Ravaged Read online

  C.R. Lacerte

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  -Hannah-

  I swing my well-loved Volkswagen Buggy out of the Georgetown Hospital parking lot and finally start off home. Coming off a twelve-hour shift, my every muscle is aching relentlessly. At this moment, a hot shower and a couple minutes of shut eye seem like the ultimate luxuries. All I want in the world is to soak in a piping hot bath, scrub every minute of this shift away like so much grime, and enjoy a little spell of peace of quiet. But of course, I wouldn’t be me if I gave myself even a few moments off to unwind.

  My lead foot urges the Buggy along toward Clarendon, my home these past six years. I don’t have a spare second to waste on any sort of scenic route today. I’ve got just a few hours to get home, pretty myself up as best I can, and head back out the door for another in a long string of job interviews. Would most people say that taking an interview after a crazy long shift is a tad bit insane? Sure. But I’ve long accepted the fact that “most people” would fail to understand a lot of things about my life. I just tend to do things a bit less...conventionally than the average girl.

  As I make my way along Lee Highway leading back to my apartment, I can’t help but replay the past twelve hours in my head. As an ER nurse, I don’t have the luxury of spare time on the job to analyze and critique my own decisions in the moment. Things move at a breakneck pace in the emergency room, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. The constant motion is a balm for my anxious temperament, and the chaos keeps my mind blissfully occupied. Still, during the brief stretches of time while I’m traveling between jobs, social engagements, what have you, my mind reels back through my performance at work.

  Though I’ve been a registered nurse for just over six years now, my big, vulnerable heart has yet to harden. Most of the men and women I work with are able to distance themselves from the job, leave everything at the hospital and sleep soundly at night. That’s great for them, but I’ve never been that way. Maybe I just have an overdeveloped sense of empathy, but it’s so hard for me to put my patients out of my mind once we’ve parted ways.

  I remember every single person who comes into my care at the hospital; every new mother and baby, every victim of a shooting or stabbing, every toddler whose overprotective mother hauled him into the ER because of a nasty cold. For the brief time these people are in my hospital, I’m responsible for their lives. My job as a nurse is not a role I take lightly. All my life, I’ve wanted to help those around me, and I’m lucky enough to get a chance to do that every single day. Even if the lives and fates of my patients weigh heavily on my shoulders, there’s still nothing else in the world I’d rather be doing with my life. Being a nurse is my life—it’s as simple as that.

  Come to think of it, my dedication to nursing may be the only constant thing about my life. It’s no wonder that, after such a tumultuous few years, throwing myself utterly into work has been my coping mechanism. I’ve not only been working full time at Georgetown, but I’ve been taking private duty contracts during my free hours, just to keep myself completely busy.

  My interview this afternoon is for a new private duty job, as a matter of fact. For the past few months, I’ve been spending my hours away from the hospital with a well-to-do family in Arlington, Virginia whose father was at home in the final stages of terminal cancer. The man was far from old—barely past fifty. He had three grown children and a wife of thirty years beside him when he passed away. As much as it broke my heart to see those wonderful people in so much pain, I was glad to be there to help them through the earliest stages of their grief.

  Now I’m back on the market, as it were, searching for another family to aid in their time of need. From the outside, it might look like I’m acting from a place of utter selflessness, but even I have to admit that that’s not entirely accurate. The truth is, I need these people as much as they need me. I need to know that I’m making a difference, and doing my part to inject a little kindness into the world wherever I can. And, if I’m being perfectly honest, helping other people is one of the only things I can do to feel a little bit better about myself.

  To say that I have low self esteem is a criminal understatement. I’m only now, with the help of some intense therapy and introspection, coming to understand just how little compassion or respect I have for myself. It’s hard to say what the cause of this deficit really is, but it’s already done a number on my life as an adult, that much I can say for sure. It’s painful to look at the trajectory of my personal life too closely, though that’s exactly what needs doing in order to gain understanding and move forward.

  The catalyst for this sudden flurry of psychological intervention was a harrowing, devastating breakup with my boyfriend of four years, Sloan Jackson. Our volcanic falling out had rattled me to the core, and finally knocked some sense into me. As hard as it is to admit, I’d been in an extremely abusive relationship for years. The “A” word was still hard to force through my teeth. After all, I’m a medical professional. I’m trained to see the warning signs and intervene when a relationship is toxic. But when I was with Sloan, it was damned near impossible to see anything for what it really was.

  Sloan and I had met during my second year on the job at Georgetown. Late one night, during a particularly chaotic shift, he was wheeled into the ER with a slew of injuries—the result of a rather gruesome bar fight, I was told. As I helped get him stitched up and back on his feet, Sloan had told me all about the boozed-up bout. He’d been standing up for his younger brother, he told me. As an only child, I’d thought the whole thing was incredibly sweet.

  He’d been stuck in the hospital for a couple of days. The beating he had sustained was nothing to laugh about, and the doctors worried about internal bleeding and nerve damage. He’d taken on four guys at the bar after they started harassing his little brother Tommy. And though Sloan swore that the other four men were far worse for the wear than he was, we weren’t about to take his injuries lightly. I personally insisted that he stay in the hospital and recuperate for as long as he felt he needed. He’d taken me up on the offer, but not exactly for the sake of his health.

