FIVE YEARS AGO
"No. more. birth control." He pushed me further against his groin and I swear I almost moaned right before he crashed his lips against mine.
We were in the student park. Some people were reading, studying, having picnics or playing ball or Frisby, but we were making out under a tree that was hidden from the rest of the crowd.
I had planned a picnic for us today.
I cooked all his favourite dishes, but he's hardly touched them because all we've been doing is kissing and regretting that we left my dorm room.
I want him. Goodness, I want him. I always want him.
"Say it with me, Charlie." His hands grabbed my ass cheecks firmly. "No. more. birth control."
"Forest." I moaned against his ear.
I was wearing a long bright yellow summer skirt with a matching bra corset top. His hands were inside my skirt since it's long and flowy enough to cover everything up without raising any suspicions. When we left my room, he refused to let me wear any underwear so here I am, all exposed under my skirt and all but riding him in his sports shorts.
A few of his fingers were already stroking my core and I could feel the liquid pooling between my legs while he rubbed his fingers between my folds and kissed me to muffle my moans.
I was straddling him.
My arms were wrapped around his neck and it was taking all my strength not to start rocking my hips back and forth.
"You're going to graduate in a few months." He bit my neck gently after taunting me with kisses, all the while rubbing my core under my skirt. "It's time, Charlotte. It's time for me to f**k you and put babies in you. I've been patient long enough. I want a baby, Charlie. I want to give you babies."
Of course he didn't let me respond. He crashed his lips against mine again and this time, I really couldn't stop my hips from rocking back and forth to ride his fingers.
I was going to tell him I stopped taking my birth control pills two weeks ago. I finally got an offer from the firm I wanted - the best lawfirm in this country and it's based in New York. Greyson Corporation has its headquarters in New York so we'll be close and we'll never again have to suffer through a long distance relationship like we have for the past few years.
I regret going to to different schools. Gosh, I regret it so much, but at the time I thought it was something I needed to do.
I worked hard to achieve all the things I've achieved. However, I've always known that a part of the reason why I was able to be the person I was in middle school and high school is because everyone knew I had Forest standing behind me, ready to anhialate anyone who tried to hurt me.
I was an abandoned child in a private school for the richest kids in the country.
I know as much as anyone that I shouldn't have been the president of all the clubs I was heading or been the girl that everyone envied. No matter how hard I worked, I know I was actually supposed to be a nobody. Hard work is only half of what's needed. The other half is who you know. Forest turned me into a somebody.
So, even though I hated being apart, I decided I needed to prove that I could be a somebody without Forest protecting me. I needed to know that I was strong enough to make it on my own and that even without him and his family backing me up, I can make a name for myself.
And that's what I did.
I aced all of my classes, won a bunch of international mock trial competitions, became the president of some key societies on campus and got everyone to know just how capable Charlotte Ericsson is all by herself.
I hated being so far away from him, but I needed to do this. Otherwise, I would have felt like I'm living in his shadow for the rest of my life and, as much as I love him, Forest casts a pretty huge shadow.
"No. more. birth control." I repeated his words while I was riding his fingers. "Put a baby in me, Lucas Greyson. Put a dozen babies in me."
"f**k!" He groaned against my neck and suddenly stopped kissing me and thrusting his fingers in and out of my core.
"What's wrong?" I asked him while trying to catch my breath.
"We're going back to your dorm." He replied impatiently. "The picnic can wait. You and I are going to go make a baby right this very second."
***
"There we go." I heard a distant voice. "There we go. She's waking up."
The voice sounded so far away, just like all the voices I've been hearing in the darkness. When the voice felt close enough, I couldn't focus on it anymore.
I couldn't breathe.
Something was blocking my throat.
"We're removing the breathing tube right now." I heard another voice. "You'll be able to breathe on your own in a second, Charlotte."
I opened my eyes to find myself in a bright white room with people dressed in white coats all gathered around me.
I could feel my eyes tearing up. I still couldn't breathe.
How f*****g long is this tube?
"There we go." One of the white coats exclaimed while I coughed. "Welcome back to the land of the living!"
I was shaking and I could feel tears staining my face after those brief few seconds where I couldn't breathe.
I'm alive.
How the f**k am I alive?
