by Katie Wismer
I have never felt terror like this—pure, untainted horror clawing at my chest. I squeeze my eyes shut and feel the tears stream down the sides of my face. My entire body is trembling, and I try to take a deep breath to calm myself.
Then everything goes quiet. The noise around me feels distant, echoey. My body goes still. I can barely feel his weight anymore. Everything slows down; everything goes numb. And in the very back corner of my mind, in the barest whisper, I hear, not like this.
“Shit,” he mutters, and suddenly his weight lifts from my body. I don’t care how or why, but it does, and I don’t hesitate. I roll to the side, off the bed, and hit the floor on my side. Pain flashes through my body, as if from a distance. With shaking hands I hurriedly pull my clothes back into place. Looking up, I see Derek swaying on his feet, looking rather confused. He must have drunkenly tripped or something.
After he finally manages to regain his balance, his gaze falls back on me. He starts a slow smile—I guess that’s the only good thing about him being this drunk. Everything about him is slow. He takes a step forward and I leap onto the bed. He laughs, but I don’t stop. Launching myself from the bed, I jump toward the door, shrinking away from his grabbing hands, and make a run for it into the hall. I trip over my own feet, my legs buckling beneath me through my sobs, and I grab the doorframe to steady myself.
My back slams into the wall, and it knocks the wind out of me. I look up and Derek’s face is suddenly much, much more serious. His hands grip just below my shoulders, hard enough to bruise.
“What are you playing at?” he spits.
I try to wrestle away, but he tightens his hold, forcing out a yelp of pain.
“No one likes a tease who’s all talk,” he murmurs, leaning in close, his breath hot against my ear. “You shouldn’t promise unless you can deliver.”
I have no idea what he’s talking about, but I know I need to get away from him right now. I open my mouth to scream, but he clamps a hand over my mouth.
“What the hell is going on here?”
Derek leans back just enough for me to see Sam at the end of the hall, coming toward us.
“Nothing, bro. All good here!” Derek calls. His voice is back to the friendly tone he’d used on me before.
I manage to pull out of his grip in his distraction and slip under his arm, the tears now flowing freely down my cheeks, whether from terror or relief, I’m not sure.
Sam’s entire face shifts when he notices it’s me, but I have no room left in my chest to feel anything when I see him. So I run. Past him and down the hall. The only thoughts in my head are get out get out get out get out.
But even after I reach the living room full of people, I still feel like I can’t breathe. People are still dancing, laughing, kissing, drinking. Their faces blur and the edges of my vision are black, the darkness pushing in.
I shove toward the door, desperately trying to catch my breath.
“There you are.” An arm shoots of the crowd and grasps me around the elbow. I let out a little shriek and wrench away, breathing hard.
Blinking, I look up and realize it’s Johanna standing in front of me. I spin in a quick circle, surveying my surroundings. No sign of Derek. Of Sam.
Jo raises her eyebrows at my outburst and scrutinizes my face. “You okay?”
A head shake is my only response as I turn for the door and plunge out into the night. Johanna’s footsteps and calls follow me, but I don’t pay attention. The fresh air hits me in the face, and I’m desperate for more of it. A girl in a bikini top lounging on the front lawn gives me an odd glance as I pass.
“Mare, wait up,” Jo calls as I jog down the block and turn the corner, desperately searching for the car. I’m less than half a block away when she catches up and pulls me to a stop. “What is going on?” she demands.
She barely has a chance to get the words out before I crumble into a puddle of tears in her arms. “Please take me home,” I sob. “Please just take me home.”
22
Jo drives me home in silence. She opens her mouth several times, but seems to think better of it, and closes it again. I’m still shaking, can still feel his hands on my skin, his breath on my neck, the way my fear turned so hot and tight in my chest that I couldn’t even find my voice to scream. Mercifully, Jo pretends not to notice. When we finally pull up outside my house, she cuts the engine, but doesn’t unlock the doors.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come in with you?” she offers. “I don’t want you to have to be alone. We could have a sleepover. Like old times.”
“Thanks, but I’d really rather just be alone.” My voice doesn’t even sound like it belongs to me anymore.
I know she’s staring at me, but I can’t look at her.
“Call me in the morning?” she asks as I manually unlock the door and throw it open.
I give her some kind of noncommittal reply and hop out.
“Mare—”
I close the door and head for the house.
It’s quiet and dark when I head inside, everyone else already asleep. I immediately jump in the shower, still fully clothed, and turn the water as hot as it can go. For several minutes, I just stand there, the water burning as it hits my skin. Good. I want to burn away this feeling and the memories and this whole goddamn night.
Eventually, I strip my clothes off and throw them in a wet heap on the floor.
But even after I get out and wrap myself in my robe, I still don’t feel clean. My skin is raw and red from the hot water and scrubbing, but it still feels as if insects are crawling beneath the surface. I can still feel his hands on me, and it makes me want to peel the flesh from my bones, if only so I wouldn’t have to feel it anymore. But I can’t get away from it because it is me.
So I shuffle back to my bedroom, still dressed in my bathrobe, and bury myself under the covers. Something hard digs into my hip, and I wrestle under the covers until I find the culprit. My cell phone.
