Status: In Progress

All We Need Is Daylight

The After

Frank lies in his bed, staring up at the ceiling above him. He looks at the cold, blank, poorly painted ridges where wall meets ceiling, trying desperately to remove the events of the night from his mind. He longs, hopes, even prays for sleep. Sleep doesn’t come.

Frank looks at the bright blue digital numbers of the clock on Ray’s bedside table, or rather, the bedside box he uses as a table. They flicker by slowly, like a turtle in slow motion. The world seems surreal around him, and he’s not entirely sure that he’s living within it.

It feels like he’s fallen out of a movie, into some other reality. It’s like he’s stepped foot into a world completely foreign to him. He half expects that this is the reality at the other side of a mirror, that he has somehow switched places with an exact copy of himself. This surely can’t be him, these can’t be his limbs, his thoughts, his memories.

This is his, though. This is his world. These are his aches, his pains, his heart stopping trauma, which he has unfortunately lived long enough to experience, and it’s not fair. Not a bit of it is fair. If Frank could personify this feeling, it’s like reliving the instant you get hit by a train relentlessly. Like every time you get hit, the train is still coming, to hit you again, and it’s an eternal torment, one that won’t ever leave him. Frank feels like Sisyphus, every time he pushes the boulder up the hill, it just falls back down. Pain just keeps coming.

What has happened to him? What Morgan did to him… it doesn’t really happen. It doesn’t happen to people in real life. It’s just a concept, a thing to be dreaded and to grieve over, but it doesn’t ever happen to you. It just can’t. It’s like cancer, it happens to people you know but never to you. And everyone who it’s ever happened to has thought the same thing.

And the pain is too harsh. It’s not just physical or emotional, the feeling of being used, it takes up his entire body, an overwhelming sensation of disgust and uncleanliness and filth. It’s disgusting. Frank could scrub away every last piece of skin he has and still be unclean. He can even feel the marks on him where he’d tried to do just that, dug his nails deep into his own flesh, trying to peel away what happened, but it hadn’t worked. If anything, now he feels those marks and it’s like being violated all over again. Like the pain in those self-inflicted marks carries all of the weight of Morgan’s deeds in them.

All over his body is pain. Every inch of him hurts, especially his head, with a pounding headache that makes every other headache he’s had before it look like brain freeze. His skin hurts, his bones hurt, his legs are sore, everything is sore, it all just aches.

How is he supposed to go on? How is he supposed to feel? What is he supposed to do? Frank doesn’t know. He hasn’t a clue.

It doesn’t seem like there’s a way to move forward from this point. The unspeakable has happened, but now what? Does he just mope for the rest of his life? Does he lie here feeling like dirt eternally? Maybe he’s supposed to brush this off. He doesn’t know what he can do other than mope, at this stage. It’s only been a few hours, he knows that, but it feels like it’s been years. It also doesn’t feel like it’s something he can possibly get over. It’s an impossible hurdle. There’s no way for him to just get over it.

He sits up in bed, his head brushing against the ceiling, but he doesn’t care. He knows he won’t get any sleep. He knows he may never sleep again. He can practically feel the fear. Behind a locked door, in a locked building, inside a dorm halfway across campus from him, it still feels like he’s right outside the door.

Frank is afraid that when he closes his eyes, he’ll see Morgan. He’s afraid that when he tries to sleep, all it will bring him is a shadow of tonight.

Where can he possibly go? When Frank can’t sleep at this hour, he’d usually go to the ice rink, but he can’t go there. He may never be able to go there again. That’s where it happened. The walls have absorbed it, all he’ll be able to see and hear is Morgan. He can’t go there. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to again. He doesn’t even want to think about the ice rink, it chills him too much.

Frank thinks about what he wants, what he needs, what he so desperately desires. All he can think about is sleep, but then the concept of sleep chills him, sickens him even. He can’t sleep, he can’t shut his brain up from the tizzy of irrational thoughts, of the fear and the sickening feeling of what happened.

