Saving Barrette

by Shey Stahl

  I can’t believe what she’s saying. And I refuse to let her think I wouldn’t risk it all for her. I move toward her and kneel in front of her. I slide my hands up her thighs and wait for her to look at me. “Everything that’s happened to you, that’s not fucking fair, Barrette. Your ability to say no was taken from you. I’m fully capable of making my own decisions. And I choose you. Every goddamn time, I choose you.”

  It takes her a moment before she finally realizes what I’m saying, but when she does, emotion floods her face, her hands grasping my face to pull me to her.

  I may not have any control over what happens with Roman, but I can control what happens between me and Barrette.

  “Are you sure we should move in together? I mean, I can always get an apartment off campus or something but for me and you… is that what you want?”

  My arms circle around her waist. “It’s what I want. I want to know you’re safe. This way I can control it. We can have separate rooms if you feel it’s moving too fast.”

  She arches an eyebrow, a giggle working its way through her. “Yeah, right.”

  I have to laugh myself. “It wouldn’t be easy, and I’d probably sleep on the floor in your room every night, but I’d do it for you.”

  Barrette slides to the edge of the bed and then onto my lap, her arms around my shoulders. “Today, in class, I wanted the world to stop when he sat next to me. But when I saw you, I realized it didn’t matter what happened. I had to save you, just like you saved me.” Her right hand slips off my shoulder and touches my cheek. I lean into her warm touch. “Together, I know we can get through this. Off campus. I can’t be here anymore than I have to.”

  “So you’ll move in with me?”

  She smiles. “Only if we get a king-size bed. I’m so tired of trying to sleep on this twin bed with you.”

  I wink. “I like the way you think. More room for activities.”

  She pushes against my shoulder. “You’re such a boy. I meant for sleeping.”

  My lips find hers when I whisper, “Sure you did.”

  This is one change I’m ready for.

  3 weeks later

  “No. We don’t need that.”

  “Are you crazy? That’s four dollars and thirty-eight cents an ounce.” He points at the label like I should know these things. “Look at the tags.”

  “You do not need brand name orange juice, Asa. If it has oranges in it, it’s orange juice.”

  Those are the remarks you hear when you’re grocery shopping with Terrell. He even makes me put back my Sour Patch Kids. It’s like going with my mom again and I strangely feel like a child when he schools me on how to read labels to find the best price for toilet paper. You don’t think about these things when you’re living in a dorm and everything is paid for.

  Now that I’m living off campus, I have to think about a food budget and things like remembering to pay the power bill. All worth it if you ask me to be away from the drama on campus. It seems everywhere we go now, Barrette is stared at and talked about. I don’t know how she manages to attend class without breaking down but every day she surprises me and keeps pushing forward.

  I pick up a bottle of laundry soap and put it in the cart, waiting for Terrell’s permission. He frowns and then looks at the shelf. “If we get the bigger bottle, it’s cheaper in the long run.”

  I groan. “You know what, next time I’m just giving you a list and you’re going by yourself.”

  He smiles and continues walking down the aisles with me. “I happen to enjoy grocery shopping. You just suck at it.”

  “I don’t suck at it. You’re impossible to please.” He glances down at the list in his hand the girls gave us and then stops in his tracks. “Oh, hell no. Are they serious?”

  I burst out laughing when I see what’s written. “I can’t wait to see what they say when you try to bring them the cheap version of tampons.”

  His frown deepens and it’s like he’s being asked to rip off his toenails. “Do you think we can just tell them they were sold out?”

  “Not likely.”

  “Then you grab them.”

  I cross my arms over my chest, smiling. “Nope. You’re the one that said you love grocery shopping.”

  Yep. We’re arguing next to the feminine products because neither one of us wants to put the tampons in the cart. Finally, it’s me who reaches for the box and tosses them in the cart. “You’re being ridiculous,” I tell him, wondering how he was raised by a single mom and feared tampons.

