55

55
~ TRISTAN ~

“Sir, your sister wouldn’t stop calling you.” Rob whispered to me. 

She knows I have a meeting. Why would Nikita think it’s sensible to demand for something at such a time? She could be unreasonable sometimes. “Ignore it.” 

I continued with the meeting, the endless buzzing of my phone with Rob pissed me off. What the heck was her problem?

It wasn’t my turn to speak, so I wanted to end the call and place the phone on airplane mode when I accidentally answered it. 

“Tristan!” Her voice immediately set an alarm in me. 

“What's wrong?” I asked. 

“It’s Hazel. I don't know what's wrong with her, but it seems like she’s… dead.” 

“Dead?!” I jumped to my feet. 

“She had an attack and now she has pierced herself with broken glasses.”

“What on Earth?! Why are you calling me? Call the ambulance! I'll meet you both at the hospital.”

“Mr. Hendrix, this interruption is very rude.” I ignored Mr. Rajeed and dashed out of the meeting room. I wanted to use the elevator but it didn’t respond. I didn’t waste my time and ran all the way down the stairs and out of the company building to my car. 

“Take me to the hospital!” I ordered the driver who nodded and started the car. “Drive very fast!” 

“Okay.”

 

I got to the hospital but the ambulance hadn't arrived. Nikita assured me that the ambulance had almost gotten to the hospital. Her voice scared me even more. She sounded like she was about to faint anytime soon. 

After a while, people in uniforms pulled a profusely bleeding Hazel in on the stretcher, alarming for an emergency. My body froze at how her head and arms were bleeding with a deep cut, clearly from the broken glasses. Nikita also ran behind them. 

“What’s wrong with her? What happened?!” I screamed at the nurse like she was going to know anything about it. 

They shut the door at us after pulling her into the emergency room. 

“What happened!” I asked a pale Nikita who ran into my arms, sobbing. 

I hugged her back, patting her head to calm her down, though I felt like an earthquake was happening inside of me. I couldn't believe I was still offering her a shoulder to cry on when I needed one myself. 

“What happened?” My voice was low, my head throbbing at the possibility of what could happen to Hazel. 

“I–I don't know .” she wailed. “We were having fun together, having boy talks, when she received a phone call. I began to hear screaming and went to her when I saw in such a condition. She was still bleeding and was screaming so much. She— I left her for only a few seconds to grab my phone. When I returned to check up on her, she was lifeless. 

“Who called her? Why?” I pulled away from her. “She must’ve had a sudden attack. I thought she was fine already. Oh gosh, what do I do now?’ 

“Let’s be patient.”

“Hazel can't die!” my eyes widened and I grasped her shoulders, shaking my head excessively. “She'll be fine, right?”

“Hopefully… I really don't know. I'm scared.”

“She'll be fine.” I assured her and myself. 

 

Nurse Nora had just come to inform us that Hazel was awake. I didn't waste any time before running to her. When I stepped into the room, my heart felt like it dropped after noticing the amount of bandages around her. I staggered to her, took a seat on the bed and cupped her face. “Why Hazel, why? Why did you do this to yourself?”

“It’s nothing. I’m fine.” She said with a tired smile. 

“You’re not fine. No, you're not. You need help, physically, mentally. We need to call Katie.”

“No, Tristan, there’s no need for that.”

“If Katie is a mental health professional, then yes, we need to call her. I was so scared to death. I thought you were going to kill yourself. How could you hit your head on the table that much and be fine?” Nikita sat on the other edge of the bed. 

Hazel laughed, making it seem like we were stupid and worrying for no reason.

“How can you possibly be laughing?" Nikita wondered. “This is a serious issue. You could’ve killed yourself.”

“But I didn’t. It’s really nothing. I’ve done way worse than this in the past.” She waved a hand over her face.

“How can any attack be worse than that? How’s that possible? What have you done?”

“Well… when I was younger, I had accidentally thrown myself off the window of a storey building and hit my head, leading to a temporary coma. I have also accidentally drilled my tooth out till it broke, and I almost slit my throat another time, back when the PTSD was way terrible.” She chuckled. 

