by Kelley York
I hit the mute button and take a deep breath, which spurs her into looking at me curiously. “Am I bothering you?”
“No,” I say quickly. I don’t know how to get out the rest without simply blurting it. “Brett raped Callie Wheeler.”
Even without directly staring at her, I can see from the corner of my gaze how Mom’s mouth opens and her eyes widen in shock. “What?”
I refuse to let it sting that she sounds so surprised that Brett would do such a thing while she was willing to immediately believe that I had. I’m trying to let that go. “He raped her while this guy named Patrick took pictures. I th-think the cops have already taken Patrick in.” By now, maybe they’ve gone to Brett’s, too. I’m not sure how to find out.
Mom presses a hand to her chest, slowly turning her head back to the TV. She has no idea what to say. Not that I blame her. I don’t know what to say, either. What can be said?
Eventually she offers, softly, “I’m so sorry, Victor.”
I mean to say it’s okay, but the words get stuck in my throat, because it isn’t feeling very okay right now.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The next morning, Mom keeps me home from school. I might stress out about the missed classes this close to finals, but I got a phone call late last night from Detective Carter, asking if I could come in sometime this morning, and I wasn’t exactly going to say no.
Mom drives us to the station. It’s the first time I’ve been here, seeing as they took my initial statement at the clinic, and I almost feel more nervous now than I did then. If that’s even possible. I haven’t gotten a text back from Autumn yet about what happened at Callie’s, and I didn’t want to call and bug her in case she had other things going on. For that matter, it took a lot for me not to text Brett to find out what’s happening on his end. I don’t know that he’d even answer.
I wonder if I’ll ever see my best friend again outside of a courtroom or prison.
Sherrigan comes into the lobby and beckons me into the back, instructing Mom to wait for us. I leave my phone with Mom in case Autumn texts or calls. Sherrigan sits me down in a small, quiet room with a tape recorder and a notepad, and asks me questions with the same unimpressed tone of voice as he did last time. How did I come to find out about Patrick? What happened during our conversation? What happened when I spoke to Brett? He focuses a lot on Brett, actually. Which makes sense, I guess. I have to struggle to keep my sentences coherent and from reducing myself to a stuttering mess.
I don’t leave anything out. Everything from Autumn and me getting hold of Aaron’s phone, to going to Patrick’s before calling the police because we didn’t want to report false information. Sherrigan listens to everything I say with patience, and I’m exhausted by the time he reaches out to turn off the recorder.
“I think that’ll be all for now. If we need anything else, we’ll give you a call.”
The heels of my hands press into my eyes. At least this time, he was kind enough to give me a glass of water as a reward for sitting here for two hours. “H-have Patrick and Brett been arrested?”
He rises to his feet and gathers his papers, glancing at me. “I’m not really in a position to tell you that, seeing as Patrick is a minor. Though whether the court will try him as one, who knows.”
That doesn’t answer my question about Brett, but I leave it alone. I know contacting him won’t reflect well on me, but I can find out other ways, I’m sure.
Sherrigan leads me out of the room and back to the lobby. The moment I turn the corner, I see Callie and her parents seated across from where Mom is. I wonder if they even know who the other is.
Callie lifts her head and spots me. Her eyes go wide and she leaps from her chair, startling everyone with the speed in which she rushes to throw her arms around me. My chest constricts painfully. I remember the first day at Autumn’s apartment, the way Callie still seemed leery of me, and now this. How far we’ve come.
“I’m so sorry, Vic. I’m so, so sorry,” she whimpers, voice thick with tears.
“W-what do you mean?” I put my hands on her shoulders to nudge her back a little so I can look at her face. “Why w-would you be apologizing to me?”
Her big eyes are watery, and by the fact that she’s wearing eyeliner and mascara, I’m guessing she wasn’t expecting to be crying today. Girls seem to think ahead about these things. I can barely remember where I put my shoes when I try to leave the house.
