Waking up in the hospital with James being the first person you see is even worse than trying to get into a cab with a bleeding anus and a towel sticking to you making you burn like hell down there. I really believed that I had seen the last of him, but here we were, back together like old times. Him in front of a hospital bed, playing the doting father who could not believe what had happened to his poor son.
I could see his silhouette behind the curtain, but that wasn’t how I knew it was him. It was the voice. The voice that cooed into my ear and breathed down my neck every time he wanted to punish me by satisfying himself.
“…very troubled nurse… had a suicide attempt a few months back… no idea what triggered him to run off in the middle of the night… must have been raped… maybe test for HIV… yes, just glad he is alive… very blessed yes, we are very blessed…”

I only caught phrases but I could build the entire story from what I had heard. How long had it taken him to think up a bold lie like that? I sounds like the perfect story actually. Troubled boy, running out into the night and getting raped because of his own stupidity for probably going into a bad part of town. If only the poor nurse could know that the worse part of town was probably safer for me to be in than my own bedroom.
“…he just needs rest… you will be able to see him soon… next visiting hours are at seven…”
He wanted to come and see me. I could hear every word and the nurse wasn’t going to let him see me just yet.
My mind did a summersault and I even forgot about the underlying pain that I barely felt through all the pain medication. I might still have a chance. If everything went well I could still escape from him. I would not have to see him or my mom. Somehow my plans could still work out the way I wanted it to.
I reached over to the bedside table where in the drawer I knew there had to be a phone. All the hospital beds had one, except for the ICU and the psychiatric wards.
I felt around for a moment, trying not to make any noise until I felt what I was looking for. It was there. The phone was underneath my fingers and as soon as everyone left my plan could get to working.

“Hey honey, are you awake?” a voice said right behind me. I had never pulled back my hand away from a drawer as fast as I did at that very moment.
“Uh… yeah…” I said as I looked at the nurse. My first thought was that she had pretty eyes. My second was to panic and knock her over the head and flee before she could go and head down James to tell him that I was awake.
“How are you feeling?” she asked as she started fiddling with my drip, checking that everything was okay. “Any pain?”
“Not really,” I answered as I told my brain to search through my body for any signs of pain, yet it found only a slight thump in my bottom, nothing to severe.

