by Patty Blount
Quickly, I take a sip of orange juice. A big one.
“What’s this?” She indicates my balled-up collection of flyers, and I shrug. Understanding dawns a second later. “Oh. The rally.”
“Yeah. That.” I rub the side of my face and scratch at the scar near my temple.
“You’re gonna go, right?”
Hell no. I shake my head. “No way. I’m the last person who should be there.”
She slides into the chair opposite mine and covers my hand with hers, and my whole body heats up. “Derek, you’re the best person to be at that rally. You get it. A lot of guys claim they get it and have no clue. But you do.”
I look into her big blue eyes for a minute and finally decide she believes her own bullshit. And then I decide she’s right. I do have a clue. In fact, I have the whole mystery solved. And because I do, there’s no way in hell I’m going anywhere near that rally because I don’t need the entire university knowing I’m Derek Lawrence, the guy whose sister is the Bellford High School Rape Victim.
That’s what the media called her.
Ashley was barely fourteen when it happened. A minor. So her identity was protected. But she took her story public, posting a detailed account to her blog. And she included my role in it. Now everybody from feminist bloggers to Ellen DeGeneres knows our names.
So, yeah. I don’t want my whole school saying, “Oh! You’re that Derek Lawrence.”
Yep. The Derek Lawrence who played a stupid game that got his sister raped and then told a court of law to go easy on her rapist. The same Derek Lawrence who drove away and left her standing alone in an empty parking lot, putting the whole fucking ordeal into motion.
Self-hatred runs another ice-cold finger across my bare skin, and I shiver, reminding myself I deserve this…deserve every second of it.
Ashley was a surprise baby, born just a year and a half after me and close to six years after Justin. Mom was so happy to finally get a girl, I think she went a little bit nuts. She got a kick out of raising us like we were twins with the whole matching outfits thing. Maybe it was cute when we were toddlers. But the fake twin thing was epically annoying when I hit middle school. Ashley was spoiled rotten, got away with absolutely any damn thing she wanted, and grew up to be a real pain. By the time I hit sixth grade, I’d had enough.
SIXTH GRADE
BELLFORD, OHIO
Martin’s got this ancient issue of Playboy. We’re not really friends. He’s just a kid at school. But this old magazine is awesome, so when he invites me to his house, I can’t wait to go because he claims there’s a whole box of them in his basement.
It’s an issue from way back in the eighties, and the pictures show women of every type you can imagine. Blonds, brunettes, redheads—each more beautiful and sexier than the last. Blue eyes, brown eyes, green eyes, and they all have these big, beautiful, and bare breasts. I can’t stop staring. I don’t want to stop staring.
It’s the first time I see a girl as, well—a girl, and not a sister or a mother.
I like it. A lot.
But next thing I know, Ashley’s coming with me to Martin’s house to play with his little sister, which not only means no Playboy, it means two sisters bugging us every minute of the day. We whine to his mother, who does nothing, which, in my experience, is what all mothers do when little sisters annoy big brothers. So we start teasing the girls and make it into a contest to see who we can make them cry first.
I win.
I call my sister Ash Tray instead of Ashley.
Martin high-fives me.
I just want to do some guy things. Why do I have to spend every single moment of every single day with my sister?
I ask Dad that question when I get home one day.
“Because she’s your sister,” he says, as if that explains everything.
Yeah, duh. That’s the entire problem!
I ask Mom next.
“Derek, there are three of you and two of us. When Dad’s working in the garage all day, I have to take Justin to soccer practice, baseball practice, basketball practice, and take you to Martin’s house, not to mention go grocery shopping and run all my other errands. And then I have to meet Dad at the garage so I can do the bookkeeping. What’s the big deal if Ashley stays with you at Martin’s house and gives me one tiny little break?”
Whoa, I’m not the one who decided to have three kids. Jeez.
So I back off. I may be dumb, but I’m not dumb enough to keep pushing Mom when she’s pissed off.
I ask Justin as he’s heading out why I have to spend all of my time with Ashley and he gets off free and clear.
“D, come on, she’s a kid. She looks up to you.”
“I can’t take it anymore, J. You don’t know what it’s like. She’s a friggin’ barnacle on my ass. Can I come with you? Please?”
“You don’t even know where I’m going.”
“I don’t care. Anywhere. As long as Ashley’s not there.”
Justin pushes his glasses up on his nose and snorts. “Yeah. I have no idea how annoying siblings are. None at all.”
I punch his arm. Justin’s in tenth grade—way cool—but I’m pretty strong for a sixth-grader. “I’m not annoying.”
“Yeah, you are.” He rubs his arm. “It’s just a phase. Soon, Ashley will be hanging out with girls, getting her nails done, and whatever. You can hang on until then, right?”
“No, man. I really can’t.” My voice cracks.
Justin rolls his eyes. “Jeez, Derek, it’s not difficult. Sit down and talk to her. Tell her you need some space. Give her a little, too. If she bugs you, offer to play a game with her and put a clock on it. After that time, you’re outta there.”