Frank doesn’t even think he wants to see Gerard. He doesn’t think there’s a soul on the planet who he wants to see. Not Pete, not Patrick, not Mikey, or Hayley, or even Gerard. There’s one person he wants to see, though. One person he wants to talk to. His mom.

But there’s the hitch. He can’t see her. She’s an hour away, but that’s not the reason. His mother is overprotective, overbearing to put it modestly. If she knew, even suspected… Frank would probably never be allowed out of her sight ever again. He loves his mom with all of his heart, and if he loves her that much, she must love him tenfold. It’s nice knowing that, but it makes his options limited. She just can’t know, he’d put everything at risk by telling her. His hockey, his friends, school, and probably his entire life.

Still though, he craves her like nothing else. He wants to be near his mom, to see her, or to hear her voice. He wants her to hold him and make the world seem less evil, like she always does. He wants her to make him cookies and sit on the couch with him watching Disney movies.

But he knows that he can’t muster up the energy to lie to her. It would take too much out of him, too much that he no longer even possesses. As much as he wants her, and as much as he wishes he could make up an excuse for why he’s sad, he knows it wouldn’t work. She’d see right through him anyway.

No, Frank’s alone right now. There’s no one to see, no one to talk to, nowhere to turn. He just wants his mother, but he can’t have that. At least not right now. Maybe in the morning. Maybe if he finds the composure to lie to her. Tell her he’s stressed about exams, or that studying is getting the better of him. He just can’t tell her about this.

He can’t tell anyone.

It’s as though someone has dropped an enormous boulder, an entire asteroid quite possibly, on Frank’s shoulders, and he’s now being forced to keep it a secret. There’s a mass of weight crushing him, several tons at least, but he can’t tell anyone. He’s being squished right in front of their eyes, but they don’t know.

What would they say if he did? He’s a boy. He’s a hockey player, an athlete, in his prime. He’s not exactly weak, and he’s not exactly defenseless. But looking back on it, it feels like he just lied there. That he didn’t fight back quite hard enough, that he didn’t push back. He didn’t do all he could have to have stopped it. He can’t even recall saying no.

He should have pushed Morgan off. He shouldn’t have let him win. He should’ve screamed louder. He shouldn’t have been there in the first place. If he had only waited, or gotten dressed with the rest of the guys. If he had never given that interview at all.

Then Frank realizes exactly what he’s doing to himself. He’s blaming himself. He’s blaming himself for something that clearly isn’t his fault. He didn’t want it, and that’s as plain as things get. He can’t have been at fault when it wasn’t him that caused this. He may not have said no with his words, but he clearly wasn’t asking for anything.

Frank is victim blaming his own damn self. This wasn’t his fault, and he does know that, very universally within himself, he is aware of that. But it’s very hard not to see all of his own mistakes that led him to where he is now. He shouldn’t have given that interview, and he knows that. He shouldn’t have been in that locker room alone, he knows that as well. He just shouldn’t have been in this situation.

But he was in that locker room. He did give that interview. Neither of those things was an invitation. Neither of those things warrant what happened to him. Morgan is still the one to blame, still the one at fault.

As much as Frank knows this to be true, it doesn’t provide any solace. Even if it wasn’t his fault, Frank was still there. Even if he’s not to blame, he still has to carry what happened to him. It isn’t his fault, and he does know that, deep down inside, but that doesn’t change what happened. It doesn’t make it go away, and it doesn’t make the pain stop. Not being at fault doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.

It doesn’t make Frank feel any cleaner. Frank was in the shower for nearly an hour, so long that any ordinary shower would’ve turned cold. Sitting here, lying in bed, he still feels like Morgan is on him, everywhere. He could shower some more, but he’s sure it would do nothing. The feeling of him would still be there, the smell of him too. He smelled disgusting, like overused cologne that didn’t smell nice to begin with. He sees, feels, smells Morgan. Frank can’t hear him, though, because all he can hear is a perpetual ringing in his ears that surely hadn’t been there before.