  During his few days at the hospital, Sloan and I took a liking to each other that went beyond the professional relationship. I found myself going out of my way to check up on him and taking multiple breaks, something I never do. Although he was on a different unit down the hall, he often requested me by name whenever he needed something. I’d linger in his room far longer than was necessary, listening to little stories about his life and offering my own anecdotes. The attraction between us was immediate and powerful. I’d never felt so viscerally drawn to someone in my life.

  When Sloan was finally discharged from the hospital, I was the one who walked him out into the early morning sunlight. As I was telling him goodbye, he stopped my words with a searing, damning kiss. The power that had surged through his body in that moment intoxicated me. We exchanged numbers and promised to see each other soon. I’d imagined that “soon” would mea
n in a week or so, but when I arrived home from work that night, Sloan was there waiting on my front steps—a bouquet of roses in his strong, deliciously massive hands.

  We didn’t even bother with drinks or dinner that first night. We simply climbed the steps up to my apartment and let the night unfold. I’d never been with someone like Sloan before—someone commanding, and forceful, and just a tiny bit dangerous.

  I’d always gone for the brainy types, harmless nerds who would ask permission to hold my hand, let alone take me to bed. Sloan was nothing like them. He was dominant and insistent. He told me exactly what it was he wanted from me, and I loved it. A long dormant submissive streak flared within me when I was with him.

  At first, it had been extremely exciting to explore myself with Sloan. I’d spent most of my childhood and young adult years trying desperately to maintain my “good girl” image. My parents had been very conservative when I was growing up, and incredibly religious. I was expected to get fantastic grades, participate in a bundle of pre-approved extracurricular activities, and keep my legs tightly shut until marriage or death, whichever came first.

  They’d even tried to set me up with the son of their close friends', a boy named Gregory, two years my senior. Their plan had backfired rather spectacularly when, on the night of my high school graduation, Gregory got me absolutely wasted at my own party and had his way with me in his parents’ basement.

  I hardly remember his disgusting attack, I was so far gone by that point in the evening. But as long as I live, I’ll never forget waking up the next morning on the grimy couch, my graduation party dress bunched up around my waist, my thighs slick with something horribly sticky.

  I’d snuck out of Gregory’s basement and made my way home, just a few houses down. Before my parents could wake up, I promptly scoured myself in a scalding hot shower, washing away any evidence of Gregory’s betrayal. I drove to a pharmacy three towns over for a dose of Plan B and never uttered a word of the incident to my family. I’d never even realized that what happened to me was rape—not until I admitted my dark sexual history to Sloan.

  He’d been so outraged, so livid, that I was actually afraid of him for the first time. He’d demanded that I find Gregory’s address so that he could go "fuck him up". I’d been truly terrified of Sloan that night, and it wouldn’t be the last time.

  Still, the fact that Sloan had been willing to hear about my somewhat sordid past was remarkable to me. He wanted to know every little thing about me, no matter how dirty or dark. Sloan wanted to confront my darkness with me, to open me up to him in ways that no one ever had. I put myself entirely in his hands, and not only where sex was concerned. He came to have total sovereignty over my life—and after so many lonely years of trying to please everyone without ever feeling taken care of, I gave it to him willingly.

  Our sex life was amazing, at first. I’d been so skittish about sex before Sloan, but he drew me out and then some. He was authoritative in his lovemaking, and he always called the shots. Whether he wanted me from behind, up against the wall, in the bathroom of a bar, he could have me. As long as I knew that he loved me, I didn’t care what anyone else might think about our blazing sexual indiscretion.

  We’d descended into a dominate/submissive relationship rather quickly. Soon, it wasn’t just a matter of Sloan taking the lead—he had complete control over me. And as I become more willing to experiment, the intensity of his control skyrocketed. Bondage, spanking, whipping, and more all came storming into our sex life. I wanted so badly to give him exactly what he wanted that I never once raised my voice in protest. There’s nothing wrong with rough sex, after all, and at first all our experimentation stayed safely within that realm. But soon, Sloan's role as my dominator began to express itself outside of the bedroom as well.

  It took me a solid couple of years to realize just how possessive Sloan had become, in all facets of our life together. He was suspicious of every single man that I came into contact with on a daily basis. He was convinced that the other doctors and nurses at work were trying to steal me away from him, to turn me against him. Sloan refused to meet my parents, insisting that he would tear them limb from limb for what they let happen to me as a teenager—even if they had no idea what had happened to me.

  He read my emails and went through my phone on a regular basis. He was always at my apartment, quizzing my roommate Sophia about my whereabouts. But still, I simply chalked all his rabid behavior to an expression of his love for me. So he was protective, so what? At least I had someone in my life, at long last, who was willing to stand up for me. Willing to fight for me, if need be. I assumed that Sloan’s level of possessiveness was normal. I talked myself out of worrying about whether or not something was deeply, deeply wrong with Sloan and our relationship.

