[TRIGGER WARNING: DISCUSSION OF RAPE AND DEPRESSION, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK]

The waiting room was empty, except for Jules Michael's tiny body collapsed on a crème coloured chair. Her chocolate orbs were contemplating her surroundings silently, a simple sigh sometimes coming out of her mouth as she was constantly reminded of the reason why she was patiently waiting for Dr. Theresa Harmon to inform her that her office was vacant.

Let's be clear, it hadn't been Jules' idea. All that she was doing at that precise moment was her mother's wishes along with her father's incessant pleadings for her to get better. After all, the teenager used to spend all the summer days locked in her comfortable and safe bedroom - so what? Jules figured she hadn't been the only one to do just that. Deep down, she had hoped the Forks High School football team would be doing the same, praying that they hadn't hurt her the way they had. Of course, the brunette had quickly understood they wouldn't and the fact had made her heart explode in her chest.

The main reason why Jules had first refused to go to therapy was that she had never seen herself as a survivor. A survivor of what, exactly? Of boys being boys and stupid? Of her being way past drunk and passing out with her crop top up to her bra? A survivor because she had asked for it in the first place? A survivor was meant to fight, and in Jules' case, she had been everything but fighting. She had spent her days curled up under her warm covers, not coming out for days - not even for drinking water, peeing or showering. She hadn't spoken for three weeks, hadn't even deigned coming down from her stinking bedroom for her younger brother's birthday, and even when her older cousin who had moved to Colombia for his studies had visited them after a whole year without seeing the Michael's family, Jules had sat down on the couch and had pretended to listen to his various stories, which probably were interesting, before she had gone up to her bedroom and had slept the encounter away.

Was that being a survivor? Jules had seen the many Lara Croft movies, and you could never change her mind: unless you were a fighter and had decided to properly battle your struggles and problems, you would never be a survivor. Starting with herself.

Her mother, heartbroken to witness the state of her oldest daughter, had cried a lot while sitting at the feet of her bed, trying to make the teenager talk about what was bothering her and enlighten her on how she could help. Her father, on the other end, had tried a more aggressive approach and had screamed until the walls of her bedroom had trembled, seeing that yelling at her was also useless and would only make the girl feel even worse about herself. And so, they had retreated into their routines, trying to find the best therapist around town and filling administrative papers for Jules to switch high school and finally escape her abusers' gazes.

Kate Michael was a lot of things, but two of them stood out the most: she was persistent and she was angry. So damn angry that she couldn't even look at the other parents around town without casting them the sharpest glare she could muster. For her daughter's sake, Kate had refrained herself from directly addressing the matter and suing the families involved, considering that Jules was far from demanding justice on the topic. All the teenager wanted was to be left alone, and even though it killed her mother not to try and get revenge over the boys who did her wrong, Kate had buried the idea six feet under and had focused on getting her daughter back instead. Which had proven very, very difficult.

Jules didn't talk anymore, or barely. Only to greet her family after a long night's sleep - which could last over sixteen hours on the worst days -, or sometimes asking about what they would be doing during the day. Needless to say, Kate hadn't seen her daughter out on a family activity for months now and it didn't seem to get better. At least, Jules had started eating again, though they were far from sharing nourishing dinners yet.

Though Kate was Jules' biggest day-to-day supporter seeing that they lived under the same roof, Jules' story had gathered some more support from around the country - even sometimes from outside the country. Kate would always remember the first time she had received a phone call coming from another state on a gloomy Thursday morning while Jules was sleeping upstairs, unbothered by the rain tapping against the tiles and windows.

"Hello?" Kate had said, her voice low as to not wake her daughter up.

"Um, hello, ma'am," a feminine voice had spoken on the other end of the phone, seemingly embarrassed to even be speaking to an adult. "I hope I'm not bothering you, my name is Marina Harper? I'm calling from California because I heard about your daughter's story."

"I'm sorry to stop you there, miss Harper," the Michael woman had sighed through the phone, resting her hand on the nearest wall, "we don't accept press calls."

"Oh, no! I'm sorry, I'm a survivor myself, I should have started by saying that," the girl had awkwardly chuckled. "I heard about Jules' story on Facebook and I just, I guess I searched her up? I know it sounds awkward, but I along with a few other survivors run a group that tries to keep in touch with victims so they can get the support they deserve and need. I looked for your daughter's Facebook account everywhere but I couldn't find it, and the only way to contact her I found was this number."

