“He’s the homeless boy, right?” Mom says, remembering the times I’ve talked about him.
“You think a homeless guy did this?” Dad rises to his feet.
“No, calm down,” I tell him. “Aiden is homeless and I believe also autistic. Alec went to talk to him because he’s the one who found me.”
Everyone looks at Alec. “I didn’t mention it because I knew Lexi wouldn’t want him brought in until we knew all the details,” he explains. “And Lexi would’ve been pissed if they’d brought him in for questioning and upset him.” My heart warms at his words.
“Thank you.” I take his hand and squeeze it. “What did he say?”
“He was worried about you and on a one-track mission to make sure you were okay. I told him you’re okay and once he calmed down, he said the same thing he told me when I found you. That a man hurt you.”
“He doesn’t know who?” Dad asks.
“If he does, he couldn’t say. He was worked up and that’s all I could get out of him.”
“We need to file a police report,” Dad says. “We need a record of what happened.”
“We don’t know what happened,” I spit out, frustrated that I can’t remember. “For all we know a guy hurting me means I was walking past someone and tripped over them and hit my head.”
Alec glares. “My guess is Jason did this. Can you remember getting into a fight with him?”
“He wasn’t there,” Max says. “Hasn’t been around since he tried to get Lexi to talk to him and Shane told him to go away…But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t around where we couldn’t see him.”
“Exactly,” Alec agrees.
“We can’t jump to conclusions,” I insist. “This could’ve been an accident.” But even as I speak the words, my gut is telling me this was anything but an accident. Jason was pissed at me the last time I saw him. I could see it written all over his features.
“I think we should let the police know,” Dad adds. “We can be honest with what we know.”
“Which will have them harassing Aiden. No.” I shake my head. “At this point it would be his word versus whoever’s and they would destroy him.”
“Fine.” Dad sighs. “But no more going to the beach alone.”
“Then he’s won,” I argue. “I’m not going to let some asshole steal the most important thing to me.” The throbbing in my head intensifies and I close my eyes.
Alec must notice because he says, “How about we let Lexi rest. She’s been through a lot and needs to sleep.”
“I agree,” Mom says.
Lips brush my forehead. “We’ll be back tomorrow to see you. I love you, sweetheart.” When I open my eyes, Mom’s are filled with tears.
“Mom, don’t cry. I’m okay.”
“I know,” she says. “But any time something bad happens to your children it’s scary. We don’t know what happened, but we do know that we could’ve lost you.”
“We love you,” Dad says. “I know you’re strong, but whoever did this could’ve hurt you and I’m going to find out who it was.”
“I love you too, Dad.”
One by one everyone files out. Everyone except Alec, who’s adamant about staying since he has the next few days off anyway. He gets as comfortable in his chair as he can and insists I get some sleep.
I close my eyes, when a weird flash of something—a memory?—hits me.
“Ow! That hurts. Please don’t do this.”
My eyes pop open and I glance around, chills running up my arms. Alec’s eyes are already closed, and I can hear soft snores, telling me he’s asleep.
Where did that come from? Was I attacked? Did I fight back? The voice is muffled in my head, so I can’t make out who it is. I try to close my eyes to remember more, but nothing else comes, and soon, I’m lost in a fitful sleep.
Lexi
“You’re a fucking tease! And teases like you deserve what they get.”
“Ow! That’s hurts. Please don’t do this.”
“Lexi, Lexi, wake up, baby.”
I snap my eyes open and the light from outside attacks me, forcing my eyes to close. It’s been almost a week since I was released from the hospital and my headaches have only lessened slightly. The only time I can escape them seems to be when I’m asleep, but the problem is every time I fall asleep I’m hit with nightmares that wake me up. It’s a never-ending cycle that has me exhausted and irritated.
“Hey,” Alec says softly, concern etched into his features. Every time I’m trapped in a nightmare, he wakes me up. I know he wants to ask what’s going on, but he hasn’t, which is good since I wouldn’t know how to explain it.
With every nightmare that plagues my sleep, I question if they’re just that—a nightmare—a story my conscience is conjuring up out of fear of not knowing what happened that night—or if, subconsciously, I’m remembering pieces of the attack. I’m not sure if I’d rather it be the former or the latter. On one hand, if it’s not real then I still don’t know what happened, but on the other hand, if it is real, then I’d almost rather not know what happened. Because if my nightmares are any indications as to what went down that night… well, I don’t even want to consider that.