Someone I Used to Know

by Patty Blount

  No! I’m screaming inside. She has it wrong, all wrong. But I can’t shove the words out.

  “You said you couldn’t look at me. I can’t believe you have the balls to attack Dad for blaming me after that.”

  Slowly, I lift my head and look at her now.

  I see it.

  The answer. The solution. The key to fixing everything that I broke.

  It’s in her eyes, dark and round and filled with hate. Shivering, I stand up.

  “You’re right,” I tell her quietly. My voice is nothing more than a scrape of sandpaper on wood. “I said all those things.”

  Mom’s groan is so deep, I think we all feel it down to our bones. Dad slumps into a chair, and Justin stands frozen by the dining room entry.

  I stumble toward the door and turn back for another look. I make it a good one.

  It’ll be my last.

  “But you’re wrong about what I meant. I didn’t blame you. Not then, not now. I blamed me, Ash. Me.” I thump a hand to my chest. “I didn’t know how to handle it, how to express it, how to even think about it. So I got mad. And I’m sorry for it. I’ll never be able to tell you how much. I love you, and I know you don’t believe that, but I do. Always.”

  I grab the coat and the bags I left near the front door and walk out.

  Nobody follows.

  • • •

  I have a speech to make in like three hours, but first, I head to Brittany’s house and just stand outside for a long time. Damn, I love this girl. Who knew? Shaking my head, I almost laugh. Instead, I dig into my bag and pull out the present I bought her. Britt’s birthday is coming up. It’s a few days after Thanksgiving.

  I put a lot of thought into this gift. I planned to put on nice clothes, take her out for a really great dinner, and give her the words that make every girl smile. Instead, I tuck the small box and card just inside the front door, where she’ll be sure to see it. A noise makes me panic, so I hide, melting into the shadows where all the other monsters live.

  It’s Brittany. She opens the door, sees the gift, and smiles, her teeth shining in the darkness. She almost spots me.

  Almost.

  “Derek? Derek!” She looks up and down the street, but I’m here, right here, and she can’t see me. I think that’s been the problem all along. She can’t see me for what I really am just like the court couldn’t see Victor for what he is. She shakes her head and goes back inside the house, carrying the present.

  Inside the house, lights blaze from different windows, a TV is on, and music plays. It’s happy here. Happy is good.

  “Bye, Britt,” I say to the closed door. I turn and head back the way I came because it’s so fucking clear I don’t belong here. And then I slink away, alone.

  Better get used to it.

  I need to leave.

  I’ve known it for a while now. Tonight. Leave my family. Leave my life. I can’t fix what I broke. I’m not sure anything or anybody can.

  But I can give them peace. I can give Ashley space without me in it, constantly reminding her. Hurting her.

  I head into town and duck into a Starbucks and use my phone to set up an Uber ride to get me to Columbus for the big GAR speech. Jeez, isn’t that ironic. Me? Speaking to families of rape survivors? Hey, check me out, everybody! I’m the poster child for exactly what not to do.

  I’m next in line when I see a familiar figure bent over a laptop. Alone, at a table in the back corner, a girl drinks from a tall cup, hands wrapped in fingerless gloves. Her hair’s different, longer than I remember. But I still know her, even without seeing the name written on the cup.

  “Hey, Dakota.”

  Her head snaps up, and her mouth opens.

  “Mind if I sit?”

  She doesn’t answer me. She just stares.

  Old Me would have sat anyway. New Me remains on my tired and cold feet. “I’m sorry,” I blurt out with no prep work. “For what I did two years ago.”

  Dakota’s face shows shock then scorn. “Really.”

  I open my mouth to defend myself and then reconsider. I can’t really blame her, given my priors where she’s concerned. I nod and try again. “Yes. Really. I’m going to school in New York. We held a Take Back the Night rally. Ever heard of it?”

  The scorn on her face goes back to shock, and I wish I could remember how to laugh because it should be funny how she has only two gears where I’m concerned. “Yeah. I’ve been to a couple.”