"Yes, Jules deleted her account a few weeks ago because of the hate she was receiving," Kate had sighed, closing her eyes for a moment. "Listen, I can't promise you anything, but just give me your number and I'll talk to her about it, alright?"

And so, Jules and Marina's friendship had slowly started. Little by little, Marina had encouraged Jules to try new things, from getting out of bed early in the morning and brushing her teeth in order to feel a little cleaner, to agreeing with her mother and going to therapy. That precise decision had taken a little more time to be made, but in the end, Jules had given up and had granted her mother's greatest wish: to finally do something that could help her get out of the downward spiral that was her mental health.

To say that Jules Michael had been wary was an understatement. The first three sessions had been spent in utter silence, with Theresa Harmon only staring at the teenager dead in the eye, trying to decipher what this silence could mean without pressuring her into talking. No greeting, no politeness, Jules had only been testing the waters to see if the therapist would eventually force her to talk. Which, of course, the older woman hadn't done, for the mere sake of the girl's well-being and for the success of therapy.

And, week after week, Dr. Harmon had successfully brought Jules back on track. Not fully, and step by step, but the teenager was getting there. She was slowly getting out of the spiral of numbness and depression to become a slightly talkative teenager, though still awfully wary of her surroundings. But that was okay.

Jules had opened a new Facebook account, encouraged by both her family and her therapist. It had been hard to see the posts about the whole situation and the hate comments she had received over the months, immortalized in the complicated algorithm of the Web. Unfortunately, they would never go away, engraved in her mind for the rest of her mind, but at least she wasn't paying attention to them anymore. Even if Jules didn't consider herself a survivor, she knew what she had been through and unfortunately experienced and that was rape.

That word had also been introduced to her by her therapist. Of course, it had already been pronounced by the member of her family multiple times but it was different to hear it from a person that was looking at you straight in the eye, with a collected voice and with only one goal: telling the truth. Not driving her to sue her abusers by using aggravating terms, not making her feel like a fool for doing what she had done at this fateful party; what Dr. Harmon wanted Jules to hold to her chest was the truth. Sad, enraging, hurtful truth: a truth that, once spoken, only demanded to be healed upon.

It was a long journey, as Theresa constantly reminded her - a journey only she held the key to end. Jules wasn't ready to let go just yet, but at least she was getting slightly better with every session and making herself more and more comfortable around her therapist. Which, obviously, made her relationships at home less and less difficult to maintain, considering Theresa's job was getting easier to achieve with every little effort Jules was willing to invest into her healing process.

"Jules," the therapist's secretary, who Jules believed was named Marly, called from her desk with a pen between her hands and a kind smile plastering her lips. "She's ready for you, you can go."

Jules nodded in understanding, standing up from her plastic chair to move towards the therapist's door. Usually, patients were supposed to at least knock once on the door, but it had always been a silent agreement between both women that Jules would never knock before entering. If her life was going apart in this office, the teenager needed to hold some control over her situation still, which allowed her to do almost everything she wanted to do. It would have been really convenient for Jules if she still wanted to go to parties, to escape every form of authority and go out without restraint.

"Good afternoon, Jules," Theresa Harmon greeted her, her hands crossed over her wooden desk and a few blonde strands coming out of her high ponytail - Jules could tell it wasn't her natural hair colour, but it suited her well enough for the teenager not to mock her in her head. "How have you been doing this week?"

Jules collapsed on the plush seat on the other side of the desk, softly backing it down a little. It was also a coping mechanism she had developed over the weeks, always remaining at a safe distance from the people she felt threatened by - and it was so, so easy to feel threatened by an older woman whose job was to enter your mind.

"It went fine," the brunette assured, shrugging her shoulders carelessly. "I checked Facebook and avoided every mean comment and post about what happened, and -"

"I'm sorry to cut you off, Jules," Theresa sighed, leaning back slightly in her leather chair. "I just want you to remind me what we agreed about when we talk about what happened that night. I want you to use the proper words to identify and, most of all, acknowledge what happened to help you heal."

"I know," Jules responded, her eyes falling on her hands on her bouncing leg. "Sometimes it's harder though, to acknowledge it. I feel like, if I constantly remind myself of what happened, then I am becoming what happened. I don't want the rape to define who I am, you know?"