  I refused to consider the fact that Sloan was dangerous, because I’d fallen hopelessly and irrevocably in love with him. At least, that’s what I’d thought at the time. He insisted over and over again that he was in love with me too, that he wanted me to be his for the rest of our lives. His passion had seemed truly romantic from where I was standing. I was so mad for him that even a truly alarming, vile act couldn’t turn me against him.

  One night, after Sloan and I had been dating for just over two years, I accepted an offer from a male colleague to grab a casual bite to eat after work. Dr. Collins was new to the hospital, and I wanted to make him feel welcome. He was a very handsome young doctor, with movie star hair and big, charming grin.

  We left the hospital together, and Dr. Collins offered to drive. As I lowered myself into the passenger seat, I heard a pained grunt sound out from the other side of the car. I watched in horror as Sloan appeared out of the darkness, slamming Dr. Collins down on the dashboard of the car. By the time I managed to talk Sloan down, the police had already been summoned by a frightened parking lot attendant...

  I shake the memory of Dr. Collin’s bloodied face out of my mind as I pull up to my apartment. It’s hard enough to keep from dwelling on the immediate past—why drag up ancient history? Sloan is finally, at long last, out of my life. Thinking about him constantly isn’t going to help matters one bit. Especially since he hasn’t been taking my insistence that he stay away from me very seriously at all. As I hurry to my front door, I can’t help but peer around the neighborhood, looking for tall, burly shadows lurking just beyond my gaze.

  “Hello?” I call, swinging open the front door of my apartment. “Sophia, are you home?”

  “Back here!” a light, girlish voice calls from within our home.

  I drop my things on the sofa and make my way toward my roommate’s voice. Sophia and I met during our freshman year of college. We’d been randomly assigned to share a tiny bedroom in a suite full of girls, and thank God that we had. The other ladies in our suite had been extremely outgoing, materialistic, and gossipy. After everything that had happened to me earlier that summer, the last thing I wanted to do was tag along to a bunch of keggers. Luckily, fate had dropped Sophia into my life at the exact right moment.

  Sophia was nothing like the other girls at my mid-sized state university. She dressed in tattered layers of tie dye and denim and kept her long brown curls piled messily on top of her head. She’d helped me cut my long blonde hair into a stylish little bob that I’d kept ever since, and introduced me to the calming benefits of her good friend “Mary Jane”. The other girls were totally perplexed by Sophia’s granola-crunching ways. While Sophia was cooking up tempeh burgers and reading Emerson, our suite mates were chugging vodka and red bull and reading...well, nothing, come to think of it.

  Sophia and I were inseparable from the very beginning. She gave me the courage to question my conservative upbringing, to reject the elements of my parents’ worldview that I didn’t agree with. She listened when I needed to talk about what I’d been through that summer, and helped me transition back into life after that devastating event in my neighbor's basement. In many ways, Sophia had saved my life.

  These days, she
works as a freelance graphic designer and studio artist. Our apartment is perpetually covered in half-painted canvases and blobs of clay. There’s always homemade fruit leather and Kombucha to be found in our kitchen, and a medley of organic and herbal medicines in our bathroom.

  There are times when we butt heads—me with my medical training and Sophia with her “natural” methods—but a little friendly disagreement never hurt anyone. We’re as different as can be in many ways, the petite, brunette Sophia and me, the tall, curvy blonde. We complement each other perfectly. Always have.

  The sound of lapping water catches my ear, and I make my way toward the bathroom. Steam pours out of the open door as I make my way inside and stop short with a bark of laughter. Sophia is lounging in the claw foot bathtub with two teabags covering her eyes. Her hands, pruned from her long bath, are arranged into a meditative pose above her head. Her iPod speakers send the low, vibrating tones of a Tibetan Singing Bowl echoing out into the small room. The thing is, a scene like this is far from abnormal around our house.

  “What’s all this?” I ask, leaning against the doorway.

  “It’s a new ritual I’m trying out,” Sophia answers in her airy voice.

  “What is it this time?” I ask, “Ayurveda? Zen? The Secret?”

  “It’s sort of a cobbling together of...well, everything,” Sophia sighs, “I’m borrowing from all the disciplines I’ve studied. Taking my wellness into my own hands.”

  “I’m all for that,” I tell her, “Just not at this exact moment. I need to clean myself up before my interview.”

  “Interview?” Sophia gasps, sitting bolt upright in the tub. I laugh as the teabags bounce off her tiny, pert breasts and into the water. “Didn’t you just get off work?”

  “Yeah,” I shrug.

  “Jesus, Hannah,” my roommate groans, picking herself up out of the water, “You need to take a damned break every once in a while! Sleep. Meditate. Anything.”

  “I don’t have time to take time off,” I say, averting my eyes and handing her a towel. Sophia’s never been one to shy away from nudity in front of others. Most of the time she’s at home, she’s in some state of undress. I wish I was halfway as uninhibited as her. “Sorry to cut your new ritual short.”