New Horizons (6/10)

[dipenates]

Title: New Horizons
Fandom: Brothers and Sisters
Rating:  R
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Length: ~15,000
Characters:  Justin, Kitty, Kevin, Sarah, Nora, and Tommy
Icon: danielle_nahimi
Warning:  Contains references to sexual abuse and rape.
Summary: In which Justin leaves rehab, and the family struggles to deal as something disturbing comes to light.

Chapter Six

In which Kitty reads a book

Justin leant against the Walkers’ front door; completely exhausted after the quick five miles he had just run around the neighbourhood. He was out of water and really thirsty, but was enjoying the morning breeze that was taking the fury out of the already hot day too much to move immediately.

Kitty was sitting on a stool in the kitchen reading a book and eating Ben and Jerry’s ice cream straight from the carton. She looked up when Justin came in, and watched as he crossed the floor to the fridge and took a bottle of water out of it.

“Still in your PJs, Kitty?” Justin leant on the cool steel of the fridge door and unscrewed the lid from his bottle of water.

“Shouldn’t I be? It is Saturday morning.”

“I know, Ms Defensive.” He grinned at her. “It’s just that you’re usually dressed and running errands by this time of day. Or watching C-SPAN and writing a column. Or heading off to organise charity events with some of your fellow Daughters of the Alamo.”

Kitty laughed.

“Only as long as I’m Donna Culver-Krebs in this little fantasy of yours and not Sue-Ellen Ewing. I did have all these plans for today but I just felt kind of blah this morning and couldn’t get going, and then I started reading this book that Sarah left here and I was so happy not to be thinking about politics for five minutes that I just went with it.”

“Well that kind of devil-may-care Saturday morning attitude requires some pancakes and not just ice cream.” Justin opened the pantry door and stepped inside, emerging with flour and baking powder.

“Can they be chocolate-chip?”

“Of course.” Justin turned round and waved the chocolate chips at her.

Kitty smiled. She hadn’t talked to Justin alone since the argument at dinner on his first night back from rehab and she hadn’t realised how anxious that had made her until she felt the tension in her shoulders dissipate during their conversation.

“So what are you reading?” Justin asked, bending down to take a mixing bowl out of the baking cupboard.

Kitty felt a twinge of foreboding, as if the conversation were going imperceptibly awry. She hadn’t felt ashamed of the book in her hands until the very moment Justin asked her to explain it.

“It’s called ‘Lucky’, and it’s an autobiographical book by the author Alice Sebold.” The words were unwieldy cloth in her mouth.

“Didn’t she write ‘Lovely Bones’? That book about that girl who is murdered and narrates it from heaven? I think I saw her on Oprah repeats. Isn’t she kind of young to be writing an autobiography?” Justin was cracking eggs into the bowl, and absorbed in following the recipe for pancakes in Nora’s handwritten recipe book.

“Oprah, Justin? I wouldn’t have had you down as a massive Oprah fan.”

“I’m not, particularly, but it was always on at New Horizons. I remember the interview with Alice Sebold, because Oprah and she were both talking about being survivors of rape and it came up in group.”

Justin had his back to Kitty, and spooned pancake batter onto a griddle. The smell of pancakes cooking permeated the kitchen and Kitty simultaneously felt very old and very young.

“It happened to me.” She barely recognised the sound that croaked out of her mouth as her own voice.

“Kitty?” Justin had turned away from the griddle and was looking at her with confusion.

“Don’t burn the pancake. Please don’t burn the pancake.” Kitty was almost begging, and Justin obediently flipped the pancake in the pan on to a plate and put it in front of her.

He sat down on the stool across from her.

“What happened, Kitty?”

She licked her lips. A tiny bit of her was telling herself to stop, to not say another word to Justin. The larger part of her was desperate to relieve the pressure that had been building somewhere in her chest since her conversation with Kevin.

“Not like to Alice Sebold. Probably not like to Oprah. It wasn’t a stranger, and I didn’t even know that’s what it was. But Kevin’s right. It was.” Kitty was staring at her pancake, avoiding eye contact with Justin. “Kevin said what Brent Wallace did was…” Kitty tailed off.

