A few minutes of uncomfortable silence have already rolled by as you sit cross-legged in the center of Sophie’s palm, a little clammier than it was earlier.  You twiddle your thumbs in your lap and avoiding looking up at her pleading eyes at all costs.  The ceiling fan hums quietly from on high over her impressively clean sky-blue bedroom as she reclines on the mattress, cradling you in dire desperation to comfort after your violent outburst downstairs with her sister.  She whisked you away almost as soon as you started crying, leaving your shocked aunt, weeping younger cousin, and near-catatonic mother in the kitchen, but by then most of the anguish was already inflicted on all parties involved.

            You, of course, haven’t left Sophie’s hand for this entire trip to her house, despite the hyper-real nightmare of a few minutes ago that invaded the darkest corners of your skull.  The sensations were so convincingly authentic you doubt you could’ve known it was just a hallucination even if someone had been screaming it into your ears at the time, repeating some therapeutic mantra about separating reality from fiction.

            Chloe’s monstrous fingers entrapping you into her fist, her tongue slaking over your face, and her gooey saliva trickling down your thigh as you were gulped into her maw: none of it happened, and no harm has come to you under this roof.  At least, no physical harm.  Your sickly brain, though, is an entirely different story, and no amount of benevolence from your mother and best friend could’ve protected you.

            “Jack?” Sophie presses gently at last in a whisper so low it almost doesn’t register.

            “Hmm?” you grunt.

            “Are… are we going to talk about what happened down there with my sister?”

            You shrug, still not looking up.  “I know it didn’t look good.”

            “It really didn’t,” she says, biting her lip.  “I’m sorry I made you come here today.  I’m sorry I didn’t listen to your mom.  I… I just-”

            “You didn’t make me do anything, and you know it,” you say quickly, wanting to cut off your cousin’s penchant for guilt as soon as possible, knowing she’s going to lay some on herself regardless.  “You would’ve let me stay home if I’d even made a peep about not being ready for today.”

            “I know,” she sighs, hanging her head shamefully.  “But I still feel bad.”  A few of her silky locks cascade into her palm, drifting in their golden splendor against your shoulders.  Comforting, in its own way, and simultaneously haunting for its similarity to being cupped in Carly’s hand this near to her face.  Sophie’s hair is darker than your sister’s by a few shades, but with only a couple strands weaving together against your cheek from above, it’s awfully hard to distinguish.

            “Don’t,” you request, knowing she won’t heed you.  “Really.  It’s just that I… well, she…”

            “She’s come a long way.  Really.  Just like you have,” Sophie reassures sweetly.  She brushes her thumb along your shoulder.  “She’d never think of hurting you now.  She talks about you a lot, even though she hasn’t seen you since… since that day you told me about.  Wanting to know if you’re doing okay.  How much she wants you to know how… how sorry she is.”

            “I know,” you say truthfully.  Indeed, you’ve heard of these developments throughout the past months as they took place, and despite still being a little too on-edge to personally encounter Chloe even under your family’s supervision, you’ve been proud of the strides your apparent comrade in mental health disorder has been making.

            “You know if something had gone wrong, though, that I would’ve gotten you out of there.  The same with my mom and your mom, too.  If she’d so much as reached over for you.  Nobody would’ve touched you,” Sophie continues to explain in her most soothingly hushed tone, the same she uses to help lull you to sleep in her hand on the occasions you’ve had trouble finding nonviolent slumber.

            “I know that, too,” you sigh.  “It’s probably hard to believe, but… this isn’t about Chloe.”

            “I would understand, though.  Everyone would.  Your parents, my mom, my sister… I mean, she… she tried to… to…”

            “…eat me?” you finish calmly, aware that your cousin is far too sensitive on the subject to even fathom such a concept, let alone vocalize it.  You can feel the skin of her hand quivering beneath you at the mention, but she quickly steadies again.

            “Yes,” she swallows guiltily.  “That.”

            “I promise.  It’s really not about that.  I wasn’t afraid to come here.  And I’m still glad I came,” you say, again without lying.  You pat Sophie’s thumb, hoping to return the assuaging favor, and feel her finger stroke back up the length of your arm in answer.  After all, if you can’t go anywhere without having your consciousness invaded by terrifying hallucinations, you might as well go someplace you can do some good, right?

            Though, now that you’ve completely broken down before Chloe into tears and screams after she attempted to make amends, you suspect you’ve only succeeded in piling on to her already substantial shame.  That’s probably something you’ll eventually have to make right, even at the risk of once again vividly imagining your teenage relative deciding to dissolve you into her saliva as a pre-lunch appetizer.  Through the walls, you’re pretty sure you can hear her whimpering guiltily in her bedroom, accompanied by her mother’s comforting counsel.  You still can’t hear your own mom’s voice, though.  Where did she go?

            “So if it’s really not about Chloe…” Sophie says.  “…what is it?”

            “I…” you utter, too meek and humbled in the face of all this potentially misguided goodwill from this girl who might as well be the mirror universe manifestation of your sister.

