Man of Honor (Passion in Paradise Book 4) (31 page)

“When?” Honor
blinked.

“Just now.  You
looked a little sad?”

“Oh, no!  I was just
admiring your outfit,” Honor admitted, telling the woman a harmless
half-truth. 

Glancing down at
herself, Bree cocked her head to the side as she looked at Honor.  “Thank you. 
I found this outfit on sale over at one of the malls in Knoxville. I like the
vibrancy of the green color and this material feels positively decadent against
my skin.”

Honor smiled
tightly.  “I wish I could dress like that,” she divulged shyly.

“Why can’t you?” Bree
questioned easily.  “You’re a younger woman than me and a successful business
owner to boot.  Why can’t you choose some younger clothing?  You’re only 24,
right.”

“Yes.  I just… your
outfit is pretty.  It draws the eye.  I don’t like people to look at me,” she
mumbled, dropping her gaze to the floor.

“Why not?  You’re a
very pretty, attractive young lady with a sweet demeanor.  People already look
at you.”

“Yes, but they know
not to really
look
at me
. 
Not as anything other than a friendly
ear.  At least, most of the men do.   They’re aware that I’m not interested in
anything…
romantic
.   If I wore prettier clothes, they might think I’m
trying to draw their eye.  The last thing I want is to ever experience another…
incident.
  
I’m afraid another might kill me.  So, I avoid putting myself in any kind of
position where my actions might be misread.  That kinda includes changing my
personal wardrobe.  Besides, I thank you for your kind words, but I don’t think
I’m very pretty at all,” she all but mumbled as her level of discomfort with
this topic grew.

“Okay, there’s a lot
to tackle in that statement you just made, Honor.  First, as a young woman you
have the right to wear anything on your body that you choose without wondering
if you’re risking your safety,” Bree proclaimed calmly.

“I might possess that
right, Doctor, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s smart for me to use it,”
Honor maintained, hugging her arms tightly as her body grew chilled.

“You know that what
you were wearing the night you were kidnapped did not cause them to assault
you, don’t you, Honor?”

Honor grimaced.  “I
was wearing a short little cheerleading uniform, Bree.  It barely fell to
mid-thigh.  I
was
wearing bloomers underneath, but…”

“Honor, you could
have been standing on the street corner, naked as a newborn babe, while
crooking your finger at every man that walked by and you
still
wouldn’t
have been to blame for the events that happened to you that night.  You did NOT
ask for it.  Not with your outfit and not with your actions.  The responsibility
for those actions is borne by the criminals that committed the crime.  A little
birdy told me that you absolutely abhor being called a victim, but that is
exactly
what you were.  An innocent victim.”

“Still doesn’t mean
it would be wise to walk around showing my skin.  I know, firsthand, what can
happen to a girl,” Honor retorted sharply, biting her tongue as she fought a
wave of anger.  She knew Bree was trying to help, but she’d never been held
against her will while a bunch of men violated her body.  That short little
skirt she’d been wearing that night had made it entirely too easy for them. 
She knew it wasn’t the uniform’s fault, per se, but it hadn’t helped her
either.  She could still remember one of those awful animals whispering to her
about how nice her tight little ass felt underneath her cute bloomers.  If
she’d been wearing jeans… maybe… just maybe there would have been a different
outcome.

She wasn’t an idiot;
she knew it was unlikely.

But she’d always
wonder.

“You’re right, and
your personal style and wardrobe should be entirely up to you.  I just want you
to think about maybe not allowing a fear of what
might
happen to dictate
your choices.  You deserve to wear things that you like, things that you find
beautiful.  As long as
you
are comfortable wearing a certain dress or
skirt, that’s the primary objective.  Before our next session, I’d like you to
go pick out a new outfit and wear it for our next appointment.  I want you to
choose something you find pretty and appealing, but something you might not
normally buy because of your worries.”

“I’m getting
homework?” Honor complained.  “Seriously.”

