The Secret That Intervened

by Lisa Marie Stum

  Peyton had been sending updates on my phone about JT. They found over three hundred images on his phone, similar to the one he took of Hailey. In total, there were twenty-six girls. They also found some video that would seal his fate forever. Hailey wasn’t the first, maybe she wasn’t even the last. I was disgusted that I had provided him with a means to be a monster. The band, the shows, and the girls that came to have fun and often left drunk.

  They officially arrested him in the hospital. The news hit the internet and local media outlets this morning. Erin was arrested by implication because of the text she had sent to JT. I saw the news footage of it, and the sight of her filled me with disgust and disgust with myself. I kept wondering if all this would have happened had I not slept with her. The motive of either one of them wasn’t something I could wrap my mind around.

  Hailey had stayed the night at the hospital with my mom. I hadn’t gotten to see her yet, but she was responding to my texts, which was much needed progress from the way things had been. She kept apologizing to me, I kept reassuring her that I was all right, and I was more concerned about her then me. I couldn’t even imagine how she was feeling at this point. The only thing I knew for certain was that I didn’t blame her for a damn thing.

  I heard the door creak open. Hailey stood in the doorway; she looked uncertain whether she should approach, as if she questioned if I would want her there. Her chest heaved, and she looked like she was going to hyperventilate when she saw me. Her lip quivered and she bit it in response.

  I shook my head at her. “Don’t you dare cry for me, Hail.” My eyes filled with tears at what she had gone through, and knowing what she would have to go through. “Come here.”

  She walked toward me and stood beside my bed.

  “No. Come here.” I reached out to her, grabbing her hand, wanting her in my arms.

  She kicked off her shoes and carefully crawled into the bed with me. I wrapped my arms around her, and she buried her face into my chest.

  “It’s okay if you cry, but any tears have to be for yourself,” I said.

  She cried for a while and then fell asleep. I didn’t ask her any questions. I didn’t need to. I had no doubt in my mind that the fire would have happened whether I had read that diary or not. There was no regret for reading it. The only regrets I had were sleeping with Erin and that someone else had died in my place trying to rescue Hailey.

  While my mom was in my room last night we’d had a conversation about how to help Hailey. Mom said she’d put up the money to get her into a treatment facility. Not just for the alcohol, but a place that could help her deal with the emotional trauma. I didn’t want her to go anywhere, but I knew she couldn’t stay and figure it out with us. It was beyond something we could help her with.

  My mom had talked to the head of the hospital and explained the circumstances. He pretty much gave the staff instructions not to interrupt for a few hours. I had my phone on silent, but kept checking for updates.

  My mom left after Hailey came into my room that morning. She headed over to Grace’s and tried to get her to come to the hospital. Mom managed to convince her to visit. She got dressed, but on the way she had a full-blown panic attack and wanted to go back home. It really sickened me that she couldn’t be there for her daughter. I know I shouldn’t have judged her but I couldn’t help it.

  When I noticed that Hailey was waking up I sent the text. In a few minutes, my mom, Taylor, and Peyton were in the room with us. I moved over a bit and Hailey sat up next to me. She didn’t say anything, but had a look on her face that suggested she was mentally tossing around the reasons why they were there. They could have been there for me, or her. The reality was that they were there for us both. She couldn’t go on continuing to live the way she had been, and I couldn’t continue to watch her slide further from the person she once was.

  My mom pulled a chair up next to the bed. She held Hailey’s hand and said, “Hailey, sweetheart. We found a place that we think you should go to; you have to get help for this.”

  Hailey looked at me, uncertain. I gave her a reassuring look, and squeezed her to me, so she knew I was there for her. “What kind of place?” Hailey asked my mom.

  “A place that can help you with the pain in your heart, and the reasons that you have been drinking,” Mom said with a sincere expression.

  “What about Chloe?” Hailey’s voice wavered, and I knew she was holding back tears.

  “We’ll take care of her,” Mom said.

  I chimed in, “The place allows visits on Sundays. I’ll bring her to you. I swear. I’m going to move back into my mom’s to help out with everything.”

  Taylor was standing next to Peyton at the end of the bed, wiping tears from her eyes. She had told me earlier she couldn’t speak without crying, so I didn’t expect her to say much of anything. She was blaming herself for a lot of what had happened. Not that it made sense, but she thought she’d been a bad friend.

