Show Me Where it Hurts

I had never been more thankful that I was a mother as I was in the first week after knowing what really happened to me that night, six years ago. The only reason I hadn’t broken down in shame was seeing two little faces look up to me every morning. Two little faces that needed me, didn’t judge me, loved me unconditionally, and were by my side through everything.

After the tape was submitted to the police, I made a statement. Will was arrested two days after its release. Then, he was bailed until they charged him with rape. My heart sunk, but all I could do was pray that he’d get what was coming to him.

My main concern was none of that, however. My main concern that week was Harry.

He’d always been my rock. He’d always surprise me with this loving, sensitive, listening side. But finding out what had been done to me seemed to zombify him of all emotion. As soon as we got through the door the day we’d known, he padded down the stairs to his studio, and locked himself away.

I think I knew that things were really wrong when I saw how he reacted to Ivy. One morning, he slumped into the kitchen, poured himself a bowl of cereal, and just stood there, his face void of any feeling or thought, while Ivy wrapped her small arms around his legs and begged for him to cuddle her. Her huge green eyes brimmed with tears. He brushed her off, and she started to sob. But he carried on, walking through the house, not even raising a glance in my direction, back to his cave. I would never understand Harry and Ivy’s obsessive connection to one another, but all I knew was that she was Harry’s first child, his biggest milestone, the peak that changed his life. His little girl. He loved her more than anything in the world, and when she couldn’t even bring him out of his depression, I felt sick with worry.

Harry was consistent with Noah. Always pulling himself out of sleep in the middle of the night to change or feed or just hold him. Since Will published the tape, I had been tending to Noah throughout the night, who cried twice as much due to the confusion of his missing father.

I had been the victim in all of this, but I was coping a damn sight better than he was. I couldn’t help but feel anger towards him. He didn’t look me in the eye when I’d ask him something. Fuck, he didn’t even get as far as speaking to me at all. It made my heart break, but it was honestly as though he couldn’t bare to look at me.

I wasn’t surprised when I crept down the basement steps to ask Harry the same question I had every night; “Are you coming to bed?” Each time, he hadn’t answered. He’d just give one, sharp nod, and avoid further conversation in a bid to make me leave.

But that night, I wasn’t asking. I was telling. I had had enough of whatever was going on. I needed him to be my husband. Til death do us part. For better or for worse. I needed the man I loved and looked up to more than anything to wrap his arms around me in our bed and tell me that he would never let anything hurt me again.

“I need you.” Was all I could manage, barely above a whisper. I saw Harry’s eyes lift momentarily in the reflection of the glass booth in front of him. A flash of surprise or confusion rippled over his face. I was sure I saw him sigh.
“I’ll be up.” His voice was raspy. I knew he hadn’t been sleeping properly, setting up camp down here on the awkward two-seater sofa.
“You’ve said that every night.. and you haven’t.” I was shaking with fear. Harry’s behaviour had been so depressive that I wondered what his next move would be. If he would snap and lose it at me.

I moved closer to him and draped my fingers over his shoulders. Automatically, I felt the tension. I bit down on my lip, the fact that my husband repelled my touch caused a lump to form in my throat instantly.
“Are you going to tell me what this is about?” I managed, but my voice wobbled at the end and Harry slipped out of his daze. He swung around on his chair and looked up at me.
“Annie,” was all he managed, after a moments silence.
“I need you, Harry. I’m hurting.” I didn’t try to cover up the small sob that left my chest. Harry’s eyes seemed laden with sorrow and torture. The woman he adored, showed off to the world, had been violated in the most barbaric, vulgar way. He couldn’t help that he felt like there was a glass barrier between them, creating this sort of distance, that meant all he wanted to do was carress her and hold her and tell her that she was worth millions and millions, but he couldn’t. Something inside him was holding him back from me.
“Why are you avoiding me?” I pushed, sniffing back my dignity. It was so hard to restrain my anger. I shouldn’t be the one begging for attention. It was akin to that feeling you get when someone asks you to do something labouring when you’ve been ill. I was the one who needed care and attention and reassurance, yet here I was, trying to give it to him.