I stepped out of Forest's protective embrace just once and this is what happens ... I'm so useless.
*******************************************
Jona's POV
Me, Nigel and mom all came back from the cafeteria to find the doctors removing her breathing tube.
She looked terrible. There's no other way to put it. She looks so terrible.
Her long light brown curls are all gone. They had to cut her hair to sew parts of her scalp back together. Her hair barely reaches her shoulders now and there are two bald patches on her head from where she got stitches.
Her body went from having deep wounds and severe swelling with blue and black spots all over to all of that only decreasing minimally. She's still covered in bandages and her left leg and right arm are both still in casts.
She protected her face pretty well.
She doesn't have a single scar on her face. Her skin may have lost its colour,her eyes may be sunken and she may be so pale that she's hardly recognisable, but at least she doesn't have any scars on her face.
I guess that's something.
We were starting to think she would never wake up. Her coma was only supposed to last for three days, but after the initial three days, the doctors kept extending the date they expected her to wake up.
Then, on day ten of her coma, her doctor stopped giving us an estimation. He just said we had to wait and see. He said they did all they could and it was all up to her. She had to decide whether she wanted to live or not.
Mom almost fainted when she heard that.
We came here everyday.
My mornings started with me going to every police station even remotely close to her university. I used all my power and skill to speak to each police captain, but they all refused to open a case. Then I went her university's vice chancellor and was told this matter is beyond the university's powers. The man said he sympathised with her. He knew what happened to her was no accident, but he said there's nothing he could do about it.
I tried to pry some information out of him, but he's as tight lipped as everyone else.
After all that, I come here each day and sit next to her bed.
I work on her case, a case that may never see the light of day. I read her the most interesting cases that have recently been decided by the courts. Mom and Nigel hated it when I did that, but I think she liked it. I saw her furrow her brows once when I read a judgment that I thought was ridiculous. I think she could hear me and she also thought that judgment was just plain wrong.
A lot of people came to visit her. Some were crying. Others are even helping me with her case. This girl is loved and admired by so many people and all these people seem to understand that if you call someone for couple of days and they don't pick up, then maybe something is wrong and you should go see them in person.
She started crying before the doctors could say anything to her. A painful and loud sob exploded out of her and she started crying and trembling infront of all of us.
A few doctors and nurses tried to console her, but she refused for anyone to touch her. It honestly looked like them touching her hurt her more than her injuries.
So we watched her cry and cry unashamedly and without any restraint. No one could hug her or hold her hand because she didn't want anyone touching her.
She remembers what happened. That much im certain of.
I think she's reliving it right now. I don't think she'll ever stop reliving that because I still struggle to shake those images out of my mind and I wasn't even the victim.
"He- He - He -" She tried to speak through her sobs until her eyes landed on me.
No, not me. She was looking at mom.
"You." She whispered. "You're both here to finish me off, aren't you?"
"Charlie-" Mom tried to take a step towards her, but she flinched and almost fell out of her bed trying to get away from mom.
"Get out!" She whispered through trembling lips. "If you don't leave right now, I swear I will kill you and Brian Kim and anything you two have brought into this world. I will hunt down your kids, Charlene. I will kill whatever other miserable souls you and that wretched man who fathered me dared to bring into this world. I will kill you two for what you did to me! I will kill you for breaking me over and over again and refusing for me to put myself back together again. I will kill you for bringing me into this world. I'll kill you for refusing to love me when that's all I've ever wanted!"
Her sobs increased and filled every corner of her room.
"Why?" She started begging. "Why can't you love me? What's so bad about me that you can't love me? Why can't I be enough for you? What do I need to do for you two to think of me as a human being ... as your daughter?"
I could feel tears stinging my eyes. In fact, a few nurses were even tearing up at the scene of the girl who was asking her mother why she never loved her.
"I'll go." Mom ran out of the room too quick for any of us to stop her.
After she left, Charlotte started wiping her tears with the one hand that wasn't in a cast and then a cold and lonely silence settled in the room.
Her anger and pain was sucking all the life out of this room and everyone in it.
"You fell." One of the doctors blurted out. "You fell down a flight of stairs and hurt yourself."
Her face went from angry to confused and then to shocked and defeated when she realised within a matter of seconds what was going on - Her father was going to get away with what he did to her.