Frank doesn’t want to think about any of it, but he can’t help it. First, it’s the way his elbow had dug into Frank’s neck, choking him, stopping the air from entering his lungs. Then it’s the way Morgan had held his hands together, and Frank had been too weak to push him off. He can feel Morgan’s knees pressing into his back. He can feel Morgan… he can feel him…

Frank’s insides burst like a balloon with too much air, as a swell of tears come rushing out. He hides himself under the sheets, getting his heavy comforter over his head, and pressing his face into his pillow. He doesn’t want Ray to hear him crying, but he knows that he can’t help himself from crying either.

Cocooned in his blankets, Frank doesn’t realize that the world is pressing down on him. Frank’s never been claustrophobic before, but right now, being so cut off only reminds him of Morgan pressing him down to the floor. The hot breath from his mouth being unable to escape from the blankets echoes the heat of the locker room. Even though it’s long since been washed away, he can smell Morgan’s cologne on him.

Suddenly, it’s like it’s happening all over again, and it’s not just a memory, or a ghost feeling. It’s not fake in the slightest within Frank’s mind. He might as well be in that locker room right now, because he feels it, he feels everything, and he recounts the memory of it like it’s a film on the inside of his eyelids. It’s not just a memory, it’s actually happening to Frank all over again.

Frank can feel his heart racing like it had been at the time that it happened. He can feel his entire body sweating, everything going into slow motion, and gradually, everything becomes worse until he’s actually biting down on his pillow, either trying to scream or trying not to, but he can’t tell which. He can’t breathe, or if he can, his breaths are coming in too short and fast for him to notice them. Everything is black, everything hurts, and it’s getting worse by the second.

Frank opens his eyes, and he starts flailing, realizing he has the freedom of his arms. Frank waves his limbs about until he’s able to pull the covers away, and looking around, he starts to breathe again when he realizes that it’s not actually happening. It’s just a flashback, he’s not there anymore. He’s in his bed, he’s sweating bullets, but he’s safe, for the most part.

He does feel rather sick though. Frank feels a heavy weight in his stomach, and he’s aware of what it implies. Frank jumps out of his bed with an incredibly loud thud, but it’s not enough to make him waste any time by using the ladder instead. He runs toward the door, pulling it open and then sprinting through it, not bothering to close it behind him, because he doesn’t have the time to spare. Frank hurdles towards the bathroom in the dark corridor, with not a peep to be heard from any crevice.

Frank clambers over to a stall, just making it in time before he’s sick into the toilet bowl below him. He falls to his knees, resting his back against the stall door, tasting acid in his mouth. His entire body feels like he’s got a flu, like he’s at the worst peak of being sick, the part that makes you feel like death itself, and Frank is pretty familiar with that feeling, as he’s had the flu enough.

Frank lets his head rest against the wall behind him, waiting for the pounding to stop before he stands up. He needs a mint, that’s for sure, but his head feels like it’ll explode if he moves another inch, because the headache that courses through him is a stampeding rhino.

The pounding of the pain in his head synchronizes with the beat of his heart, with every downstroke bringing with it more searing pain, which makes Frank all the more miserable.

It occurs to Frank now that he must have a concussion. This is definitely how it must feel to have a concussion. He should probably go see a doctor.

Frank dwells on the idea for a spell, before deciding that seeing a doctor right now is probably his only step forward at all. He knows he can’t get to sleep, and there’s no one he can talk to, so his best option is to take care of the very obvious head trauma that he’s undergone. He should take care of it now before things get any worse, which Frank can’t imagine being possible, but if there’s one thing that horror movies have taught him, it’s that things can always get worse.

Frank attempts to stand up, but his headache combined with the ringing in his ears make it impossible. He has to stop, take a breather, and then pull himself up, using the wall against him for support. Frank is very slow, and very groggy as he walks back to his room. He sees the wide-open door, but there’s no one else awake at this hour. He peers into the room to see Ray exactly where he’d been when Frank ran out. Frank walks over to his bathroom supplies, pulling out some mouthwash, and swigging it around to get rid of the acidic taste in his mouth.