            You’ve told Sophie a great deal about your years-long ordeal.  Probably more than you should’ve, judging by the amount of crying you’ve seen her do, often with you cribbed in her hands to experience the pooling sorrow soaking your ankles.  Yet she always insists on hearing more, resolved to push through the heartache in order to provide you with a confidante.  It’s something you’ll be eternally grateful for, as you can only hold some of those harrowing events in your poisoned cranium for so long before they threaten to gestate into tumors.  Still, there’s just as much your cousin doesn’t know, and can never know, for her sake and yours.  You decided it was best to tone down the tortuous explanations of all the times Carly wore you in a sock, nearly drowned you in her spit, or tucked you into the back of her jeans and flattened you under her toned cheeks during class.

            And certainly Sophie doesn’t know about the literal hundreds of molestations your sister perpetrated on you, some of them even with your sickening consent.  That’s something you’ve only had the guts to divulge to Dr. Felton, given that it’s her job to professionally wade through the psycho-emotional museum that is your brain.

            Of course, no one: not your mother or father, not Sophie, and not even Dr. Felton can ever know about the ten-minute window a year and a half before between the time Carly swallowed you and when Sophie burst through that flimsy college dorm door.  You yourself will never be completely sure of what happened in that fog of personal transformation and sexual surrender.  Whatever it was, it’s something you intend to take to the grave.

            “Please, Jack.  Let me help you,” your cousin entreats, patting your leg with her finger again after you go more than a minute without responding.  You can see her eyes are glistening already, the tears welled and prepared to tumble if she’s put any more over the edge.  “Why won’t you let me help you?”

            “You do help me,” you promise, giving her thumb a squeeze.  “Seriously.  You’re like the last friend I’ve got.”

            “That’s… not true,” she comments clumsily, probably having trouble believing it herself.

            “Yes it is, and you know it,” you say with a shrug.  “You were there when they all came to see me after it happened.  Everybody I’d ever been close with was there.  But none of them even knew how to talk to me anymore, you know?  Like I’d died and turned into some other species.  Which, I mean… I kind of did.”

            Sophie shakes her head, whipping her blonde locks about, and bites her lip to keep from cringing.

            “Don’t say that,” she pleads.  Her fingers go back to work stroking up your back, pressing you against their plush warmth.  “You’re still you.  I know I didn’t ever really know you that well before all this, or… or treat you very well, but… I know it’s you.  And only you.”

            “I’d like to think so,” you say.  “But they don’t know that anymore.  It’s just you here now.”

            Your cousin nods, accepting this explanation, and parts her lips again: “If… if you can’t talk to me about what’s going on, though… please… promise me you’ll talk to the doctor about it.  Please, Jack?”

            “Okay,” you relent.  Lowering your gaze back into the sanctity of Sophie’s angelic hands, you watch a glistening tear plunge from above and splash into a crease in her palm within arm’s reach of your shoe.

            Though you don’t yet have the gumption to breathe a word of the real explanation to your adoring cousin, you know it’s a fact you’re going to have to face eventually.  For months now your night and naptime dreams have been tormented and often, even worse, teased by visions of your tremendous sister.  Once Dr. Felton started up the remedial visualization, the morbid fantasies migrated into your moments of most intense focus, but up until this day, you were safe in the confines of your daily waking life.

            Now, it seems, you don’t even need to be focusing to descend into partial madness.  Your mind, evidently, is going to make sure you comprehend your current place in the world even if it kills you first.

            “Thank you,” she breathes, swiping her thumb over each eye to wash away the mournful moisture.  She sniffles a few times, getting ahold of herself again.  “I just want you to get better, you know.”

            “I know.”

            “If you… do ever want to talk.  About any of it.  You know I’m here for you,” she swears.

            “Yes,” you say.  She’s repeated this fact to you in countless ways over the months, hoping it’ll eventually get through to you and earn your tortured words.  “Thanks.”

            There’s a knock on Sophie’s bedroom door before either of you can say anything.  Cautiously, your aunt twists the handle and pokes her head in.

            “Hi Jack,” she murmurs apologetically.  “Listen.  I hope this didn’t-”

            “It’s fine, Aunt Selina, really,” you lie.  “I’m just trying to work through some stuff still.”

            “All right.  If you’re sure.”

            “Is… Chloe gonna be okay?” you follow up.

            “She will be,” your aunt says, her eyes drifting to her elder daughter next.  “Are you two doing okay in here?”

            “Yes,” Sophie sighs, her fingers curling in closer around you.  In her tone of voice, you suspect she partially blames her parent for how this encounter went, though there’s no good reason to.  “Do you need something, Mom?”

            “It’s Leah,” Selina reports.  “She wants to talk to Jack.”

            “Oh,” Sophie says, looking down to you in contemplation.  “If you want, you two can have the room and I’ll leave for a second.  For privacy.”

            “No, it’s fine.  You can stay,” you answer, looking to your aunt as she opens the door wider, revealing your mother standing behind her with a cell phone clasped in her hand.  “Mom?”

            “Hi, honey,” she says gently.  Your mother pockets the phone again as she brushes past her sister-in-law and enters the room, leaning down closer to the mattress to try and level with you.

            “I’m sorry about that back there,” you gasp.  “I… I just… um…”

            “We don’t have to talk about that if you don’t want,” Leah Arton says, gratefully cutting you off.  You know she’s not any more eager to dive into that dysfunctional abyss than you are.  “It’s about something else.  I… just got off the phone.”

            “What is it?”

            “It’s about her,” your mother says somewhat anxiously, not needing to utter a word to communicate the impact of your sister’s reputation.  Her hands fold into her lap, quivering slightly.  “You… might want to prepare yourself.”