Page 220 of Chasing Hope

you’ve got a banana bread slice with your name on it waiting for you when you return to work <3

KALANI

sending all the positive vibes!

BOOK CLUB BANDITS

BELLA

thinking of you today, let us know if you need anything please!

CINDY

keep us updated on how it goes

LAYLA

welove you <3

This is the first time since my birthday that I’m seeing the people who created me.

I’d say my parents, but they both lost that title a long time ago.

If I told myself three months ago that I’d be sitting in a courtroom, staring at the monster who not only raised me but harmed me in unspeakable ways without breaking out into a sprint for the nearest toilet, I would have laughed in my face.

But I’m here, sitting in the row behind the district attorney’s prosecuting table, Matteo beside me, his hand in mine, my brother on my right, and I’m…not dying on the inside.

I can’t say I’m all right, I don’t think I ever will be when it comes to this topic, but I am surviving, breathing, and living despite all I have had to face over the past weeks.

After I told Matteo I was ready to face the music, that I was ready to fight, we had one more night in the cabin. Caleb returned and we made a pizza from scratch and turned on a movie.

It was far from normal but I still look back at that night even to this day, mainly because it was the first time Matteo told me he loved me, but also because the two most important people in my life showed up for me in ways I’ll never forget.

Returning to the city the next day after three days of isolation was jarring to say the least.

Tristan was right, Nina was more than understanding and accommodating. I was able to take eight weeks off work and still return with my job intact. Having that stress taken off my shoulders, knowing I had the safety and resources to go back to work when I was ready…I haven’t stopped thanking Nina to this day.

Because I needed the time off. I wouldn’t have been able to return like nothing had happened. Not when everything had changed.

Caleb moved back in because the press was camped out in front of the apartment building. I couldn’t leave for nearly three weeks. The only thing that kept me sane was the building’s gym—more specifically, the treadmill. I ran miles on that thing, with Matteo right there alongside me on the neighboring machine.

To say I was lucky to have a partner like Matteo through this is an understatement. During the hours when I couldn’t sleep, the weight of the world watching and knowing what happened to me, Matteo was my oxygen mask, helping me keep breathing through the heaviness of it all.

I owe him my life, despite him disagreeing with that statement.

My therapist as well.

I spoke to her every single day for those three weeks while my days were filled with phone calls with lawyers and hours spent watching the news about my story and the women that continued to come forward. After those initial grueling weeks, I dropped back the sessions to three times a week, then to two sessions a week.

Those haven’t changed. Turns out when the entire world is broadcasting your trauma and a large handful of people decide to call you a liar, your mind suddenly unlocks a whole new set of memories to prove that it did, in fact, happen.

I struggled with that aspect, and I know Matteo did as well; he would just never admit it out loud. How could it not, though? How could it not crush him when he came in to give me a hug and all of a sudden it wasn’t him but my father on top of me? How could it not affect him when he or Caleb said a certain phrase and it was like I was six again hearing my father slur those words in my ear?

It’s fuckingexhaustingto watch everyone around you tiptoe on eggshells because your mind is finally allowing you to remember something it was protecting you from.

Therapy, as amazing as it is, can only be done for so many hours in a day. You can only process so much in a short time. That, too, is exhausting, for a whole other set of reasons, but it’s worth it. It’s worth it to continue to show up, because then, some of the most haunting memories stop chasing you in your dreams as much. The triggers that easily set you off before begin to lessen.

And suddenly, it begins to feel manageable.Thatmemory begins to be manageable.