Title: Supporting Katie, Part 2
Author: Tarabeth
Characters: Katie, Syd, Chris, Verge, and Jamie
Warnings: Discussion of Rape
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I awoke in my own bed but something seemed odd, my closet and door were in the wrong place. I sat up and realized I really hurt. Tears strolled down my face in confusion and remembrance.
Syd quickly sprang from the winged chair in the corner. She sat next to me and gently rocked me and spouted calming reassurances of my safety.
“What’s wrong with my bedroom?” I asked.
Syd smiled gently, “I had Chris and Verge bring your things up to my guest room. I thought I could take better care of you up here.”
“I don’t…” I started.
Syd shot me a very loving but very stern look.
“Thank you,” I said, “it does feel safer here with you.”
We sat quietly for a while, until I groaned, as I need to shift positions.
“I have some pain meds for you,” she said, and then glanced down to my lap, “and some ointment. I will get it for you.”
She returned with a glass of water and two tubes of ointment.
I scooted back against the headboard and pulled my knees into a tight ball. “You’re not putting that on me,” I told her.
“No, honey, I won’t. But you will feel a lot better if you put it on.”
I shook my head, to inform her there would be no touching.
She stayed where she was and set the glass of water, pain medication, and ointments on my dresser. “Katie, you will heal without them, but you will heal faster and hurt less if you apply the ointments. I won’t make you. I love you and don’t want to see you in any more pain than you have to be,” she said before she turned and left the room, closing the door behind her.
I took the pills, showered, applied the ointments, dressed and went to find Syd. She was in the kitchen making sandwiches.
“How did Chris and Verge move my furniture? They are in LA for the weekend,” I asked her.
“I called them from the hospital and they drove home last night. They will be up for lunch in a couple of minutes.”
Tears began to fall down my cheeks, “I’m not really hungry. I think I’m going to go back to bed,” I said as I got down off the bar stool to leave.
Syd was there in an instant, pulling me into a hug. She stroked my head, “You need to eat and you are going to have to see them sometime.”
How could I see them, actually look at them? What do you say when you are not the same person you were the last time you saw your friend?
Syd continued to stroke my head, “It will be okay; you love each other.”
How could they even stand to be around me? What do you say to someone who has just been raped?
I heard them coming up the stairs, and Syd lessened her embrace. Verge ran over to me and pulled me into a tight hug, “I would have come home if you had asked, you didn’t need to go and get raped to get my attention.”
Chris and Syd gasped, I pushed Verge away and slapped him upside his head, “I wasn’t sure if a simple mugging or fondling would do, but I will remember next time all I need to do is ask.”
We smiled at each other and he pulled me into another hug and cried onto my shoulder, “I am so sorry, Baby, so sorry, this never should have happened to you.”
I felt his tears on my cheek, and my own eyes began to tear again, “I love you,” I told him.
“You better, I don’t move furniture at 2:00 am for just anyone,” he said. Which was followed by a high pitched, “OWE!” When Chris swatted him and took Verge’s place hugging me.
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Monday when Verge was still around I didn’t think much off it, he only had Monday classes once a month. Tuesday I was a little more skeptical, but I was still pretty dazed and confused so I let it pass. Verge was doing a great job of keeping my mind occupied and busy, mostly by talking me through bad daytime television and requiring my input. We were cuddled together on the couch when Jamie came storming in the house.
He marched right up to Syd and shouted, “How dare you not tell me!”
Verge and I looked at each other with extreme fear for Jamie’s future, neither of us had ever seen any one talk to Syd that way and not regret it.
“I am part of this Family too, did you not think I had a right to know?” He asked still yelling. His chest was heaved out and for the first time he really resembled a man and not a boy.
I turned to Verge, “I didn’t know he didn’t know,” I said.
“I didn’t either…until he called this morning,” Verge winced.
I smiled.
“He had to have driven pretty fast to get here,” Verge continued. “It must be because of that big crush he has on you.”
I blushed, “I can’t help it if he has a crush on me.”
“Well not sleeping with him probably would have helped,” Verge teased.
“You told me I should sleep with a guy,” I whined.
“I never said Jaime, and I thought you were Bi.”
“Well, I’m not!” I stated.
“I wish Chris would let us just tell him he is gay, the boy would be so much better off if he just realized it…but no Chris says we should let him figure it out for himself. He didn’t let me figure it out for myself.” Verge said with a humph.
I let out a small laugh, it was my first laugh since the rape and it felt nice. “If we had let you figure it out for yourself, you would still be a virgin,” I teased.
“Well you didn’t help the Jaime situation by giving him a nice warm place to pound in and out of…now he thinks he likes girls…” Verge paused and looked over at me.
My mood had so quickly changed, I was now curled up into a ball and crying into the couch.
“Oh, honey, I am so sorry,” he pulled me into a hug, “I am such an asshole.”
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Copyright TBL 2008