Okay. Maybe that’ll work. “So where are you going, anyway?”
“Chess club.” He grins at my look of horror and walks out.
When the door shuts behind him, I sigh heavily. Well, at least he gave me actual advice. Mom and Dad don’t even see the problem.
I try what he suggested. I tell Ashley I’m not—repeat not—taking the bus home from school anymore. I’m taking my bike like all the other guys do.
She waits for me at the bicycle stand—actually expects to ride on the back of my bike all the way home. I’m so mad, I leave her there. Why can’t she tell when she isn’t wanted? Why does she have to make this so hard?
“Derek, wait!” she calls, running after me as fast as her chubby legs will allow her.
I don’t wait. I pedal faster.
It’s worth the week without my PlayStation when she makes it home way later than I do, her long hair knotted in one huge tangle and tear streaks down her face.
“Derek, she’s in fourth grade! She is way too young to come home alone. You’re older. You should have known better.” Mom is so mad, her face is purple.
Yeah, yeah.
When she hits sixth grade, I finally get a reprieve.
Ashley makes some new friends. She’s invited to sleepovers and to birthday parties and to mall trips. Those are the best days of my eighth-grade life. But, like most things, they don’t last long.
If I go to the family room to watch a monster movie, Ashley comes too—and we end up watching some Disney princess shit. If I go out on my bike to race with some guys, she grabs hers too, and we end up circling the block like we still have training wheels on because I’m not allowed to just ride off without her. I tried once and my parents took my bike for a week.
At the end of eighth grade, everybody in school is all jazzed up over summer vacation and starting high school in the fall. Me? I dread it. For me, summer isn’t a vacation. No, it’s like that twenty-four-hour news station Dad always listens to in the car, the one that plays the same tragedies on an endless loop. Summer was All Ashley, All the Time. You give Ashley twenty-two minutes, she’ll give you a headache.
Bu
t the high school part that comes after summer? Yeah, I’m totally into that for one huge reason.
Ashley won’t be there.
For two whole grades, I’ll be the only Lawrence in the school.
I have to get through summer first. I’m itchy and desperate and can feel the walls closing in on me. It gets to the point that just hearing Ashley’s name makes me coil up into a tight knot.
Until Dad gives me a football. He comes home with it one night after work. Says I have so much energy, he figures I need an outlet for it. Every day, after work, he tosses the ball around with me and Justin. Ashley whines that she wants to play, too. But Dad’s firm on this: no girls.
Yes! I pump my fist in the air.
When I finish eighth grade, Justin graduates from high school. He’ll be leaving for college soon, where he’ll get to live on his own, go where he wants, do what he wants—essentially live the life I want. But when Dad brings home that ball, Justin blows off everything to play.
“Here, let me show you,” Dad says one night during our guys-only playtime. “You spread your fingers like this, over the laces and the seam. You see? And you grip it with your fingertips, not your palm.”
I do what he says, and he jogs backward to one end of the backyard. I draw back my arm and throw, releasing the ball in an awesome spiral. It propels itself right into Dad’s hands and is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
I’m instantly hooked.
This is the day Dad saves me from going totally insane.
NOW
LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK
“Derek, you’re a guy,” Britt says, pulling me out of my trip down memory lane.
“Thanks for noticing.”
She smacks my arm. “Do you know how rare it is for guys to get where we’re coming from about sexual assault?”
I lift both eyebrows because I’m pretty sure my sister would say I don’t get a thing, but before either of us can say anything, Britt’s phone buzzes.
She frowns at the text message.
“It’s Tara.” Her eyes snap to mine, wide with worry. “Derek. They’re bringing back football.”
I snatch the phone and read Tara’s message.
Tara: New coach, new football program, and she ran out of the class. What do I do?
I stare at Britt. I don’t need to ask who she is. Oh, God. I can’t do anything. I’m several states and about six hundred miles away.
Shit.
“Derek.” Brittany grabs my hand. “Sebastian?”
Yeah. I nod. Yeah, Sebastian. I take out my phone and text my former teammate.
Derek: Heard about new coach. Make sure there’s no hunt. Please. I’m begging you, protect her.
Sebastian: Already am.
Do more! I want to shout, vibrating with the need to rush home and do something. But I’m not welcome there anymore.
I shove away from the table, spilling my juice. “I gotta go,” I mumble, and I bolt, storming through the glass doors like the football player I am. I look feral. Lethal. I always look this way whenever I think about what happened to Ashley.
I wanna tear Victor Patton into tiny little Vic bits, but I can’t. The DA warned me—and Dad and Justin—that such a course of action would result in prison terms for us if we tried.
It sure would feel good, though.
I hate Vic, my former friend and teammate. I hate him with that surface-of-the-sun hot kind of hate, and I wish, more than anything, that I could call my sister and tell her I get it now.
I understand hate.
And I’m sorry.
