by Mia Storm
I twist to look at him over my shoulder. “You’ve got my ATM and the credit card. Just take care of yourself.”
“Shit,” he says under his breath, then louder. “Fucking shit!”
I hear him banging down the stairs behind us. “Go inside, Chris.” When he just stands there at the bottom of the stairs, his expression a mask of shock as the uniformed cop presses on my head and lowers me into the backseat of the waiting cruiser, I resort to the lie I promised myself I wouldn’t tell. “It’s going to be fine.”
He stands there shaking his head as Detective Diaz asks if I understand my rights. I nod even though I didn’t hear a word.
Very few of my neighbors come out to watch the spectacle. Even the bangers who are always in the parking lot are gone. Most of them probably have outstanding warrants, so they aren’t going to push their luck. But I see tattered blinds being bent further out of shape as they watch from their crack house windows.
This is it, I think to myself as the cop slams the door on any future I might have had. This is where my whole life derails.
I slump low in my seat and loll my head against the window. But just as I’m closing my eyes, I see a silver Mini Cooper race past and skid to a stop in front of my apartment. As the cruiser takes a corner, I catch the briefest glimpse of long sable hair emerging from the driver’s door right where Chris is still standing.
I drop my head against the headrest and swallow the hot lump in the back of my throat. Because I still don’t regret a minute with her.
Chapter 17
Blaire
I nearly knock a guy standing at the bottom of Caiden’s stairs over as I bolt for his apartment, but I’m only halfway up the stairs when I see the door is hanging wide open.
“Caiden!” I call, panic making my voice thick.
“He’s gone,” the guy says, turning toward me. He looks shell-shocked, his eyes glassy and his jaw hanging slack. He’s tall and lanky. Somewhere between Caiden and Marcus, and his dirty blond hair is cut short.
I turn and descend a stair, trying to convince myself Caiden took my advice and ran. “What do you mean, gone?”
He shakes his head and blinks a few times, seeming to regain his footing. “Are you Blaire?”
I nod, my bloodstream suddenly full of ice water. “Where is he?”
He starts up the stairs. “Come on in.”
I move to the side as he passes and as I get a closer look at his face, I recognize the mouth, lips the color of coral and fuller on the left. “Chris.”
It’s not a question, but he slows and nods.
I follow him up the stairs and close the door as he goes to the kitchen. “I’ve got coffee, Coke…” He opens the fridge and peers inside. “OJ?”
“Coffee is good,” I say. I realize how hard I’m shaking when I hear it in my voice.
He pours a couple of cups and pushes one across the island to me.
I move across the room and take it.
“You’re the one who got him into this,” he says over the top of his mug.
I nod, still not trusting my voice. He’s right to hate me. I hate myself.
But as he walks past me and drops onto the sofa, he looks aggravated but not particularly mad.
“I’m sorry,” I manage after a long swallow of coffee.
His eyes snap to mine. “Caiden’s not.”
I don’t know what to say to that. I move to the sofa and sit on the end away from him, focusing all of my attention on the dark liquid swirling in the mug, as if the key to everything lays in the non-existent leaves at the bottom, and I could see it if I looked hard enough.
“Listen,” he says into the awkward silence. “Caiden didn’t tell me a whole lot about what happened between you two, but he’s a pretty level headed guy. If he took the risk, he must have decided you were worth it.”
I look up at him and find eyes more blue and less storming than Caiden’s looking back at me. But the shape is the same, as is the depth in them.
I clear my throat. “He said this was going to happen. He asked me to stay away from him.”
“But then he came to you because he couldn’t stay away. He told me that much.” He tips his head back and empties his mug. “All I know for sure is the way he looked when he talked about you…like you were his reason for waking up every day.” His eyes find mine again. “I’m not going to put words in his mouth if he didn’t say them himself, but I’ve never seen him talk that way about anyone else. Ever.”
