I woke up in my bed, my head spinning like a merry-go-round gone wrong. My stomach felt like someone had been punching me from the inside for hours, and all of my muscles hurt like never before.

What the fuck happened?

I groaned as I resisted the need to cry that seemed to echo and reverberate all throughout my body. Rolled onto my side as I cursed my reckless and idiotic decisions of the previous night.

What the fuck even happened?

I sat up in my bed and pulled myself up to lean back on my headboard.

Okay, let’s go through the checklist:

Am I actually in my bed in my room? Yes, yes I am.

Do I have my wallet, ID, driver’s license, and phone?

I searched through the messy bed sheets and blankets until my hand caught on the edge of a gold chain. I pulled my bag towards me and dumped the contents onto my bed.

Yes, I had everything, thank fuck.

Lastly, do I have my clothes?

I looked down at my body to see that I was still in the dress from the previous night. Not a great sign, but at least that meant I didn’t get raped or spend the night… elsewhere…

Wait… raped… raped…

Holy fuck! I almost got raped last night!

That particular memory came flooding back into my head in that split second, and I was taken on a trip into last night's memories.

That tall man, whoever he was. I couldn’t seem to remember his face or name or anything at all, just that he…

I shivered, and scraped at the exposed skin on my arms.

That bitch touched me! Like, touched touched me!

“Ugh!” I spit out as I threw my hands from my arms to my head, smacking my skull in an attempt to forget that disgusting feeling.

My skin crawled like it had last night, and I had the sudden urge to vomit…

Wait.

I paused. That feeling of nauseousness wasn’t just from the idea of that motherfucker touching and kissing me, but also because…

Oh, shit!

I leapt from my bed, sprinting for the door leading to the bathroom. Slammed onto the floor as I lifted the toilet lid and forcefully regurgitated the contents of my stomach into the porcelain bowl.

After a few minutes of retching, I managed to come back up for air. My muscles were even more sore and pained than before, especially my stomach and throat.

My mouth tasted foul, like acid and alcohol and some sort of food that I must’ve eaten last night. It definitely was not pleasant in any way.

I used the edge of the counter to pull myself up to stand, leaning over the sink. I was heaving in oxygen as I grimaced at the foulness in my mouth. If any taste could stab, it would be the taste currently residing in my mouth right then.

I was sweating and tired, but I had to get that taste out of my mouth, I fucking had to.

With a sigh that caught on a sob, I reached over and pulled my toothbrush from the small cup on the counter. Washed my mouth out before I stuck the minty bristles into my mouth and scrubbed like I could rip the skin off my mouth to take the taste away.

I spit out the contents of foam in my mouth before rinsing and going again. Brushed my teeth a total of three times before I finally deemed my mouth clean.

As I washed my mouth out one last time, I finally looked at my reflection in the mirror. I gasped.

Holy hell, I looked like a mix between a raccoon and one of those dramatic crying girls in movies after they broke up with their boyfriends.

My face was pale and colorless except for the mess of black around my eyes from my smeared eyeliner and mascara, and the smudged pink around my cheeks and chin. My lipstick was literally everywhere but my lips.

I internally scolded myself as I viciously pulled makeup wipes from the small container inside one of the drawers. Scraped the black and pink off of my face, smearing it on the wipes as well as all over my face.

It took a good few minutes before my face was clear of makeup and I had washed it completely clean. I dried my face on the towel hanging beside the sink and walked back out to my room.

Before I could collapse onto my bed, I stripped myself of my dress and shorts before dressing myself in a pair of plain light gray sweatpants and a plain white tank top.

Feeling a lot more clean than before, I let myself relax and fall back onto my bed. Unfortunately, relaxing meant nothing to think about, and having nothing occupying my mind meant that I had room and time to think about… that…

I wanted to forget, to ignore what happened, but I knew I shouldn’t. I knew I had to think about it, remember as much as I could so that I could report it. So that he would get in trouble and never do this to any defenseless girl like me ever again.

But now I knew.

I’ve heard a lot of stories about girls (and boys, too, but mainly girls) who’ve been sexually harassed and attacked. And everytime, there are these stories about how they were scared to say what happened to them. To identify people, get help, and blame those gross violators.

I always thought that it would be easy to just say what happened because who the hell would blame them for someone else’s disgusting decisions? I always wondered why.