  “I don’t fear them,” he lies, pushing the cart forward into the frozen food section. He doesn’t let us buy fresh fruit. We have to buy frozen because apparently it’s a waste of money to buy fresh ones.

  “Bullshit.” While I stand next to the cold glass doors, uninterested in his rambling over the price of frozen fruit, a group of girl’s stroll past us, giggling and trying to capture our attention. “Can you reach that bag of blackberries for us?” One asks, motioning toward the top shelf. I recognize them from campus but I don’t know their names, or care for that matter.

  I reach for the bag and hand it to them. “Here you go.” They smile and flirt asking if I’m Asa Lawson. I nod. “I suppose I am,” I tell them, closing the door behind me. I’d rather stick my head inside the freezer behind me than have a conversation with anyone today.

  Thankfully they leave after telling us good luck in the upcoming game.

  Halfway through the trip, our conversation shifts from my lack of money management, thank God, to the bowl game in a week. Everything is crazy at the moment and the bowl game is the last thing on my mind. It needs to be number one and it’s Terrell that reminds me of where my focus needs to be.

  “No matter how much you stress out about this, it’s not going to change the outcome,” he tells me, checking the price of pizza rolls. His downfall. He eats them every night after practice. “It’s out of your hands and hers.”

  He’s right. I can worry myself to death about what’s going to happen, but it’s not changing anything. I nod and try to focus on anything but Barrette and Roman. It’s useless. Like it or not, my thoughts are intent on making sure she’s okay through the entire process. I pushed her to file charges and if this breaks her, it’s on me.

  “She’s stronger than ya think, A.” He tosses a bag in the cart. “And I got your back. I’m not going to let anything happen to either one of you.”

  I also know what he’s implying. It’s not just Barrette’s case that’s bothering me. I fear our bowl game because our team isn’t the same since the rape charges became public knowledge. Not only is Barrette restricted from attending the game because of the restraining order, Roman holds a lot more clout on the team than I gave him credit for and like it or not, the dynamic changed the day of that fight on campus.

  “You’re the captain of the team and I guarantee you, they’ve got your back just the same.” I try to listen to him, but it’s distracting when he’s now searching through his coupons in his hand as we’re at the register. He hands me a stack. “Be useful. Look for the one on this shampoo. It’s in there somewhere.”

  To piss him off, right before the cashier reads the total, I toss a bag of Sour Patch Kids on the scale and hold my hands up. “Can’t take it back now. It’s already scanned.”

  He glares at me, which, if you knew Terrell, his glare is fucking intimidating as hell. “You just threw off my entire budget by 99 cents.”

  Remind me never to go with him again.

  The cashier smiles as she counts out the money Terrell hands her. He even gives her exact change.

  Back at the house, the girls are baking pies together. I have to admit, this part of living off campus and coming home to a house that smells like apple pie is totally worth it. Maybe not worth Terrell and his constant need to budget everything from our groceries to the exact amount of time we can spend in the shower every morning, but worth it to see Barrette’s face every night before I fall asleep.

  As we put away the gr
oceries, Joey holds up the box of tampons and laughs. “You can’t expect me to use these ones. Take them back. I don’t want a vagina full of cotton pieces.”

  His eyebrows raise fractionally. “Why would there be cotton pieces in your vagina?”

  Beside me, Barrette starts giggling, her cheeks tinted pink with embarrassment. “I can’t even believe we’re having this conversation.”

  “Because they’re cheap and the cotton in them doesn’t absorb. It just comes apart. Trust me, I’m a girl and I’ve tried them all.”

  Terrell shrugs. “They were a dollar cheaper than the Tampax brand. Just use them.”

  She tosses the box at his head. “Then you’re getting the cheaper version of sex next time.”

  “What’s the cheaper version of sex?” He stops what he’s doing and stares at her, a bag of whole carrots in his hand. He won’t let us buy baby carrots. Nope. You have to buy the whole ones and cut them down to baby sizes.

