R. Lilley - Rock Bottom

She poked a finger in my chest, her voice very quiet, but shaking with fury.  “You need to leave.  She’s asked you to go, and so that’s what needs to happen.  Before you go, though, I have a few things to say.  Did you know that guy Dean was giving her a ride home?  Did that happen with your knowledge?”

I grimaced.  So much of the night was a blur to me, but I did recall screaming something along those lines to her.  I was almost positive that had been my idea.  “I did.  I’m sure you know that Dean was my roommate.”

“Danika was dosed with Rohypnol.  Do you know what that is?”

My entire body stilled.

He wouldn’t have, I thought, my mind racing.

He’d never dare, I told myself.

“She was dosed at your place.  The only thing she drank was half a glass of orange juice that your buddy Dean served to her.  You brought that into her life.”  She was screaming by the end, her voice cracking.

Her mouth hardened as she regained her composure, and her hand shot up, slapping me again.

I took the abuse.  I knew I deserved it.  I didn’t think there was any way even Bev could have hated me more than I hated myself right then.

“You put her into a car with a rapist motherfucker who was high as a kite.  You did this to her.  You.  Now get out of my sight.  If I see your face again, I will make you pay.”

I left, my mind still reeling with the information she’d given me.  I believed her that she’d find some way to make me pay if she saw me again, but that wasn’t why I left.  If Danika had wanted me there, I would have stayed with her, not matter what.  No one could have kept me away this side of death.  But that was the problem.  She didn’t want me there.  She’d been very clear about that.  I wasn’t good for her.  She could do better, and she finally saw it that way.

I went to Dean’s funeral.  I seethed through the entire thing.  I’d lost people, close people, but never had I lost someone and realized that I loathed them.  I should have felt bad, but I wasn’t even sorry he was dead.  In fact, the only use I would have for an alive Dean after what I knew he’d done was to kill him with my own hands.

Even when he’d pissed me off, I’d still trusted him not to do something like that.  It was a hard pill to swallow; how misplaced my trust had been.

If he was capable of drugging Danika and doing God knows whatever he’d been planning, what else had he done?  It was downright devious, outright evil, what he’d done.  If it had been anyone but an incensed Bev who had told me about it, I wouldn’t have believed them.  She had no reason to make a thing like that up, and she was not a woman that dealt in misinformation.

I spent a week in pure hell, torturing myself with regrets, dosing myself liberally with any drug at hand.

Seven days after I saw Danika in the hospital, I checked myself into rehab.

DANIKA

They gave me details.  So many pointless details about loss of cartilage and muscle tissue.  Painful details about irreparable damage to my uterus.  Endless details about surgery and physical therapy.  The gist of it was:  I was now a cripple, and I could never have children.  My response to that reality;  I will not let this define me.  So help me God, I won’t even let it slow me down.  I wasn’t a dancer anymore, and I would never get to grow a child inside of me.  Those were facts.  I refused to cry about it, or if I did, to even so much as acknowledge those fucking useless tears.  I would find something else to define me.  I just had to figure out what.

Bev took time off work to take care of me.  I was shocked, as I’d never known her to take more than a week of vacation from work before.  But she took nearly a full month off for me.

She helped me around the house, kept me company, kept me sane.

“Why are you so good to me?” I asked her at one point.  “Why have you always been so good to me?  I’m such a burden to you, and you’ve done so much to help me.  We both know I can never repay all of your kindness.”

Bev gave me the saddest smile, and one of her soft hands moved, as though in slow motion, to stroke over my hair.  “Oh, you poor girl.  Don’t you know?”

I blinked at her and shook my head, completely lost.  “Know what?” I asked her.

“You were never a burden, Danika, and this isn’t kindness.”

I shook my head at her again, my brow furrowing in confusion.  “If it’s not kindness, then what is it?”

Her eyes filled with tears, and the look on her face made my heart turn slowly in my chest.  “My dear, this is what’s called family.”

I was completely undone by that.  I began to sob, the sounds loud and harsh and broken.  She just embraced me, murmuring soothing words into my ear, her soft voice filled with tears.

Family, I thought, absolutely floored by the thought.  Family, I realized, my mind flashing back through the years of Bev and Jerry’s unfaltering generosity, their unfailing kindness.  Family.

The thing I had yearned for had been mine without me ever having to ask.  It was just there, through better or worse.

Family.

DANIKA

A few months after the accident, I got a call from my sister.

She was in labor.

I drove for five hours and made it to her just in time for the delivery.

We’d been talking on the phone and corresponding via email.  I’d even gone out to see her a few times, before my first miscarriage.

But that birth is what made us sisters again.

It was a bittersweet joy to share that special moment with her.

I was the only family present, the only one there for her.

She named him Jack Markova, and I was one of the first to ever hold him.  I cut his umbilical cord and fell in love with that darling boy.

I drove her home from the hospital, and helped her settle in with the new baby.  I stayed with her for two weeks, staying up with the baby, letting her get some much needed rest while she recovered from her ordeal.  I limped around her house and tried to help make it a home for that fatherless little boy.

I was tucking her in one night, the baby asleep in a bassinet beside her bed, when she looked at me and said, “I do know who the father is.”