I have four missed calls from Sam.
I squeeze my eyes shut and images from the party drench my vision red. And then I see James’ face, and Ashley’s, and the looks of all the Pretty Committee girls when they left me standing alone in the middle of nowhere.
Sam standing against the wall, staring at me with a blank expression.
I burrow under the covers and hope that somehow sleep with erase the memory of this night. Or at least bury it into the back corners of my mind in a place I don’t have to see it.
So, I sleep.
I sleep for what seems like days, and when the morning rolls around, I make no move to get out of bed. Even when I hear Harper getting ready next door and Maman starting breakfast in the kitchen, I just roll over and press the pillow over my head.
When Harper pokes her head in to tell me breakfast is ready, I pretend to be sick so I don’t have to go to church. I have nothing left in me. There’s no way I could handle being surrounded by that many people. Or smiling and mingling and pretending like everything’s just great.
I’m not sure how much time passes after that. I don’t move, but I also don’t fall back asleep. Judging by the French Opera I hear drifting up the stairs, Harper and my parents are back.
Sam’s picture pops up on my phone as he calls, yet again. I don’t even hesitate before hitting decline this time. With a deep breath, I roll myself out of bed, wrap myself in a blanket, and head down to the kitchen, my stomach growling. I can’t even remember the last time I ate something.
Maman and Papa are sitting at the counter, reading the paper together and chatting. Harper sits at the table, nibbling on some leftover French toast.
When I enter, the room goes silent. Harper stops chewing, Papa sets down his coffee. Maman removes the reading glasses perched on her nose.
“Are you feeling better?” Papa asks.
“A little.” At first I attribute their odd behavior to me ditching church this morning, but it becomes quickly apparent that it
’s something more. “Is everything okay?” I ask as I take a seat across from Harper and pull a piece of French toast onto a paper plate.
“Everyone is saying some girl from our school got raped the other night, apparently,” Harper says.
I go still in my chair as Maman and Papa pace over to the table and fill the remaining seats. There’s no way they could be talking about what happened. There’s no way they could know about that—there’s no way anyone could know about that.
Except for Sam. Depending on the assumptions he made about what he saw.
Maman nods grimly, pursing her lips. “What a terrible thing.”
“How do you know that?” I try to make my question casual, but my voice still comes out accusatory.
“This girl from our school apparently saw some of what happened. She tried to go to the police or whatever, but they said they couldn’t do anything if the victim didn’t come forward to press charges. But this chick wasn’t having that, so she started posting all of this stuff on social media, saying we need to raise awareness for sexual assault and things like that. And so of course, half the people in the school shared her post because they’d look like dicks if they didn’t—”
“Harper,” Maman and Papa chastise.
She holds up her palms in apology. “Anyway, pretty much everyone knows by now. I’m surprised you didn’t.”
“I haven’t checked any social media lately,” I mumble and set my fork back on the table, my appetite suddenly gone.
“Well.” Papa clears his throat. “Your mother and I just want you to know that we’re here for the two of you, if you’d like to talk about it. We realize this can be difficult, especially if it’s someone you know, and maybe it’s even a little confusing. But I know God will give us the strength to get through this and bring us closer as a family, just as I’m sure He’ll place His hands on the family of that poor girl.”
“Who was it?” I ask Harper. “The girl who posted all that stuff online?”
Harper shrugs. “Nora something? Patterson, maybe?”
“Blonde hair? Just had a nose job? Always has perfect eyeliner?”
Harper somehow manages to raise her eyebrows and narrow her eyes at the same time. “Yeah, actually.”
Nora’s Ashley’s right-hand woman/sidekick/robot-slave who does anything Ashley wants. She also couldn’t be less interested in activism.
“She claims she has pictures, though,” Harper goes on. “And that if the school district and police department and whoever else she thinks needs to get involved don’t do anything, she’s going to start posting them to—and I quote—deeply impact the community to spark change on a larger scale. That’s some serious bullshit if I’ve ever heard some—sorry,” she adds when Maman and Papa open their mouths to object.
The room spins and I grip the edge of the table to steady myself. Nora has pictures?
Ashley has to be behind this. She has to.
“Meredith, honey, are you okay?” Maman reaches over and touches me on the elbow, and I nearly jump out of my skin. The touch is light, but it’s enough to send me to my feet.
“Yeah, yeah. My stomach is just a little upset again. I don’t think I would be able to keep it down if I tried to eat, so I’m just going to go back to bed.”
“We hope you feel better,” Maman offers. “I’ll bring you up something later!”
I excuse myself and disappear upstairs. Barely seconds after I close the door behind me, it reopens, and I turn to see Harper in the door.
I raise my eyebrows. “What? So now you’re talking to me again?” The words have less of a bite to them than intended, and it comes out rather monotone.
She shrugs. “You were at that party, weren’t you?”
I’d told Maman and Papa that Sam was taking me out to dinner, knowing they’d never be okay with a party full of underage drinking and drugs. Blinded by their adoration of Sam, they’d believed the lie immediately. Harper, however, obviously hadn’t been convinced.
“Does it matter?” I try to keep my expression blank. Apparently I suck at it, because upon seeing my face, Harper’s expression softens.