  Smiling at him, Joey makes a jacking off motion.

  He grabs the box and his receipt. “Fine. I’ll get the Tampax brand.”

  I pull the Sour Patch Kids from my pocket and send them Barrette’s way. “He’s a nightmare.”

  She laughs and eats the green ones. “You’re telling me. Last week he made me brush my teeth with toothpaste he made from scratch. It was awful and I still can’t feel my tongue.”

  I wrap my arm around her shoulder. “Is that pie for me?”

  She nods. “Yeah, it was to cheer you up.”

  “And I need cheering up because?”

  “My attorney called. The DNA results will be in Monday.”

  Heat hits my face, my blood pressure rising. I try to remember Terrell’s only advice today that made sense. Somewhere between his lecture on the price of tampons to the frozen fruit debates. What’s going to happen is going to happen. No amount of worrying is going to change the outcome of this. I had to trust that it was out of our hands and in the judge’s.

  “I’m fine,” I tell Barrette when she moves to hold my face in her hands.

  She searches my eyes. “You don’t look fine.”

  Leaning in, I press my lips to hers, the taste of sour sugar on both of ours. I swallow and try to compose my voice before I whisper, “It’s going to be okay.”

  She nods. “It will be. And we have pie.”

  “I asked him for vanilla ice cream,” Joey snaps, staring at the ice cream container of mint chocolate chip.

  I laugh. They have no idea what I went through today. “Mint chocolate chip was on sale. Vanilla wasn’t.”

  “That cheap bastard.” She glares at the pie in front of us. “How are we going to have ice cream with our pie now?”

  Barrette reaches into the back of the freezer to the ice cream she stashes in there. I only know this because it’s what the three of us do when Terrell’s sleeping and not policing us. “I say we make him eat pie with mint chocolate chip and we have the vanilla I bought last week.”

  We eat half the pie before he returns with the Tampax. Joey pushes a plate with pie and one scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream next to it. Do you think he eats it?

  Ha. He never admits defeat and despite his distaste for anything minty, he eats the pie with the ice cream.

  Joey sighs and puts the plate in the sink. “We’re gonna crack him someday guys.”

  I don’t share her optimism on this one.

  6 Months later

  When you hear the word rape, what do think of? Sexual assault, right?

  What do you see when you think of it? A man forcing a woman to have sex with him, am I right?

  It’s not always a man forcing a woman. Sometimes it’s a man forcing another man. Or a woman drugging a man.

  Let me tell you about the things you don’t hear. You don’t hear about the after. The “what happens next” part. Sure, there are stories of surviving, and some of them not. There’s strength and truth, and downright heroism in what women, and men, go through, but you rarely, if ever, see the in-between. The messy details that get pushed aside when the verdict is read.

  What I learn from the very beginning is that nothing happens right away. Even the warrant for arrest. It’s after Asa and I move off campus and into a house with Joey and Terrell. It happens two days after Roman is suspended by the NCAA, the day before the Fiesta Bowl. He’s not suspended because of the rape charges brought against him, but he’s withdrawn for a year from competition after failing a drug test. Somehow it makes me feel like testing positive for cocaine trumps rape. Because in this case, it does.

  My case goes to trial. It’s drawn out and unnecessary.

  And then came the messy parts that involve detectives and prosecuting attorneys and a male judge who just so happens to be a huge fan of college football. It’s hard to stomach, and even harder to endure the favoritism and the downright fucking lies his attorney tells the jury to convince them that given his status as an athlete, I targeted him and asked for it.

  “It was consensual sex,” Roman’s attorney explains to the jury as he attempts to solidify their case.

  “If you think what I looked like after that night was consensual, I’d hate to be your wife,” I tell them.

  He has the nerve to push back with “What did you look like?”

  “Look at the pictures taken by the sexual assault nurse. I dare you.”