“Annie.. don’t do that.” Harry sighed and brushed me off, moving to sit on the sofa behind him. He rested his chin on his knuckles. “Don’t look at me like that. I can see your broken heart in your eyes.”
“So help me fix it.” I brushed the tears from my cheeks.
“I can’t.” Harry covered his mouth with his hands as if the words fell out.
“What do you mean, you can’t?” I pulled a face that showed just how disgusted I was. I watched him push his hair back and sigh deeply, taking a nip at his fingernail and looking down at the floor. I saw his chin indent and realised he was trying to stop himself from crying.
“I don’t know what to do.. how will I ever get over this?” He finally looked into my eyes for the first time since. “Those little birth marks on your hips that I love so much. There in the video with his hands, his hands all over you."

Harry shook his head in disbelief and the tears fell freely from his eyes. He wasn’t the only one. My heart fell through the floor with his words. Partly because I had to relive it and partly because I had realised the problem. The video had sickened him so much that I had started to sicken him. Because all he saw when he looked at me were those images.

“I fucking need you with me on this one.” I said, through gritted teeth. “How come I feel fucking punished?”
“You don’t think I want to be with you? Up there in that bed where I’ve spent so many amazing moments with you? Holding you and convincing you that you’re the most wonderful woman on this earth and that I’ll never let anyone hurt you? I’ve said those things before, though, haven’t I. And look at me, An. I failed you. I failed the kids. I let someone do that to their mother.”
“No! You don’t get to feel like this, Harry.” I tried to control my lips from trembling. My eyes from streaming. I gave up. “How could you have ever have stopped those things from happening to me? I didn’t even know about them myself.”
“I feel like a failure. I want to be there for you, An, you know that.” Harry’s hair was so matted and greasy and unkempt. His lips were chapped and pale. “But every time I think about putting my arms around you I just- Fuck. It’s not your fault. I’m being a coward. I’m being fucking weak.”
“Are you fucking telling me that because something vulgar happened to me that everything about me is vulgar to you?” I was pointing a finger close to his face now. “And our kids, too? You haven’t seen Noah practically all week and you won’t even look at Ivy!”
“Because I see YOU! I see your face, your eyes. Annie, everything reminds me of what he did. He’s taken the innocence and the love out of this family and I can’t, I just can’t.."

I watched, stunned, realising what Harry was saying but wanting so badly for him to continue and prove me wrong. He was crying hard, but in true male-style, he was swiping at his eyes fiercely. His fists were balled in frustration.

“Do you feel like you can’t be with me?” My voice was hardly audible. I said the words so quietly because I really didn’t want to hear the answer.

I didn’t need to hear the answer. When Harry looked up at me with big, bloodshot eyes and a heavy heart in his chest I knew that things were so far damaged in our little family that he couldn’t even stand to be around it.

“He fucking ruined us.”
“You’re fucking letting him!” I bellowed, pushing Harry, the heels of my hands digging into his chest, hoping for some or any reaction. He winced and shook his head, more tears filtering out of him.
“Annie, I just need to be out of here. A few days. A week. I don’t know. But I can’t sleep in this house. I wake up in the middle of the night and I see it. The dips of his fingernails digging into your skin. Pulling you and pushing.. my heart, Annie. It’s broken in half. You’re the love of my life and somebody hurt you and I wasn’t there to stop it. Do you know how that feels?”
“Do you know how it feels that it was my body he did those things to? My limp, incoherent fucking body. It’s me that still swears she can see the bruises on her thighs from that night in the shower. It’s me who feels like a dead weight is on my chest when I wake up at night. You’re supposed to be strong.”
“I’m not strong.” He sniffed.
“No, you’re not. You talk a lot about failing me and being there to save me but where have you been? All week. Sleeping three floors below me. Looking at me like I did that out of choice, like I let him have my body like that. Fuck you.”
“You have every right to be angry. But I can’t change it, An. I can’t change how broken I feel."

I shook my head in disbelief at his behaviour. But I only had to look at the shell of the man he once was, standing there in tracksuit bottoms and a vest top that I was sure he had worn yesterday, and the day before, to see how broken he was.

“So go. Leave your wife. Leave your kids.” I bit, finally. I waited for his assurance that he never would. That he’d stay and we’d work everything out. But it never came, so I turned on my heel, and left, to make my way to the bed where I would no-doubt be crying until morning.

Notes

sorry for the wait!!!!! It won’t be this long again. Just been so busy. Sorry if this chapters crappy, but I’m exhausted. concentration is not as good haha.

so why do you think Harry’s acting like this? does he have a right to? isssss he going to take off for a while?