Dr Harmon nodded, her fingers intertwining as she stared at her patient ahead. It had been hard to connect with the teenager, especially during the first sessions. But at that moment, she felt like Jules was genuinely opening up. With a bitter and absolutely devastated girl of her age, it was always hard to read between the lines and pick up on her lies, especially when they evolved around her mental state. Jules had a strong ability to protect herself from strangers, more specifically from the people that could have control over her - whether it to be positive or negative.

"It is only a part of your history, and it will shape the person that you'll become in the future, that's for sure," Theresa admitted, making the brunette roll her eyes. "But it doesn't define you as a person, of course, both because it can't shape your whole personality, only some parts of it, and also because other experiences will come your way. And they'll make you grow up, change, and you'll learn new things from them too. Jules, I understand rape is something you want to erase from you, but unfortunately, you have to go through the whole process to see where it's leading you, to heal and to be able to move on, if I am allowed to say this."

"I don't think I will ever move on, Dr Harmon," Jules explained quietly, lifting her chocolate orbs to meet the therapist's concerned eyes. "This is a lifetime thing, I believe. Believe me, I want to heal but I will never truly move on, I'm scarred for life. I'll never trust a man with my eyes closed, I'll always remain wary towards people, even a little. I hate the way it changed me and that I can't reverse the process fully."

"I understand," Theresa stated with a nod, staring right at Jules. "And, to be fair, I am not trying to turn you into the old you. What I want you to do and to completely understand is that people have lived with it before and people will live with it after. I know it is hard and some people, unfortunately, decide not to live with and therefore not to live at all, but you have the strength to do it. I know you do and I believe in you. It's going to be harder some days than it will be others, but you can manage it. I'm so proud of the progress you've already made, I know you can do so much more."

Jules ran a hand through her hair, her cheeks heating up slightly at the compliments. Somewhere, under her huge hatred for herself and the people who hurt her, Jules was also proud of herself. Not only because she moved her lazy and sorry ass to therapy, but also for the little things she did every day. Waking up in the morning instead of waking up in the middle of the afternoon, helping her mother to set the table while Kate would chat about the weather and the latest gossip she had heard about, playing football with her little brother when the weather allowed them to without sliding on the grass, being able to hold a telephone conversation with Marina without completely shutting off and hanging up on her.

The little things didn't make her a survivor because she was never pushing herself more than what she was capable of doing, but it was enough for her to consider herself on the path of recovery.

"Now, how do you feel about starting school on Monday, Jules?" Theresa asked, raising a dark eyebrow at the brunette - it was her eyebrows that gave away the fact that her hair wasn't naturally blonde. "It's a new perspective for you. A new high school, new people... How do you perceive it?"

"Relieved that I won't have to face the abusers anymore," Jules genuinely answered, scratching the back of her neck as she thought about her emotions concerning the topic. "I'm also afraid to face new people because I know they certainly are aware about the rape situation and I don't want them to treat me differently because of that. But also, kind of excited to discover another part of Forks that I know almost nothing about and to see the people that live inside that little part of town. Plus, the beach is near so, that's also a perk."

"Are you looking forward to making new friends, Jules?"

"I guess you could say that, though it will be hard with me not willing to trust anyone," the brunette chuckled, pushing a black curl behind her ear. "But why do I feel like everyone knows me already? The media covered almost all my life and people said some messed up shit online, some rumours that weren't even true."

"That is the whole point of rumours, Jules," Theresa calmly spoke, crossing her hands on her desk. "They are made up, false and degrading, most of the time. As for the media coverage, people who actually are capable of thinking by themselves will try and get to know you, don't you think? Your trauma, as we already established earlier, doesn't define you. It is a part of you that deserves acknowledgement, but it is not and will never be the entire you. You are your own person, apart from your trauma. It only teaches you new things about yourself, it is a way to rediscover yourself in depth and to adjust yourself to your situation."

Theresa Harmon was convinced that she didn't have the right words at all times, especially when she was dealing with a rape situation. Fortunately, Jules always seemed to understand what she was trying to say and whenever the older woman was wrong about a feeling or an emotion, when she was struggling to find the appropriate terms, the teenager would swiftly correct her and they would be able to move on from there.