  The jury sees the photographs taken that night in the hospital. And for the first time, I did too. Though I hadn’t prepared to see myself so vulnerable and on display for the entire court room, it isn’t me I’m worried about in those moments. It’s Asa. The anguish, the rage, the yelling at the bailiff when he’s escorted out, I hate that he had to hold me through all that and now see it again.

  The sexual assault forensic exam I had, the one that humiliated me, came back with three different DNAs. One is, in fact, Roman’s.

  Did you think it was him? Did you want it to be? Or did you pray, please, don’t be him? I think in some ways, I thought all of the above.

  He says I asked for it and verbally told him yes.

  Even with the overwhelming amount of evidence and injuries conclusive to me being brutally raped, his attorney insists it’s consensual and that given my small frame, Roman might have been a little rough with me without meaning to.

  And yeah, Asa has to be detained, again, at this point.

  Honestly, I couldn’t believe the injustice I experienced in those first few days of the trial. It was no wonder women didn’t report sexual assault if this was the treatment they received.

  Unfortunately for me, this is how Roman’s attorney paints a picture of me.

  I flirted so I asked for it.

  I drank so obviously I was making poor judgments.

  I willingly took drugs, so it’s okay.

  I told him I wanted it, so it was his word against mine.

  As the trial moves forward, they accuse me of targeting a star athlete and Roman refuses to cooperate with who else was present and state multiple times, “I don’t know who was there. It was just me. We had sex, she was fine, and I don’t know what happened to her after that.”

  Later, his story changes. He knows who was there. He just, you know, forgot he knew the other two men. I’m horrified to know the other two other guys took turns with me, because why not? She’s unconscious, she won’t remember.

  Three times throughout the trial, Asa is detained and eventually banned from the courtroom because of his outbursts when he finds out the other two men who raped me were in fact, the ones who helped him carry me to the car after he found me. I didn’t know them up until the trial, but when I see Greg, and the tattoo on his hand, that’s when I knew where the memory came from.

  For a while I thought maybe it had been Xander, but it wasn’t. He willingly took a DNA test. I never knew Xander to be that kind of guy. He could be a douche, but a rapist? Truth is, I don’t think there is any single trait to define a rapist. I certainly never thought Roman would be one.

 
; And then comes the verdict because that’s the part that matters, right? That’s the part of all this when you find out who is guilty, and who is simply a victim of circumstance.

  Six months from the day I stepped foot in the Olympia Police Department, a jury finds Roman Winslow guilty of aggravated sexual assault and sentences him to three years in jail. He’s required to register as a sex offender for life. He’s suspended from UW and had his scholarship revoked. His football career is over.

  But it’s not enough.

  Nothing is enough when I look the judge in the face at the sentencing where he overrules the jury and he says the words, “Low-risk to re-offend,” and gives him one year in county jail and three years of probation.

  Probation. That’s like fucking detention. Asa loses his shit on the judge, nearly costs him his own scholarship and career, but if you ask me, it’s justified for us to feel this way. Toby and Greg, they receive a maximum sentence of five years. They, in many ways, take the fall for Roman.

  Even after all that, the pain, the reminders, the anxiety and the depression that follows, it’s unbearable. Though I don’t know how, I manage to continue on. I keep pushing forward. I go to therapy, and I go again, and the next day, and the day after that. I talk to Joey. I talk to Cadence—who testifies against Roman. I talk to Remy—who also testifies against him. I talk to two other cheerleaders who came forward that they, in fact, don’t remember, but think something might have happened in Roman and Codey’s dorm room. None of that matters because in this case, the justice system failed me. They failed us. They failed women all over the world because regardless of being guilty, justice doesn’t always follow.

  And finally, I talk to my boyfriend. I let Asa hold me at night. I confide in him and let him help me through it all. I don’t turn away from him and I keep moving forward. It’s not easy. There are still days when it’s too much. Days when I think I can’t take this any longer. I also have days when the nightmares are so bad I can’t sleep. Before they had no face, and now that they do, it’s terrifying.