"I fell." She repeated the words painfully. "I fell really hard, didn't I?"
She looked up at the doctor with teary eyes.
"Yes." The doctor seemed to be holding back his own tears. "But you're alive and that's all that matters."
He started going through all the injuries she sustained from her fall and telling her for how long she's been in a coma. He couldn't even face her. No one could look her in the eye because they all know that what they were doing was so wrong.
She didn't look at him while he spoke.
She was looking down at her lap and the way her head was slumped resembled someone who didn't have any fight left in them anymore.
"I fell." She whispered to herself while he spoke faster to get out of this room as quickly as possible. "I fell down a flight of stairs. That's what happened. I fell."
"Charlotte", I spoke over the doctor, "don't give up. Please don't give up. I'm going to fight for you. I'm going to fight with you. Everything you're feeling right now - the powerlessness, hopelessness and uselessness. I promise you will never ever feel this way ever again. You believe me when I say that, right?"
She tilted her head to the side and looked at me. A small and sad smile appeared on her thin pale face.
"You're Jona." She said softly. "I remember your voice and I remember you ... trying to stop him."
***
Nigel and I spent the day with her.
The two of us were doing most of the talking. She mostly stared at the wall with a blank expression on her face.
In some ways, it was kind of like she was still in a coma.
I couldn't bear to look her in the eye. She looked so broken. I don't know how I'm going to fix her when she looks this broken.
I tried showing her all the evidence I've gather for her case, but she shoved the papers without looking at them.
"I fell down a flight of stairs." She continued staring at the wall. "I fell down a flight of stairs and hurt myself, but I'm okay now. There's no need for an investigation or for a case to be opened. So don't talk about this ever again. I fell, but now I'm okay. I fell. That's what happened."
I exchanged a look with Nigel before I put all the notes, pictures and other annextures away.
I'm being too eager and downright insensitive. She just woke up. She needs time to come to terms with things.
I tried asking her about all the things she screamed at mom, but that angered her so much that she almost chased me out of the room.
"If you guys are going to ask me about that woman or that man, then you might as well leave." She gritted through her teeth. "I want nothing to do with them. Nothing good can come from that man or that woman."
I didn't need to say a word to Nigel.
He was already thinking what I was thinking. She can never know who I am to her. She'll think I'm trying to hurt her and she'll know that all of this happened because I failed her. I can't tell her.
When a nurse came to tell us visiting hours were over, I tried to get her to let us stay for a bit longer.
Charlotte hardly spoke and when she did speak, it was nothing positive.
I'm genuinely afraid she might hurt herself.
Her hand reached out for her phone when we said our goodbyes. I could tell she was going to call the boy who didn't even bother to come and visit her.
She's an adult. She can make her own decisions, but I just couldn't let her do this to herself when that boy has made it crystal clear that he doesn't give a f**k about her.
"Don't call him." I blurted out right before I stepped out of her room. "Your boyfriend - don't call him. You had so many people come and visit you while you were in a coma and the person who keeps calling and texting you wasn't one of those people. Why hasn't he come yet? You haven't responded to any of his calls for two weeks, Charlotte. If the roles were reversed, wouldn't you have dropped everything to go and make sure he's okay? Wouldn't you have decided that a phone call wasn't enough anymore?"
She bit her lower lip and nodded to herself.
She was thinking about what I just said.
For a second, I thought about showing her the pictures that his friends keep posting. There's one girl in particular that I'm certain he's dating. She posts pictures of him and her at least ten times a day.
They're laughing in the pictures, studying together, grabbing a bite to eat and just having the time of their lives.
In those pictures, he doesn't look like someone who hasn't spoken to his girlfriend in two weeks and who's bothered even a little bit by it.
"Give it a week!" I begged her when she started dialing a number despite what I just said. "Don't reply to any of his texts or calls for the next week and see if he worries enough to come check in on you in person. If he still doesn't come, that means you're dating a guy who's okay with not hearing from you for three weeks. A boy who does that to you doesn't deserve to be with you, Charlotte."
The eyes looking back at me looked even more dull and lifeless than they looked a few minutes ago.
"He's not just a boy." She finally put her phone down. "He's my best friend and the love of my life."
Aksara