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It’s been two years since it happened and Carmilla still flinches sometimes when she’s around you.
You’ve moved away from Silas, because really, who could stay on that campus after all that happened there?
Some nights when you’re in bed together she opens her eyes and looks at you with such fear in her eyes it physically hurts you. You have to wrap your arms around her tightly to stop her from shaking and whisper “It’s me, It’s Laura, I’m me, I’m here, I love you,” in a repeating loop until she finally stops crying.
But things are better.
Carmilla could barely look at you the weeks after it happened. You’re still not exactly sure what happened, but your want for her to be safe and stable hugely outweighs your curiosity. You won’t force her to relive it.
All you know is that when the Dean took control of your body, something happened. Something that physically repulses Carmilla from you. And for that something you hate the Dean with a burning passion, but it’s no use, she’s gone, and there’s nothing you can do.
Carmilla has almost killed you several times since it happens, although you swear that you’re never in any danger. Even when her eyes glaze over and her hands grip your throat or her fist punches the wall too close to your face, you know she’d never hurt you.
There are stretches where it’s comfortable, where she doesn’t lash out or shake and cry out in the night, where she kisses you back without hesitation. You make full use of these times because it’s the only time she’ll touch you, make love to you.
Carmilla stopped calling you by anything other than your name after it happened. She says “I love you, Laura,” at least one time every day without fail.
The first time you kissed her she was extremely still, motionless, and she startled you when she violently jerked back and ran into the bathroom, dry heaving into the toilet. You were hurt at first, offended, wondering if you’d done something wrong, but all of those feelings went away the second she said “I’m sorry, Laura,” with so much pain in her voice you couldn’t help but cry along with her.
Carmilla always locks the door and she’ll insist that she personally inspects every article of anything that goes into your mailbox, any gift you’ve been given before she’ll let you touch it. You’d be angry with her under different circumstances, with her being over protective and at some points getting close to invading your privacy, but you understand why.
The thought of leaving her crosses your mind from time to time but you can’t ever entertain it for very long. You hate being a walking reminder of the event that made her this way even though she begs you never to think of yourself that way. But you can’t deny the fear and sometimes disgust in her eyes when she looks at you. You hate causing her this pain.
But you’d cause her more if you left. She’d have no one to hold her in her panic attacks, no one to tell her that she’s loved. And she is loved, and you know that you’re loved too.
And that’s enough.