I sat down at her hip, and she found my hand with her own.  I stared at her face and waited.

I knew it was going to be something truly awful.  Just knew it.  The nature of that awful, however, eluded me.  My head was in a dark place, and so the possibilities were endless.

The thing I feared the most, though, was not the worst thing that could have happened to her.  I knew this because, the worst thing had happened.

She squeezed my hand tight and closed her eyes tighter.  “I had no boyfriend.  No lover.  I didn’t know what had happened to me, until I realized I was pregnant.  But I did remember a few nights that were…out of my recollection.  And after those nights, I did know that something was off, things were askew.  I woke up in ways and places that didn’t add up.”

“Oh no, Dahlia,” I whispered, stroking her cheek.

“It took me a while to piece it together, but…I had a few nights that made no sense, and as I began to uncover the facts, I realized that Dean had drugged me.  A few times.  I confronted him, and he wouldn’t admit it aloud, but I saw his guilt.  And then, when I told him I was pregnant, it didn’t even faze him, and he straight up told me that he was the father.

“I hated him.  Before any of that even happened, I couldn’t stand him.  I didn’t have the stomach to get rid of the baby, or even to give it away, but I got the hell away from him.  No way was I going to let him be in this baby’s life.  He was a rapist and a lowlife.  I wanted to press charges, but I didn’t see what good it would do.  I was so stupid.  By the time I realized what had happened to me, all of the evidence was gone.”

“You poor dear,” I told her, kissing her forehead, aching for her.  “I’m so sorry you got mixed up in that.”

Her hand moved from her side to rest on Jack’s little head in the bassinet beside the bed.  “I’ve made peace with it.  I love this baby, Danika, with my whole heart I love him.  The rest is in the past.”

I had so much bitter poison inside of me, so many regrets, and it didn’t slip my notice that Dean’s ugly proclivities had produced a beautiful baby boy, while my and Tristan’s love had only ever ended in tragedy.

Life was so very cruel, but there could be no doubt that I loved that baby.

We doted on him, my perfect little nephew.

SIX MONTHS LATER

I didn’t look at his face, but listened to his words, hearing more what he didn’t say, than what he did.

We were sitting in the small café where I’d agreed to meet him.  He was here with two other people, a young man and woman.  I’d told him I hadn’t wanted to meet him alone, and that had been his solution.  I hadn’t wanted to do this, but when he’d explained the purpose of it, as part of his rehab program, I hadn’t been able to refuse.

We wouldn’t be a part of each other’s lives again, but that didn’t mean that I was willing to cripple his recovery.

I’d wanted to show up first, so he wouldn’t see how I was still struggling to get around.  That instinct was part pity, part pride on my part.  I wasn’t sure which was stronger.

I’d dressed painstakingly, my hair loose and straight and shiny, my makeup heavy but flattering, my skirt long, to hide my knee brace and my orthopedic shoes, my shirt tight to show off my figure.

I couldn’t delude myself for long.  Pride was stronger.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t shown up early enough.  Tristan and his two shiny new friends had already been at a table, drinking coffee and laughing at something when I walked in the door.

I was ridiculously grateful to the man that held the door open for me so I could hobble through.  It was amazing how the little things could help, and struggling with the door while Tristan watched was a humiliation that I did not care to contemplate just yet.

My chest burned as I made my way, one small crutch assisted step at a time, to an empty table near the entrance.  I wanted to sit before he saw me, but I wasn’t so lucky.

One look at his face and I knew I wouldn’t be meeting his gaze for this little meeting.  The raw regret, the crippling pity in his eyes was nothing that I cared to see.  I’d prefer anything from him before I’d take his pity.

I couldn’t look at his face, so instead stared at his collarbone.  I couldn’t face his eyes, the promises we’d made and broken, the things we’d lost.  They were all there, accusing me, yet filled with guilt, filled with pity, all at once.

“Can I get you anything?  Coffee or tea?”

A shudder ran through me.  His first words to me were to offer to wait on me, because I was a cripple now?  I couldn’t bear it.  I almost bolted right then.

“Some tea, thank you,” I said through stiff lips, finally, after I’d debated in my head which would be more humiliating.

I didn’t so much as twitch while he went to the counter and got us both a cup of tea.

I stared down at mine, added one sugar, then stared some more.

“Milk?” he offered.

I shook my head, then added another packet of sugar.

I never took even one sip before he said his piece.  I never touched that tea.

“I have many regrets, many bad things I must take credit for, but believe me when I say that the negative impact that all of my actions have had on your life is my biggest one.”

He stayed firmly on his side of the table, his eyes on his hands, and in their downcast depths, I saw his sincerity, but I hadn’t really been questioning it.

I quickly looked away.

Of course he was sorry.

So was I.

Neither of us had wanted things to turn out this way.  But as I looked at him, whole and healthy, and when I’d seen him laughing, before he’d spotted me, happy.  Perhaps things really had turned out for the best for him, in spite of this all.  He’d been a mess of a man when he was with me, and look at him now, thriving.

It planted one tiny seed of bitterness inside of me, and over time, that bitter seed would grow.  It would flourish.