Frank changes his clothes again, he doesn’t want to be wearing this, everything he has on was in his locker when it happened. He doesn’t want to be so close to that event, even in his clothes.

Frank pulls on a new outfit, one that isn’t very trendy or flattering, but he doesn’t care. He just needs to make it to the clinic which is fairly close. It’s so close that it might even be on campus technically. It’s a private clinic; there’s no school owned hospital nearby, as Armstrong’s not a medical school by any means. The nearest hospital is about ten miles down the road, but Frank doesn’t need a hospital, he just needs a doctor. It doesn’t have to be an adventurous outing, he just needs to make sure he’s alright. He knows he’s not alright, to know he’s not dying is a better way to phrase it.

Frank finds his way to the clinic well enough, though his head and vision are making it rather difficult. He can hardly walk in a straight line because of the aching and the blurred vision, so he knows he must look drunk, but at least if anyone stops him he’ll totally pass a breathalyzer. It takes a long while to get there, because has to stop and stand against the wall every so often when the pain of his head gets to be too much.

Once he finds the place, he’s given a huge dictionary sized stack of paperwork to fill out which is a little inconsiderate since he has a fucking concussion. Thirty minutes, and a worsening headache later, Frank hands the paperwork to the woman at the front desk, and is told that someone will help in only a moment. So, obviously, he sits in the waiting room for another fifty minutes before he’s called back by a tired looking nurse who’s clearly been here for about fifteen hours.

Then, after taking preliminary information, she leaves Frank in a small room for another twenty minutes as he waits for the doctor to arrive. The worst part about it is that Frank’s head and vision are too poor for him to play apps on his phone, so he literally has to sit with his own thoughts for twenty minutes, which is the worst thing he could possibly be forced to do on a day like this.

As much as he tries to put the thoughts off, they return to him. It’s like he’s being haunted, having nightmares. Only he’s awake. Sleep probably won’t take these memories away from him. Sleep might just make things worse. If Frank is reliving it all in his head while awake, he can’t imagine how much his brain is going to taunt him with it when he’s asleep.

Frank can’t cast the thoughts away. Once they’re in his head, it’s hard to remove them. It’s impossible to stop thinking about something by telling yourself to stop thinking about it. Frank wishes that forgetting was simple, but it’s not. Maybe if he’s lucky this concussion will give him amnesia. Or better yet, maybe he’ll just become comatose.

Frank is startled away from his thoughts when a kind looking older lady walks into his room, after a soft knock. Frank straightens up, looking at the woman as she enters, hoping that she’ll be able to help him in anyway, because honestly anything would be better than what he’s going through now.

“Hi, Frank, my name is Doctor Whitcomb.” Frank exchanges the mandatory pleasantries that are outrageously annoying to him, before she starts to ask the real questions. “Would you summarize for me why you’re here today?”

“I, well, I hit my head, and I think, I mean I don’t know, it feels like this is what a concussion would be like, so I don’t know,” Frank says, rambling, because he doesn’t want to presume he knows what’s wrong, considering he’s not the doctor. “I’ve got this bad headache, and I’m pretty dizzy, and nauseous, and just a whole bunch of unpleasant stuff, really.”

“Alright,” she says, writing something down on her papers in front of her. “Can you tell me how you injured your head?”

“I,” Frank starts, before wincing, because he doesn’t know how to respond to that. He doesn’t want to admit the truth, but this is a doctor and she’s probably the only person in the world who can help him. She’s also the only person in the world who Frank could tell and know that she’ll keep his secret.

“I just bumped my head,” Frank admits finally.

The doctor frowns, looking up at him, “I’m going to need you to be more specific. What did you hit your head on? Was it caused by a fall, or were you hit with something?”

“I just, I hit my head,” Frank says.

