A Life Less Broken (4 page)

Dominic

Driving away
from Allyn’s home and back toward my office, I’m confident that I’ll be able to
work with her to give her the help she needs.

She didn’t even know it, but she had the palm of her hand pressing tightly
at the screen door. She’s so desperate to find salvation that her mind doesn't even
see it anymore.

Allyn is
beyond broken. She’s so far removed from her own self and from life outside her
skin that she struggled with just opening the door to me. When I heard her
light footsteps come to the door and then her hesitation in opening it, I knew
that I’ll be spending many a future day sitting on her porch.

That’s okay,
though. When she did finally open the door I knew that one of her biggest
obstacles had been overcome.

I’m sure she
didn’t realize it at the time, and it may take her a few hours to accept that
she took back a tiny bit of freedom by opening the door and talking to me.

It took
every ounce of my willpower not to turn around to see what the woman behind
that beautiful, soft, tortured voice looked like.

When I asked
her about her happiest memory and she began giggling about being flicked by a horse’s
tail when she was ten years old, I could feel she was lost in her memory of a
happier time. Allyn wants to be happy.  She just needs the courage and strength
to reach for it.

She was transcending
her misery by retreating into a world of love and happiness, back to a time
that made her smile.  I hope I can help her reach those moments of purity more
often so she can begin to overcome her pain.

When I
turned around to face her, my eyes instantly focused on her soft, petite
features. Her strawberry blonde hair cascaded down her shoulders that hung limply
around her breasts.

Her lips were
full, tinged a perfect pink. Her alabaster skin was clearly deficient in vitamin
D, and her pallor highlighted every scar on her face.

Her gray
eyes are her most intriguing feature. The deep, black smudges under them tell
me that she fights for her sanity every moment of the day, losing sleep to
nightmares. Her left eye is slightly droopy and a little off center compared to
her right eye.

I wonder
exactly what those sad, stormy eyes have seen.

Lost in my
impressions of Allyn, I realize I’ve missed the driveway of my office. I turn
my BMW around, park in my reserved spot, and exit the car.

The entire
time, I’ve been thinking about Allyn. It’s her laughter that fascinates me most.
The way she described Mr. Boss and her sense of independence as she was riding
him. I hope one day soon, I can get her back to a place where her mind isn’t captured
and tortured by images of horror.

“Hi Lauren.
Can you do a Google search on Allyn Sommers and get her medical records too,
please,” I ask my receptionist.

Lauren’s
been working for me for the last six years and is in her fifties.

“Sure thing,
Dom.” She’s the only person in the world I let call me Dom, beside my parents
because truthfully, I see her like my own mother.

Walking into
my office, I flick the light on and take my seat behind the large grand oak
desk.

I didn’t
take any notes while I was at Allyn’s house. I committed it all to memory so
that she wouldn’t feel intimidated by an obvious examination. She already felt reservations
about me being there. That was evident based of the length of time it took her
to open that damn door.

“Here’s the Google
search,” Lauren says as she comes through the open door.

“Thank you.”

“I’m just
about to request the hospital records too. But I have to say, I remember this
one. She was missing for days before she was found. It was around the time a bunch
of other girls went missing, were raped and ended up dead. Two girls, Allyn and
one another, survived. But the other girl ended up committing suicide shortly
after she was found.”

“So Allyn is
one of those girls,” I muse, not expecting Lauren to answer.

“Yeah,” she
sighs. “And she was such a beautiful young girl when she was taken.”

“Thank you, Lauren,”
I say as I begin flipping through the pages she’s printed.

I immerse
myself in all information Lauren’s found on Allyn Sommers. She was twenty when
she went missing, found three days later at a local pond. A young couple found
her, barely breathing, bound, and completely naked, with horrific injuries.

The couple was
interviewed by the local paper. After they found her, and called 911, the woman
ran back to their car and got a picnic blanket to cover Allyn while they waited
for paramedics and police to arrive. The man stayed with Allyn, talking to her
and comforting her while she drifted in and out of consciousness.

The news
clippings speculated about what other harm was done to her, but I’ll wait for
the hospital report to see how deep her scars may go.

The
perpetrators were never caught, and that partially explains why Allyn lives in
a constant state of suffocating fear.

A little bit
of digging by Lauren also found that Allyn’s an only child. When her
grandparents on her mother’s side passed away in a car accident, they left
Allyn enough money to buy a home and survive on a tight budget for the rest of
her life.

I put the
pages down and lean my elbows on the desk top, weaving my fingers together for
my chin to rest upon.

