Free The Hermit by Shayne McClendon

time,
dear God, I’m going to lose it.  I want to tell her, ‘look, stop pretending
like we’re on the same wavelength because you have no fucking clue ’. 
She doesn’t know, Ryan.”
     
    “No. 
She doesn’t know, honey.  No one can really know how it was for you.  That must
make you feel pretty isolated sometimes.” 
     
    “I
love that you get that.  That you hear me.”
     
    “I
hear you, Daphne.”
     
    “They
put me in a group session every Friday with other victims of sexual violence. 
I could stab out my eardrums, I swear to you.  I get that everyone handles
things differently, but there are women in there who cry all the fucking time.  This woman was date raped and that is fucking awful.  I can’t imagine being
brutalized by someone you know.  But she cries non-stop and I guess I
don’t understand.  I don’t get it.  Get angry.  Beat the fuck out of something
and remember you can always fight.  I won’t cry about it again, Ryan.  I’m not
sad about it.  I’m furious.”
     
    Two
weeks later, she started running.  She was working herself into physical
exhaustion daily, trying to force her mind to quiet so she could sleep. 
Sometimes it worked.  Too often, it didn’t.  Daphne’s calls were coming several
times a day at erratic times and Ryan realized she was calling him when she
woke from nightmares. 
     
    He
charted her progress for almost a month, amazed at how well she was doing.  “I
ran six miles today, Ryan.  Before all this happened, I’d have been lucky to
run a mile without stopping.  I’m getting stronger.”
     
    “I
could not be prouder of what you’re doing, Daphne.  What does Janice think?”
     
    There
was a long pause.  “I tried to get her to run with me but she said she would
pass out.  I don’t think she knows how to talk to me anymore.  We’d been the
same once…now we couldn’t be more different.  If someone asks me a question, I
answer it.  Sometimes, I’m too blunt but I don’t realize I am until she tells
me.  In my old life, I lived to please everyone around me.  My happiness didn’t
really matter.  Not to me and not to anyone else.  I won’t live like that now.”
     
    “You
can’t go backward.  No one expects you to.  She loves you, Daphne.  I doubt
that she doesn’t know how to talk to you.  I think she’s censoring herself and
I bet there is a lot of guilt in her heart.”
     
    “Why
should she feel guilty?  She didn’t do anything.  She looked for me the whole
time.”
     
    “But
she was never able to find you, Daphne.  Two years and she never found a
trace.  Then one day you manage to escape and walk out of hell.  She has to be
furious at herself.”
     
    “I…I
didn’t think of it like that, Ryan.”  She was quiet for a long time, then said,
“It changes how I look at the conversations we’ve had over the last several
months.  I’m so wrapped up in pretending to settle back into my old life that I
forget what it was like for her while I was gone.  She would have seen the
reports when they found Steven.”
     
    “Yes. 
She would have suspected what you were subjected to, sweetheart.  Would have
wondered if they would find your body in a ravine…abused like Steven’s had
been.  To know she couldn’t find you and that your abuse and pain went on for
two years while she searched…she’s hurting inside.”
     
    “I
wish I could hug you, Ryan.”  His heart gave two hard thumps.  “She’s more a
sister than my friend.  I understand now.”  They talked a few more minutes and
disconnected.  Ryan rubbed his chest as he stared into the fire.  He wanted
nothing more than to have Daphne hug him.
     
     
    The
next day, Daphne called to tell him he’d been right about Janice.  “She cried
so hard , Ryan.  It was like she was trying to empty her insides out
through her tears.  She begged me for forgiveness.  It was horrible but I’m so
glad she was able to purge it from her system and