“Oh, no.”
“What?” I demand and cross the room to my unmade bed.
“Would you just drop the bullshit?” she hisses in a whisper and follows me. “Just tell me. Tell me if it was you.”
I tense at the head of my bed, covers clutched in one hand. How the hell did she come to that conclusion so quickly? There were hundreds of people at that party. It could have been anyone. I say as much out loud.
“You’ve been acting weird. More than usual. More than just the stuff with the pact. Like something happened.” She steps around into my line of sight, frowning, and lowers her voice. “Did something happen?”
I look away, ignoring the burning sensation rising in my eyes. I don’t want to talk about this. Not with her. Not with anyone. Especially not after the way she reacted to the pact. If I have to hear her say I was asking for this, too, I swear I’m going to lose it. “Look—” I start, and flinch at how rough my voice comes out.
She steps forward and pulls me into a tight hug, wordlessly. I’m too broken to object, so I just slacken into her embrace.
“You know you have to go to the police,” Harper says. When I don’t immediately respond, she grabs my arms and shakes me. I wince; clearly the places Derek grabbed had bruised. “You have to report this.”
So I can have one more person not believe me? So I can be interrogated about what I was wearing, if I was drinking? So I can have some grown-ass man, who has no idea what it feels like to be completely powerless, look me in the eye and tell me it was my fault?
“Who was it?” Harper demands.
I shrug, swiping away the tear that somehow made it onto my cheek. “I don’t know,” I say. “I’d never seen him before. Some Madison Prep guy. Derek something.”
Harper’s entire body goes rigid. “Tall? Dark hair? Built like a linebacker?”
I squint at her. “I mean, yeah, I guess.”
Harper takes a step back and sits on the edge of my bed. “Meredith,” she says quietly. “You have to report him.”
“Do you know him?” I demand.
“No.” She shakes her head. “But my friend Melanie, from dance class—you know her. She’s my year, works in the library at school. She went on a date with some senior named Derek from Madison Prep a few Fridays ago. She wouldn’t shut up about him beforehand, but then after—”
She meets my eyes.
Melanie. That’s who I’d seen crying in the library last week.
Which means it wasn’t just me. This is something he does. Something he’s done to who knows how many girls?
“They might not take my word for it,” I say hoarsely.
“Maybe if she didn’t have to do it alone, we could get Melanie to talk, too,” Harper offers.
My stomach churns. Melanie’s a freshman. She’s fourteen years old. And by the sounds of it, no one found her just in time, like Sam did for me. And for it to have been someone she’d liked, someone she’d probably been so excited to go out with, to have a senior interested in her, only to find out…
I feel sick. I feel sick to the very core of my being.
“Okay,” I croak, pushing to my feet. I look around the room, anywhere but Harper’s face. “Call Melanie. See if she’ll agree to go with us tomorrow after school.”
“Okay.” Harper gets up to leave, but pauses by the door. “Mare?”
Finally, I look at her. “Yeah?”
She shifts her weight and pauses before saying, “For what it’s worth, I’m really sorry about what I said about the pact. I was just upset. I didn’t mean any of that.”
I give her half a smile. “I know, Harp.”
23
Monday is the first day since the pact got out that I’m not the center of attention at school. People still stare, and guys offer to have sex with me, but it’s not
nearly as bad as the past few days were. Most people are occupied with the latest scandal—the mysterious rape (or almost-rape) victim. The gossip is airborne, and everyone knows. Now everyone wants to know who the girl is. Everyone wants to know who the guy is. And by now, everyone’s just egging Nora on to post the pictures, like this is all some kind of game.
Every time I close my eyes, flashes of that night assault me.
His fingers digging into my arms.
Slamming me back against the wall.
His teeth in my lower lip.
His hands pulling at my clothes while his weight held me down.
How I couldn’t move. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t breathe.
I’m just glad no one’s made any guesses as to who the girl is; otherwise I’d be the center of attention all over again. If people knew it was me…I can’t even imagine how much worse things would get.
When I make it to fourth period, most of the seats are already filled, and to my surprise, Johanna is sitting in one of them. She hasn’t been to class since the incident with Mr. Graham. I hurry over to her, ignoring the whispers and looks that follow me as I cross the room.
“You’re here,” I say under my breath.
Jo is staring intently at her desk, probably to avoid making eye contact with Mr. Graham. He has his back to us, seemingly reading over the notes he has scrawled across the board, but again, I think it has more to do with not wanting to look at Jo.
“So are you,” Jo acknowledges. She sneaks a peek at me sideways, her fiery hair obstructing the majority of her face. “How are you holding up? Is it as bad today?”
“I’m okay,” I say, pulling a notebook from my bag. As far as Johanna knows, I’m still just upset about the pact. And strictly speaking about that, I am okay. She’d texted me as soon as she’d heard the rape rumors, to make sure that wasn’t why I’d been so upset at the party. And…I lied, letting her believe it was just a drunken overreaction from running into Sam.
I don’t know why I didn’t tell her. Why I don’t want her to know. Why I don’t want anyone to know. I feel stupid and embarrassed enough without an audience.