“Can you remember how?” she asks.

“Yes,” Frank says.

“But you won’t tell me?” Doctor Whitcomb asks.

“Uh… no,” Frank says, but he says it like a question. He feels embarrassed not answering her question, after all, she’s a doctor. She’s a professional and Frank is making her job harder. But he doesn’t want to tell her, and if she knew why, she wouldn’t wonder why he doesn’t want to tell her.

The doctor sighs, but she doesn’t push it any further. She writes a couple more things down, then asks, “How long ago did you injure yourself?”

“I’m not sure,” Frank admits, because he doesn’t know what time practice got out, doesn’t know when he made it into the locker room, doesn’t know how long he spent in there, and he doesn’t know what time it is now either.

“You don’t know or you don’t remember?” she asks him, emphasizing the difference between the two, but Frank doesn’t really get why.

“I don’t know, I haven’t checked the clock in several hours,” Frank says, and she seems to be happier with this response than Frank would have expected.

She then has Frank stand up, tests his balance, and coordination, neither of which is really at its peak, probably because he’s dizzy and in pain. She writes more notes, before having Frank sit down again. Doctor Whitcomb then asks Frank a couple of weird questions that don’t seem to have anything to do with his head injury at all. She asks him how many fingers she’s holding up, gives him a simple equation, and then asks him to recall how many fingers she’d been holding up. Frank feels like an eight-year-old who’s being made fun of by a nine-year-old who think they’re smarter than him.

“Your memory and problem solving both seem okay,” the doctor says. “I’ll have you do a few more tests, though, just so we can make sure.”

Frank sighs, and nods. Doctor Whitcomb disappears through the door, and comes back not long after. Frank is subjected to an increasingly aggravating number of memory and problem-solving tests, most of which seem to have actually been designed for a five-year-old. When Frank passes with flying colors, he suspects that he might have been overreacting when he called this a concussion.

The tests don’t take long, because after only a couple, Doctor Whitcomb says, “your memory, language skills, and problem solving don’t seem effected in the slightest. So, there’s your good news, you don’t have a concussion.”

Frank doesn’t know if that makes him feel better or worse. If he had a concussion, at least he wouldn’t feel so bad about the fact that his head and senses are on fire. He would have a heck of a good excuse for missing school and practice, and everything else. But on the other hand, not having a concussion means that he’s healthier, and not in as much risk of internal bleeding or other such life risking problems. Not like Frank would be unwelcoming of death.

“Okay,” Frank nods, “but that implies that there is bad news?”

“Well, you do still have a head injury,” she says. “That doesn’t change just because we know it’s not a concussion. The headache is likely a cause of the dizziness, but I can write you a prescription for some painkillers, which should take the headache in a couple days at the most. Headaches after head trauma are very common, but you should rest for the next few days, take things easy. Do you have anyone who can check up on you while you sleep to make sure you’re alright?”

“I have a roommate,” Frank says, nodding. She asks him to describe his headache for a little while as she determines the best prescription for the pain, and Frank sits in his chair feelings somewhat shameful. He kind of feels like he’s wasting her time.

He needs to be here, though, and he knows that. As much as it may suck, and as much as he hates being here, he needed to do this. It’s not a concussion, that’s good news, even if he doesn’t see it that way. It means he can still play hockey, because a concussion would likely take him out for at least a month, and if he’s out for a month, that’s an entire season lost for the team, because they can’t survive without him.

But then Frank thinks about hockey. Even the thought of it makes his entire body shudder, and he feels a sick feeling in his throat like he’s going to puke again. Frank doesn’t know what’s made him feel this way, but his body has negatively reacted to the prospect of playing hockey.

“Is there anything else I can help you with?” she asks.

Frank hesitates, frowns, and closes his eyes. He knows what he should say. He can also kind of tell that she’s waiting for him to ask it. The doctor knows that something bad happened, but she probably doesn’t know what. Frank’s refusal to say what is how she knows it’s bad.