  Hailey didn’t know that someone had died in the fire. She also didn’t know that Erin had been implicated. We wanted to get her in therapy before she found that stuff out. I knew it would kill her if she knew that she’d had a role in ending someone else’s life. It killed me, but I couldn’t worry about my own guilt then.

  Hailey flinched. I pulled her tighter to me and I told her that I loved her. She let go of the tears she had been trying to restrain and then whispered, “I’ll go.”

  Chapter 34 - Cody

  Six months had passed, and I was on my way to the treatment facility. Of course, I kept my promise and visited Hailey every Sunday with Chloe. It was a three-hour drive, but it was worth it to see her, to see her face light up when Chloe was around. The Hailey I once knew had slowly come back over the months and I couldn’t have been more thankful.

  I quit the band. I couldn’t do it anymore, both mentally and physically. Instead, I worked on song writing during the time I used to perform. When everything started going downhill with Hailey was when I had started writing them. I sold one of the songs, and it more than covered the cost of Hailey’s treatment. My mom refused the check that I attempted to give her for repayment, so I deposited it into her account instead. Hailey was my responsibility, not my mom’s.

  JT was in jail and he would be there for at least twenty years. Hailey had started a blog when she learned of the other girls. It went viral and girls starting coming forth, further nailing JT’s fate.

  She now posted to the blog regularly, at least a couple of times a week. She didn’t want to be a survivor or victim, she wanted to be an advocate for those without a voice. In the post she made last night she talked about her feelings over Ryan dying in the fire. I don’t think the guilt of that will ever go away for either one of us, but I knew her writing about it let her deal with it in a more constructive way.

  I already knew how she felt about it. Three months ago, during one of my visit’s, we were sitting underneath a tree when she told me. I kissed a tear that had fallen on her cheek and she turned her face to me and shocked me with a kiss back. It was those little moments that meant everything to me. Her opening back up to me, to our love, to us, was more than I had possibly hoped for when I dropped her off that first day. After the day she kissed me, she always greeted me with a hug and kiss, and I could live forever on the way it felt.

  I parked the car and popped open the glove box. I grabbed the small purple bag and shoved it into my pocket.

  I headed up the sidewalk to the picnic tables that were in the common area. She watched as I approached, her eyes brightened, and her smile widened. She walked toward me and gave me a hug.

  Her suitcases were next to the picnic table and she was ready to go, but I asked her to sit one more time under the tree with me. She took a seat beside me and I pulled out the purple bag.

  “Give me your hand,” I said. “And close your eyes.”

  I pulled out the box and placed the necklace in her hand. The chain wasn’t that cheap junk she used to wear, and hanging from it wa
s a ring.

  I placed the necklace in her hand. “Open your eyes.”

  She looked at it, and then looked up at me.

  “It’s a promise. And the day you’re ready to be my wife, all you have to do is put it on your finger instead.”

  She kissed me, slid the ring loose from the chain, and placed it on her finger.

  Chapter 35 - Hailey

  They say our secrets will keep us sick. I now know that as an undeniable truth. There was a part of me that understood why I started drinking and became secretive. I couldn’t face my fear of other people’s reactions, and I couldn’t steer through the haze in my mind as I struggled to internally process it all. The alcohol didn’t help anything; all it did was dull the flinching, and give me another burden, another secret.

  When someone steals your dignity, you can’t help but feel completely unlovable. I always had a flight response when it came to any kind of tragic event. It led me back to Milbourny, but it also eventually led me away from Cody.

  I didn’t think I’d ever understand whether fate or choice dictates our lives. I did know that if Cody hadn’t been there for me the way he was I wouldn’t be all right today. His strength, his resolve, his perseverance, and more importantly, his love, changed everything for me.

  My mom never visited me in rehab, and I was okay with that because I knew that there was something that I didn’t understand when it came to her. There was a reason for it. I didn’t know if it had to do with my dad, her childhood, or her adulthood. I didn’t have the answers, but I was going to work to get some, and help her. Somewhere there was a secret that no one else knew, and she had allowed herself to become buried beneath it. So there was just no way I could possibly judge her for the way she chose to live her life.

