• Emotional trigger on so many levels in this chapter, guys. Be prepared. •

Who was I?

Not how was I, not where was I in my life, but who. That was the question Dr Samson just asked.

"I'm not... sure I understand," I replied.

"It's a simple question," She smiled in that way I knew it wasn't. Me and Dr Samson had known each other for a long while. She was my bullshit meter, my slap of hard truth. She had been with me after things with Mason ended. After I broke down, I had seen her a few times and the chemistry had been instant. I considered her a friend on some level, though a friend who charged me for her golden words of advise.

But she was worth every penny. I hated therapy, but Dr Samson never made it feel like therapy. More like... two girl friends talking where one of them actually knew what they were talking about.

"Does anyone really know who they are?" I replied and fiddled with the string of my sweater. Some part of me questioned if anyone saying they knew who they were really were full of shit. We were humans; None of us knew what we were.

"Then let me ask you; who would you like to be?" Dr Samson countered.

Just like before, it was such a simple question but it took me by surprise.

Who did I want to be?

It posed a much harder and much more difficult question that I didn't want to ask myself, but still did.

Who had I been up till now?

I exhale a very long breath.

After Mason... maybe even before Mason, I had been but clay; Yet to be defined, fresh out of college with a degree in social science. I had wanted to take care of people. That had always been my call. But where had the call come from?

Now as I asked myself the previous question, I found the answer; Me. The calling came from inside me, the little girl who had wanted someone to take care of her.

Enter Mason.

He had been a real adult even in his twenties. He wore suits to work, he smiled and had charisma and oozed with self confidence. And then there was the way he handled me.

At first I had liked it. Him being on top whenever we were together. On top because as a feminist, I liked to choose when I wanted a man to be on top of me, and Mason... Mason was not a bad person when on top.

But the second I started rising above...

When I started getting praise at work, he told me not to brag. When I started earning good money, he had to remind me always that he earned more. Even such a thing as being the top in bed was too much. It didn't happen all at once and I didn't notice it until I was in way too emotionally deep, that he didn't support me like he should've. He couldn't stand not being the only breadwinner, the only alpha and hard worker in the relationship.

And so he decided to shatter my rising confidence completely by turning to the one person I had thought was my confidante in our wilting relationship; Brianna – my best friend.

After all was said and done, I had lost myself. I had pretended I was still a fierce woman on the outside, but inside I was hurting. It was a wound I never closed because as love went, the only kind I had had was Mason's, and it did something to a young girl. We were together for years, and suddenly, to hear that that loving relationship had been all a hoax...

I lost myself. I lost my identity before I had even created one.

So, now stood the questions; Who was I, who did I want to be and who had I been until now?

Dan had been my friend for so long after everything with Mason. He showed me what true friendship was, now so more than ever, but looking back, I realized I hadn't risen above anything. I had just found a new tree to wrap my vines around.

Dan had been the one who decorated the apartment. Who got me a new job. Who gave me fashion advice, who made the food, who bought my soaps, who willed me to life in a way I couldn't do myself because I was unsure of everything.

I had been so proud of my work, of my college degree, only to find out I had been stupidly blind to the people I should've been aware of was hurting me.

So I took to Dan like a moth to a flame. I let him make the calls because I didn't trust any of my own. All the while pretending everything was fine and just dandy.

But that wasn't me. And it never would be.

I took a deep inhale as I looked up at Dr Samson. She was still looking at me and waiting patiently for me to answer her question. I looked down again and watched how my finger had wrapped the string of my hoodie around it.

"I'd like to be... myself," I whispered, feeling small tears in my eyes prickle. "I'd like to be me... whoever that is."

Dr Samson smiled, slowly. She let me gather myself for a moment while studying me silently. "Good answer. So how do we start building a bridge to finding who you are, Melody? What're the first steps?"

Questions in therapy were like a poetic quiz; So damn hard to answer, but interestingly enough, there were no wrong answers.

"I guess... I have to face... some things about myself," I hesitantly replied and eyed Dr Samson out for something resembling a yes or a no. "I have to define... no, I have to... acknowledge the things that's happened in my life and... decide if I'm going to let it define me or shape me."

Dr Samson nodded approvingly and folded her hands. She didn't have a notepad and a pen ready in her hands like all the others. She listened and occasionally wrote a single word down here or there, something we had to come back to. But that was it.

"So what happened to you, Melody? Are you ready to say the words aloud?"

For the weeks we had been talking, we had purposely circled around one topic I had closed down around every time she asked. We finally agreed she wouldn't ask anymore until I was ready. But was I ready now?

The slow exhale I pushed free from my lips came out shaky and filled with anxiety. As I inhaled and tried to refill my lungs, they felt punctured and too small. "I..."

Don't close your eyes. Don't go back there. Don't remember that night...

"I... I was... raped. I-I was raped," I stuttered the words out and felt my whole body squeeze shut like my skin shrunk and my heart got pushed into a smaller cavity. My throat closed up and the water pressed in the corner of my eyes until they fell. "I was r-raped."

Dr Samson slowly unfolded her hands and her face softened. She didn't speak, because we had agreed she wouldn't when I could finally talk about it. It didn't matter what she said. There were no details to discuss, because they had happened and talking about it wasn't going to make it feel better for me right now.

I was raped.

Rape wasn't just one thing. Rape was any kind of nonconsensual intimacy with a person who didn't abide to a no. It wasn't an either-or situation or 'technically-it-wasn't-because' – if someone did something to you sexually that you hadn't agreed to and/or didn't like, it was rape.

