Shades of Garnet

"I am covered in skin."1

Selena stared down at her hands, which were folded in her lap. She shifted, avoiding the eyes of her sympathetic psychiatrist. Dr. Horton was nodding, legs crossed, a legal pad resting on her thighs. She was taking notes with a ballpoint pen, black ink. Selena could see the color of the scribbles even from where she sat, across the room on a black leather couch. The couch smelled like cigarettes and depression.2

Selena ran her lower lip between her teeth and let loose her tight bun. The tightness of her pulled-back hair had become too painful to bear. "You're taking notes on me."3

Dr. Horton nodded, adjusting her black-rimmed glasses. 'If only she would take them off,' Selena observed quietly. 'Her eyes are such a pretty green.'4

"I am," the psychiatrist agreed. "Does it bother you?"5

Selena shrugged. The garnet pendant on her necklace chain shimmered, catching light. Horton's green eyes caught sight of it quickly. She watched her patient's hands as she caressed the pendant, sliding it up and down the chain nervously. She was trembling.6

Dr. Horton sucked in a breath. "Do you think you can tell me the details of the night?"7

She watched her patient freeze, hands still in place, grasping at the glassy garnet stone. Beads of sweat gathered above her upper lip. Her hands, still trembling, seemed to somehow pale.8

"Take your time," the psychiatrist gently suggested. "We've got a good amount of time left, anyway."9

Selena exhaled, letting out air she must have been holding in. She uncrossed her long legs and let go of her pendant. Still she could not look Horton in her eyes, afraid the older woman would turn on her and judge her wrongdoings. Turning away, she welcomed her fringe to hide her averted eyes. She focused on a small circular stain, a splotch of dark brown on the tan carpet.10

"I'll try." Her words were barely a whisper, quiet as a summer breeze.11

"I was at this party with a couple of friends. Hayley, Darcy, and Ella." Her words were shaky and uncertain, like the first steps of an infant. The syllables stumbled and shuddered. "It was a Friday night and we wanted to meet up with Darcy's cousin, who was hosting." She could smell the house, air thick with weed and cheap beer.12

"I was getting myself some water in the kitchen. I didn't want to drink and get drunk." Her words took more confident strides now, a model trotting down a runway. She ignored the flashing cameras, the admiring crowd. "When I looked up, I saw this guy. He was so pretty. Really. He had totally feminine features.13

"Hayley was with me then. She saw me looking at him and started laughing. She said, 'He's so gay, the stereotype police are coming to take him away!' She was a little drunk when she said it, so she was kind of loud. Well, the guy kind of heard what she was saying about him." She glanced back down at her lap, the jean-clad thighs.14

"He really looked upset that she said that, but he seemed interested in me. He...he..." The words were quaking again, a bittersweet avalanche. "He winked at me." Heat crept up the side of her face. She watched Dr. Horton's eyebrows arch out of the corner of her eye. She willed herself to continue, to walk despite her bruises.15

"After a little while I lost track of Hayley and I couldn't see anyone else that I knew. I was getting ready to go home, but he saw me. He told me I'm pretty. He told me his name. D-Damon.16

"I thought he was cute and he seemed to like me, so we started talking. A lot. And everything else blurred around us. It was like we were the center of the universe." She did not smile. "Well, we were practically talking for hours. It was one o'clock by the time we realized how late it was.17

"A lot of people left by then, but it was still pretty crowded. I still couldn't find my friends, so I just stuck with him the entire time. Then I realized that I should probably go home. He offered me a ride. I still didn't know where any of my friends were, so I let him drive me home.18

"When we got to my house, he gave me his number. He told me that he really liked talking to me and wanted me to call him so we could hang out again. He kissed me goodnight. When I started to leave the car, he grabbed my arm. He was really playful and teasing. He said, 'I miss you already!'19

"At first I thought it was really cute and funny, so I played along with him. I was like, 'I don't know how I'll be able to live without you,' and stuff like that. But I was totally kidding." Selena watched at Dr. Horton scribbled away furiously on her legal pad. 'She's observing me. I'm a little rat in her lab.'20

"Well, he started to get really aggressive. And I really wanted to leave, 'cause he was making me a little nervous. He started to leave marks on my wrist, his grip was so tight." Those hands, clutching her, pressing her down. She felt those hands around her neck. Suffocating her. She choked back tears.21

"I tried telling him I really had to go and I wanted him to get off me. B-but he wouldn't let me. He s-said, 'You aren't g-going anywhere.' He started k-kissing me a lot, but I didn't like it. I told him to leave me alone, to let me g-go." Flashes of Damon's body moving onto hers flashed before her. She let a few tears seep out of her eyes, but only a few.22

"He started to touch me, too. My breasts. He ripped off my shirt." She sniffled. "I was crying and screaming and I kept on saying please don't, please don't."23

A lump was forming in her throat. 'Cancer.' She shivered and hugged her painfully thin body, aware of how Dr. Horton was looking at her. The note taking had stopped and her eyes were completely focused on Selena. She wiped her swollen face with a provided tissue. Her makeup smeared, but she didn't care.24

"He told me to shut up. A lot. And he called me a bitch. He balled up his beanie and shoved it into my mouth. That got me real quiet, real fast." She laughed bitterly at the memory, still tasting the scrunched hat in her moist mouth. "Then he just ripped off my skirt and panties and...and...a-a-and..."25

"It's OK," Dr. Horton said gently. "It's OK, Selena." She handed the girl a second and third tissue. She took both with ease and drowned her face in them. Her entire body shook, an epileptic under pressure.26

"It's not OK," Selena moaned through her tears and hiccups. "It won't ever be OK." She shook her head. "Every night I have dream of the same thing. He's doing it over and over, every day...it's like it's happening all over again. And then Darcy's boyfriend, Brody, he uses the same cologne Damon does. Did."27

"Does it give you any sort of comfort that he's in prison?" Dr. Horton asked gently. "He'll be there for the next fifteen years."28

"No. It never will." She sniffed hard, holding back a trail of snot that had been threatening to drip out of her nostril. She grabbed for her garnet pendant again and ran it up and down the chain, the zipping sounds of its movement calming her down again.29

"Fifteen years. In fifteen years he'll be back for me." She stared out the window, at a pigeon as it rested on a streetlight. The sky was smoky and overcast, gray, hinting a downpour later on. Dr. Horton was silent for awhile, watching Selena's eyes admire the bird's silhouette.30

"I want to be a bird," she said suddenly. She seemed hyped up on something. She bounced. "I want to have beautiful white feathers, immaculate and pure. Just like Mary." She smiled, never letting go of her pendant. Horton watched closely.31

"I want to fly away, with the rest of the crowd, and never come back."32

And right on cue, the pigeon took flight.