Part 9

After hearing Ms. Perry tell us information that seemed pretty damn important and necessary to keep from us, I am all out of words. Words to give, words to hear. I don't want any of it. The only predictable parts of our lives always involved this stupid police station, where Officer Bright always looks like he's constipated, Ms. Perry and Tess are always crying, Travis and I are throwing whatever we can lift, and his parents watch with worry and love like I deserve it.

This was my breaking point. I know it, and I can feel it in the way everything is so far away, so out of reach. It makes me just as unreachable. I don't know when anyone else starts to notice, but when Tess takes in my lack of reaction at being told we're staying at the police station tonight, she holds my eyes long enough for me to know she's concerned.

But I don't care.

I've become something I didn't think was possible. The endless anger inside of me has kept me alive my entire life. I always had more to say, plenty of energy and will to fight back with whatever was needed. Words, actions, or fists, retaliation was my fuel. But it seems that even those of us with the darkest souls can be taken down by someone else with a dirtier soul. And I've been taken down by something evil, and it's so woven into my life that I will always be within his reach.

Hours pass that turn themselves into days instead. It's become aware to everyone that I am not here. I hear certain parts of certain conversations that certainly have no effect on me. I don't absorb information or give away emotions. I don't know what I do; I don't know how I'm

"Any change?"

I turn away from Reagan after watching for some small reaction. "Nothing. It's been a week, Donnie. She needs a doctor."

"We had the best trauma doctor come in – "

"No. Not that doctor." I've turned away from Donnie, so sure these words will give me a reaction. But Reagan is a lifeless shell, draped over the couch she has to be forced to move from to bathe and eat. That feisty attitude that made for an obnoxious teenage girl and every teacher's nightmare has given up. In her place is a girl so broken and traumatized, I fear we're doing her more harm than good by keeping her in this state. No one is making logical decisions; everything is guided by fear. We're torn between what is best, and what feels safe. If the adults can't make sound decisions because we're so terrified that it'll be the wrong one, how can we expect Reagan, Tess or Travis to feel safe? This thought has been sitting in my head, like the slow build of a migraine you can feel right behind your eye. You either did something about it before it got to the point of blinding pain, or you ignored it until you were curled in a ball, crying on the floor.

I feel like Reagan is straddling that line, so close to the point of no return. Nothing can coax her to react. Not Travis. Not Mrs. Booth. Not me.

Not Tess.

Everyone's concern sits right on the surface, unspoken, but loud and deafening. We all agree in silence that Reagan has a right to lose herself; the situation we're in certainly justifies that. But where do we draw the line between allowing her the time to process, and enabling her coping mechanism?

I've stayed at Donnie's since the day I came home from work and found that note on my kitchen counter. I was so overwhelmed by the fear that I turned circles in my kitchen until I made myself sick. I didn't know if he was still in the house. I didn't know if I went running for my car that he wouldn't be there, waiting. I didn't know if he was watching my every move. Nothing felt like the safe, right decision, not until I was collapsed on my kitchen floor, sobbing into my phone, not even sure who I'd called.

It's not a day I will ever forget, not as long as I live. That mas was in my home, but I never had to look him in the eye during the most terrifying moment of my life. What happened to Travis and Reagan at that junkyard is a nightmare we all relive when there's too much silence, when the darkness outside can't quite be eliminated, no matter how much light we try to overcome it with. The nights are for the nightmare. We all have the same one. And the daylight just brings another morning, with no relief from the night before.

Tess and Reagan have stayed with me at Donnie's since that night. When Tess handed me the phone, I briefly spoke to her mother, who only questioned if I was expecting money for watching over the safety of her child. Reagan's parents had very little to say. No questions asked, just a couple of words to acknowledge the situation and then hand their daughter over to me.

I've dealt with all types of parents in my career, but I've never felt the level of anger that surfaced from the neglect I witnessed from Tess and Reagan's parents. How Reagan or Tess haven't cracked sooner is nothing short of a miracle, though it's obvious now more than ever that their friendship is solid. Solid and steady in a way that has been built over the years, tested, but never broken.

I'm not sure about a lot of things right now, and nothing feels like the right thing to do or say. But I am certain, from somewhere deep inside of me, from far outside of this chaos we call our lives, that Tess and Reagan will be who the other needs, no matter how all of our lives turn out.

I would bet my life on it.