Allyn took
the courageous first step of calling me to help her. Locked inside her home,
she’s barely living and only just surviving.

Her hold on
life is tenuous, and she’s being pushed closer and closer to the edge of a
toxic oblivion.

All alone, filled
with self-loathing, remorse, and haunted by the ghosts of what was taken from
her, Allyn isolates herself from the world, justifiably afraid of being hurt
again.

Isolating herself
is her only salvation, but it’s also her disease. The more she tightens the
barriers around her, the more those walls will close in around her.

One day, the
walls she holds so close around her will constrict to crush her, claiming
another innocent, broken life, a life that could be warm and beautiful if she
allows me to help her.

My office
phone rings, bringing me back out of my thoughts about how to help Allyn. I
know that Lauren’s on the other end waiting for me to answer.

“Lauren,” I
say.                                                                                

“Dom, Chelsea’s
on the phone and she says it’s important.” I roll my eyes at just the mention
of her name.

“Alright,
put her through.”

I hear the
beep and know I’m now connected to Chelsea.

“Chelsea,” I
start this awkward conversation in a steady voice.

“Dominic, we
need to talk.”

“No we
don’t, but if you feel you have something to say, I’ll give you thirty
seconds,” I say as my knee starts bouncing beneath my grand oak desk in
irritation.

“I want to
come home,” she whines in an annoying voice.

“No.”

“Come on, baby.
I’ve learned my lesson. I want to come back and make it up to you.”

“Chelsea,
what you did can never be made up to me. I told you; we’re over.”

“That’s
ridiculous. One little mistake and you’re willing to throw away ten years of
marriage?”

“
Little
?”
I can feel my body beginning to vibrate inside my own skin. “
Little mistake
?”
My heart pounds in my fucking chest and I’m holding back all the anger I want
to scream at her.

“Oh come on,
you have to forgive me sooner or later,” she cajoles.

“I’ve
already forgiven you. But I haven’t forgotten, and I never will. We’re over.”

“You think serving
me with divorce papers is going to stop this? My lawyer will eat you alive,”
her tone turns angry. I can tell just by the huffing that she’s pacing, like she
always does when she’s fuming.

“We’ll let
the lawyers fight this out. Goodbye, Chelsea,” I say as I hang up before her
next rant can start.

My mind
instantly goes back to the twenty-three-year-old woman I met this morning.

Her strength
shines so brightly to me. But her soul is deeply scarred by pain and terror.

Allyn may be
broken, but I need saving too.

One thousand
and twenty-two days, and I still hurt.

My soul
continues to bleed and my heart remains encased in ice, afraid to feel.

But today
I’m going to open the door. Today I’m really going to try.

Try to see
the world as a little more than beige.

Try to let some
color back into my fractured life.

Try to breathe
without letting the ever-present tsunami of hopelessness consume me or push me
further into the blackness.

I am going
to try.

Looking out
my kitchen window, the sky above is a brilliant blue. Brightness shines from
the partially-concealed sun, illuminating things beyond sight.

Maybe one
day soon, those golden rays of light will touch me. Maybe the sunlight will thaw
the ice in my heart and fill my emptiness so I can be whole again.

My doorbell
rings and I know Dr. Shriver has already arrived. It’s only 9:50 a.m.; he’s
early. I walk over to the door and look through the peep hole. I can’t see him.

What if it’s
not him?

What if it’s
them,
and they’re back to kill me?

“Allyn, you
said you’d open the door,” Dr. Shriver says from the other side. He must already
be sitting down waiting for me.

I enter my
code to turn the alarm off, unlock the deadbolt, and then position my hand on
the doorknob and the second lock.

My heart
beats quickly and I feel a trickle of sweat roll down the back of my neck.

I can do
it.

I can open
the door.

It’s only
a fucking door, Allyn. Just open it.

I open the
door just a crack and peek outside.

Dr. Shriver
is sitting on the porch, cross-legged, facing me.

“Nice of you
to join me today, Allyn. Would you care to take a seat?” he says and chuckles
as he holds his hand out indicating the floor on my side of the screen door

“Thank you
for coming to see me again, Dr. Shriver.” I sit on the floor, mirroring his
pose.

“You’re
going to either make me feel old, or like I have a stick stuck up my pompous ass.
Can you please call me Dominic?”

I let out a
small laugh and nod my head at him.

“Tell me
about your night. What did you have for dinner?” he asks.

For dinner?
He wants to know what I ate? That’s a bit…weird.

“Um, I had
spaghetti.”

“Did you
make it?”