  “A couple?” Now it’s my turn for shock. “I barely survived the one.” Before she can skewer me with the response I can see she’s dying to give, I plow ahead. “I was a total ass to you. My parents found out about the item on my scavenger hunt list. You know the one with—”

  “Yeah. I remember.” Her face goes red, and she darts an anxious glance around the shop.

  “They pointed out that treating you like that was incredibly offensive.”

  For the first time, she looks at me with interest. Encouraged, I keep going. “I kept telling them you let me. That you said yes. But they…” I suck in a deep breath and stare her right in the eyes. “It wasn’t—I wasn’t honorable, and for that, I’m sorry.”

  She watches me carefully, her expression giving nothing away. I shift uncomfortably, but I remain standing.

  “Derek, did Ashley put you up to this?” she finally asks. She’s a grade ahead of Ashley, and I wonder if they’re friends. Probably not, since Ashley isn’t exactly social these days.

  “No, I—” I shove both hands into my jacket pockets and stare down at the floor. “I treated you like crap. I’m sorry.”

  She’s still staring at me with those dark, unreadable eyes, and then she nods. “Okay.”

  Okay? That’s all she says. She doesn’t invite me to join her. Doesn’t say a word. After a minute, I nod awkwardly.

  “Um. So have a great Thanksgiving.” I turn my back to rejoin the line at the counter.

  “You must be really proud of Ashley.”

  I turn back and angle my head.

  “She’s doing amazing work,” she adds, waving a hand.

  “Yeah,” I agree, happy to talk about something other than my sins. “I heard about BAR.”

  “BAR’s great. But her artwork is getting noticed.”

  “Artwork?” I echo. I haven’t heard a word about any artwork.

  Dakota shows me what’s on her laptop. It’s a Huffington Post page that says “Bellford High School Rape Victim Turns to Pinterest to Combat Rape Culture.”

  I lean in and study the screen.

  “She hasn’t told you.” Dakota sits back in her chair and takes a sip from her cup. “You should look it up. She, like, just started it, and already it’s getting tons of hits.” She shoves back from her chair and collects her laptop and cup and her purse. “You can sit now.” At the door, she turns back and stares me right in the eye. “Thanks for the apology.”

  I sink into the chair I’ve been gripping this entire time while she disappears around the corner. Points. Those damn points, every single one of them, flip in my mind, a virtual Jumbotron scoreboard. I used a girl to try to win a stupid game. There’s literally no apology big enough to make that right.

  I tug my laptop from my bag and log on to the free Wi-Fi to click over to Ashley’s Pinterest board. Once again, I’m blown away by her rock-solid convictions. And once again, I hate myself a little bit more because I never noticed the things she sees.

  She named the board “Before & After.” It’s full of images from ads and commercials, songs, news headlines, and videos. All of them bear the caption, “Instead of That, How About This?”

  The work is bold. She doesn’t pull any punches but digs right in and circles everywhere the source material insults, offends, and perpetuates the things my GAR group calls rape culture. There are a bunch of pins about Victor’s release. I open
one where the headline reads “Bengals Football Player Released from Prison in Time for Holidays.” Ashley drew a single line through some of the words, changing it to read “Convicted Sex Offender Released from Prison after Serving Only Sixteen Months of a Two-Year Sentence.”

  The next one I open shows a magazine ad for a department store. The original ad reads “Spike Your Best Friend’s Eggnog When They’re Not Looking.” She changed it to read “Watch Your Best Friend’s Eggnog So She Makes It Home Safely.”

  Oh, God.

  I shut my eyes for a minute and then keep reading. She’s got a bunch of these pins posted, and they totally wreck me not because they’re offensive—and they are—but because the Derek I was two years ago never would have noticed.

  I click over to my Facebook page and start scrolling through photos—mine, Ashley’s, Justin’s, and Mom’s. There are hundreds. Pictures from holidays, from school, my games, Justin’s robotics club competitions—happy family photos from a happy family.