“For everything,” she whimpers. “For accusing you, for Brett. I just found out when we got here…”
I open my mouth, waiting for her to calm herself down before trying to ask questions. “I th-thought Autumn went to tell you that it was him and Patrick yesterday.”
Callie’s parents step up behind her, and I can feel Sherrigan lingering behind me, Mom still by her chair but standing, all of them puzzled as to what’s going on. Callie draws her bottom lip into her mouth briefly, frowning. “Yeah, she did…and the police called me as soon as Patrick was arrested, but…”
Her mother murmurs to her, “Honey, he may not have heard.”
I feel like someone has dropped a pound of lead into my stomach. “Heard what?”
Callie looks at her parents and back at me. “Oh… Oh, God. Brett’s in the hospital.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“I see. Yes, thank you very much.”
Mom hangs up and lowers her phone, taking a deep breath. My eyes haven’t left her face the entire phone call, but judging by her tone, I’m guessing it’s not good. She leans back in the car seat and looks over at me.
“No, we can’t see him.”
“B-but did they say if h-he’s going to be okay?” I ask, voice wavering.
“They won’t tell me much. We aren’t family.”
We used to be, I think. Brett always felt like family. His parents felt like my parents. I look out the window and keep my silence, letting Mom drive us home without further questions.
Suicide: the action of killing oneself intentionally.
Attempted, in Brett’s case.
Callie didn’t know much. Or maybe I didn’t hear the words coming out of her mouth because all I could do was stare at her impossibly wide, teary eyes while she explained to me what she’d been told, but her voice seemed to go in and out of range.
After I left Brett’s house, he went down to his father’s office, took the lockbox out of his desk, removed the gun, and shot himself. He didn’t even bother trying to delete the photographs of Callie’s rape from his computer. He must have known there was no point.
The vision of his face is so vivid when I close my eyes. His terrified look of horror at the idea of his entire life, of everything he’s worked for, of perfection, going down the drain.
It’s past noon when we pull into the driveway. Stepping inside, Mom asks, “Are you hungry? Do you want lunch?”
“No, thanks,” I mumble, because I’m pretty sure anything I put in my stomach right now is going to come right back up.
Mom closes the door behind us. “Victor.”
Deep breath. Sigh. I turn around. “Yeah.”
She holds my phone out. Oh, I’d almost forgotten she had it. “You had a phone call.”
I take it mechanically. “Autumn?”
“No.” She studies my face. “From an elderly gentleman named Dave. He said he located your father.”
Every one of my veins floods with ice. Just when I thought the day couldn’t get worse… “What?”
“He said you left your number with him when you came to his house. He should be in your call log.”
The phone suddenly feels hot in my hands and I kind of want to throw it. I’m not sure what to say. “Mom, I wasn’t… I m-mean, I didn’t—”
She cuts me off with a raised hand. “Don’t. You’re old enough now. I can’t stop you from reaching out to him if you want to.”
I drag in a breath, feeling like I can’t quite get enough air. “I d-don’t know what I want. Everything’s been such a m
ess lately.” And if I’m honest— “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Mom steps closer until we’re toe to toe. I think maybe she wants to hug me, but she hasn’t done that in so long she’s probably forgotten how. Her smile is thin and obviously forced, but yet again I’m stumped by the fact that she’s even trying at all. “Everything is going to be all right.”
It isn’t really comforting. Not on a huge scale, anyway. But I’m able to give her a soft smile in return before retreating to my bedroom. All I want is to be alone. I don’t even plan on calling Autumn for a bit. I just need the silence.
My room feels eerily empty for some reason, like the lack of Brett’s presence is somehow palpable. I sit in the center of the floor, dragging a shoe box out from beneath the bed. Inside it are cards and photos. If I were to put them into piles of Mom, Brett, miscellaneous, Brett’s pile would easily be the largest. He wasn’t really the card-giving sort, but his mom always made sure I had one tucked into my birthday gifts each year. Most of the pictures are of the two of us.
