Chapter 3

The rays of light shined through the gaps in the blinds like sharp steel blades piercing her eyes. She rolled over moaning slightly and tried to lift her head from the pillow only to find that it was too heavy to do so. Her head throbbed, and she tried to pull the blankets over her head grasping at more time before the previous nights events became reality. She tried to fall back into a state of sleep, possibly unconsciousness, but found that for some reason her heart beat had decided to become overwhelmingly loud. Rolling over again she noticed a figure curled up in the chair in the corner. Squinting she noticed that what she assumed must have been a pile of clothes was actually a woman watching her closely. Unsure what to make of this situation, she tried yet again to sit up, only to become so dizzy that she quickly threw her head off the side of the bed to be sick. Whimpering, she rolled over again, completely confused and in a great deal of pain. The room began to spin as the actions of the night before became more clear.The woman stood from the chair and walked over to the bed. Without saying a word, she handed the girl two aspirin and a small glass of orange juice. Closing her eyes, the girl took the pills and swallowed concentrating hard on not getting sick again. She laid back down and soon found comfort in sleep.A couple hours later she awoke and realized that this was not her house. The bed she was laying in, was some strangers…and just who was that woman? She shot up forgetting about her head and was brought back to reality. Grabbing her head to make sure that it did not fall off, she walked from the room looking for evidence of how she got there and where exactly she was. Her search ended abruptly as her search for a bathroom to be sick in became an immediate priority.Finding the bathroom she lunged for the toilet, purging herself of everything that had troubled her for the past month, and then some. She wept hysterically as the memory of the previous night had come back to her. Her fit at work, that poor intern who was probably going to have a fear of hot coffee for life, the driving dangerously down the highway at mach one, the stopping at the biker bar….the biker bar…she began heaving heavily now. What had she done! Everything after that bar was a blur, but from the bruises she knew something had happened, but it scared her to even fathom what had happened after. Her last memory was going into the back alley with the leather-wearing-beer-guzzling biker. She threw up once more then fell to the floor of the bathroom sobbing until she again fell asleep.Awaking with her face firmly stuck to the floor she began to panic. Where was she? Who was that woman and how did she get here in the first place? Had she been kidnapped? She stood up and noticed her face in the mirror, bruised, her lip was spit, mascara and lipstick staining her cheeks. She looked like a two-dollar-whore, half-dead in an ally way.The woman walked in, two cups of tea in her hands. “We should talk” she says with a serious look on her face. She hands the girl the cup of tea and walks from the room. Strangely, although her first instinct is to run, question, and fight, the girl follows the women into the living room. The small home is cozy, oil paintings of meadows of lavender adorn the walls, the large window faces out onto a glass like lake where wood ducks puddle around in the shallows. A loon cries out and the girl’s attention is brought back to her throbbing headache. She stares at the woman who is curled up with her feet under her on an over stuffed couch.“I guess that your first question is mostly who I am and where you are?” The girl nods and takes a cautious sip of her tea. “You should sit, my dear, this conversation is not going to be a good one…” The girl grew angry, who was this woman to talk to her like that, but was cut off before she could speak. “Again, this would be better if you would sit, so sit down”The girl sat, her rage boiling to the point that she could feel heat in her ears. She could not understand why she was even still here, why she was listening to some woman she never met telling her what to do, and why she did not just tell the woman where to go. None of this made sense to her.The woman began to speak, “I’m Rose and I think you should eat something. I’ve started breakfast, why don’t you come to the kitchen and I will get you a plate.” The girl’s anger grew and she blurted out, “that is the big uncomfortable conversation that you made me sit for? This is a load of crap, where’s my car, I’m leaving.” The woman smiled and shook her head. “WHAT!” the girl screamed, “WHAT DO YOU FIND SO FUNNY?!?”“You” was the answer that the woman gave, causing even more infuriation in the girl. The woman continued to speak softly yet with purpose, “you were in rough shape when I got to you…you’ve noticed your face…your clothes are torn, and some are missing. What is it that you do remember about last night?”The girls mind began to race as small snippets of the previous night’s events ran through her head. The men in the bar being all over her, the drinking, the complete disregard for her safety and wellbeing. She recalled falling out of the backdoor by the dumpster, scuzzy hairy men hovering over her, the laughter…..she tried to fight but failed…she remembered crawling back to her car, a deer, a tree, and mud that smelled like swamp. It was all coming back to her and she looked up at the woman and whispered, “what have I done…” The world around her began to spin again and she felt herself sliding from the chair. The women walked over and stopped her from falling. “let’s get you some food, I am sure that you will feel better once you’ve eaten, then, we can work on a plan.” The girl nodded, closing her eyes to try and prevent the spinning…between the pain in her head and the pain from her thoughts she stained to keep from losing it.The woman returned with a plate of food; eggs, what looked like fresh home baked buttered bread, and some fruit. The girl looked at the food and felt her stomach begin to flip flop. “It won’t be as bad as you think,” said the women, smiling again, “I promise you that you will feel better once you eat.” The girl began to explain about low carb, egg whites only etc. but the woman just laughed, “it’s food, it shouldn’t be that complicated, just it eat.” Although the girls fear of yokes, butter, and carb laden bread almost got the best of her, she began to nibble through the plate. The woman waited a couple minutes then simple stated, “ready?” The girl looked up and nodded, not completely sure what she had agreed to, but knowing that it was important.“What brought you to this point?” simply put, but a question that the girl was not quite ready to answer. She began to tell the story of stopping at the bar after a stressful day, but the woman stopped her, “I understand what happened last night, the details of that event are not important, what is it that brought you to this point in your life that a well dressed business women became lost?”“But I was telling you how I became lost, I hit a tree, climbed out of my car to look for help..”“That isn’t what I am asking you, my dear. Maybe you need some more rest, you definitely could use a shower.”Still confused by why she was not fighting this woman, the girl simply nodded and followed her to the washroom. “I’ve put some clothes out in the room to your left, there are towels under the sink. When you are ready, I’ll be outside on the dock reading.”The woman then shut the door and left. The girl stood looking at the mirror again. She looked like a damaged piece of trash. Thrown out from over use. It was almost as if it was not her in the mirror, but someone she would have pitied. She stood there for a moment, in a surreal haze trying to straighten out in her mind what was happening. She could not logical figure out why it was that she was still at this woman’s home, why she trusted her, and why she felt safe for the first time in a long time.She turned on the water and the room began to fill with steam causing the image of the strange girl to disappear. As she stepped into the shower and the hot water ran against her bruised and scraped body the reality that the strange girl in the mirror was in fact her hit. The stinging of water hit her like acid burning her pain into her soul. She fell to her knees sobbing as a mixture of blood and dirt washed down the drain.She sat there hugging her knees until the water ran cold before making a move to stand. She slowly moved from the washroom to the bedroom, gingerly getting dressed pulling clothes that felt like sandpaper on her skin. She found a hair brush and began to make an attempt at detangling the mess of her hair pulling and tugging her way through until she gave up and pulled it back into a tight ponytail.Sitting on the edge of the bed she thought about the question that had been posed to her. How had she come to this? This slow progression into a self destructive bitch of a woman happened in such a slow veiled in success cover that she did not even realize it. Where to even start with the story was something that her aching head could not even begin to comprehend at this point. She stood up and took a deep breath before moving outside.