“How is this even funny to you? This is an issue that affects your life, our life. How can you be so nonchalant about it?” I frowned. 

“It's really nothing. Why do you both look like you’re mourning someone.” She joked. “Come on, let’s eat. I’m hungry.”

“We have to resolve this. I’ll call Katie and her team over right now. You need serious help.”

“Tristan, stop making it seem like I’ve gone mad.” She laughed again. How did she find this funny? “I’m fine, I promise.”

I glared at her and picked my phone, dialing Katie’s phone number.

 

I had to drive Hazel and Nikita for Hazel's therapy session. Hazel insisted that she was hungry. She was given something to eat while Nikita and I watched her like something was going to happen to her if we took our eyes off her.  

We finally left for the therapy session. Hazel preferred to have us around her.

“Good evening, Mrs. Hendrix.” Katie spoke after taking her seat.

“Good evening, Katie. How are you?” Hazel grinned.

“I’m good, and I suppose you're good too.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Okay. Can you tell me more about how you've been feeling lately?”

“Lately? I’ve been feeling great. Just a little bit stressed from work and other activities.”

“Are you certain that's all? No mood swings, anxiety, or anything at all? Please be truthful and calm.” She was taking notes as she spoke.

“Uh…” she propped her finger to her chin. “Yes. I experience mood swings slightly. I've been losing focus lately, like forgetting important things because of the workload in my head. And I’ve been feeling anxious about so many things, like my future and all.” She chuckled again. 

“Were these the only symptoms you experienced prior to the first attack before this one?”

“No. I experienced other PTSD symptoms like flashbacks, fear, anxiety, slight emotional detachment…”

“And what eventually triggered the attack from the first time I met you?”

“Speaking of the past to my husband.” She glanced at me. 

“What caused you to experience an attack again tonight?” Katie asked, still taking notes.

“uh…” her smile washed off and she began staring around in panic. 

“Please, be calm. If it'd make you feel any better, your husband can hold you.” She turned to me. 

“Yes please,” I walked up to Hazel and held her hand in my hands, planting a kiss on her knuckles. “You'll be fine.”

That seemed to do the trick as the panic in her eyes washed off and she exhaled deeply.

“Are you any calmer now?” Katie asked and Hazel nodded. “Great. What caused you to experience this trauma?”

“Remembering my past,” she shut her eyes. 

“What triggered your reaction tonight?”

“I received a phone call.”

“Regarding your past?”

“Yes.” She nodded, pursing her lips immediately. 

“You experienced a traumatizing incident as a child?”

“As a teenager, yes.” 

“That’s the cause of the PTSD, right?”

“Yes.” She nodded again. 

Katie maintained silence for a while, taking notes and scrolling through her tablets. “You can have water.” She gestured to the glass of water beside me which I quickly handed to Hazel.

“Thank you.” Hazel accepted it and took a gulp, returning the half-empty glass to me. “Thank you.” She repeated. 

“Can you discuss the incidents from the past that affect you?”

“No.” She refused abruptly, shaking her head.. 

“Why not?” Katie's voice was very calming and seemed like it could soothe any emotio. 

“It hurts,” Hazel replied.

“Don't worry, I’m here for you. We're all here for you, including your husband, right?”

“Yes.” I nodded, tightening my grip on her hand. 

“If you speak about it, the better it'll be to overcome this trauma, do you understand?” She asked and Hazel nodded. “You can explain only a bit of it today, till you don’t feel uncomfortable at all.” 

Hazel lowered her head with a sigh before she began speaking, “when I was a child, my parents were very poor, though I never really knew my mother. She was almost non-existent for some reason. Due to the burden of poverty on my father, he had to owe a lot of debt to settle our needs, and mostly for gambling. When his debts became excessive and he didn’t have any other option, he decided to sell me out into sexual slavery. I was only only 13, going on 14, when I was first sold to a middle aged man. I couldn’t see his face, I didn’t even know him. I was only his servant and someone to satisfy his sexual needs while he blindfolded me.” Her confession made an explosion occur in my head. I didn't want to interrupt her, so I tried to hold back my anger. 

