Broken Beauty
Authors: Chloe Adams
Broken Beauty
(#1, Broken Beauty Novellas)
By Lizzy Ford, writing as Chloe Adams
Published by Evatopia Press
Cover design by Eden Crane, Eden Crane Design
http://www.EdenCraneDesign.com/
ARC Edition
Broken Beauty copyright ©2013 by Lizzy Ford
http://www.GuerrillaWordfare.com/
Cover design copyright © 2013 by Eden Crane Design
http://www.EdenCraneDesign.com/
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events; to real people, living or dead; or to real locales are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are
used fictitiously and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.
The first two “Broken Beauty” serials were originally published in October 2012 as a novel entitled “No Way Back,” under a nom de plume I developed for New Adult fiction. The initial version was much grittier, and I wasn’t certain how it would be received. The topic of rape – and its immediate emotional and physical aftermath – is not one directly tackled in New Adult fiction. I felt it was an important story to tell, more so because it was the final stage in
my own
healing process that has taken me close to fifteen years to work through.
After publishing “No Way Back,”
I received a great deal of feedback from women who had suffered through sexual assault. Their tales were horrific, humbling and inspiring at the same time. Some had healed and moved on to build new lives, while others were still scarred and trapped by what happened to them. Two
comments were regularly repeated to me:
Mia’s tale was brutally accurate in its portrayal of the lingering emotional impact of rape, and her story touched women on a level that made them feel a little less alone in dealing with their experiences.
My awesome publisher (and friend!), Margery, and I went back and forth quite a few times during the revisions of this
novella
to ensure we were able to maintain
the balance of
what made the original story so
personal
while
ensuring that the story was approachable and of
high standards. I am grateful for her help in balancing the two and for how gently she approached a project she knew was so important to me.
To all those who reached out to me after reading “No Way Back:” your courage and strength are incredible. Your ability to heal from such a traumatic event is truly inspiring. There is no way for me to express how touched I was to know I’d helped so many people, and I thank you over and over for helping me to heal as well. No one should go through
such adversity
alone, and I hope that Mia’s tale continues to help others, if only so they know they’re not alone.
Lizzy
Sirens, shuffling, and the distant sounds of voices interrupt my sleep.
Pain.
I float back towards consciousness. I try to figure out if I left the television on and what I ate that made my belly hurt so much.
Cold.
How could I forget to pull the blankets up before passing out?
Blood.
Have I always had a bed made of concrete that smelled strange, like a combination of trees and something unpleasant?
Alone.
Just before the voices crystalize, I begin to realize I’m not at home in bed. Amidst all the words that come to me, one shouts.
Darkness.
“Miss? Can you hear me?” A woman’s voice. She pries one of my eyes open. I’m blinded by a light. “We’ve got possible head trauma.”
Head trauma? Is this real?
“Miss! It’s okay! We’re the police!”
Police.
I’m about to slide into darkness when she passes smelling salts beneath my nose. The world bursts into painful clarity. Where the hell am I? My eyes are blurry, but I can make out the shapes of hedges just beyond the police who hover over me. The stone beneath me is cold, and someone has draped a blanket over me.
It feels heavy; makes me uncomfortable...like someone is...
Someone is on top of me. The fireflies nearby light up a face framed by dark hair. His face is blurry. I hear him grunting. He smells like whiskey. He’s holding my hands above my head while I struggle. I feel the pain, tearing me from the inside out, but I can’t move.
This shouldn’t be happening.
I scream and try to escape. Someone subdues me, and the memory clears to show two police officers bent over me.
“You’re safe,” the woman says. “I want to keep you awake ‘til the EMTs check you out.”
I’m starting to remember, but it’s hazy, like a nightmare. Except this one is real, because I’m here in the garden, where the nightmare happened. Pain is settling in, hot and burning, between my legs, across my back. My head.
I start to cry, confused and terrified.
“Oh, god! I’m dying!” I sob.
“You won’t die, honey.”
“I found a blanket in the cabana.” This voice is male. “And her purse.”
“Calm down…Julie?” the woman cop says. She’s reading the driver’s license she pulled from a familiar red snakeskin wristlet, the one I borrowed from my best friend, Ari.
The one I borrowed for tonight’s party at Sven’s. He sent out a text earlier today about the party he was throwing when his ambassador father would be out of town for the weekend. Ari and I are regular attendees in the elite party circuit for kids of the wealthy in DC. She was supposed to come with me tonight…I can’t remember why she didn’t.
God, I
hurt!
My tears slow. I’m too tired to cry. I just want to sleep and close my eyes. In the morning, this nightmare will be over.
“Julie, I need you to stay awake until I know if you have a concussion, okay?” the female cop says.
I don’t want to. I don’t care. I want to die.
“We need to call your…someone in your family. Can I look at your phone contacts?”