A tear slips over my lashes despite the dam I’ve constructed. “I should have left him alone.”
“I don’t think he’d be any happier.” He stands and takes my mug, going back to the kitchen and filling them both. “Are you going to want more?” he asks, lifting my mug. “’Cause this is the end of it.”
“No thanks.”
He moves around the end of the island and hands mine to me. “For what it’s worth, I hope you don’t give up on him,” he says, sinking into his side of the sofa.
I think about the poem I’m in the middle of. Girl Unhinged. I remember the feeling that inspired it: euphoria so absolute that it couldn’t be contained. This misery is just as absolute.
But I won’t give up on Caiden. I can’t.
Chapter 18
Caiden
“I’ve looked over your case file, Mr. Brenner,” the court appointed lawyer sitting across the interrogation room table says to me. He’s about my age in a threadbare gray suit. Totally unpretentious. I immediately trust the guy. “Your situation is serious. They’ve got an eyewitness on both counts, and the problem is, it’s the lewd acts count that’s backed with video evidence. Our only reasonable defense here is if we can prove you had plausible reason to believe Miss”— he glances down at the file—“Leon was eighteen.”
I lean on my elbows. “There’s no point pleading anything but guilty. We did everything they say we did and more, and I knew how old she was when we did it. I don’t want Blaire dragged through a trial.”
He nods slowly. “Then, I think we’re right to plead it out, but we definitely don’t want to go with a guilty plea on the lewd acts count. That would mandate that you file as a sex offender for life. It would preclude you from any number of jobs. Misdemeanor statutory rape doesn’t carry that mandate.” He leans back in his chair, splaying his hand on my file. “Miss Leon is adamant that the sex was consensual. In the state of California, consent doesn’t matter in cases involving minors, but combined with the fact that she was seventeen it will probably sway the judge to try the case as a misdemeanor versus a felony. I suggest we plea to misdemeanor statutory rape and ask the lewd acts count be dropped.”
“I’ll go with whatever you say, as long as it keeps Blaire from having to be involved at all.”
“You need to understand, there might be jail time…a few months maybe, but based on the strength of their evidence, I think that’s the best we’re going to do.”
I nod.
“So, we’re good?”
I’m in love with you, Caiden.
I close my eyes and breathe away the memory. “Yeah.”
I’m so fucking far from good there’s not a word. It’s like some kind of cosmic joke, that the only woman I’ve ever truly loved isn’t technically a woman at all in the eyes of the law. They say you can’t choose who you love, but if I could, I’d choose Blaire every single time.
And every single time, it would ruin both our lives.
∞
It’s been three days since they hauled me out of my apartment in cuffs. I haven’t shaved and I’m sure I look like shit. Not that I really care. There are only the lawyers, the judge, the court reporter, and me in the room for the arraignment. I sit, numb, as the prosecutor lays out their case for the judge, who watches the video and decides there’s enough to hold me for trial.
“The defendant will be released on ten thousand dollars bail pending trial. We’ll try it in closed court and seal the records due to the age of the victim.” He looks a
t my lawyer. “How much time do you need for discovery?”
He glances at me and I nod. “Your honor, my client is prepared to enter a guilty plea to misdemeanor statutory rape provided the prosecution agrees to drop the lewd act with a minor charge.”
The judge looks down at his case file. “The victim is sixteen?” he asks.
“Seventeen at the time of the alleged statutory rape, Your Honor,” my lawyer answers.
He thumbs through a few pages, then looks at the prosecutor. “I’m inclined to say, based on what I’ve seen here, that would be my preliminary opinion. Do you have any evidence beyond what I’ve seen that would persuade me toward a different decision?”
“No, Your Honor. The prosecution would agree to the defense’s plea.”
The judge gives a nod, then looks at my lawyer. “Would you like a separate sentencing hearing, or can we do it here?”
My lawyer leans toward me. “We’re not likely to get a more lenient judge by waiting, and it will just drag things out.”
