Let Me Love You

The door knob rattles and it sounds like he kicks the door. “Jaylinn!” Cooper yells.

“Cooper?” I manage to call out through the tears. I’m not sure if it’s loud enough for him to actually hear. My heart is pounding.

Why did I have to be so stupid? Why didn’t I just listen to Cooper and stay at home?

The sound of wood cracking fills the room, followed by charging footsteps. Kevin’s weight disappears.

“What the f**k?” Cooper bellows.

I hear the sound of skin to skin contact over and over and over again. The sounds stop after what feels like forever. My body was shaking profusely and I’m freezing, my bones like ice.

“Jay,” Cooper says, out of breath. He slowly pulls the blind fold off my eyes. “Shit.” He grits his teeth, working his jaw back and forth. “The f**king bastard couldn’t do it without blindfolding you. What a stupid ass**le.”

The tears come faster now. Cooper reaches behind my head and as gently as he can pulls my shirt over my head. I felt my body flinch away from his as he lifts one of my arms to put it in through the sleeve since I still can’t feel anything. My stomach rolls and I feel like I’m going to be sick.

“Did he…” Cooper trails off, his eyes wild and destroyed. “I’ll f**kin’ kill him, Jay. Did he?”

“No,” I cry out, my voice frantic but seeming confused. “You came just…in time.”

“Holy f**k,” Cooper stands up from the bed and moves out of my view.

I can hear groaning coming from the other side of the room. I hear the slap of skin followed by another and then the groaning stops.

Cooper reappears within my sight. “I have to get you out of here.” He’s breathing hard through his nose, nostrils flaring with each labored breath. “Can you move?”

I try to take a few deep breaths and try to get my crying under control. It’s no use, I feel like it will never stop, not now, not ever. “No,” I say with a cracking voice, shaking words that feel forced. “Everything is so heavy and numb, Cooper.”

“God damn it!” Cooper slams his fist into the wall by the bed. He’s quiet for a minute. He has a hand leaning against the wall and he’s looking down towards the floor. “I have to get you dressed Jay to get you out of here.”

“Okay.” I whisper.

Cooper grabs me under the arms and turns me so my legs are dangling over the bed. He puts one foot through the leg of my pants, followed by the other, until he reaches my knees. Cooper stands, “I’m going to lean you to the side so I can get your pants on the rest of the way.”

I nod, it’s the only thing I can do.

He very carefully shifts me to the right and then to the left a few times until my pants are in place. He buttons and zips them while I lay there helplessly.

The groaning starts again and Cooper’s body tenses.

“Alright, let’s get the f**k out of here.” Cooper puts his hands under my knees and arms and picks me up. I can feel the beat of his heart against my ear, the adrenaline pumping double time. “I want you to close your eyes so people think you passed out, alright?”

I give another nod, another silent agreement, and close my eyes, controlling my breathing the best I can through the hiccups of my crying.

On our way out of the room I see the ass**le that tried to rape me lying on the floor in a bloody mess. He almost took a part of my life, a part that I was keeping until the right time came, until Cooper was ready. I’ll never forget that face or the sound of his voice. It will forever haunt me for the rest of my life. Forever a monster under my bed.

Mom is now sitting beside me on the couch crying silently, her eyes are full of pain and hurt. I reach over to the coffee table and pull a few tissues out of the box and hand them to her. I’m not surprised that I need a few for myself because the tears are on the verge of falling, yet again.

“Baby, I’m so sorry this happened to you.” Mom cries, barely able to look at me. “Why didn’t you tell me, Jaylinn? We could have gone to the police or something.”

I shake my head, “No, Mom. I was too afraid, I just wanted to forget anything ever happened.”

My hands start to shake; I tuck them back under the blankets and continue.

Cooper took me back to his house after I begged him not to take me to the hospital. I didn’t want anyone to know what had happened to me. I make Cooper swear right then, through tears and heartache that this night, what happened, that he will never tell a soul.

And he tells me he won’t.

By the time we pull up to his house, some of the numbness has faded. I wish that it hadn’t though because my body feels like it’s been through a fight or two, an ache I know won’t subside for a while. As we sit in the driveway, I’m able to turn my head and look over at Cooper.

He turns the car off and looks over at me. “How are you doing?”

I close my eyes and take a deep breath to keep down the bile that’s rising. It’s been everything I can do not to throw up. “I’m okay.”

When I make eye contact with Cooper, he shakes his head, “No you’re not. Your face is as white as a ghost and you’re shaking. You’re clearly not okay.” He looks over across the street. I look down to my hands that are in my lap and they are indeed shaking. “You were almost raped, Jay.”

Cooper climbs out of the car and walks around. He opens the door for me and picks me up the same way he did back at the party and takes us inside and into his bedroom. Thankfully Mason isn’t home so I don’t have to worry about him finding out what happened. I never want him to know what happened tonight. I’m ashamed I was so stupid and didn’t listen to Cooper’s warnings.

Cooper sits me up against his headboard. I try to lift my arms and this time I’m actually able to move them, albeit not very fast because they still feel weighed down. I push back some of the hair that sticks to the side of my tear-soaked face.

Cooper sits on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands, contemplating, deciding and obsessing. “I knew I should have never brought you to that party.”

I knew he was going to do this. He’s blaming himself. He does this, it’s in his nature and I knew it would be.

“Cooper, this isn’t your fault.” I sniffle as the tears start again. Just when I feel like they might be controlled, they start up again with more force. Will it be like this forever? Will I get past this?

“Yeah, it is.” Cooper snaps, disgusted that I would say that. “If I didn’t bring you then we wouldn’t be sitting here right now.” He keeps his head down and pulls at his hair with his hands. “I f**king knew better. I knew and yet I let you and where did that get you? Goddamn it!”