ETHEREAL

CHAPTER 21

"Ugh, this is why I told you to stop talking to him, to stop seeing him, hmmmmm..." Justin pauses, and mumbles, "Bitch ass stoner alcoholic that smells like ass..."

I blink away the tears that welled in my eyes, from telling Justin the whole embarrassing, shameful ordeal. "You can't blame yourself, though, Skye. Even if you were butt ass naked AND out of your mind - that doesn't give anyone permission to do what he did to you - to completely disregard what you wanted, and violate you and your boundaries," Justin firmly says.

I look away, and don't say anything. I feel ashamed at how I feel like I froze up and completely disassociated my mind from the situation as it was happening. Maybe I could've tried harder to push Damien off of me. Maybe I shouldn't have even walked into his room in the first place - but, I know that if something like this happened to a friend of mine or even someone that I don't know, I would never blame them for getting raped, in any situation.

"Are you gonna be ok enough to drive me to work?" Justin ended up getting a second job at a nursing home about twenty-five minutes from my house, which really eats into the gas, when I drive him there about three times a week, but he still doesn't offer any type of monetary support to neither me nor my parents, since he still has a mountain of debt to pay off. "I think so, yeah," and I hate the apathetic, desolate and totally drained voice that comes out of my mouth. A mere fragment of who I used to be.

My phone keeps buzzing as Damien keeps texting me. His latest texts include, "Please give us another chance. It won't happen again. I was just really drunk. And high. And I won't drink like that again. I only want to smoke now. Don't give up on us like you do everything else," and I can't believe his audacity of how he thinks he can manipulate me into dating him, again. He continues with, "We have a connection that I haven't had with anyone. Babe, please forgive me for messing up. I'll be better, I'll be who you deserve to be with. I love you. I felt alone. And maybe I was acting self destructive but I was completely overwhelmed. I handled it poorly but I'm not perfect. I needed God because I was feeling so weak and like I had no control of anything and that's a terrible feeling. I love you a lot and I would never break up with you. Only fight for you. We have been through too much together and I'm telling you I'm a lot better now so please let me show you."

I feel like I have Stockholm syndrome and I'm in love with my incorrigible, manipulative abuser. Damien is literally the worst person that I have ever met in my entire life, and that is really saying something. I decide that I will give him one more chance, even though I don't believe that people ever change. I still love him - I just won't give him another opportunity to do what he did to me, again. The curiosity of how I want to see how our relationship will progress may kill me, literally, and I'm not even exaggerating. I feel like I should make him wait longer, but I have this perverse desire to see the man who Damien could be - I know that he has the potential to be better. But, am I just in love with his potential, and a fantasy that will never come true?

After an agonizing week of ignoring him and wondering what to do, I trepidatiously text him, "I'll give us another chance. But, you need to be more honest with me, and respect me - something like that can never happen again. You have to stop ghosting me or randomly disappearing, also. It made me feel like you could care less about what I wanted," and I file what happened to me in the compartment in my mind of Traumatic Scenarios That I Will Never Think About Again, and I lock it away. It isn't the healthiest approach, but I have to in order to continually move forward with my life, after a myriad of harrowing, devastating things have happened to me, besides this mess of turmoil with Damien.

He texts me back right away with, "I'll tell you anything that you want to know." Since I'm feeling particularly masochistic and curious as ever, I want to know, "did you hook up with Toni?" "I didn't fuck Toni." I can tell that he is annoyed, but he didn't exactly tell me what else happened - like, if they even kissed, etc, or even why he ditched me on New Year's Eve.  I text back, "lying by omission is still not being completely honest."