  God.

  Our whole life story is posted up there. I download a series of pictures. Mom is crazy with family pictures. There are so many to choose from, but I don’t need them all. It takes me ages, but I finally narrow down the field to just six.

  And then I start editing. I’m pretty good with graphics software and even thought about becoming a video game designer once. One after the other, I edit. It’s surprisingly easy to change history.

  Just crop.

  Erase.

  Hide.

  Blur.

  Delete.

  When I’m finally done, I sit back and examine my work, nodding. I add some captions, zip them up, and email them to Ashley for her board. A horn honks outside. My ride’s here. Time for me to go convince a bunch of guys that we can undo a couple hundred years of wrongheaded thinking.

  27

  Ashley

  I’ve been seeing a therapist to help me deal with all the guilt and shame I feel every time someone throws a rock through our window or leaves a disgusting message on our answering machine. She tells me to do two things. First, tell myself over and over again that it’s not my fault. And second, avoid the things that trigger bad memories and cause anxiety attacks. I always tell her it’s hard to do that when the biggest trigger is your own body.

  —Ashley E. Lawrence, victim impact statement

  NOW

  BELLFORD, OHIO

  Time stops when Derek walks out.

  He never looks back. He doesn’t even dramatically slam the door.

  He just leaves. Nothing but empty space where he stood a second ago.

  We all stare at Mom, arms stretched toward the door, hoping that he’ll walk back inside and say something stupid like, “Can’t get rid of me that easily.”

  But…

  Nothing.

  The really messed-up part is that I don’t know how I feel about this. I’m still bleeding from Dad’s big revelation about forgiving me, still wobbly after passing out during that last anxiety attack—thanks a lot, Derek—and now this. I ache because Mom looks like somebody just died, and Justin looks like he wants to vomit.

  I burrow deeper into the sofa and curl my legs under me. Dad stands by the dining room, his eyes shifting from me to the front door and back again. Justin is the first one to move. He walks over to me and smooths the hair back from my face.

  “Better?”

  I nod.

  “Good.” He sits on the coffee table to face me. “You need to fix this, Ashley.”

  “Justin—” Mom turns to him, but he shakes his head.

  “No, Mom. This needs to stop. Ash, I’m serious. You’ve punished him long enough. Let it go.”

  I stare at him in total disbelief.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he continues. “Nobody understands. Nobody gets what you’ve been through. You’re right. We don’t. We can’t.” He spreads his hands apart and lets them fall with a slap against his legs. “But you don’t understand what we’ve been through, either.”

  I open my mouth, but he cuts me off before I can argue.

  “Ashley, just listen.”

  Fine. I drop my head back and let him speak.

  “You don’t understand how it broke us, all of us, to know what happened to you. What was done to you. I kept thinking, maybe if I was home more, it wouldn’t have happened. Maybe if you and I were closer, it wouldn’t have happened. But it did. After, when you came home, we all had to learn how to help you, how to make sure you knew you were safe, knew you were loved, and we’ve done that, Ashley. But you need to try, too.”

  “Are you kidding me right now?” I demand. “Try? Try what, exactly?” My voice grows louder as I talk. “Try to pretend everything’s fine, that I’m fine? Well, I’m not, and I never will be again.”

  “You can if you want to!” he shouts back. “That’s the whole problem. You don’t want to. You keep looking at the past, trying—no. Insisting that we all change it. The trial didn’t go your way, the sentence sucked, and you know what? It cannot be changed.” He lets that sink in for a minute, and I’m shaking.

  “Ashley, the only thing you can change is yourself, but you won’t even try. You want to punish Derek for the rest of his life for a couple of mean things he said to you, and I’m sorry, Ashley, but you can’t. He’s our brother. I’m not choosing you over him.”

  “So you’ll choose him over me? Nice, Justin. Real nice.”

  “Damn it, Ashley, you still don’t get it. I’m not choosing at all! I want my whole family.”