“When the man died from a heart attack,” she tightened her hand around mine, “I had to leave him, but my father’s channel for earning money from him had been cut off. With the little he had received from him, he used it to gamble rather than settle his debts, so his debts became even more.

“With that, I was sold to many more men. till he finally crossed paths with a rich man with an even greater offer. I always insisted on having a better future and earning enough to pay his debts, but he would beat me up, physically abuse me, and continue using me to get richer.” She pursed her lips as tears rolled down her face. 

“It's okay, you’re a strong woman.” Katie consoled her, passing a tissue to her. 

She sniffled, wiping her tears off with the tissue. “This man ruined my life. I was tied into sexual bondage by him. No day went by without him having sex with me. He would lock me up till I suffocated, then return to whip me with any object: his belts, sticks, and the worst of all was a heavy chain, the memory of the chain haunts me every night.” She sobbed. I rubbed her back, feeling my blood temperature rising.

“He would hit me, chain me up— just to sleep with me, force me to watch adult content, just to get experience for his satisfaction. I was his toy, someone to satisfy his greedy needs. He would lock me up everyday and go to work like a normal human while I was chained to the walls, completely naked; I'd feel cold, I'd cry my eyes out, I'd scream, but no one heard me. I had barely nothing to eat sometimes, but sometimes he forced me to eat so I could have enough strength for him.” She burst into tears. “I was still a child. I didn't get the chance to feel anything around, to experience being an actual teenager.” She sobbed in her palms. 

Nikita and I comforted her, while Katie calmed her down professionally for her to speak again. 

My veins had popped out of my skin with exasperation running in my veins and blood. I needed to know who this fucking father of hers was so I could strangle him and hit him till he felt every pain he put my Hazel through.

“To worsen it, my father still needed to pay more debts, so while the man traveled, he forced me to be with other men. I was with this man for about two years. When my father couldn’t handle his never ending debt and the man was getting tired of me, he demanded something from my father, something more precious than cold to my father. The man discovered my father’s other daughter and took her hostage. Turns out Dad loved Tiffany more than me.” She chuckled.

Tiffany was Lucy. I hoped Lucy didn’t harm my Hazel in any way, else she was going to face my wrath. 

“Dad went crazy about his precious daughter and couldn’t bear to see her in pain, so he tried everything to save her, not bothering about me and the abuse I was facing.

“Mom only discovered the situation I was in and I only discovered her existence. She said my father lied to her that I was dead, till she found me while secretly visiting the house when he wasn't at home. Our bond was growing and we were trying our best to get me out of that bondage without the evil man's consent. When things became worse and the threats were becoming so high, she suddenly disappeared like a coward. Since then, I've never seen her again. 

“Dad didn’t care about me. He agreed to offer my life, he wanted me dead, just to have Tiffany back.” 

“Who is your father?” I couldn’t hold my rage anymore. “I’m going to fucking kill that bastard for putting you through so much.”

“Sadly, he died.’

“Sadly? How is that any sad?” Nikita snapped, her eyes were also red with fury. 

“It's sad because his death was painless.” She sobbed. “I wanted him to die a really bad death.”

“You’ve gone through a lot, Hazel.” Katie said, holding Hazel's shoulder. 

“A lot.” She chuckled, shaking her head. “No. I'm way stronger than tha, only that couldn’t traumatize me. My experience with my father and the man's bondage is a huge part of my mental disorder, but the experience when this man started hating me was worse. Whenever I did something wrong, he'd punish me. My punishments were way worse than Tiffany’s. She still received special treatment from him, but I’d usually be beaten with chains. I was strangled multiple times till I passed out. The day I was locked up in a dark room—” her hands began to quiver, “I committed a crime, I know, I admit I was wrong, but I didn’t deserve it. He set me up in a ring of life, I was being buried alive, it was burning, I was choking.” Her trembling worsened as she cried even more 

Katie was able to calm her down professionally once again. 

