Maybe all timelines do is bend.
CW detailed descriptions of a violent assault
(Rosa)
My grief has looped back out, and wrapped itself around me; caring, gentle. I love how alive it makes me feel. It doesn't stop the worry, but it gives me somewhere to be. It finds me, and tells me about all the ways time has carried on, no matter how stuck I've felt. She's beautiful, and she knows me more than anyone could expect.
I've been holding her tangled tresses, contemplating what has become of me. The greatest evidence is hidden in locks of grief most couldn't connect to "what happened". The original ways we were perpetually broken and shattered have stuck around.
Everytime someone sees it, every occasion where someone has witnessed our body's "glitches", and gotten the medical explanation from us, stays with me. It sinks in. Everyone can see it.
(Jane)
Everyone can see it. But they don't know what they're looking at. They're looking at time, a stupid accident, a dumb chapter in a very long journey. They're seeing what we were left with. They're seeing what he did to us and how they backed him.
(Julie)
It was supposed to be a normal encounter. Same old. I had a purpose, and I went in. I left my bed in the middle of the night, and met him outside at the back.
But it felt different. I'd gotten glimpses into my worth that week, the kind words from peers, the genuine care and consideration of a doctor, shows of empathy. I felt that I had agency.
I pushed my luck. I tried to negotiate, to keep us from doing acts we particularly hated. He was upset. I'd only had him once before.
But it was actually different.
(Julie; writing from Margot)
While I was facing him, I gestured to the side, and he took advantage of that moment to hit me on the side of the head with a wooden bat, the force of which got me to spin before I fell to the ground, barely able to use my elbows to keep myself from fully collapsing. I threw up. He flipped me over by shoving my right shoulder. I was on my back now. I was gasping, unsure if there was a chance I could choke.
He clamped his hands around my shoulders, yanked my body towards him, with my semi-limp neck falling back, and my slammed my head back down to the ground. Twice.
I'm dizzy, but he won't leave without what he asked for. So I am laying next to where I just threw up, being assaulted by a man I knew full well could kill me on accident, out of pure rage. I was good at figuring out how calculated a person is, and the ones who aren't are the most dangerous. He was blinded by rage. And I was mortified, half-conscious, with his fist holding my top up. He's maneouvering my body on his own, because I'm almost completely out of it. I'm still wondering how we'll get out of this one.
He's done, and I throw up a second time. And another half-time. He leaves. I stumble back inside, into my bedroom, and I drop down onto my bed, on my left side. I sleep (or rather pass out) immediately, waking up periodically in the night, unsettled.
(---)
Insane vertigo, tinnitus, and nausea. The children were trying to tell us what happened. They said it's because we slept on our left side. All I feel remember that is crushing sadness. They really tried to tell us.