Frank should tell her; his health is on the line. His head isn’t the only thing that’s been injured. It’s crossed his mind a time or two that Morgan could have been carrying something. It’s not a thought he’s dwelled on too much, because it only forces him to relive it, but it’s something he really should call attention to. Keeping something like that a secret can only hurt him further.

“Can, I just, like, ask you a couple questions?” Frank asks, not sure if he wants to, or how he’s going to phrase the questions he needs answered.

“Of course,” she responds, smiling kindly at him. She’s the kind of lady that looks like your aunt. She’s got a sweet smile, and big long laugh lines growing faster than other wrinkles. She’s a got a soothing personality, so Frank doesn’t feel unwelcomed by her, but he still doesn’t want to talk about what happened.

“If I… if I tell you about something that’s like, that’s like a crime, would you have to tell someone else?” Frank asks her, and he knows it makes him sound sketchy, but if he doesn’t admit to anything right now she can’t report him. Frank’s sure that he’s heard about patient confidentiality before, but he doesn’t know if that’s just sickness and emotions or if it also extends to crime.

“Only if I suspect you of wanting to harm yourself or others,” she says.

“So if it doesn’t involve putting other people in danger, I can tell you something and you can’t tell anyone else?” Frank asks, making sure he’s got the right idea before he goes around blabbing all of his secrets.

“That’s correct.”

Frank takes a deep breath as he nods, “Okay, um, what if I tell you something that happened to me, would I have to like… would I have to press charges?”

“That’s up to you,” Doctor Whitcomb says, in an empathetic voice, sounding actually concerned for Frank, which is a relief, because Frank really needs someone on his side right about now. “I can’t press charges on your behalf. If someone assaulted or injured you, you’re the one who would have to contact the police, not myself or anyone else at this clinic.”

“Okay,” Frank says, nodding, “because, like, god, fuck, okay. So like, I…” Frank finds himself unable to get the words out. He knows he needs to ask, and he knows his own health could be at risk if he doesn’t tell her what happened.

He doesn’t know anything about Morgan. Morgan could have something that could put Frank in danger, and he needs to know if he’s actually in trouble or not. What if Morgan has an STI? What if he’s got HIV? There’s so many what if’s that he can only find the answers to if he tells someone what happened, and since his health is on the line here, he knows he does have to tell a doctor at the very least, or else he’ll risk his own safety.

“You don’t have to tell me,” she reminds him. “Though I strongly recommend you do if you believe you might be in harm’s way.”

“I know I should, I know that,” Frank says with a solid expression on his face. He takes in several deep breaths and then closes his eyes, feeling red flow into his cheeks as he merely prepares for what he’s going to say.

“So, like, I… I was raped.” It’s the first time Frank has used the word. He hasn’t even used it in his own brain, because he doesn’t want to own up to it. He doesn’t want to face the truth of what happened.

Saying it out loud makes it real. Telling another person means it’s not a secret. Frank so wishes that keeping it inside him, holding it to himself, would make it less real. But he knows that’s not the truth. Even if no one knows, it still happened. He’s still a victim.

The realization of what happened, keeps coming to him, and every time, he realizes something worse. Things just keep getting worse. Things can’t get better from here. “And he-he, he like, he hit my head against the floor a few times, that’s why my head… and I just remember, I saw blood and I can’t even really remember how it got there. And when he, um, I don’t know if he-” Frank’s voice cracks and is then cut off by something painful and hard in his throat. He chokes back tears which are inevitable anyway, because saying it makes it worse. His words are spiraling out of him, in a pained voice that’s hard to listen to, “I don’t know if he used a-a condom or not, I wasn’t, I was just… I was just...”