“Is that everything that caused you to be traumatized? Is that everything about your past?” Katie asked. For some reason, her question pissed me off. I was pissed at the possibility that there could be more to her past. How could she have gone through it all alone?

“Yes, definitely, there's a whole lot more.” She said, taking another gulp of water as Katie instructed, pulling her legs to her chest. “I had to escape, I know I was wrong.”

“You weren’t wrong.” I made sure to sound calmer than I felt. 

She chuckled, shaking her head at me. “I couldn’t survive on my own. I had to resume living with my Aunt.  At 16, I had to pretend to be older, since I looked older from the curves I possessed. I was a full time slut for an organization of sluts. Of course, with Tiffany.” 

I wondered how they escaped their tormentor, but I still didn't want to interrupt her. 

“I was earning great cash, but little did I know that I had gotten into the worst mistake of my life. Aside from being a slut, the organization ran illegal businesses I can’t even bring myself to mention.” She shook her head, another round of tears rolling down her face. “I thought I was living a better life until he— the man returned to my life.”

“Who the fuck is this man?!” I barked, my face contorted as I balled my hands into fists. 

“He is…” she stopped mid-sentence, shaking her head again. “No. I don't know him.”

“You're lying, Hazel. You were just about to mention his name.”

“No, I wasn’t.” she shook her head again, her widened hazel eyes made it seem like she was being haunted by a horror movie doll.  “I don't know who he is.”

“Are you scared to say his name?” Katie asked. “Don’t worry. There's no need to be—”

“I said I don’t know who the fuck he is!” she snapped, panting. 

“Okay… calm down.” Katie wrote things down again while calming her down. 

“You've been through a whole lot! You're so strong for going through everything. How were you able to escape him?” Nikita asked, curiosity glimmering in her glassy brown eyes. 

“I… it wasn't easy… The organization and Aunt Mandy made me do so many dangerous things till we had earned enough money. Tiffany betrayed me, she betrayed us, again, as always, she betrayed us. That was the last time we ever met.” It was obvious that she didn't have the mental strength to explain in detail anymore. “I was forced to go with Aunt Mandy again. To be free from our past, we had to change our names. I changed my name from Teressa…” her voice faded on the last words, like she wasn't certain if she should have said that. 

“That explains why Lucy called you Teressa? So you were Teressa?” Nikita asked and Hazel nodded. 

“Can we just end the session here today? I’m really tired.” She asked with a weak voice.

“Yes, definitely. We’ll book another date for your next therapy session. You need to know that you're the strongest woman, you've been through a lot alone, but not anymore. Not even your past is stronger than you.” Katie affirmed. 

“Thank you.” She wore a feeble smile. 

Hazel was discharged from the hospital and I drove them home. Though Hazel had explained a lot, something still didn't seem right.

“You could've told me earlier. There’ll be no need to judge you. You're so strong.” I held her hand. “Hazel, is that everything you have to say about your past?” I asked and she stared at me with widened eyes. 

“Y–yes.” She quickly averted her gaze from me, making it obvious that she was still hiding something. 

I didn't want to pressurize her so I let her be and held her hand till we got inside. 

After a night shower together, I stayed by Hazel's side till she fell asleep. 

I decided to work a while before I went to bed. There were so many missed calls from Rob, so I called him back. 

“Hey, Rob.” I said, yawning. 

“Good evening, sir. Mr. Rajeed was really angry, but I tried to explain things to him. I was able to reschedule the meeting again; I sent your new schedule to you.” 

“Great. Thank you so much for your help.”

“It's not a problem. Also, the principal of Bandon High still claims there was no student called Hazel.”

I maintained silence, contemplating on whether or not there was still anything else I needed to know.. 

“Hello?” He reminded me of his presence. 

“Tell him to search for Teressa, and her family record there, if he has any.”

“Teressa?”

“Yes. That’s my wife.”

“Oh… okay. I'll let him know that tomorrow.”

“Let me know whatever information you have immediately.”