“Whatever you think.”
“If your honor is ready to rule, we’re agreeable to sentencing now,” he says to the judge.
“Very well,” the judge says. “If you’d stand, Mr. Brenner.”
I do.
“Caiden Patrick Brenner, I hereby sentence you to two months jail time, followed by six months informal probation, and continuation of the court ordered restraining order. You are not to come within fifty yards of the minor…” He looks down at his records. “…Blaire Alison Leon, or attempt to contact her through any means, until she turns eighteen. At that point, it will be her choice whether to continue the order.”
Chapter 19
Blaire
They didn’t use my name in the newspaper article about Caiden’s arrest. They do that to protect the identity of the minor involved. Maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to work, but in reality, word gets out anyway. I watched it start as a ripple my first day back at school—just whispered rumors in the hallways. By the end of the school day it had become a tsunami—the only thing people were talking about. Once it starts, there’s no way of stopping it.
The last two weeks have been the juiciest the Oak Crest High gossip mill has ever seen. There have been days I wanted to stay in bed, but each morning I’ve peeled myself out of my dreams to go live the nightmare. I wish they’d call me a whore, or a slut. That, I could handle. I’ve got comebacks for all the slut slamming that goes on here.
But I hate that they’re making me out as the victim—like I’m too stupid and naïve to understand that I was being taken advantage of. Raped.
I get sympathetic looks from teachers I’ve never had. Girls who I’ve never been friends with come up and give me hugs. When anyone’s brave enough to say anything to my face, like a couple of the basketball guys I sort of know from class, it’s always about how they hope Caiden gets raped in jail or something.
They think they’re being supportive. All their really doing is killing me a little more inside with each comment.
I didn’t want to go to graduation, but Mom pointed out that that would be a victory for the rumor mongers. “You’re giving the valedictory speech, honey,” she said when I told her. “This is your chance to show them that they haven’t broken you.”
So I take my place in front of the mic, lower my head and breathe, like I always do before slams. It’s not dark. On the contrary, we’re on the football field in the broad daylight of a sweltering June evening, so it’s hot, sticky, and unbearably bright.
There’s a TV news crew set up in the parking lot with one of those mobile dishes. They aren’t supposed to know who I am, but that’s not going to stop them from doing one of those inspirational human interest spots they slip into the news so it doesn’t all seem so fucking depressing. “Despite horrendous adversity (that for legal reasons we are unable to disclose) local teen survives and perseveres,” or whatever.
It just makes me more determined to say what I have to say.
I lift my head and focus on a random point, the same way I do at Tino’s. “We all come into this world with a script that the great playwright, Society, has written for us. First scene, Act One is birth. Those lines don’t require too much rehearsal, so most of us don’t mess them up too badly.” I ignore the smattering of laughter and press forward. “From there we’ve got a few soliloquies, but most of the script is dialogue. With family, friends, authority figures, adversaries. Some of it might seem mundane, but there’s a lot to get through before the grow old and die scenes at the end of Act Five: Love, heartbreak, more love, disappointment, sex, more heartbreak, triumph, more love, more sex, marriage, kids, joy, more disappointment.
“And don’t miss the underlying subtext in some of Society’s scenes. There’s his ‘first love’ scene, which, if you look closely, comes before the ‘first sex’ scene. And read carefully because, though Society hasn’t cast those scenes for us and it’s not mandated that each is performed with the same player, there are carefully outlined parameters for whom each scene can happen with. The consequences for choosing ‘wrong’ might throw the rest of the players into chaos. Then Society is left with no choice but to punish the one who derailed his carefully written script.
“But don’t let me frighten you. Following the script is easy, especially when everyone around you is reading off the same one. When we all stick to Society’s script, he’s happy. He needs focused and disciplined players for everyone to get all the way to Act Five with no major hiccups. As long as no one deviates from their lines, then nothing could possibly go wrong, right?