But now I knew.

I felt the same. It was humiliating to have been violated in that way. The fact that I let myself get drunk enough, let myself be an easy mark for this man, let myself be irresponsible and dumb and naive.

But I took a deep breath. I hadn’t studied this sort of psychological shit, but I did do some side research on some human behavior, so…

I had to think about it. I needed to.

It started with the drink. I was sitting at the bar with Diane, and we started with a glass of soda and garlic fries. We talked and laughed and met with some high school acquaintances. It was all like a normal party, maybe even boring enough to be like a middle school party!

But then someone ordered drinks for everyone, some kid I didn’t know back in school. He was obviously rich enough that this was considered nothing.

So I graciously took the drink even though I rarely ever drank. He said we could order whatever we wanted, so I took a glance at the menu and chose a drink with an interesting name.

Frostbite, I think it was called. It was a frosty pale blue with two cherries on top, and it was so sweet and delicious that I couldn’t help but remember that baby pink martini that Orchid made for me on our first night together.

So, hoping that this one would be as weak as that one, I drank it. Finished it in barely ten minutes because it tasted wonderful. I stayed away from the bar for the next hour or so, though, because one drink was enough. Instead, I decided to dance with Diane.

That is, until she got dragged to the bar by one of our past friends, dragging me with them. Sure, it was all fun and games until some part of my brain (probably the already tipsy part) decided I should get another drink. Because I was a person who disliked change, I got the same one as I had before. The Frostbite.

Downed that one quickly, too, only for Diane to properly look at the menu and tell me that it contained three types of alcohol in it, including tequila.

But it was too late. I felt the warmth bubbling in my stomach and throat as my mind slowly went hazy.

I think I told her I’d be fine as I sat at the bar. Still, she ordered me a burger or something before she got dragged onto the dance floor. I might’ve eaten it? I think so because, whether I remembered eating it or not, I tasted its foul version as it came back up and into the toilet.

Even after I ate that, I was still incredibly drunk and becoming increasingly so. At some point, I decided stumbling around was a bright idea and ended up crashing into the arms of that molester.

I remember our conversation, how he groped and kissed me, but what was his name?

Well, well, well,” a voice purred in my mind, echoing as I slowly remembered. “Grayson! Who knew?”

It was Grayson!

He was that creepy football player back in the day, the one in all of the lowest classes with the worst grades. He was the one who threw a fit when he didn’t get the part he wanted in anything. He was the sort of single-brain-celled idiots who expected to get what he wanted, when he wanted, no matter what.

Everyone hated him, even the teachers.

I shivered as I remembered everything…

But wait… who saved me?

A girl, a tall girl, with short black hair and dark, near-black eyes. She beat the fucking hell outta that guy, and I’m grateful for it.

But I think I passed out.

What the shit, I passed out?

I blushed, my cheeks burning hot as I turned over and buried my face in my pillows. She must’ve carried me, right? Because I woke up on a couch…

Ah, hell! That’s so humiliating!

I let out a meager scream in my pillow, thankful that it was muffled as well as fucking weak.

And the worst part was that I couldn’t even fucking remember who the hell my savior was!

How the shit did this happen? What happened to me? I never used to curse, I used to be abstinent (or at least mostly) in both sexual and alcoholic relations. I used to be the good girl, plain hair and simple clothes, studying and studying my way up the social ladder. I was a fucking pediatrician, and there I was, hungover with sparse memories from the previous night! How much had I drunk to be this fucking hungover?

I rolled over so that I could come up for air as I tried to swallow the scratchy feeling away from my throat. I let out an exhale on a sigh as I stared up at the ceiling, my mind still dwelling on my miserable night out.

Who the hell even was this mysterious girl?

And why did I want to see her so badly?

I thrashed and kicked quietly in my bed, throwing a silent hissy fit. It didn’t really help with my situation, but it helped me release my stress. And luckily, I didn’t hit my flying limbs on anything except for the fabric and cushions of the bed.

After a good fit, I relaxed on the mattress, panting with my hair strewn all over the place. As short as this small fit was, it helped. But it was also tiring.

I sighed, knowing very well that I wouldn’t be able to figure out who the hell that mysterious girl was. No matter what I tried, it wouldn’t happen.

