Aspen Hale (ofgreatprice) wrote in zenithrp, @ 2016-06-22 04:03:00 |
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Entry tags: | #day 038, aspen, avram |
Who: Avram and Aspen
Where: The gallery
When: A little before noon
Content warning: discussion of spousal abuse, implied sexual assault/abuse
Aspen had showered the night before in the empty shared bathroom, a furtive thing that didn't leave her as clean as she would have wanted; she'd improvised so far, taken several sponge baths with a bowl of hot water that she'd brought back to her room, but her hair was in dire need of a wash and a shower was the only proper way to do it. She'd been so tired as she had stumbled back to bed that she couldn't remember if she'd even taken her sleeping pill or not. She must have--she must have before she'd gone to the shower, to feel this tired--but she fell asleep before she could check.
She had awakened feeling peaceful and rested, rolling onto her stomach and burying her face in her pillow, listening to the steady roll of the waves through her open window. It was a good way to wake up even if the house was too hot; she loved her room, its open simplicity, the shade of its private balcony, that she could retire there and feel safe. A snail into its shell. Her therapist at home would never have condoned the way she was behaving at this house, but she kept telling herself tomorrow, tomorrow I'll strike up a conversation, tomorrow I'll be better, be friendlier, be stronger.
She had been awake and dressed, down in the kitchen, before it hit her. The nightmare. Right there in the kitchen, she had frozen, crippled for a long moment, and then she had crumbled onto her hands and knees. no no no no no. no no no. no. She wasn't even certain how long she had been kneeling there--minutes, maybe, but hours from the way her palms and kneecaps felt--before she heard someone come in. (Had she even heard it? Really?) She had climbed to her feet and abandoned the kitchen, thinking only of getting out of the house, getting away as far as she could. She had stopped in her room to grab the bottle of anti-anxiety medicine. The rest of the morning had been spent in the shade down on the beach, curled in tight on herself, until it began to rain in earnest.
Her blue dress was damp when she came into the foyer, but she only stood there at the window, watching the rain come down. She felt numb and blank, the result of a little too much klonopin, and she wondered if she would even remember the storm later. That it had happened, yes, but the details would be gone completely, her mind blessedly wiped clean.
She went into the gallery, where the rain was already beginning to come in on the floors. What kind of idiot built a house in the tropics and didn't bother to put in windows, protect the beautiful rich furniture inside? The kind of idiot that has money to burn. There was no one else nearby that she'd seen, and she delicately pressed a few keys on the piano before she sat down and began to play in earnest. So far she had kept her foot on the damper pedal permanently, not wanting to disturb the others in the house, but the storm was loud and she was past caring. It had been the only place in the house that truly interested her, and its proximity to her own room had made her wonder if They had done this on purpose, given her some reprieve from frightening her before in the locked-down house on Mount Zenith. She no longer believed that.