“But here’s a question that begs an answer: Who the hell is this ‘Society’ asshole who wrote the script? Who is he to choose who I can be friends with or who I’m allowed to love? I want to meet that sanctimonious prick because, I’m telling you, it must be one pretty fine high horse he’s riding.
“What if I decide his script sucks and I let my heart write one that really speaks to me? What if I love outside the lines? Will Society turn his back on me? Would that be a bad thing? Or would it be empowering to live by my own standards instead of bowing to his?”
I push away from the podium. “So, to the graduating class of 2015, I say burn the fucking script. Write your own and to hell with Society and his high horse.”
I turn and walk off the stage back to my seat and stunned silence.
I fight to keep my eyes on the superintendent—who’s wearing makeup for the camera crew and is now at the podium doing damage control—to stop myself from looking for Caiden. I know he’s not here. He’s in prison. Because of me and Society’s fucked up script.
He didn’t tell me he loved me, but I swear I felt it in his kiss, his touch. I wish I could ask him if any of it was real, but with the restraining order, I won’t be asking him anything for at least another year.
Neither Mom nor Dad say anything about my speech on the way home. I skip the party and go to straight to my room. I throw my regalia on the floor and tug on a soft T-shirt, then climb into bed. I lay in the dark with my earbuds in, listening to the Arctic Monkeys on repeat until my mind winds down. I sink into a restless sleep with images of Caiden flashing through my mind: a secret smile from the resource desk, his eyes on me as I read onstage, chocolate ice cream, the hot aching need in my belly as he lays on top of me.
I feel him there, his body hard and coiled against mine. His breath hot on my neck.
His fingers slip inside me. My hips rock to his rhythm.
“You want it bad, baby girl, don’t you?”
The words seep into the periphery of the image, become part of the dream. “Yes,” I whisper as I spread wider for him.
“I’ve missed you so fucking much,” he says, sinking his dick into me.
I open my eyes as a sudden jolt of cold fear wrenches the sleep from my body.
Nate hooks his elbows through my knees, bending me into a pretzel and forcing my legs so far open that my hips are on the edge of dislocating. He grunts as he dri
ves himself deep inside me, and the breath in my face is sour with something that smells like it probably went down sweet. Something stronger than beer.
“No, Nate!” I cry, trying to push him off. We may be the same height, but he’s outweighs me by at least forty pounds of solid muscle.
He keeps his elbows through my knees and straightens his arms, wedging his hands under my ass. He’s got my thighs plastered to the mattress on either side of me and my knees in my armpits, curling me onto a ball and forcing my ass into the air. His chest presses hard on mine as he supports his weight there and leverages to drive himself deeper inside me. His hips come down hard against my pelvis and there’s a pop followed by searing pain in my right hip as it’s twisted out of shape. I cry out.
“That’s it, baby girl. You’re feeling me?” He pulls out, his full body weight pressing down on my chest and crushing me. I can’t breathe. Then he pounds hard into me, over and over.
“You—are—mine,” he growls with each thrust, as if marking his territory.
Fear takes physical form as a barbed thing in my throat, choking off my protests. I struggle against him and gasp ineffectually for air. There’s no breath to scream, or even cry out.
Spots flash in my eyes and the room starts to spit as I slowly suffocate under his weight. When I can’t find anymore strength to fight, my arms fall limp to the bed at my sides. The pain in my body starts to fade with the sounds of his grunts.
Tears sting my eyes and run down my temples in rivulets, pooling in my ears. “Please stop,” I whisper on my last breath.
Finally, he does. He thrusts twice more before collapsing on top of me. “Fuck yeah, baby girl,” he groans in my ear. “Just fuck yeah.”
I’m still pinned beneath him. My legs are numb. My hands tingle. The only air I can get is in tiny pants. The only part of my mangled body I can move is my neck. I turn my head and close my eyes as tears pour through my hair and soak my pillowcase.