“Alright,” Doctor Whitcomb says nodding. She looks somberly at Frank, holding a hand out for him, telling him that he can stop, and it’s not because she want’s to interrupt him, it’s because she can tell that the words are hurting him.
“I am so sorry, Frank, I really am. First things first, I’d like to commend you for your bravery, because I know this is a very hard and emotional thing to go through. I’m not a counselor, or a therapist, but you need to know it wasn’t your fault, what happened to you. These things happen, but it’s never the victims fault, not ever. So, don’t blame yourself. I understand how hard and painful this is, and I can’t even begin to empathize with the hurt you feel. I’ve seen this so many times before, and I can honestly say, it’s harder to bear every time I hear about it, so I can’t imagine how hard it is to live through it. But you are very strong for coming here. You should know that, if you take nothing else out of this visit, know that a lot of people in your position don’t get help, and that can lead to disaster. So, I’m very glad you’re here. Even if you turn out to be completely clean, you can’t know that, and I’m glad you’re taking your health into consideration.”

Frank nods, but he holds his face in his hands as tears well up in his eyes, because he can’t bear the thought of a stranger seeing him cry. He’s an adult, his own self, in fucking college, and a hockey player for god’s sake. He’s not supposed to cry. Except Frank is in pain, and he’s fucking sad, so he’s going to cry all the fuck he wants.

“I do understand your concern, I’m glad you’re here to address it. I’m going to give you a few STI tests and exams if that’s alright with you?”

“Yes, yeah,” Frank nods, because that’s what he wants from this. He doesn’t want to call the cops or to tell anyone else, he just wants to know that he’s not going to get an infection or a disease or something worse. Frank likes to think he wants to die sometimes, especially now, but he knows he doesn’t actually, especially not of some dreadful disease he could cure or treat if he’d only have gotten treatment. He’s not going to be that idiot. Yeah, what happened to him was terrible and embarrassing, but he’ll take the terror and embarrassment over death, just this once.

“I can’t suggest highly enough that you seek counseling. Every survivor of rape should see counseling in some form or another, whether it’s through a therapist, counselor, psychiatrist, or just a guidance counselor at your school, it’s the best thing you can do to help yourself in recovery. I’m going to recommend you to a counseling service offered through the college. If you want something more anonymous, I’ll give you a handout with some numbers you can call to get help, like the rape crisis hotline. You should talk to someone, because this is the sort of trauma that isn’t just going to go away on its own. Holding it in will not help you. With time, you can make things far worse, certain disorders can develop as a result of traumatic events like this, not the least of which being PTSD.”

“Okay,” Frank nods, though he doesn’t think he intends to follow her up on that. Frank doesn’t want anyone’s help, because he doesn’t want to admit to other people that he needs it. It’s not that he doesn’t want to be seen as weak for needing help, he just doesn’t want anyone to know what happened to him, because people knowing is the worst thing that could happen. His hockey career and life would be on the line if people were to find out.

“I’m also going to recommend you get a rape kit,” the Doctor says, which is what really sparks Frank, and not in a good way. He feels terror at the very idea of it. That’s the sort of thing they do on SVU, a super embarrassing, and invasive hell storm that he honestly wants no part of.

“I know who did it,” Frank says, “I don’t need you to tell me.”

“That’s not why I think you should get it,” she says, “if you choose to press charges, physical evidence will be key in the prosecution-”

“But I don’t want to press charges,” Frank says.

“I would still recommend doing it,” she says, “it’s not fun, and if you are hesitant on the invasiveness you can feel free to decline, but if you decide in a month that you do want to press charges, that’ll be the only way you’ll have a case. If you don’t do it now, you won’t be able to do it later.”

“But I took a shower,” Frank says, “for like, an hour.”

“That will erase some physical evidence, yes, but it’s doubtful that it removed all. Especially if your attacker didn’t use protection,” she says. The statement might as well be a bucket of mud and guts over Frank’s head, because it’s like he can feel it now. He can feel Morgan on him still, even though he was sure he’d washed it all off, it’s still there. It’s like walking through a cobweb, and feeling the cobweb there hours, maybe even days later. It’s irrational, and it’s likely that the physical evidence to which Doctor Whitcomb refers is not external, and that just makes everything worse.