– And the Devil had touched me and sunken his finger inside me while I was helplessly crying on the ground.

The tears and sobs came like a broken dam from my chest. It was dry heaving and clutching myself, but it was also... strangely liberating. Saying the words, just talking about it to another person without having to really talk about it... just letting my hurt out and letting another person help me deal with it... just getting it out there...

I couldn't breathe before, but now it felt like I had too much air in my lungs.

And it was so... damn... clean.

All of my pain, Mason, Tony, losing my job, doubting myself, my identity, it was a relief getting it off my chest to a person who didn't judge or lecture. Dr Samson was an open ear and all she was there for was to help me unbottle all that was weighing down my soul.

And strangely, I felt ten times lighter and so tired I could fall asleep on the spot.

I had carried all of that around for too long... almost eight months now... eight months...

Eight years... Tony.

– I had broken trying to carry his weight with my own. But Tony... Tony had carried all of this by himself for eight whole heavy years...

How the hell was he still walking?

~~~

Dan was wearing the beanie I got him and Kyle was laughing his heart out over the hard-stain-remover kit I had bought them. I was wearing my brand new 'I'm with Gay Boys' T-shirt, to which Dan and Kyle each had a similar shirt with just 'Gay Boys' written across in bold letters. Gag gifts were the pinnacle in our Christmas – or so it apparently had become since this was the first Christmas I was spending with either of them.

And Christmas Eve had never been more perfect. 

"Okay, okay, but now you open my present," I laughed as Kyle watched Dan throw away a dick-shaped lube dispenser that Kyle had gotten him. I wasn't in on the private joke, but I could easily make my own ideas of it. "Please, I'm dying to see if you'll like it."

"If it's expensive, I'm returning it," Dan warned half-assed as Kyle lifted the heavy box over to them where we were gathered on the floor around the Christmas tree. I stuck my tongue out childishly, but then watched anxiously as him and Kyle shredded off the wrapping paper.

"No. You. Didn't." Dan went absolutely bananas and stared at the picture on the box and cupped his mouth. "Mel, you didn't. I swear to Christ if this is a prank gift—"

Kyle stabbed into the riff of the cardboard box with the scissors and cut the package open. After lifting off the top styrofoam, I had to almost cover my ears and apologize to Jesus for all the blasphemous oaths that rang from Dan's mouth.

"You fucking didn't! Mel! I've wanted this mixer for over a year!" He laughed and shot over to me to give me a bone crushing hug. "Thank you so much, you crazy bitch. This is so beyond our gift limit—"

"And I don't care," I said and hugged him back gratefully as he swept my hair away and kissed my cheek. "I love you guys. Kyle, the mixer is for you too."

"Comes with an ice cream attachment bowl," Kyle read on the side of the box. He flashed me a grin and sent me a thumbs up. "I can take a hint."

I laughed and then had to watch for ten minutes as the boys pulled the machine up from the box and started assembling it. Most people I knew waited till the next morning to toy with their new toys, but then again, we weren't most people. Most people also opened their presents Christmas morning... but we had decided we couldn't wait any more after the first present was opened and all the food was devoured.

I was carrying twin turkeys in my belly and I had a feeling their little sister Pecan Pie wasn't going to be too happy later when the labor started. We had all eaten way too much, but I blamed Dan and Kyle for cooking up a storm.

– I had skipped the eggnogs when there had been discussion of what kind of cream there was supposed to go in, though.

Now; we were all gathered around the Christmas tree that I had spent yesterday afternoon decorating while the boys shopped and pre-cooked the things they needed to prep for the big evening. As we sat on the floor now, surrounded by wine, hot chocolate, candy and presents, in a storm of Christmassy wrapping paper, things had never felt so perfect before. I had never experienced this sort of Christmas before – never this much intimacy and love.

So small, yet so perfect. In fact, it was just shy of enough.

"Thank you, Mel," Dan and Kyle said after one last moment of inspecting and playing with their new machine. Kyle came over and gave me a hug as well, but then Kyle turned to Dan.

"Your turn to open mine," He said and handed Dan a little square box. Bigger than a ring box, smaller than a shoe. Dan looked suspiciously at him.

"If this is a box of condoms to go with the lube, I swear—"

"It's not," Kyle laughed, but I was certain I detected a light shakiness in his voice. I sat up straighter as Dan slowly unwrapped the beautifully wrapped present.

Dan cupped his mouth again. I couldn't tell what was in the box yet, but whatever it was it made Dan tear up. He looked back at Kyle who was laughing nervously with tears in his eyes as well.

"Too soon?"

"Fuck, no," Dan practically leapt off the floor and wrapped his arms around Kyle. Kyle caught him and met him halfway as their lips locked. I shifted over the mountain of wrapping paper and empty boxes to see what had been inside the present.

And there it was; An oven mitt with the sewn on words; 'I love you'.

I smiled happily and looked at my two friends, Dan absolutely weeping by now. Somewhere in between all of the liplocking I heard him return the words. Kyle gave a weak; "Really?", to which Dan nodded solemnly.

– Just as he had disclosed to me. He loved him so much, he was scared.

But wasn't that the best kind of love. The kind where you were scared to lose it.

While Dan and Kyle continued to talk privately for a moment, my eyes drifted towards the window and out into the night sky.

Wherever he was tonight... I wondered if the reason he couldn't let go of Blue was because... he had been scared of losing her, too.

So scared, in fact, that losing himself meant nothing.

As long as he found his Blue.

• • •

Moral of this chapter: Talking always helps, but only with the right person.