[TRIGGER WARNING: DEPICTION OF SOMEONE BEING MOLESTED, READER DISCRETION IS HEAVILY ADVISED !!!]

"What happened that day?"

"I--I don't wanna talk about it," I tell the therapist seriously, bouncing my knee up and down.

"I know it's hard, but we have to."

"Oh come on," I say as I begin to feel sick.

"Orion," he says gently, "you know that's how this works."

I gesture towards the computer. "I talked about it last time I was here, and my psychiatrist and therapist back home probably have an encyclopedia written up on it. Can't you just pull it up?"

He looks at me evenly. "Orion."

"Please?" I whisper, starting to give into my panic.

"Seeing as you're here for ninety days, I want to start fresh, like I've said. I'm utilizing a psycho dynamic approach; it's where we start from the beginning to find the origin of what's causing your current hurdles."

He smiles at me as the room is beginning to feel smaller and smaller.

"Does that make sense to you?"

Nodding, I rub my palms against my legs. He looks at me sympathetically.

"Before we get started, I want to take your emotional temperature—you've done this before, yes?"

I had; it's where you come up with emotional triggers and you rate them from zero to one hundred. Zero is where you freeze up, one hundred is where you lose your temper. Usually there's a visual of a thermometer to make the reference easier. It's used during trauma therapy, in an attempt to avoid re-traumatizing the patient while working through trauma.

"Y-yeah."

"Where are you now, Orion?"

I usually ran either hot or cold with little in between (unfortunately). I felt my anxiety rising, but that didn't really help. So I wiped my hands again. "I-I don't know?"

"How do you feel?"

"Really anxious at the thought of talking about this." I glare. "Again."

"Do you need a couple minutes?"

I let out of puff of breath and rub my forehead. "No—I-I think it would m-make it worse. Let's-let's just get this over with."

"If you ever get too overwhelmed—"

"Yeah. I-I know."

So I take a deep breath and plunge into my worst memory.

~

"Orion!"

Fuck. I'm in the storage room of our trailer, the one that had been given to me a while ago as a sort of olive branch by my mother. That's my hunch, anyway. Officially I was given the space because I had outgrown my room.

Coincidentally, me being gifted the storage space had also coincided with my dad's temper ramping. He had a heart attack. After he was back home, I tried my best to just stay out of the way. My days consisted of waking up, skipping breakfast to avoid him in the kitchen, and bolting out the door with my head down for the school bus.

Coming home from school was the ritual of slinking in as quietly as possible and going to my room until dinner. Dinner itself was fun, too (yes, that's sarcasm). I tried to draw as little attention to myself as possible. I was asked how my day was, if I had homework, if I had gotten in trouble, and if I had, how many detentions I had gotten.

I don't think people caught onto the fact that half the reason I acted out and got myself loaded up with detentions and Saturday's was to avoid going home. My little secret. Honestly I was surprised no one put two and two together yet.

I had been playing a video game. The dichotomy of the situation was weird; my parents hated me, and we were poor, and yet I still got an allowance. I wasn't complaining though; I was good at saving money, so I got myself a stereo system (on sale) and a Nintendo Switch (not on sale, but I really wanted it).

"Orion!" my father hollered a second time.

"Fuck," I say as I pause the game I'm playing.

I lurch to my feet and start the tally in my head for things I could have possibly done wrong. As I walk up the stairs, my brain comes up empty. When I stride across my bedroom, nothing. And by the time I make it to my shut door, my hand is already trembling when I reach for the doorknob.

Walking into a discussion with my dad and having zero idea what it was about was never a good thing. If I knew, at least I could come up with explanations. If I couldn't come up with any, then I could make excuses. I wasn't good at thinking on my feet around him, so I always tried to be prepared. I had to be prepared because, more often than not, any interaction with him ended in physical or verbal attacks. Obviously I tried to avoid that at all costs.

As I shuffled my way into the main area of our trailer, my mind continued to whirl. I had taken out the trash. My "homework was done". It wasn't the time of year for report cards. My laundry was done—fuck, was my laundry done?

"I'm sorry about the laundry," I blurt out to my father before he can even open his mouth. I walk right up to him and look at him squarely. "I'll go get it now—"

He screws up his portly face at me. "What? No, I don't care about the laundry. You took care of that already."

"O-oh."

He rolls his eyes.

I'm already shaking like a leaf on a tree, and I can feel tears wanting to well behind my eyes. "S-so. W-what did you n-need t-then?"

"Your mother isn't home," he tells me. "She's getting groceries. Do the dishes."

I blink, relieved. "That's it?"

That was the wrong thing to say, evidently. My father glares at me and I cringe.

"Is that it..." he grumbles at me with his deep, booming voice that I hate. He's loud even when he's not trying to be. Just his voice scares the piss out of me. "What the hell is that supposed to mean, Orion?"

Tears gather as my eyes go huge. "N-nothing. I-I-I-I just w-wanted to make sure t-that was all you n-needed."

He took a step forward and I scurry back. He throws his hands into the air and I flinch. "Why are you always expecting the worst?"

I swallow thickly, freezing as he takes another step forward.

"Stop looking at me like that," he snaps at me then.

I don't entirely know what he means, so I avert my eyes. He takes another step forward, and now he's looming over me.

"Why?" he demands now.

I glance at him. "Why w-what?"

"Why do you cower from me? Why don't you stand up straight and look me in the eye?"

He shoves my shoulder. It's not hard, but I'm afraid it's going to get hard, so I whimper.

"Stop being pathetic," he snapped at me, shoving me a bit harder. "Come on. Stand up straight. Your posture is laughable."

So I stand up straight. He grabs my chin, shoving his face into mine. "Come on, look me in the eye."

So I do. But I don't understand what he's doing, and that petrifies me. I'm relieved when he lets go of my chin. I'm shaking so badly I think he probably noticed.

"So come on, out with it. Why are you like this?"

I look at him incredulously. He had said that so...So softly. Gentle. Caring, almost. So, going into a false sense of ease, I answered him truthfully.

"I'm scared of you," I whisper.

Wrong answer, because suddenly he's bright red and yelling at me. "Scared of me? You're spoiled compared to how my dad treated me! He would beat my ass with a frying pan if I had so much as a hair misaligned!"

I would have laughed because he had a comb over now, but he was yelling, so I knew where this was going. All I wanted was to do the dishes and leave. All I wanted to do was play my video games.

"How do I scare you, huh? I give you everything—"

And just like that the switch in my head flipped. Now I was angry—angry at his audacity. I give him my best glare and yell right back. "Oh gee, thanks dad, you're right, you've given me so much. This trailer is my kingdom and my future is so very bright."

"You ungrateful brat! If I don't do anything for you, then how about I get rid of that guitar of yours?"

My anger immediately dissolves. As he steps to head towards my room, I step in front of him and hold out my hands. "N-no! Don't!"

"I gave you that guitar and I can take it away from you!" he bellows at me.

That guitar was literally my lifeline. It had been the last Christmas present they got me before dad had his heart attack. I needed it to survive this hell hole. And now...now he was going to take away the only thing that kept me sane...

I broke down. I tried to get an apology out, but I was so distraught it just came out as hiccuping sobs. He watched me for a while, frown becoming deeper and deeper until he was outright scowling. Finally he rolled his eyes.

"Oh for fucks sake, stop crying! You cry too damn much! Are you even a man?"

Before I rightly knew what was happening, he had roughly shoved his right hand into my pants.

I froze. Completely, and utterly froze. His hand wandered around checking to see that I had the anatomy I was supposed to. When he finally got the response he was looking for, he pulled his hand out, looking smug.

"Alright, I guess you are a man after all."