she blames herself for this?
“Shit, babe. I had no idea this is how you feel.”
“Please, don’t,” she says in a broken voice.
“I need you to talk to me about this. You have it all wrong. What that guy did was f**ked up, babe, and you didn’t do shit to deserve what he did to you.”
She looks up at me and pulls her hands out of mine when she gets mad and yells, “You don’t get it, Ryan! What I did was stupid, and I completely led him on. It wasn’t right, and I knew it, but I did it anyway.”
Infuriated that she feels this way when her logic is so f**ked up, I raise my voice at her, saying, “What the f**k could you have possibly done? Because I know you, Candace, and I know you couldn’t have led him on that much. But that shit doesn’t even matter because you could’ve stripped down in front of him, and you still didn’t deserve to be raped.”
“Don’t say that f**king word, Ryan!” she snaps and then begins to fall apart, sobbing.
Banding my arms around her, I hold her close. “Babe, I’m sorry. I just had no idea that this is how you think.”
“I didn’t even really like him,” she begins to stammer out between her cries. “But I was stupid and lonely, so I would let him kiss me, knowing that I didn’t like him. And I f**king hate my mother for this, because if it wasn’t for her being such a bitch, I never would have gone out with him.”
“Candace, please don’t do this.”
“You just don’t get it. I did lead him on, and I pissed him off. I never should’ve acted like that. I should’ve just been honest.”
“This isn’t your fault.” I tell her in a hard voice.
“Yes, it is!”
“It isn’t your fault, Candace.”
Facing me, she takes my shirt in her hands, fisting the fabric when she yells, “But it is!” and then falls into my chest. Her cries are loud, staggered, and strained. It’s hard to listen to, but I do because I love her. I don’t say anything else because I’m only upsetting her worse.
I can’t argue her irrational thinking because she isn’t seeing it with clear eyes. This guy screwed with her head so badly that she’s been carrying the weight of the responsibility on her own shoulders. And here I am, blind to this fact. My girl has been holding fault when that son of a bitch is the only one to blame.
Moving her with me as I lie down on the bed, she tucks her head under my chin and continues to cry for a while. She’s in so much pain, and I don’t know how to make it any better for her. I’ve always questioned her choices for how she’s been dealing with this, but now, knowing this piece of the puzzle, it’s clear that she needs to do something.
We’re face to face when she finally speaks. “It’s been seven months, Ryan.”
“I know, babe.”
“I just want it to go away.”
“I know. But it’s never going to get easier if you keep blaming yourself. It kills me that you feel this way. It f**kin’ kills me that I can’t take this away from you.”
Knowing that there isn’t a goddamn thing I can do to lessen her misery frustrates me beyond anything I have ever dealt with. I want to take care of her, to be the person that makes this better for her, but that’s what’s so f**ked up about this situation—that’s what’s so scary—because it all lies within her. She’s the only one who can make this better, but she refuses to help herself. She figures if she just ignores it for long enough then it will fade away and everything will go back to normal. It’s not a sane way to deal with this. In fact, I think it’s just making it worse for her with every day that passes. The avoiding is catching up with her, and I’m afraid she’s just going to—one day—crumble.
When her breathing begins to even out, she asks, “Can’t we stay another night?”
“Anything you want,” I tell her.
I lie here, and I can’t shake my own guilt about this whole situation. I’ve always had it. I’ve always asked all the what-ifs, but the fact remains, this girl was outside fighting for her life while I was mere feet away. If only I would have gone out there, I wouldn’t be lying here with my girl falling apart on me. She wouldn’t be carrying this around with her every day. I was the only other person there, and I did nothing.
Noticing that her body has gone limp, I remember that she hasn’t taken her sleeping pill. Slipping out of bed, I go to her purse to grab the bottle. I take out a pill and fill up a glass of water from the bathroom before waking her.
“Baby,” I urge as she slowly opens her eyes. “Here, take this.”