Frank shakes his head, having totally forgotten about his mission not to let her see him cry, because he’s looking directly into her eyes with tears still spilling off his face. “I don’t… I don’t know.”

“It’s up to you. I would recommend it. You won’t be able to press charges at all if you don’t do it, or at least, you likely won’t see justice. But if you do the rape kit, and you decide later on that you don’t want to press chargess, it won’t be the end of the world. It is your decision, but most victims that I see come through here do have one done. I think it gives people some sort of solace. You may not want to press charges now, but if you do in a month, and you didn’t have this done, you’ll hate yourself very much because of it.”

“How long will it take?” Frank asks.

“We’ll do it as fast as we can,” she replies. Frank bites his lip, thinking about it. “You don’t need to decide right now, I’ll give you some time to think about your options. You’re in no hurry.”

“Okay,” Frank nods, and he sets his mind to thinking, feeling the gears and whistles, all turning in his head, trying to weigh out the benefits and rewards. He really doesn’t want to be poked and prodded any more than he already has been tonight. He’s also fairly confident that he’s not going to want to press charges later, because then everyone will know what happened to him.

Frank will be the guy who was raped. He’ll be the hockey player who wasn’t strong enough to push a guy off. He’ll be an outcast, a sob story, nothing more. If being gay wasn’t going to make his entire hockey career a joke, then this surely would.

Frank doesn’t want to think in such archaic ways, but guys don’t get raped. He’s a boy, he’s not supposed to get raped, it’s not supposed to happen to him. He’s supposed to be able to defend himself, he shouldn’t be a target to begin with. But this did happen to him. This is his truth, and it’s something he’s going to have to bear.

That’s why he can’t tell anyone.

If people were to find out, he wouldn’t be able to play hockey ever again. He’ll be the gay player who was raped. Even if he never says he’s gay, people will assume. It was another guy who did it, everyone will jump to conclusions. People are awful that way. People are generally pretty awful.

The same feeling Frank had had earlier when he thought about hockey returns to him. It’s a feeling of disgust and of terror. It’s the same feeling you get on a Sunday evening when you realize you have to go back to school tomorrow. It’s a terrible feeling which tastes like his vomit from earlier.

Frank has a sickening realization which is not dissimilar to being smacked in the face. He can’t fathom playing hockey. Hockey is Frank’s favorite thing in the entire world. More than Gerard, more than music, more than his friends, more than his fucking mom. Hockey is his entire world. Without hockey, he’s nothing. He’s not even Frank without it.

But he can’t even begin to imagine himself actually playing it. He can’t bear the thought of stepping foot back into that ice rink. He can’t imagine playing on the same team as Morgan, or even playing on the same ice that Morgan once stood on. He can’t be alone in that locker room with Morgan, he just can’t.

And even if he were somewhere else, he can’t begin to imagine the pain of the flashbacks. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to step foot on the ice ever again without thinking about what Morgan did to him. If he were back in Boston, it wouldn’t matter that it’s not Armstrong. The pain will still be there. The echoes of that night won’t ever go away, they’ll chase him around the world, in every nook he might find.

Hockey has been taken away from him. Like a little kid who has his lunch money taken away from him by a school bully. Frank has had everything stomped on. His own happiness, his sense of security, and now his entire world.

Frank loves hockey. With so much of himself, with all of himself that he has to give, he loves hockey. Hockey is the thing that makes Frank who he is, it defines him in as many ways as his chromosomes do. Hockey gives him the simplest thing in his life. It gives him happiness, and clarity. Hockey is what makes sense of the hectic world around him.

Morgan took that away from him.

“I want to do the rape kit,” Frank says, firmly.
♠ ♠ ♠
I really want to note that this fic revolves around recovery, so I hope I am able to translate that to you. I know how hard last chapter was, and things are going to be rough for a little while, but this story isn't about marinating in pain, it's about making it through to the other side. I hope you can stick with me to see that.