CHAPTER LXIX
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THE ACHE BETWEEN her legs and all over her body were dull. She didn’t feel it as she tried to move her body and softly her eyelids parted, followed by a raging headache.
Well, that wasn’t dull.
Saige stared at the familiar ceiling of Chase’s mansion before a memory of herself being punched by Lucas on the face made its way to her mind, and she winced on remembering the pain it caused on her. Her delicate hands raised up to her face and she pressed her fingers gently on her nose, to check if there was blood there or not before bringing the fingers to her line of sight.
There was no blood.NôvelDrama.Org exclusive content.
She breathed out a sigh of relief and dropped her hand beside her on the bed, then sat up slowly. The first thing she came in contact with as she sat up was her reflection in the mirror opposite the bed and she gasped.
She had never looked that hollow.
Her hair was a tangled mess. Her eyes were sunken, and she had dark circles around them. Her lips weren’t as chapped as they were when she was sent back home, but it wasn’t any better either.
On instincts, Saige’s hands flew to her hair, and she buried her fingers in her curls before getting down from the bed. She limped towards the mirror, ignoring the comforter that she had thrown away from her body.
She blinked at her reflection in the mirror to be sure she was the one there and walk out of the illusion in her head.
Nothing changed.
Her red hair didn’t look as beautiful and fiery as it used to look before. It didn’t have that much life in it either, and the curls at the tip were a worse definition of tangled than the main hair.
Her eyes.
The dark circles didn’t disappear either. Her green eyes had lost its warmth, and it made her heart hammer against her chest. She wasn’t like that. She was never like that until…
A sob left her lips when she remembered how she had been raped by those men, and she shut her eyes tightly to block the images from flooding into her mind.
Even while closing her eyes, she could still see them. She could hear her cries of plea. She could hear the sounds of the blows and slaps thrown her way. She could hear the whimpers that had escaped her. She could see the images. The images of those vile men filling her up with their irritating manhood were stuck to her mind.
“No,” She whimpered, shutting her eyes tighter. Her hands shook, but she managed to bring it up to her ears. “Stop please,” Another whimper left her lips as she shut her ears with her shaking palms. “Please, spare me,” tears flowed down her cheeks like a river.
She was already crouched down on the ground, knees to her chest, arms around her knees, back resting against the dressing table. The tears didn’t stop, and neither did the sobs escaping her lips nor the tormenting image.
“Do you think she’s going to be affected mentally? Would you suggest a therapist?”
Saige froze when Valerie’s voice played in her mind. She suddenly remembered hearing faint and distant voices while she was asleep.
Again, Valerie’s distant voice made its way to her mind. “Do you think she’s going to be affected mentally? Would you suggest a therapist?”
“I can’t say. I’m not entirely sure. She has to be awake, so we’d be able to know what effect the assault had on her,”
Did that mean she was mad? Had the assault affected her mentally?
No. Saige shook her head. She couldn’t be mad. Nothing was wrong with her. She knew she was okay. She had always been okay.
“She acted violent before injected to sleep. Would that keep on happening?”
Her eyes snapped open when she remembered throwing an alarm clock at Sophia. She had even tried choking her to death while blaming her for being the reason for her condition.
“As I said, she has to be awake before we conclude… But to be honest, she’s one of the few assault victims I’ve seen acting so violent after uhh – an assault. It’s rare for assault victims to behave like that. But mind you, she’s likely to go through emotional stress. She would also crave attention and want to be around people she trusts the most ,”
“Does that mean she’s going to be clingy towards Don?”
“If she feels safe with him, yes. But it still depends on how she feels. Some victims prefer to be left alone… Most importantly, you should all be there for her. Sometimes when assault victims are left alone with no one to be there for them, they tend to suffer from low self-esteem. That would lead to depression and then, mental instability will jump in. Again, having that mental in balance might make her remember the assault. She could also want to harm or kill herself . If you really don’t want her going through something as torturous as that, you should always be beside her,”
She was mad. She had officially ran mad. Saige scrambled to her feet at the thought of that. She stared at her reflection in the mirror.
“I’m not mad. I’m not mad,” Her hands shook as she fumbled through the drawers for a comb. “I’m not a mad woman. I can only be mad if I’m left alone. I’ll run mad if Chase leaves me. I can’t be mad. No,”
She finally got hold of a comb there and stared at it. Her hands didn’t stop shaking. They were still shaking. What would anyone think if they saw her hands shaking like that? The doctor had already told them they were chances of her suffering from mental instability, right?
“Saige is a strong woman… She’ll pass through it all. We’ll all be here for her,”
“Yes,” She brought the comb to her hair and started combing. “I’m a strong woman. Even Valerie knows. I’m strong. I can be helped,”
“You can also help through therapy. She would not even have to get to the stage of feeling lowly about herself with the help of a therapist,”
The comb dropped from her hand immediately she remembered the doctor’s words again.