[NSFW][WRITING] Forgetful Little Thing
This is a rewrite of a story I posted to tumblr about a year and a half ago. Sadly I didn't have the foresight to save it elsewhere, and so it was lost to the void.
Anyway, content warnings for rape, abusive relationships, trauma, and all that fun stuff we all love.
The room was dark, except for the dim blue light of the computer screen. It painted her face in pale, ghostly shades, casting long, jittery shadows across the walls as she shifted in her chair. Her hands—clenched, trembling—rested uselessly on the keyboard. Her breathing was shallow, uneven, as if she had to remind herself to keep doing it.
Her skin felt too tight. Her muscles ached with exhaustion, but sleep wouldn’t come. It hadn’t for two nights now. Every time she closed her eyes, she felt like she was falling, like her body wasn’t hers, like something was wrong in a way she couldn’t name.
It’s just trauma. That’s all.
She repeated the words in her head like a mantra, pressing the heels of her palms against her eyes. She knew the signs—hypervigilance, insomnia, nausea, the feeling of something awful lurking just behind her memories. She had been through this before. She had survived before.
But her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Her heart wouldn’t stop pounding. And this was different.
No, it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. It was just her brain misfiring, trying to fill in the blanks, overreacting like it always did.
She just had to ride it out.
She took a slow breath, gripping the edge of the desk until her knuckles turned white. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to focus on something solid, something real. But when she did, all she got were flashes—pieces that didn’t fit together, like a puzzle with half the pieces missing.
The party.
The way the music throbbed in her skull, too loud, too close. The taste of something sweet on her tongue. A familiar voice.
An outstretched hand, her ex-girlfriend offering her a drink. An attempt to smooth things over. To make up for what happened. A gesture that was supposed to mean forgiveness.
Then—nothing.
The rest of the night was a void. A black hole where memories should have been.
Her breath hitched. She gripped the desk harder, willing herself to stay here, in this moment, and not spiral into the what-ifs.
It didn’t mean anything. It didn’t prove anything. She was just panicking. That’s why she felt sick. That’s why her body was wrong. That’s why her skin felt like it was shrinking around her bones.
That’s why she hadn’t slept in two days.
Except—
Her stomach twisted again.
Except trauma didn’t feel like withdrawal.
A cold, creeping horror slithered into her chest as she turned back to the screen, her fingers hovering over the keyboard. She didn’t want to do this. She couldn’t do this.
But the question was already there, sitting in the search bar, just waiting for her to have the courage to press the button.
"Symptoms of date rape drugs?"
Her hands trembled as she hit enter. The page loaded too fast. The words slammed into her all at once.
Dizziness. Disorientation. Memory gaps. Slurred speech. Insomnia. Tremors. Nausea.
Her breath caught.
She read it again. And again.
Then—buried in the medical jargon, in the long lists of side effects she hadn’t wanted to see—two words stood out, sharp and jagged in the dim glow of the screen.
Physically addictive.
The floor felt like it had disappeared beneath her.
Her mouth went dry. She wanted to close the tab. She wanted to not know.
But it was too late.
This wasn’t just trauma.
This was something else.
Something inside her had been taken, changed, and she hadn’t even known until now.
Her ex’s voice echoed in her skull, warped and distant, a memory that didn’t feel like hers anymore. The soft lilt of an apology. A drink pressed into her hands. A promise that things would be different.
A sob crawled up her throat, raw and broken.
She had thought she was already at the worst part. That the worst part was the blank spaces, the unanswered questions, the way her body felt wrong without explanation.
But this was worse.
Because now she knew how to make it go away.
She didn’t remember leaving her apartment.
One moment, she was sitting at her desk, the glow of the computer screen burning into her retinas. The next, she was outside, barefoot, her thin pajama pants dragging against the pavement. The night air pressed cold against her skin, but she barely felt it.
Her feet carried her forward, though she couldn’t remember deciding to walk. The streets were nearly empty, just the occasional pair of headlights sweeping past. She didn’t know how long she had been out here. Didn’t know where she was going.
Until she was standing in front of the door.
Her ex’s apartment loomed in front of her, a familiar shape in the darkness. She hadn’t been here in months. Had sworn she never would again.
Her breath came fast and shallow as she stared at the door. Her feet ached from walking, her body vibrating with exhaustion, with sickness, with need. She should turn around. She shouldn’t be here.
But she couldn’t go back.
She raised her fist and knocked.
A few seconds passed. Then the door cracked open, and her ex stood in the frame, her eyes widening in something that looked like fear. Not fear of her, but fear of what she might say. Fear of being confronted. Of being reported.
But the girl wasn’t here for justice.
Her voice broke as she spoke, her words spilling out in a desperate, incoherent flood. She didn’t want to feel like this anymore. She couldn’t do this. She just wanted to be normal again. She just wanted to sleep.
Her ex swallowed hard, hesitating.
Then, after a long, tense moment, she stepped back, opening the door wider, with a malicious and cruel grin spreading on her face.
"Come on in. Let me get you another drink.”