“Ari,” I say. “Call Ari. Please.”
“Who’s Ari?” the male cop asks.
“My friend.”
“Any family members? Mother, father, siblings?” the female asks.
I close my eyes.
“Stay with me, honey.”
“Just call Ari,” I say. I just want to sleep and wake up when this is over.
I shove the blond man and run. The dark-haired one grabs me, lifts me and throws me down. I scramble up. He kicks me hard then kneels over me and hits me in the face again. I go to an in-between place, where I’m aware of the world, but can’t react to it. I feel the pain, between my legs, like he’s tearing me apart.
The blond man takes his place. I try to move, to push him away, but I can’t get my body to respond. He hurts me, too, then flips me over and steps away. Sobbing, I can’t do any more than gather the strength to scream.
Who are these people? Did this really happen?
“Open those eyes, or I get the smelling salts.” The female cop is trying to be funny, but she sounds too tense.
I open my eyes, more afraid of what I’ll see if I sleep than what’s around me when I’m awake. I’m crying again.
She’s gazing skeptically at my driver’s license. “You don’t look like you’re twenty-nine.” She pauses. “Your name’s not Julie, is it?”
I shake my head. I hear another siren. They’re coming to take me to prison for the fake ID I got from a kid at school who specializes in them for those of us in the circuit. The light in my face leaves, and I see the woman move away.
New fear slams into me. They’re going to leave me here. Alone. To be hurt again. My arms feel heavy and don’t move right, but I throw them at the blue uniform I see.
“Don’t! Don’t leave me!” I scream. “They’ll come back! Don’t go!”
The woman gasps, and the light is back in my face. She’s standing a few feet away while I cling to the other cop.
“It’s okay, sweetie,” the woman says soothingly. “I won’t be far.”
“We have to meet the EMTs,” the male voice said. He sounds uncertain, and I blink until I can see him. He’s a few years older than me, with olive skin and dark eyebrows. I’m struck by a thought that makes no sense: he looks like a younger version of my dear, sweet grandpa. The same brown eyes, the same low, gravelly voice. Grandpa would never leave me.
“Miss, this garden is literally a maze. We don’t want them wasting time wandering through it,” the woman explains.
“Don’t leave me!” I beg.
My pain intensifies, and I gasp, but refuse to let go of the cop. He lifts me. His badge is cold, nice, against my burning cheek.
“Protocol states we shouldn’t move someone with possible head trauma,” the woman reminds him.
“I’m not gonna leave her like this,” he says in his husky voice. “It took us fifteen minutes to find our way through this garden. Write me up. I don’t give a shit.”
He sounds like a New York taxi driver,
and his smile is tight, but quick when I look at him. His eyes are dark brown. While his voice is like Grandpa Abbot’s, he’s young like Ari’s brother, who taught us both to play sports and used to babysit. Cory was my first crush - strong, funny and patient with Ari and me. I know he wouldn’t leave me lying in the garden, either.
The pain starts to fade as I close my eyes, and suddenly, I’m sitting on the porch with my favorite grandpa. Before his death, he and I talked every week about my crazy family.
He looks older than I remember. We’re on the back porch overlooking the rocky beach o
f our Tybee Island summer retreat, protected from the summer insects by the screening. We don’t talk, just sit and watch the ocean. Before his death, I lived with him for three years. I used to sit with him every day on the porch, like we are now. He never talks on the porch. He stares. I think he’s waiting for my grandmother to bring him tea. Tea sounds good right now. I’m so thirsty.
Some boat’s horn is making a buzzing sound. The sun is too bright. I feel like someone is trying to take me away from the porch.
The buzzing and light wrench me from the dream, and I wake up to see lights flashing by. I’m on my back. The world freaks me out: the lights are too bright, the voices too loud. We’re moving so fast, I feel nauseous. I can’t make sense of it. I don’t recognize anyone or anything – but the brown eyes and blue uniform. I tighten my grip on the blue uniform. I won’t let go. I can’t let go, not until my mind is right again.
Finally, the world stops, and the lights are dimmed. I’m in a small room with three people.
“Miss? Can you hear me?” The female cop is there. “We need to take pictures of what happened to you. Can you let go of Dom?” She takes my hand and starts to pry away my fingers.
Confused, I look at what I’m clutching and realize it’s the other cop she calls Dom. His eyes are like my grandfather’s, and I recall he carried me away from the garden where…
I shake my head. Dom is a cop. He’s big enough to take on the bad men when they come back.
“Honey, usually the female officers handle this part,” th
e lady cop says.
“Don’t leave me,” I say. I want to scream it, but my throat hurts from screaming. My eyes are blurry again as more tears start.
“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” Dom adds. “What if I stand outside the door? I promise not to leave you, but I don’t want to invade your privacy, either.”
I hesitate.
“We’ll leave the door open,” the female cop says. “You can see him from here. Okay?”
