I pull back and wipe her cheeks before I lie us down on the pile of blankets in the sand, the only heat from her and the fire. I’ve never unloaded this weight that I’ve been carrying for years the way she allows me to.
“You’re the strongest person I know,” she whispers against my neck.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“Before I met you, I hid everything. I was selfish and used people. I was weak.”
“But you’re not now. I don’t see any of that in you,” she says, and I know the only reason for that is her.
36
After a few more days, it’s time to head back to Seattle. I’m finishing packing our bags while Candace gets ready in the bathroom. Having this week away has been good for us. And having her here with my mom makes this connection that we have so much stronger.
Needing to grab a few things out of the bathroom, I don’t knock when I see she has left the door cracked. When I open it, she startles as she pulls down on her sweatshirt.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” she says as she still has her top clutched in her hands.
I walk over to her and take her hand, lifting it up along with the shirt, and when I do, she says, “I don’t like it,” referring to her tattoo that is peeking over her pants that she has tugged down.
I lower her shirt and ask, “Why?”
“Because it’s not me,” she admits. “I was trying to be someone different, and it only led to bad things.”
“What do you mean?”
“I got it in a moment of rebellion, I guess. It was stupid, really. I got it and started acting foolishly, which led to . . . umm . . .” her words stammer off as she drops her head away from me. I know what she’s trying to say, and it’s insane to think getting a tattoo would result in her getting raped.
“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 fucked 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 fucked up, I raise my voice at her, saying, “What the fuck 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 fucking 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 fucking 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 fuckin’ 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 fucked 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.”
She does and then hands the glass back to me. I crawl back into bed and hold her until she falls back asleep. The whole time, my mind is just eating away at me. At everything. When she’s finally asleep, I quietly head downstairs because I need a little space to get my thoughts together, but shit is just spinning more and more the longer I sit at the dining room table.
“Hey, dear,” I hear my mom say softly when she crosses the room to sit with me.
“Hey,” I sigh.
“Where’s Candace?”
“She’s sleeping. We’re just gonna head back tomorrow,” I tell her as I look at her from across the table.
“Are you okay?” she asks. “I heard you two fighting earlier.”