“Yeah, I made
it. I cook a little.  I’m not great at it, but I can feed myself. I like freshly-made
pasta instead of store-bought, so I try and make a batch that will last me a
while. I’m not a huge eater.” I look past Dominic to stare out at the street.

“What’s your
favorite season? I love spring myself, the promise of new and exciting things
happening. Rejuvenation of what lay motionless and dormant through winter.”

“The only
thing I don’t like is bees. I’m allergic to their sting. Actually, I carry an
epi-pen with me because I’m highly allergic to them. I guess my chances of
becoming a beekeeper went out the window the first time I was rushed to the
hospital because my airway closed off.” He laughs at his own joke and I find
myself smiling along with him.

“I like
fall,” I answer. I lower my eyes and look at the floor.

“What is it
about fall that draws you to it?”

“I like to
watch the leaves change color, I sit on my kitchen counter and watch every day as
the leaves go from a vibrant green, through yellow, and then to a deep orange.”

“Do you like
the color orange?”

“Yeah, I do.
My life is so colorless. I like to pretend that I’m submerged in brightness.
But most times it’s only for a few seconds before I’m reminded how black my
life really is.” I let my chin fall to my chest, weighed by the truth of my own
drab words.

“What’s your
favorite color? I love green; I find it very serene and peaceful.”

I look at
Dominic and notice he’s wearing a pair of dark blue jeans and a green, button-down
long-sleeved shirt.

“Purple.
When I was a kid I wanted a purple room. My mom and dad loved me so much that
they painted my bedroom four different shades of purple. They did it when I was
at school one day, and when I came home they pretended that they’d had a normal
day. When I went into my room I screamed and started crying, I was so happy.”

“How old
were you?”

“I was
twelve. I remember that day like it was yesterday. I wasn’t allowed to sleep in
there for a couple of nights, until the smell was gone, but it’s stayed that
color to this very day. Well, I assume it’s still four shades of purple. I haven’t
been to my parents’ house in…” I trail off, not wanting to finish the sentence.

“Tell me
about your best friends.”

“I don’t
have any.”

Dominic
stares into my eyes, knits his eyebrows together and tilts his head to the
side. “I find that quite difficult to believe, Allyn. You have a very pleasant,
easy personality. Why don’t you have any best friends?”

“I don’t
have friends at all.”

“Well, that
definitely can’t be true,” he says as he uncrosses and re-crosses his legs.

“I can’t be
around people. They scare me. And the friends I did have left me when I…”

“When you what?”

“When I
couldn’t be what they wanted.”

“And what
did they want?” he asks, shifting his weight again.

“They wanted
me to be normal.”

“What makes
you think that you’re not normal?”

“I should be
over what happened to me.”

“According
to who?”

“Well it’s
been almost three years. And I saw those girls on TV, that after only four
months they were able to tell their story. It’s been three years and I still can’t
get those moments out of my head.” I stand and start pacing just inside the
door.

“Allyn,”
Dominic calls to me. I look over and he’s standing, too. “Allyn,” he says again,
as I continue walking back and forth in a vain attempt to ease my frustration.

Three damn
years and my mind won’t move past it.

Why?

“Allyn!” he
says forcefully, dragging my attention back to him.

“Yeah?”

“There’s no
right or wrong here. There are no hard and fast rules about how long it takes
to heal. Comparing yourself to someone else, regardless of the situation, is
useless and wrong. Every situation is unique. But I suspect you already know
this. And I also suspect that your environment is the one thing you can
control, so you keep yourself locked away for your own peace of mind.”

I stop
pacing, and turn to look at Dominic.

Are his
words true?

Am I so
broken that the only way I can exist is to stay hidden away in my home?

Can I
choose
to overcome the pain and learn to face the catastrophic event that took place
that overcast day?

“I want color
in my life again,” I say in a tiny whisper.

“I didn’t
hear you,” Dominic says as he takes a step closer to the screen door, turns his
head and angles it toward the door so he can hear me better.

“I want to be
able to see more than just beige, Dominic. I want my purple back. I want the
bright orange for inspiration. I don’t want black inside me anymore. I need
colors.” I take a step closer to the door, when I reach it I rest my forehead
on the mesh and close my eyes.

“I can help
you.”

“Please give
me hope,” I say in a soft voice.

“Allyn?”

“Yes.” I
don’t lift my head to look at him.

“Today we’re
finished, but tomorrow…”

“Yes,” I
interrupt him.

“Tomorrow
you open both doors.”

I lift my
head and look at his soft face. His features are warm and accepting.

“Tomorrow, I
open both doors,” I confirm, surprising myself.