The drive from the hospital to my house is roughly ten minutes. There are three traffic lights, a brief stint on the highway, and a steep, winding hill that makes even the toughest car have bad labor pains. Chopin was playing softly from the speakers as the doctor drove me home the rest of the way in silence. His car interior was cream; soothing. He pulled into my driveway and immediately got out to open my door. I had to remind myself to move, to walk, to put my keys into the lock. It all took conscious effort, as if I was controlling my limbs from outside my body—a puppet master and a puppet at the same time. And maybe I was not in my body. Maybe the real me kept running on that trail, and what he grabbed was a different part. Maybe you could detach from the ugly things that happened to you. But even as I opened the door I knew it wasn’t true. I felt too much fear.
“Do you want me to check the house?” Dr. Asterholder asked. His eyes moved past me into the foyer. I looked at him, grateful for the suggestion and also afraid of letting him in. In all respects, he was the man who saved me, yet I was still looking at him like he could attack me at any minute. He seemed to sense that. I cast my own glance into the darkness behind me, and suddenly felt too afraid to even flick on the light switch. What would be there? The man who raped me?
“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.” He took a voluntary step back, away from me and the house. “I’m fine with just dropping you off.”
“Wait,” I said. I was ashamed of my voice, swollen with panic. “Please check.” It took everything for me to say that, to ask for help. He nodded. I stepped aside to let him in. When you allow someone into your house to check for the boogey man, you are unwittingly letting him into your life as well.
I waited on a barstool in my kitchen while he inspected the rooms. I could hear him moving around from the bedrooms to the bathrooms, then to my office, which hung over the kitchen. You are in shock, I told myself. He checked each window and door. When he finished he pulled out a card from his wallet and slid it on the counter toward me.
“Call me anytime you need me. My house is a mile away. I’d like to check on you tomorrow, if that’s okay.”
I nodded.
“Do you have someone that can come over? Stay with you tonight?”
I hesitated. I didn’t want to tell him that I didn’t.
“I’ll be fine,” I said.
When he was gone, I pushed the sofa to the front door and wedged it between the jamb and the wall. It was no more a barrier against someone intruding than my small, ineffective fists, but it made me feel better. I undressed in the foyer, kicking off the lightweight pants and shirt the nurse gave me at the hospital after she bagged mine for evidence. Naked, I carried them to the fireplace, setting them on the floor next to me as I opened the grate and arranged the logs. I lit a fire and waited until it was hot and hungry. Then I threw everything in, and watched the worst day of my life burn.
Carrying a Brillo pad and a half-full jug of bleach to the downstairs bathroom, I turned the water to the hottest setting. The bathroom filled with steam. When the mirrors were hazed, and I couldn’t see myself, I climbed into the shower and watched my skin turn red. I scrubbed my body until my skin bled and the water turned pink around my feet. Screwing the cap off the bleach, I lifted it above my shoulders, and poured. I cried out and had to hold myself up while I did it again. Then I lay on the floor with my knees spread apart and my hips raised, and poured it into my body. They’d given me a pill, told me it would take care of an unwanted pregnancy. Just in case, the nurse said. But, I wanted to kill everything he touched—every skin cell. I needed to make sure there was nothing left of him on any part of me. I walked naked to the kitchen and pulled a knife from the block I kept next to the fridge. Using the tip, I ran it up and down the inside of my arm, tracing my favorite vein. Too many windows; my house had too many ways to break in. What if he’d been watching me? If he knew where I lived?
I pierced the skin with that last thought and dragged the tip about two inches. I watched the blood trickle down my arm, mesmerized by the sight. When my doorbell rang, the knife clattered to the floor.
I was so afraid, I couldn’t move. It rang again. Grabbing a dishtowel I held it over the cut on my arm and looked toward the door. If they were here to hurt me, they probably wouldn’t ring the doorbell. I grabbed for laundry basket that was resting on my kitchen counter, pulling out a clean t-shirt and jeans. They dragged stubbornly over my damp skin as I rushed to put them on. I took the knife with me. I had to push the couch aside to reach the door. When I looked through the peep hole, my hands were shaking so badly I could barely hold the knife. What I saw was Doctor Asterholder, in different clothes.
I opened the deadbolt and swung the door wide. Wider than a woman who’d experienced my day should have. I wouldn’t have even done that before what happened today. We stared at each other for a good thirty seconds, before his eyes found the dishtowel and my fresh blood.
“What did you do?”
I stared at him blankly. I couldn’t seem to speak; it was like I’d forgotten how. He grabbed my arm and ripped the cloth from the wound. It was then I realized he thought I was trying to kill myself.
“It’s not—it’s not in the right spot,” I said. “It’s not like that.” He was blinking rapidly when he looked up from the cut.
“Come,” he said. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
I followed him into the kitchen and slid onto a barstool, not quite sure what was happening. He took my arm, more gently this time, and turned it over, peeling back the dishrag.
“Bandages? Antiseptic?”
“Upstairs bathroom, under the sink.”
He left to retrieve my little first-aid kit and came back with it about two minutes later.
I only realized I was still clutching the knife when he gently pried it from my fingers and set it on the counter.
He didn’t speak as he cleaned and bandaged my wound. I watched his hands work. His fingers were deft and agile.
“It won’t need stitches,” he said. “Flesh wound. But, keep it clean.”
His eyes traced the rawness on my exposed skin, left from the Brillo pad.
“Senna,” he said. “There are people, support groups—”
I cut him off. “No.”
“Okay.” He nodded. It reminded me of the way my shrink used to say okay, like it was a word you swallowed and digested instead of one you spoke. Somehow, from him, it seemed less condescending.
“Why are you here?”
He hesitated briefly then said, “Because you are.”
I didn’t understand what he meant. My thoughts were so contorted, choppy. I couldn’t seem to…
“Go to bed. I’ll sleep right there.” He pointed to the couch, still angled across the front door.
I nodded. You’re in shock, I told myself again. You’re letting a stranger sleep on your couch.
I was too tired to over think it. I went upstairs and locked the door to my bedroom. It still didn’t feel safe. Picking up my pillow and blanket, I carried them to my bathroom, locked that door, too, and lay down on the mat. My sleep was that of a woman who had just been raped.