I take the stack and begin placing them out. Grade school, middle school, high school. Interestingly enough, I don’t think I’d ever noticed that the number of photos we took together decreased the older we got. There is only a small handful of them from after eighth grade.
Is it possible that, somewhere along the line, Brett and I really did grow apart as friends? Was there a disconnect there I didn’t see?
Now I may never know.
Reminiscing isn’t making me feel better. If anything, I’m starting to feel angry. I take every picture, every card that reminds me of Brett, Mr. Mason, or Mrs. Mason, and shove it into the trash can next to my bed.
I want them gone. I want everything gone.
Two hours later, I finally dare to look at my phone. I have four missed texts from Autumn, asking if I’m okay, telling me to call her. I hesitate and decide that, first, I’m going to call back the old man from Dad’s place.
The number is the last one on my call log. It rings three times before a low voice answers, “Hello?”
“Hi, is this Dave? Th-this is Vic Howard, um.” Pause. How awkward. “I c-came by the other day looking for my dad?”
“Yeah, yeah. How you doing? I felt real bad you came all that way and I didn’t have any information for you, so I did some digging. I might’ve gotten a forwarding address, if you want it.”
Do I? Seems stupid to not take it in the event I want it eventually. Then again, it could be setting myself up for disappointment like last time. “Y-yes, please. That’d be great.”
Dave slowly reads out the address to me, spelling the street name with care and making sure I’ve gotten each letter correctly. N as in Nancy. C as in cat. Alternatively, he could’ve just said “North Carolina Street” and I would’ve gotten the idea, but I don’t interrupt him.
I thank Dave profusely before hanging up, stare at the address for a while, and tuck it into my pocket. Maybe I will go out for a walk.
Mom doesn’t protest when I let her know I’m leaving. I shoot Autumn a text—home. Ok. Going for a walk to park—and she must be waiting for me, because she answers back almost immediately, Company y/n? I give this some thought before replying yes.
She doesn’t have to ask which park. It’s the same one we went to before, and I sit on the benches, facing the jungle gym, recalling the pic on my phone of Autumn with her beautiful face and smile leaning over the railing. I close my eyes and breathe in deeply. Ever since stepping foot inside Brett’s house, I feel like someone is squeezing the air right out of me.
The sound of Autumn’s car rumbling into the parking lot reaches my ears after a while, but I don’t open my eyes just yet. Her door opens, closes, and the steady rhythm of her footsteps approaches…and then fades. I finally look up in time to see her crawling to the top of the jungle gym.
She leans over the railing as I approach, her hands braced on the metal bar and her gaze fixed at some point beyond me.
I say, “Hey.”
Autumn takes a deep breath. “Callie told me what happened.”
“Figured she w-would.” Better her than me, because I’m not sure I could have gotten the words out.
After a moment, she tips her chin down to look at me, gaze soft and sad. “I’m sorry, Vic. I’m so, so sorry.”
She sounds it. Because I know now that for as much as Autumn wanted to protect her best friend, she had wanted to protect me, too. I close my eyes and count to three to calm my nerves. “How’s Callie?”
“She’s…you know. Up and down. Relieved, angry, happy, crying, sad. Lots of mixed emotions.”
“I c-can understand that. Why are you up there?”
Her boot taps once on the wooden platform. “Because I’m debating.”
“D-debating what?”
“I’m not sure it’s really appropriate to talk about it right now.”
Nothing feels appropriate to talk about. Brett is half dead in a hospital room. Because of me. The fact that I’m even here and not at his side feels wrong on so many levels. I always knew the day would come when I’d be on my own, when Brett would outgrow me or go to college or move on and this is just…not how it was supposed to happen.
I don’t voice any of this to Autumn. “Go ahead.”
More hesitating. “At Patrick’s place…you kissed me.”
Heat rushes to my face. “Uh…y-yeah. I did. Sorry?” Am I supposed to apologize? Is that what this is about? She kissed me before that, after all.