3
Ashley
I heard about all the times the defendant told people what a nice kid he is. He said it to the police. He said it to everybody at school. He told the press, and he told this court, “I’m a nice kid from a nice family. I don’t need to rape anybody.” That’s because he thinks rapists are scary people in masks who attack in the middle of the night. Victor is much more dangerous than that. The nice kid from the nice family? That’s Victor’s mask.
—Ashley E. Lawrence, victim impact statement
NOW
BELLFORD, OHIO
Locked inside the bathroom stall, I try hard to control myself, to prevent this news from launching me into a full-scale meltdown, but I’m failing spectacularly. My limbs shake, and my heart gallops, and I am so cold, it’s like I’ve never felt warmth. But the worst part is my chest—the pressure, the burn just trying to move air. It hurts so bad, you try to stop breathing, even though you need air or you’ll pass out.
Passing out is actually preferable to another anxiety attack. I haven’t had one in so long. I used to have them pretty much every day. I finally got to a point where I could get through a day and then a week without one. It was progress, Dr. Joyce said. Slow and steady.
And then they bring back football, and now I have to start all over again.
How? How could they do this to me?
I try telling myself it’s not personal. It’s for the good of the school. The Bengals were on a winning streak two years ago.
Only it is.
Personal, I mean.
It’s just the latest in a long list of betrayals that started with my brother.
When Andre looked at me earlier in class, I could practically see the comic book thought bubble appear over his head saying, “You lose, bitch!”
Bitch has been his favorite name for me since freshman year.
The names I’ve been called over the past couple of years don’t even register anymore. They’re just blips on the radar screen of a wreckage so widespread, I’m kind of surprised I’m still here. There were threats called to our house, to Dad’s garage. There was all kinds of harassment. Property destruction. A restraining order against Victor—not my idea, but my dad’s. Oh, and let’s not forget the righteous condemnation for canceling football from half the stupid team’s parents, whose chorus of “My son would never do that, so why must he pay?” was sung loud and often.
What nobody wants to admit, what nobody wants to talk about, is me.
I was…raped.
God! I hate that word, hate saying it, hate thinking it, hate how people talk about it and how they don’t. I hate how it feels on my tongue, and I hate most of all how it just gets worse every time I say it, like a knife in my back. It’s been two years!
Rape. Rape. Rape. Stab. Stab. Stab.
The first time I said the word, the world didn’t end, but I wish it had.
Most of the time, I avoid the word completely. I know it’s really stupid, but I kind of feel like saying it somehow conjures up evil…like saying Voldemort.
Talking about it keeps making it real, and I don’t want it to be real. Like I said. I lie to myself a lot.
I guess we’re not supposed to ever get comfortable using a word like that. Maybe that’s the point.
But it did happen. It is real.
I shut my eyes, squeeze them closed, and try my best not to see my brother’s face, but I do. And on it, I see the same expressions I just saw on Andre’s face…on Bruce’s. That’s another problem with the word. Every time I use it, I mourn for what I lost, what was stolen from me. Can you mourn something you didn’t even know was there? I don’t know that, either.
These are the questions that keep me awake at night.
But I do mourn for my brother. Oh, sure. He’s not dead. But he may as well be for all the distance there is between us.
A sob leaks out of my mouth, and I clap both of my shaking hands over it.
This can’t start again. Football. It’s supposed to be just a game. But those guys—guys like Victor and Derek. They think because they win some games, they deserve to get anything they want, that they’re heroes and gods who deserve adoration that they can just take even when it’s not offered.
Hell to
the no.
I’m two years older now and a whole lifetime wiser. They want to play ball? They’ll have to get by me first. I won’t let it happen again. I’m not a little girl anymore.
Victor Patton made sure of that.
• • •
“How, Mr. McCloskey?” I demand, standing in the principal’s office. I’m supposed to be at lunch, but I can’t eat. I have trig class after lunch, and I don’t really care what the sine of theta is and doubt I will by the time the bell rings.
“Ms. Lawrence,” he says, taking off his glasses. “I understand how you feel—”
“Really?” I snap back. “How did you get over your rape?”
He jerks in his large chair, the leather squeaking. His face has gone white.
I’m gonna be grounded until I’m thirty.
But instead of picking up the phone to call my parents, he holds up both hands and nods. “Forgive me for that unfortunate choice of words. What I mean is, I understand your disappointment.”
Disappointment. That’s as bad as Mom’s upset this morning.
“Mr. McCloskey, disappointment is getting a C on some assignment that deserved an A. This is not disappointment. This…this is DEFCON One for me.”
“Again, I understand—” He presses his lips together and lowers his dark eyes, trying to find the right thing to say. “We canceled the entire program after your…after what happened to you. We launched a full investigation and have made numerous staff changes since then. But I have a responsibility to the entire school body.”
Responsibility. Ri-i-ght. “Let me guess. The school needs the money from ticket sales.”
Oh my God, who am I?
Irritation glints in his eyes, and then he inclines his head. “Ashley. The fact is, these are talented athletes who deserve their shots at scholarships to top schools.”