“You were in pretty bad shape when you came in.” Her eyes fixed on mine telling me she knew more than what I was letting on.
“Well…”
I could not get anything more out. She was the same nurse who spoke to James. She already thought I was troubled and crazy, a real problem child. I am sure that James saw to that.
“May I sit?” she asked and without waiting for a reply she sat down right next to me on the bed, ignoring the chair placed there for visitors. “My name is Shelly and I really want to help you, but in order to do that you need to tell me the truth. Not the cock and bull story you told the doctor earlier about falling off your bicycle.”
I looked at her as coldness crept over my soul. It was like water was falling on the inside, starting at my head and running right down my entire body, freezing me to the point where I could not help but shiver.
“Look, you don’t have to tell me but I have seen kids like you. Some in better condition and others way worse. I know you are lying about the bicycle accident but unless you tell me the truth there is nothing I can do to help you. Your father was here just a few minutes ago. He wanted to take you home really badly. Told some story about how you ran away in the middle of the night and got raped. Can you confirm his story? You have to admit he’s a better liar than you,” Nurse Shelly said as she leaned backwards on the bed, making herself more comfortable as if she had no intention of leaving me alone until I spoke.
“I don’t own a bike,” I mumbled not knowing what else to say. I wanted to look away from her, but somehow she kept my eyes locked on her through some mysterious power it seemed. And she even thought that James was lying. Did that mean that she thought something entirely different happened?
“No bike? So did you run away from home in the middle of the night?” she asked.
I nodded my head. My tongue felt dead. Like it could not speak the word ‘yes’.
“Can you tell me why you ran away from home?”
This time I slowly shook my head. How could I tell the older woman that looked at me with such loving eyes the horrors that went on behind drawn curtains? She looked like she had only seen the good in the world. How could I take that away from her? Make her aware of the fact that we live with monsters all around us?
“Okay… Let’s try and approach this from another perspective shall we? There was an anonymous call to the hospital about an hour after you checked in. I was lucky enough to have answered the phone at that moment, and let me tell you that the person on the other side was trying his best to sound like an adult, but I could hear he was nothing more than a kid, his voice trembling with every word he spoke. Can you think about the story that he told me about what really happened to you?”
I felt cold again as I shook my head indicating that I had no idea. I had every idea of who it might have been and what Chris could have told her, but I kept on wishing that it would not be true. If they were to find out it would mean that I would have to testify against James. They would force me. There would be police and everything and James would rather see me dead than go to jail. Adults talk about justice all the time, telling kids that people who do wrong gets sent to jail for life, but I knew better. I read papers. I saw the news. They get away with everything, and when they don’t it’s only a matter of time before they are released back into civilization. If I were to testify against James he would come after me. Even if it took him fifty years. He would find me and when he finally would he would kill me. That was the one thing I was sure off.
“I’m going to stop beating around the bush. Did your father rape you?”
I froze. My entire body refused to work. My tongue was dead. I could not nod or shake my head.
“E.J. Please let me help you,” Shelly said as she took my hand that was frozen on my lap. “Tell me what happened and I give you my word that I will personally make sure it will never, ever happen again.”
She looked so sincere. She looked loving, like she truly wanted to help me.
For what felt like an hour to me she just looked at me and I looked at her. She wasn’t planning to go away.
“How badly was I hurt?” I asked when I finally found my voice again.
Shelly gave a wry little smile as she tilted her head to the side, her hand still holding mine tightly, assuring me that she wasn’t going anywhere.
“Look sweetie, I’m not going to lie to you. You’re not in the best condition of your life. The doctor had to work really hard to stop the bleeding and you have some stiches, but for the most you will heal. Unless off course this happens again. You were lucky this time. Next time you might not be.”
“My friend who called you said it looked like there were pieces hanging out…” I could feel tears burning behind my eyes. I still wasn’t sure if I could trust her, but somehow I knew I had to. She was my only chance.
“You tore open more than 2 inches. That’s a lot. It’s only natural that it looked that way to your friend. There was raw flesh that was showing. It wasn’t hanging out, but I can understand that he saw it that way. But the doctor fixed you all up, and like I said, in time you will heal.”
Shelly pushed herself upright on the bed and bowed over, taking my other hand with the drip in her hands as well, leaning in very close to my face and whispered; “On the up side you won’t have to worry about pooing for a while. That little bag will do everything for you until you are up on your feet again.”
I looked over to find a bag hanging on the side of the bed, a tube disappearing underneath the blankets covering me.
“I will be fine? I will heal?” I asked again. I needed the conformation.
“Not of this happens again. Next time might be way worse. So please tell me what happened. It’s the only way we can insure that it will never happen again,” Shelly said. This time she didn’t just look kind and loving. She looked scared and sad for me.
I could not hold the tears in anymore. My heart was breaking. After all the time someone was finally listening. Someone truly wanted to help me. Someone thought that James was a liar and that he had done all of this to me.
“He raped me. He’s been raping me for years,” I said as the tears started falling from my face.
“Oh sweetheart… Who is he?” Shelly said as tears started to well up in her eyes as well.
“James. My step-dad. They guy you were talking to outside the curtains,” I cried.
As the tears started rolling down her face just as much as it was rolling down mind I told her everything. I told her about the first time when I woke up and he was playing with me. How it had to be our little secret. I told her about how he hit my head against the bed as he forced himself into my mouth, only to make me gag and puke. I told her about the big red thing that vibrated inside me until I wished to be dead, but that death just didn’t want to come. How I crawled underneath my bed to hide and hope that he would not come back for more. I told her about the knife under the chair and how I wanted to kill him after I gave myself willingly to him. I told her how I slammed his head against the wall and how I was sure that he was dead. How I ran away to Chris who thought that I wanted to fuck James and that I was in love with him. That I had asked for what had happened to me. I told her everything.
“And last night after Chris left things got really bad. He tied me to the bed on my stomach and I could not see what he was doing. And then it was hell. I screamed but nobody heard me. I could feel something cold and big going inside me and it ripped and bled. I wanted to pass out so badly but I couldn’t…”
I told her everything that happened. I told her about the dildo and his fist, and finally how I could feel his arm going in deeper and deeper, and how he told me how he finally had his hand open inside me. How he told me that he loved me but that I deserved the punishment for being such a bad boy. That he would make sure that I would never leave his side again.
“He said that I would never be rid of him. That he would always be a part of me and that if I wanted to be alive I would have to listen to him and if I would he would make sure that he would never hurt me in that way again,” I finished my story of what had happened.
“Then I walked to Chris and he told me to get to the hospital. He called the cab. I wanted to go to the train station and get out of town but Chris said that I would never make it out alive. Not with all the bleeding.”
The tears were still falling down my face, and Shelly was still crying and holding my hands, but I knew that it had to be said. I was sure that she would help me.
After a while where we cried but said nothing, Shelly finally got of the bed and leaned over me to give me a hug.
“I need your mom’s telephone number. We are going to make sure that monster never sees the light of day ever again,” Shelly whispered in my ear.
After I gave her the number and made her promise not to allow James to come and see me she disappeared, leaving me to close my eyes and sleep. For the first time I slept feeling safe, feeling that there was hope. That there were such things as heroes, even if they wore the uniform of a nurse and cried just as much as you did.