“Don’t be dumb.” She turns away, the wind prodding at her long hair and brushing it across her soft face. “I just…wanted to know if you meant it, or if it was a heat-of-the-moment kind of thing. It’s fine if it was or whatever…” She takes one look at my expression, blushes, and turns away. “Like I said, not the best time to talk about it.”
Honestly, maybe it is the best time. Because it’s the first time I’ve felt even a sliver of hope or warmth since seeing that text from Patrick, since ruining my best friend’s life. “Guess we never really finished the conversation about what it meant. Did you want me to mean it?”
Autumn scoffs, looking almost offended by my question. She disappears into the enclosed tube slide, which opens right at my feet, so I turn and when she reaches the bottom, I put my hands on her knees to slow her descent so the slide doesn’t drop her ass-first onto the sand.
Autumn doesn’t miss a beat with this. Her fingers grab the front of my shirt and drag me in until my mouth is against hers and I have to hold on to the edge of the slide to keep from falling forward completely onto her.
It isn’t some big, romantic, movie-like kiss. It’s clumsy and spontaneous and wind-chapped, but I wouldn’t think it anything but perfect with the way her lips part against mine, coaxing me along and warming me from head to toe. When she draws away, she stares at me like I’m stupid as she says, “What do you think, genius?”
I wet my lips. “Not entirely sure.”
“Yeah? Then let’s try that again.”
She pulls me closer again until I have to kneel on the slide and brace my hands on the overhang of the tube. This time, it’s a little more real. This time, I’m at least not caught entirely off guard, so I can lean in to kiss her back, to savor the way she doesn’t just kiss with her mouth, but her whole body, with her hands on my chest and in my hair, like she wants to wrap herself around me and can’t get close enough. And I need this, want this, something that can push away the pain and the guilt to make room for something that doesn’t hurt so damned much.
When we break apart, her hands are cupping my face and I think I might pass out from not remembering to breathe, or because she stole my breath away. If I wanted to be so cliché. Her thumb strokes my cheek and there’s so much affection in such a tiny gesture that it makes my insides flutter. “How was that? A little better?”
I smile crookedly, still with my head lost in the clouds somewhere between disbelief and awe. “Yeah. Think so.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
It’s the first week Callie has been at school every day and hasn’t gone home early. I’m proud of her. And while I still sometimes notice something a little off about her demeanor, and I know the whispers still going around school are reaching her ears, she holds her chin higher and refuses to let it get to her. Autumn smiles and says it’s because she isn’t afraid of running into some invisible monster anymore.
I’m glad for that, although the more pessimistic part of me thinks there are still others out there. Other monsters. Men and women who would take advantage of Callie or anyone else just like Brett and Patrick did.
This is not a thought I voice to Autumn or Callie. We have a couple weeks of school left for the seniors, my grades have been slipping throughout all this, and I have work to do in order to catch them up. Any of the whispers I happen to hear about Brett will need to be tucked away for later processing, because I can’t afford to deal with it now.
Rumors are rampant about his botched suicide attempt. Someone said he tried to hang himself and the rope snapped but left him brain damaged. Someone else said he tried to OD. I don’t correct them, mainly because I don’t know the whole story, either. Aaron asks me about it in the hall on Tuesday, and others ask me throughout the week. Different stories altogether are cropping up in the local papers.
Craig Roberts even got a new story after sneaking into the hospital, making it past the nurses, and snapping a photo of Brett’s room before they caught him and hauled his ass away. Not that you could make out much anyway, but it was the thought of it that left cold butterflies in my stomach.
Sometimes I wonder if I could slip into the hospital to visit, then I think about how his parents are probably by his side, how I’m not family so they’d never let me in, how Mr. Mason probably told the staff to keep me, specifically, out. So much for the family I thought I had.
Autumn helps me study after school and stays for dinner a few times. She promises once school is over and my head is on a bit straighter, I’ll be going to her house to meet her parents, which is one thing I’m more than happy to put off for now. One nerve-racking thing at a time.