  Cody was driving us home, singing along to the radio. I was writing my next blog post; it had a lot to do with forgiveness and how it’s the only mechanism through which people heal. This was the second time I’d left rehab since I got there, but I was thankful that this time it was permanent. Cody was by my side the first time I left, even though he didn’t agree with what I was about to do.

  I started a blog my second week in rehab. At first, it was just a way for me to vent my thoughts about what had happened to me. A major online news site had linked to the blog, and shortly thereafter I started receiving at least an email a day, sometimes a few more.

  I didn’t know what would have happened had Cody not read my diary, but I was certain it was instrumental in helping me get where I was. I would have held that secret in, and a death on top of it would have sealed my fate forever. My blog had become a platform for other girls to tell their stories. Secrecy is insidious, and could chain people to their own personal hell.

  I would never hate the decision Cody made to read my diary; he broke me open by unraveling my deepest secret. I would never have trusted that anyone could still love me if they found out. When he showed me that he’d be there no matter what, everything had changed for me. The way I understood love changed and that was huge for me. I’d only known broken homes and damaged hearts, so I didn’t have the context that I needed. I didn’t believe anyone could love me if I was anything less than perfect. Now I realized that JT’s actions didn’t define me, they defined him.

  The flinching had gone away but I still had nightmares. Sometimes they were about what happened, but most of the time they were about Ryan dying. I’d almost prefer if they were about the rape. I hadn’t been able to fully deal with the fact that someone died in a fire that I had started with a cigarette. If I hadn’t been halfway drunk it wouldn’t have happened.

  Cody glanced over at me and placed his hand on my thigh. “What are you doing over there?” He winked at me.

  “Posting Erin’s entry to my blog,” I smiled back.

  Chapter 36 - Erin

  I might have been a lot of things, and I would freely admit them. I was cold-hearted, callous, a liar, a slut, a person charged by hateful thoughts and unruly jealousy. No matter what anyone’s judgment was of me, or how their perspective shaded me, there was one thing I knew I was NOT…and that was a person who would intentionally cause a girl to get raped.

  I didn’t know that JT was that fucking sick. I didn’t know that he would cross unfathomable fucking boundaries to win a bet. I didn’t even know he took it seriously, and I certainly did not know that he had done the shit he did to other girls before he did it to Hailey. I didn’t know. I didn’t fucking know.

  With my own past in mind, I struggled to forgive myself for what happened every fucking day. Most times, the pain buried me, leaving me in a depression-imbued fog that my heart didn’t have the strength to fight. Other days, I was thankful for one person’s kind action that I couldn’t seem to shake.

  See, I had these two scars on the underside of my arm, almost at my armpit. The scars on my heart about how they got there were worse. Hateful people aren’t born, they’re made.

  When I was younger I stopped bleeding naturally when my dad would rape me. He started using a razor, cutting open my arm, and he used the blood so he could enter me. My mother knew what was happening to me but she didn’t stop it. Instead she got jealous of me and constantly put me down.

  My dad stopped doing that to me right before we moved to Milbourny. I had tried to kill myself, to escape my life, to escape the sickness of my father’s fucked up mind. I confided in the psychiatrist at the hospital about the abuse, but they found no evidence, just a shitload of drugs in my system. My mother made up a bunch of shit about me to protect my father and her lifestyle. She didn’t give a fuck about me, any more than he did.

  As I sat in an orange jumpsuit at the jail in Luville, I thought about my brother and how his death had started with one stupid fucking bet – one that I was a part of. I read Hailey’s blogs; I knew everything that had happened. There were a lot of things I wished I could change, go back and redo.

  They were going to release me in a few hours. Originally, I was looking at a sentence of at least five years. My dad told me I needed to leave town after I got out, because I was a disgrace, and that I would never recover from the scandal in a town of its size. He said he’d cover my living expenses and still give me the allowance if I moved away, but nothing if I didn’t. I planned on moving, and not taking the allowance. Somehow I’d make it on my own. I’d never really had anyone so moving so far away on my own didn’t scare me in the slightest. Nothing really scared me, except my thoughts about how my actions impacted so many people.

  At my trial there were only two people I knew. My parents weren’t there. Samantha wasn’t there. Everything changed in my mind and my heart when I saw who was there and who was not… I finally understood kindness.

  The thing that changed everything? Hailey spoke on my behalf. Everybody had a story and I had told her mine.

  THE END.