“I’ll be right there.” Dom points to the doorway. “I
t’s not that far. Seven, eight feet max.”
I don’t want them to leave me here alone. Ever. But if I can see him, he can hear me scream when they come for me. I’m staring at his back in the doorway when the flashes start.
I look over. The female cop is standing beside me, holding my hand, while another woman cop takes pictures of me. I’m used to paparazzi, but I don’t know what they’re doing in my hospital room.
“Why?” I ask the lady holding my hand.
“Police report. So we can get the people who did this to you.”
I start to panic again. I hurt, but I can’t exactly remember what happened. I’m not even sure what part of my memory is real. Were there fireflies? A dancing fish? A man whose head floated above the bushes?
Because those are the disjoined pictures in my head
.
“Breathe deeply,” the nurse on my other side says. “What’s your name?”
Flash. Flash. I try to ignore the photographer, but it’s hard when she’s got the camera inches from my face.
“Mia,” I say and blink as another flash leaves more black dots in my vision.
“Hi, Mia. I’m Robin. The police officer who brought you in is Kiesha. Can you stand up for me?” The nurse talks to me like I’m five. Probably because she’s wearing scrubs with zoo animals. But her smile is nice.
I wobble to my feet with their help. I’m almost too dizzy to stand. It’s agony! More flashes then I try to sit, only to find it even more painful. Swallowing hard, I manage to lie on my side without the fiery pain tearing through me.
“Mia, we need to take pictures of your lower body,” Robin-the-nurse says in her nursery school teacher voice.
I squeeze my working eye closed and nod. I know why now. They’re taking pictures of the damage. I don’t want to see these pictures. I don’t want to know how bad it is. I want to lay here and wake up feeling all better. It can’t be that bad. It hurts, but not like it did.
Kiesha-the-cop smiles when I open my eyes. It’s a tense smile, and the way she looks at my lower body when the nurse removes the gown tells me it’s not good. The nurse is looking at the damage as the photographer snaps pictures. I’m admiring Kiesha’s ruby lipstick – a shade I could never wear, but wish I could – when the nurse touches me. I jerk.
“Mia, what’s your last name?” Kiesha asks, her dark eyes on me. She’s a small African-American woman, though I can tell she’s tougher than she looks from the calluses on the hand that grips mine.
“Abbott-Renou,” I say.
“That’s a mouthful.”
“Like the politician from down South?” Kiesha asks. “Are you related?”
“He’s my daddy.”
No one says anything. I close my eyes. I wish I’d died in that garden.
“We need to do an exam, Mia,” Robin-zoo-animals says. “The doctor’s name is Minnie, like the
Mickey Mouse
cartoons. I’m going to ask her to come in, okay?”
“Okay,” I whisper.
“After the exam, we need to check out your head.”
“It hurts,” I tell her.
“Once the doctor checks you out, we can give you something for it,” Robin says.
The doctor comes in. She doesn’t look like a cartoon. Unlike Kiesha, she doesn’t smile and isn’t wearing zoo-animals like Robin. She barely acknowledges me. Kiesha puts a blanket over my lower body, and the doctor and the woman with the camera hunch under it to stare at my private parts. I feel one of them poking at my tender parts, and I start crying again.
The doctor stands. She peels off bloodied gloves and tosses them in a wastebasket with biohazard signs.
There’s so much blood, it looks like I’m on my period. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe any of this. I’m still praying this is a terrible, too-real dream that’ll end soon.
The doctor moves my legs and pauses at my swollen right ankle. I have a vague memory of twisting it chasing fireflies. Or something. She continues testing my limbs while the nurse and the other cop take notes. The doctor rolls me on my side and touches the welt across my back.
“Ouch!” I hiss and move away.
“I know it hurts, but I’m almost done,” the doctor says.
I’m
really
not liking her. Where Robin-zoo-animals is sweet, the doctor seems like she’s as interested in me as she is in the curtains. Kiesha looks upset. Her jaw is clenched, and she’s holding my hand as tightly as I am hers. I look past her. The door is only partially open, but I can see Dom. The man with my grandfather’s low voice and brown eyes is guarding me.
I was always my grandfather’s favorite. We used to eat ice cream and make fun of the rest of our family, of my half-sister Molly’s prissy behavior,
half-brother Joseph trying to turn himself into a politician like my father, and Daddy’s long, borin
g speeches. Mom told me quietly one day when I was ten that my grandpa was senile. I always thought he was the only person who made sense.
“Please be still,” the doctor tells me.
I obey and hold still, even when her cold fingers press too hard on my back. She touches my arm to signal it’s time to turn over onto my back. I do so with a grimace. She pokes around at my chest, neck, and head while the other two take notes.
I feel like a science project.
God, I want to die!
“You’ve got a mild concussion,” the doctor says at last. “The cut in your head is shallow.”