Meet What They Send You

A Scream in the Silence

"Now you lay in the ashes... Of the house you built..."--Charlotte OC

"It...looks a lot worse than it is." Cory started with.

Lie No. 1

Kris was already shaking her head.

"Did...somebody hit you? Because th...that's what it...it...looks like. Li...like some...somebody hi...hit you." Kris said.

"Yes. Somebody hit me." The words slipped out and Cory heard them, leaving her lips, and for a quick moment wanted to desperately pull them back but...they were better than the silence that would fall between them. Or, worse yet, the sound of Kris as she started to cry.

"Cory...why? Wha...what happened?" Cory heard the anguish in Kris's voice but there was frustration too. Frustration at not understanding and Cory realized that, on some level, she had only served to make Kris feel more like an outsider than ever, with her attraction to BDSM that Cory couldn't even explain to herself.

She didn't know what to say. She opened her mouth, not even sure of what was going to come out when Kris held up a hand.

"Is this...this...par...part of what...you tri...tried to explain to m..me? Wha...what you like?"

Part of what you like?

Yes,yes,it's everything I like on some dark and weird level I never talk about because I miss my daddy and its how I feel close to him and when I'm pushing people and pushing myself , it's a way to feel all that pain of what I know I never should of liked or loved and it doesn't matter how I learned to feel that way, I just know I do,I only know I do...

"No." Cory stared up at the ceiling of Kris's apartment.

Lie No.2

She couldn't look at the girl.

 "And...yes. Kris, I    don't know how to explain it. I went...and I met...someone. But...I never expected what happened. But...I'm okay. But I don't expect you to be okay with it."

Cory leaned forward and covered her face with her hands. Now that everything was said and done, her shame and a strange sense of grief came for her in a crushing wave, rolling over her, pulling her under and spitting out everything that should be said but wasn't. And never would be.

I'm sorry, it won't happen again.

I was raped.

I drank too much, and I was doing drugs and I didn't even know what they were, and I was stupid.

Please don't leave me.

All of it spit out and pulled out to sea and still, there was that strange sense of obligation to do it all over again, even if the outcome was the same.

"I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't know what I'm doing." Cory said, her voice raw with tears. She could feel the gap between her life and Kris's, it was a palpable thing being tossed back and forth and if dropped, there would be no way of putting it back together again.

And then Kris's arms were around her and Cory, who regarded herself as a woman who didn't cry when around others, burst into tears.

"It's going to be okay. Let me help you." Kris whispered.

"No one can help me." Cory said, her voice muffled.

Except Michelle. 'Shelle could help. Go see her.

She had no idea why her mind kept returning to that. She'd grabbed on to it like the last life preserver off the Titanic, and ever since the thought had popped into her head it stayed right at the forefront, annoying and stuck, just like shit backing up a pipe.