“Oh, yeah.  You’ll be
getting lots of little assignments from me during the course of your therapy. 
Sometimes you might find my methods unconventional, but my success rate with
patients says that homework helps.”

“Okay, I suppose I
can do it,” she consented uncertainly.  She wasn’t much of a shopper, but if
all the work Bree wanted her to do was this simple, she’d happily do it.

“I know it sounds
unorthodox, but I think you’re going to find that once you’re wearing the
outfit you choose, you’ll feel an added confidence.”

“Okay,” Honor agreed,
privately thinking that homework assignment wouldn’t kill her.  Harmony, Faith
or Patience would love a trip out to the mall and it would give them a chance
to bond again.

“Now, onto the next
thing I want to discuss with you.  A few minutes ago, you referred to the
brutal gang rape that you lived through as the
incident
.  You’ve done it
twice now.  Is there any particular reason
why
you call it that?”

Honor suppressed a
shiver.  This was the part of ‘therapy’ that she’d dreaded.  Dredging up the
past and discussing it.  It sickened her.  It was also one of the primary
things holding her back from moving forward with her life.  “The other word is
just so ugly,” she whispered, her voice thin and fragile as she closed her
eyes.  “I heard people say it a lot when I was recovering in the hospital.  It
was on every piece of paper in every chart, and I just learned to hate the very
sound of that word.”

“Rape is an ugly
word.  It’s an even uglier action,” Bree concurred sadly.  “I can’t argue with
that.  But refusing to say it… it doesn’t make what happened go away, Honor. 
Tell me, have you ever said the words?”

“What words?” Honor
asked, her stomach churning.   Because Lord help her, she knew which words the
doctor was talking about.

“Have you ever
verbally acknowledged that you were raped?  Have you ever said the words, out
loud, ‘I was raped’?”

Honor physically
recoiled as if struck.  “Would you please stop?” Her face twisted in disgust
and pain as she fought a wave of nausea.  “Those might be only words to you,
but to me they’re something else entirely.”

“I’m going to take
your reaction as a no.”

“Yes,
Doctor
,”
Honor sneered.  “That’s definitely a no!   God!  How is saying those awful
words going to help me now?  Whether I can force myself to utter that vile
statement changes
nothing
.  Nothing at all!”

“Saying it out loud
validates that it happened, Honor.  It happened to
you
.”

“I already know
that.  I was there.  I have the scars all over my body to remind me that I was
there.  Saying it out loud is just…well, I don’t
know
what it is, but I
hardly think it’d be beneficial.”

“The word scares
you.”  Bree stared at Honor with compassion.  “I can understand that.  What
happened to you -- what you were forced to endure – what you live with on a
daily basis is beyond scary.  Knowing that two of the assailants are still
walking free as far as you know has got to be excruciatingly painful.”

“I don’t want to be
rude, but you are stating the obvious, Dr. Daniels.”  Honor’s jaw clenched. 
God, she wanted this to be over, to just get up and walk out the door and never
look back.  But she’d promised her loved ones that she’d give this therapy
thing a fair shake.  So far, however, she was finding it to be one big ole
bust.

“You know that
there’s a chance that if we talk through your memories on what happened that
night…”

“It was more than a
night.”  Honor bit out the words through barely moving lips.  People that
insisted on talking about that awful incident always referred to it as ‘a
night’, but the truth was her kidnappers and rapists had held her for 58
hours. 

“I’m sorry?” Bree
frowned in confusion.

“I was technically missing
for almost two and a half days.   The doctors and police always theorized that
I’d been in that sinkhole those animals used to dump my body for twelve hours
based on my level of exposure.  If you do the math, I was actually held hostage
for two days.  Not a night, Dr. Daniels.  I spent 48 hours in the deepest,
darkest part of Hell on Earth imaginable.  God, in His infinite wisdom, watched
over me,” Honor continued bitterly.  “I can only remember snatches of that
time.  At first, the doctors thought I couldn’t remember because they assumed
I’d been drugged, but my toxicology report came back clean in the hospital.”