  “Yeah, well, I want to be an only child, how’s that?”

  He recoils like I just kicked him in the teeth. He drops his head into his hands and stands up. “You know what? Maybe that can be arranged.” He grabs his coat from the hook near the door and walks out.

  When the door clicks shut after him, I am afraid to look at Mom and Dad. Mom just stands in the same place she’s been in since I opened my eyes—frozen in shock.

  Dad moves first, walking across the room, putting his arms around her, pulling her against him. She shoves him back with a tortured moan and runs up the stairs. Dad’s arms, still open, hang there, empty. A minute later, he too grabs his coat and leaves the house.

  Three for three.

  I pull myself up on shaky legs. I have cleaning to do. Two rooms of it. As I stand, the cool towel Derek pressed to my head falls to the floor in a heap. I pick it up and stare at it for a long time. I feel nothing.

  Absolutely nothing.

  I should feel bad. Or guilty. Or even angry.

  But there’s nothing. Just a numb hollowness so vast, I swear there’s an echo with each breath.

  In the dining room, I grab the bowls of meatballs and spaghetti, wrap them in plastic wrap, and try to shove them in the refrigerator, but there’s no room. A giant turkey takes up a ton of space. Sighing, I transfer the leftovers to plastic containers and find room in the freezer instead. I collect all the dishes and flatware and load them into the dishwasher. It takes me close to forty minutes to clean up the dining room and kitchen. When it’s finally clean, I step back and examine my work.

  Perfect.

  There’s no evidence, no chalk outline, not even a single drop of spilled blood to tell you a whole family just disintegrated in here.

  I slap both hands over my mouth to kill the sob and just let the tears come. I indulge myself for a long time, and then my phone buzzes.

  And buzzes.

  And buzzes.

  Impatient, I tug it out of my pocket. A string of text messages waits for me, most from Brittany and a couple from Sebastian.

  Brittany: Ash, I’m worried about Derek. Look what he left for me.

  There’s a picture attached to the message. Derek’s scrawl across a birthday card makes me frown. Brittany, I bought this when I thought I had something to offer you.
I know better now, but I can’t return it and can’t give it away, so keep it and remember me when my heart was full of love for you. I’m leaving and won’t be back. I’m sorry. Goodbye.

  Brittany: Ash, call me! I’m really worried. Is he suicidal?

  What? Derek, suicidal? No. No way.

  But apprehension skates up my back. Is he?

  I sink into one of the dining room chairs and try to think.

  You’re wrong, he’d said. I blamed me.

  His face was red, so red he looked like he might stroke out. His eyes, the eyes I used to be so jealous I didn’t inherit, held no sparkle, no life. They were flat and empty, except during dinner, when he’d yelled at Dad. Then, they’d been full of rage. There is nothing to forgive! he’d yelled at Dad.

  I gasp. How did I miss it? I was so friggin’ angry at him, I couldn’t see it. I didn’t see it. Derek meant it. Growing up, Derek said so many things he never meant. He used to toss around Sorry, Ashleys like they were his football and then stick out his tongue or shrug his shoulders the second Mom turned her back.

  But this time, he meant it.

  And I didn’t fucking see it.

  I stare at the phone clutched in my hands like it’ll tell me where I messed up or how to fix this, but all it does is display an email alert from my brother.

  Hi Ashley,

  I am sorry. I know you don’t believe that, and I also know you never can. So I’m taking off. Thought you might like these for your Pinterest board. It’s really good work. Bye, April.

  I open the zip file. Inside, there are six images that I recognize. One picture is from a pumpkin picking day trip we took back when I was about ten maybe. Justin, Derek, and I are standing in a huge field surrounded by pumpkins, each of us holding our pick.

  But in this version, Derek is gone.

  The photo is Justin and me, with more pumpkins between us. I click through all six pictures. It’s the same thing. Where we were once three, there are now only two. But it’s the last picture that does me in.