Intimate Whispers by Dee Carney

looked worried, and that made her smile. There hadn’t been anyone in her life close enough to be concerned about her welfare in a long time.
    Sitting upright made her breath catch. Pain, not as sharp as before, coaxed a groan from her. He moved quickly, propping her against a pillow, careful with his actions.
    Forced to slump forward to keep her back away from the rest, she let Jason position another pillow across her abdomen. He did it with a precision and efficiency that surprised her.
    She followed his exit out of the room with her gaze, at once awed by his attention and ashamed he found her in this position. The sheets she lay upon had been changed, whatever blood that had ruined them no longer evident.
    “Jason,” she managed to croak loudly. The sounds from the kitchen stopped. “Why are you here?”
    The microwave dinged, but no other sounds issued. A drawer opened and shut a moment later. More silence followed. Then Jason appeared in the doorway, a mug in one hand and a spoon in the other.
    45

    Dee Carney
    He looked pensive, so he’d heard, but mused over a response. Scooping some of the cup’s contents into the spoon, he sat down on the bed and held it out. “Eat some of this.”
    This ended up being cream of mushroom or maybe cream of chicken soup. The canned kind she kept in her pantry for those rare occasions she felt like making a casserole. It went down smoothly, warming her throat and belly along the way.
    “Jason?”
    He fed her three more spoonfuls, ambrosia of the gods she would have poured into her mouth if she possessed the strength. “I brought you home from the hospital,” he replied after wiping the side of her mouth with his finger.
    She remembered that, but it didn’t explain his presence in her apartment. “Why are you here now?”
    “They gave me a prescription for you.”
    The little discs he’d given her… No, she didn’t want to believe he’d given her the antipsychotic meds the doctors insisted would drive the voices away. They hadn’t worked for her as a child and they didn’t work now as an adult either. All they did was produce side effects that may or may not go away, the doctor had explained. No thanks.
    “What did you give me? Those pills, what were they?” She tried to keep the panic out of her voice, but a faint note of hysteria resonated. Food that tasted so good a minute ago sank like lead.
    “Tylenol.” He frowned. “I wouldn’t give you anything else without your knowledge.” A pause. “What happened here? Who hurt you like this?” She kept her attention on the mug, noting a chip along the rim. She’d have to throw it away later. A picture of flowers decorated the side. So faded, she had no idea what kind they might have originally been. How many other items in her apartment had been bought in the first months of moving in over five years ago, but never replaced despite the passage of time?
    “Sabrina, please. I honored your request not to call the police, only so I could get the story from you first. I still think they need to know.”
    “No—”
    “Do you know how worried I was? When you wouldn’t wake up… Two days! Two days of watching you and wondering like hell if I made the right decision.” Had that much time really passed?
    He looked away. “I cleaned you up as best I could. There was a lot of blood on your back. And uh…” His voice dropped, horror creeping into it. “You were… I think you were raped. I know some women don’t want the police to know when they’ve been assaulted like that, but there’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s not your fault if some monster takes advantage. Don’t let him get away with this, please.”
    “I wasn’t raped.”
    “But there was…on the bed. Between your legs.” 46

    Intimate Whispers
    She pressed her lips together to stem the emotions ready to contort her face into a mask of shame and regret. “I know what it looked like and I appreciate your concern, but I wasn’t raped. What I do