I can still feel his hands on me. It makes me scrub harder, and I relish the feel of my nails biting at my skin through the thin washcloth as I attempt to erase the lingering feeling of his touch. I can’t erase what he just did to me. What I allowed him to do. My throat is raw from the massive amounts of vomit that has since been evicted from my shaking body, and I think I might be crying. It’s hard to know the difference between my tears and the cascading water falling over my face. Now that the numbness is wearing off I can feel nothing but pain. The only solace I can find now is the knowledge that Steven isn’t waiting for me. He has had his fun, and now he has gone out. It’s what he usually does, and it allows me a momentary escape from the fear he instills in me on a daily basis. When I finally give up on my desperate attempt to wash away the invisible layer of filth coating my skin, I shut off the water and step out of the shower. I wrap a towel around my still shaky body and breathe the scent of ginger and chamomile that makes up my mother’s cheap perfume.