Jules Michael, as she had stated a lot of times during their first talking session, never considered herself a survivor or a hero, despite Marina's various attempts for her to acknowledge that she still lived. She was alive, breathing, and even the hardest and coldest challenges would never take that away from her. She had survived what had happened to her and she was still surviving every day she chose to get out of bed, go to therapy and, step by step, try to discover her new self under the new prism of emotions and coping mechanisms she had developed. Some of them she would always keep, some of them she would soon let go of, but she would always remain a wonderful, complicated and endearing person, a teenager who unfortunately crossed paths with the wrong people, the bad ones, but who would recover and prove them wrong.

I am not a victim.

That was what Jules wasn't either. She would never be a victim, she had already victimized herself during an entire summer - what else was she supposed to do at the time? How far would she have taken her body, her mental health, until she would decide to finally get up and move around? How much would she allow them to take from her until she would finally declare that enough was enough? She had already suffered so much, she didn't want to let them take away the last pieces of sanity she had left.

She was already dealing with paranoia, PTSD, and severe depression, and then what? She would lay in bed all day, playing that fateful moment over and over again? She had already done that and it hadn't done any good to her. What else was she supposed to do if she didn't want to recover? If Jules was not willing to live her life with that heavy burden on her shoulders, then she just had to die at that very moment, while she was staring at Theresa Harmon. She just had to pass away right now, because if she wasn't a survivor yet, she would turn into one once she would have won her battle against her own mind. Against what these people had done to her.

She had chosen to go to that party, she had agreed to drink the enormous amount of liquor she had that night, she had let go of her consciousness in the middle of the living room, in plain sight, for everyone to see. Some people said she was a tease, others affirmed that these guys had no right - it didn't matter. What mattered was what she thought: and Jules thought that she had been raped, taken advantage of while she was the most vulnerable. She had trusted each and every boy who attended the party because she knew them, and the sad part was they were friends before all that. They knew each other.

The one who had pushed himself inside of her while she was soundly sleeping her hangover away had been a boy she had trusted with her secrets for her whole life. She had seen him grow up since kindergarten, she had lived his first football games by his side, she had encouraged him to pursue his dream career at all costs. Even her parents knew him. And he had betrayed her. Her family too. And now, she was the local whore, criticized and insulted even in the street, sometimes in the middle of the day. No wonder she had seeked comfort under the silence of her blankets.

Jules was not a whore, she never consented to be touched inappropriately that night. She had never agreed for this boy to take advantage of her and she would never have; that was what people couldn't quite get. The only one outside of her family who hadn't judged her from the start was Sheriff Swan, who had insisted for her to file a complaint until the day she ended up numbly staring right into his eyes and counting him the whole story. He had listened, quietly and up until she had been done with the story, and in the end, he had agreed with her. He had been by her side, though very disappointed that he couldn't put under arrest the bastards who assaulted the teenager who had once been friends with his own daughter.

He had believed her, had visited her, had hooked her parents with a few guys working for the La Push high school so she could switch, hell he had even asked Isabella to stop by one day, though Jules had refused to see the teenager. Too many bad memories, he had figured, and of course, he hadn't held it against her. Neither did Bella, for that matter.

Charlie Swan had given her hope that, maybe, she could find her place in society. That she didn't have to remain a paria for the rest of her life. Maybe she would fit in just fine in La Push, which she couldn't quite believe, but at least she could try.

"I know it's going to be a challenge for you, Jules," Theresa affirmed with a small smile plastering her thin lips. "But you can do it. You are you, you are welcome and you are worthy. Your trauma matters but not with friendships. Unless they don't want to be insensitive and ask you about your boundaries, which is truly respectful and admirable, in my opinion. Either way, you are planting a new seed in your life and it belongs to you to turn it into a magnificent rose."

Jules nodded, drifting her eyes towards her joined hands on her knees. Now, she was anxious. But it was okay, and she still had half an hour to discuss it with the full ass grown-up before her, one that was neutral, understood her and encouraged her to face her fears in the healthiest way. No pressuring yourself, no anxiety over something you can't control, you are loved and you deserve the world.

Those were the last words Jules muttered under the safety of her covers, her body laying on her warm and comfortable mattress as she thought about the back-to-school that was to come. One she was anticipating and dreading as much as she was excited. For the first time since June 16th, Jules was looking forward to something.