“Yes, I read that in
the file Paradise General sent over to me.  Knowing that, Honor, I’m more
convinced than ever that your amnesia – for lack of a better word – is probably
a way your mind is trying to protect your body.  It’s called dissociative
amnesia.  With time, I think we can unlock some of those memories.”

Honor froze as she
heard the hope coloring the end of Bree’s statement.  For years, she had
thought that she wanted to remember and fill in those gaps in her memory with
what had actually happened to her all those years ago in the woods.  But now,
when the pivotal moment was upon them and there was actually a real chance that
she could finally know just what had happened out there, she wasn’t sure what
she wanted.

“Honor?”

“I’m scared to
remember.”  Her admission was almost inaudible, but somehow Bree heard it. 

“Most sane people
would be.  I guess you have to ask yourself which is scarier.  The unknown?  Or
the known?  In the unknown, you’ll spend the rest of your life wondering what
happened to you and who’s responsible.  On the other hand, if you remember,
there might be a memory that could help you identify your attackers.”

“They were wearing
ski masks, Bree.  I remember that much,” Honor shared huskily, staring at her
tight fists.  She felt the nails digging into her flesh, but she was numb to
the pain.  She was beginning to feel numb everywhere.   Twisting her head from
side to side, she inhaled deeply as her neck cracked.  “Sometimes, when it’s
still, my mind will snap back to those two days and I’ll remember snatches.”

“Like what?”

“You know, the feel
of the cold wind blowing.  The horrible stench of beer and cigarettes.  The sound
of the trees blowing.  That kind of thing.”

“Do you ever see or
hear any of the men that hurt you?”

Honor bit her lower
lip as she turned to stare at the abstract painting on the wall.  If you
squinted, you could almost see the image of the devil, complete with horns and
cloven hoof, swirling in the red slashes of the paint.

“Honor?”

“Sometimes. 
Sometimes I can hear them.  They laughed a lot,” she confided.  “I think they
were drunk.  Or high.  Probably both.  But, there was this one voice…”  Honor’s
eyes drifted closed.

“What about the one
voice?” Bree prompted softly.

“He was young. 
Younger than the other ones there,” Honor answered, sounding distant, almost
aloof.  “His touch wasn’t like the mean men.  He was gentler.  Kinder.”

“How so, Honor?  How was
he kinder?”

“He didn’t wanna do
it.” Honor’s reply was detached, unemotional – almost as if she was relaying
the weather report.  “He kept saying so.  But the mean ones…they goaded him
into it.  They said he couldn’t puss out just because he was the baby of the
group.  They just kept going at him.  On and on.  Until…”

“Until?” Bree
prodded.

Honor’s eyes opened
and she stared at the other woman with weary eyes.  “Until he hurt me, too, but
only the one time for him.  The others kept coming back at me, but he only did
it that one time.”  Swallowing hard, Honor scratched the back of her hand. 
“And the whole time it was going on with him, he just kept whispering the same
thing over and over again in my ear.”

“What did he say?”

“I’m sorry, Honor. 
I’m sorry, Honor.  I’m sorry, Honor,” she replied, her voice deadened as she
continued to scrape at the skin on the back of her hand.

Leaning forward, Bree
covered her fidgety fingers.  “You’re going to break the skin, Honor.  You have
to stop.”

Looking at the doctor
in surprise, Honor’s eyes dropped to her hand, seeing the reddened enflamed
skin when Bree pulled her hand away.  “Sorry,” she mumbled.  “It’s a nervous
tic.”

Bree nodded.  “Are
you okay to go on?”

“Why stop now?” Honor
snorted.  “We’ve ripped the Band-Aid off, Doctor.  Might as well see how much
blood comes off the wound.”

“I’d rather treat the
wound so that it doesn’t become infected.  Infections are much harder to cure
than surface cuts.”

Honor’s shoulders
sagged as she lifted one hand to rub her aching temple.  “Okay, I think that’s
enough speaking in metaphors for today.  I can’t talk about my past and keep up
the witty banter.  You’re going to have to choose one.”