So I sat up in bed, pulling my empty bag towards me. Threw it across the room with the hopes of it landing on my desk chair. It was successful, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t my current focus. I started to search through the messed up sheets for my phone, coming across my wallet, chapstick, and various cards that I had pulled from my wallet before I found my phone.

Opened it up to see the time.

“What the fuck, it’s already almost three in the afternoon!” I shouted as I sat up straighter in my bed.

But I guess it made sense because the party ended at midnight, and with the amount of time it took to get there, it probably took longer to get back. And what with being drunk as hell, it made sense for me to be out for the count for so long.

But still, holy shit!

My brain pounded around my skull as I remembered I’d have to work the next day.

Fuck.

…

It turned out that I was right to curse myself and my naive decisions. Work was hell on earth, I swear.

The parents were persistent and worried as always, but their consistent nagging and questions were beginning to drill into my head. The bright lights of my office definitely didn’t help.

But the kids were a blessing. They were often very quiet and scared and nervous, but I felt like they were able to pick up on my very tired vibes I had been unconsciously giving off.

It always shocked me at how intuitive children were. They always knew people’s emotions and general thoughts, reading people like they were books lined on the shelves of a library. Some bright, some dark, and I tried to remember my own childhood experience.

I think I had always been extra intuitive. That’s probably why I made such a good doctor, especially a pediatrician. Most often, kids don’t understand their own feelings and pain. They don’t know how to properly communicate yet, which is normal. Their brains are still developing, and I guess my strong emotional awareness helped bring me to where I was.

But finally, my headache seemed to fade. It was lunch when I blinked my eyes open from where I lay on my desk. I expected the sharp stabbing pains in my head when the lights shone into my sensitive eyes, but it never came.

I sighed with relief. Thank the heavens, my hangover seemed to have gone. My small power nap seemed to have helped the after effects, so I pulled my computer closer to me as I sat up. Clicked open the file on Lainie.

Lainie Felicity Brookes. Six years old, female. Daughter of Mrs and Mr Brookes: Lucile Sophie Brookes (maiden name of Allard) and Sameul Edwin Brookes.

No known family diseases or history of cancer, but the little girl was found with leukemia. Specifically Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML), subtype M3. This meant she had acute promyelocytic leukemia, a type of acute myeloid leukemia. 

Luckily, this had the highest survival rate of sixty to seventy percent survival rate. However, she did have to undergo chemotherapy as well as a few emergency bone marrow transplants. It was a painful journey for her as well as her entire family, but I was so glad that she was better now.

Because she had visited on the seventeenth of October, her next check in would be on the fourteenth. I typed in her appointment in my calendar, double checking the time Lucile and I had planned earlier.

I smiled to myself as I stood and readied my things for my next patient. Only two days until I could give myself a needed break.

…

“Diane!” I called into the quiet of our apartment. “Diane, I’m going out!”

As I rummaged through my small bag, double checking that I had all of my necessary items, I realized that my sister wasn’t responding.

I stood straighter and turned around.

“Diane?” I asked as I walked to my door and pulled it fully open. Stuck my head into the hallway before repeating, “Diane?”

I walked through the house, checking all of the individual rooms. I knew that Isaac and Nathan were out on a date, so I had no worry of walking into either of the boys’... privacy.

But where was Diane?

I pulled my phone from my bag and immediately texted her.

Where are you? I typed out, frowning down at my phone.

Not a moment later, her reply appeared on my screen: Just out. I’ll probably be back late. Have a good night!

“The fuck?” I whispered to myself, thoroughly confused. “Y’know what? It doesn’t matter!” I convinced myself aloud after a moment.

I pulled on a thin cardigan before grabbing my keys and leaving the apartment empty behind me. Locked the door and started for The Dagger’s End.

In a way, I was thankful that Diane was out. If she wouldn’t be returning for a long while, I guess that left me time to disappear and reappear without her noticing and growing her suspicion.

Of course, I was curious as to what in hell she was up to on a Wednesday afternoon. My sister wasn’t someone to ever go out, but if it helped me, who was I to care?

This helped me loosen up and relax. After all, it wouldn’t help to be tense when I saw Orchid.

I mean, she was the hottest and smoothest person I had ever met. I wanted to impress her… but I would not dwell on what that meant. It sounded like one of those problems that you just… avoid.