“Rape?” Justin said, firmly. Kitty looked up. She was steeling herself for shock, or pity, or anger. Instead, Justin wore an expression that she could only describe as knowing.

“Yeah.” She sat quietly, listening to the ticking of the kitchen clock. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Do?” Justin asked.

“Yeah. I mean, do I join a support group? Or find a therapist? Do I have to tell the rest of the family? So far it’s only you, me and Kevin that knows. What is Mom going to say? And Sarah? She’s going to be so mad that I didn’t talk about this with her when she’s the family expert on all of this. I need a plan of action” Kitty’s voice was thick with agitation.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, or tell anyone you don’t want to tell. What do you want to do, Kitty?” Justin’s voice was calm, his eyes locked on her face.

“I don’t know. It’s a new thing to me.” Kitty paused, trying to find the right words. “I feel like I can’t trust my own judgment. I mean, first of all I went off with Brent and he hurt me. Granted, it was years and years ago but who is to say I won't make the same mistake again? Secondly, I didn’t even know that he had raped me.” Kitty’s voice wavered. “Thirdly, I shouted at Kevin when he tried to discuss it with me and, fourthly, I didn’t event want him to touch me. My own brother.”

Kitty was grateful that Justin showed no inclination to reach for her hand. As guilty as she felt about her instinctive recoil from Kevin’s touch, she did feel as if the margins around her personal space had shifted outwards in the past few days.

“Kit, I’m no expert in this. The only things I know are from sitting in group at New Horizons and hearing other people talk about it.”

Kitty nodded.

"The first and most important thing is that you did nothing wrong and the only person who is responsible for raping you is Brent. I get that it's scary to realise that it's not something you can control, but it's truly not your fault. It also seems like it's important to use the right language. The only person who should be ashamed by rape is the rapist." Kitty was crying, silently; tears falling down her cheeks even as she concentrated hard on what Justin was saying.

“What I have picked up though, is that your reactions are completely normal. Loads of women don’t characterise what happens to them as rape even though it totally is. All the women in group found it really painful to talk about, and I’m sure Kevin is worried about you rather than being mad at you.” Justin picked at the edge of Kitty’s pancake, and she smiled wanly at him. He smiled back, and then frowned a little.

“Also, and this one I know from fucking it up, that lots of rape survivors don’t like being touched by men, especially when things are new or raw from talking about it.”

Kitty took a shaky breath. “Well, this is certainly both new and raw. I think I need some time to process this and make some decisions about where I want to go with this. I mean, it’s not like it’s been a problem for me until Kevin drew my attention to it, although it’s been good to get things off my chest. Now just thinking about it makes me feel completely exhausted.”

“I know what you mean. If I ever spent a group session talking about Iraq I would leave feeling like I’d just run a hard 10k.”

Kitty looked chastened.

“Justin, I’m so sorry for all those awful things I said about the women in your group. I’m also sorry for undervaluing in my own mind the huge effort that it must have involved for you to get clean and deal with all the stuff that went on in Iraq.”

Justin smiled at her. “Kit, it’s OK. I used to sneer at soldiers who talked about their PTSD, because I didn’t want to admit that that was my reality. It’s really, really hard to be vulnerable.”

“You are such a great brother, Justin.” Kitty’s eyes filled again, but she was smiling.

“I’m a stinky brother, that’s for damn sure. Are you ok for me to go take a quick shower?”

Kitty’s smile got bigger. “Yes, definitely. I’m so glad we had this conversation, but I need some space to process. Are you ok?”

Justin raised his eyebrows. “Of course. I obviously wish that you hadn’t been raped and it goes without saying that I’m sorry someone hurt you. On the other hand, and I hope this doesn’t sound like too much therapy jargon, I’m really glad that you can own it and deal with it, and that you talked about it with me.”

He walked out of the kitchen and took the Walker stairs two at a time in pursuit of his shower.

(Part seven)