by Amy Hatvany
A dark, fractured look passed over my mother’s face. “No,” she said. Her voice was strangled. “I haven’t. But I want to. She needs to know. So does Jason. They need to know what their son did.”
“What have you and Dad been doing all day?” I crossed my arms over my chest, preparing myself to hear the worst: that they’d gone against my wishes and called the police.
“Nothing,” she said, and her chin trembled. “We’ve just been sitting together, waiting for you to wake up. Your dad is going out of his mind. He’s so angry. I don’t know what he’ll do if Tyler shows up here again.”
“He can’t do anything,” I said. “He knows that, right? He’ll just make it worse.” Part of me felt better knowing my dad wanted to hurt Tyler for hurting me, but I also couldn’t stand the idea of the man who’d raised me answering one violent act with another. I hated what Tyler had done, but beating him up wasn’t going to solve a thing.
“Yes, he knows,” my mom said. She was about to say more, but then we both turned our heads, hearing my name spoken from the bottom of the stairs.
“Amber?” Daniel called out.
“Mom, please,” I said, and she grabbed my hand, squeezing it tightly.
“You need to tell him,” she said. “He deserves to hear the truth.”
My already racing pulse sped up more. How would I tell Daniel anything? How would I tell him that I’d flirted with Tyler for weeks, how I’d dressed slutty for him last night, then danced with him like a stripper, kissed him, and let him lead me upstairs. The rest of what happened last night rolled through my body in waves that threatened to drown me.
“Hey, baby,” Daniel said when he reached the top of the stairs, looking as though he hadn’t slept much either. He walked toward me, and my mother let go of my hand, but not before giving it one more squeeze. She gave me a reassuring look, then headed back to where Daniel had just come from.
“Hey,” I said, my voice dull, watching my mother’s retreat, wondering how in the hell I was going to handle a conversation with my fiancé right now.
Daniel hugged me, and again, I stayed stiff. “You’re still mad at me?” he asked when he pulled back.
I shrugged and walked into my bedroom again, retreating to the furthest corner of the bed, against the wall, pulling as many pillows and blankets around myself as I could. Daniel followed behind me, shut the door, then leaned up against it.
“I feel shitty about our fight,” he said, and I almost laughed, thinking how ridiculous and small our argument was compared to the one I imagined we were about to have, once I told him that his suspicions about my best friend hadn’t been unwarranted.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, spinning my engagement ring over and over again with my left thumb. It felt heavy and wrong on my finger. I didn’t deserve it. I didn’t deserve Daniel. “But it did make me think,” I continued. “A lot, actually.”
“About what?” Daniel asked, the weight of him sitting on the edge of the bed sinking the mattress down.
I huddled closer to the wall. “About us. About getting engaged.”
“Amber—,” he said, but I interrupted him.
“Wait,” I said. “Let me finish.” I didn’t want to cry more. “I care about you, Daniel, but I just don’t think I’m ready to get married. You should be with someone who is.”
“Are you being serious right now?” he asked, his brows stitched together, creating a small v in his otherwise smooth forehead.
“Yes,” I said, feeling my heart sink down inside my chest. I couldn’t tell him what had happened. It would hurt him too much. My silence would save him the devastation of knowing what I’d done, how I’d blocked him out of my mind, rationalized my behavior, and betrayed his trust. I was a broken person now—a pile of damaged goods. He needed to be with someone better than me. I was sure he would find someone else. “I’m sorry, Daniel,” I said, pulling the ring off of my finger. “But it’s over. We’re over.”
I held my hand out, palm up, offering him the ring. He dropped his gaze to it, then raised it back to me. “No,” he said. “I’m not going to let you do this, Amber. It was one stupid fight. We’ll work it out. We’ll find a way to spend more time together. I took two days off to come up here, and I want to spend them with you. We just need to talk—”
“Don’t you get it?” I said, raising my voice, even as a few tears slipped down my cheeks. I held on to the ring. “I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to try and make this work. You moved too fast. You pushed me into getting engaged when I wasn’t ready. All you were thinking about was your own time line . . . your stupid master plan to get married before you started making a bunch of money. You weren’t thinking about me and what I want. You didn’t even ask. And you know what, Daniel? I don’t want that life. I don’t want kids. I don’t want a life with you.”
He stared at me, his brown eyes clouded with confusion and hurt. “Is this about Tyler?” he asked, slowly. “Was I right? Is something happening with you two?”
“No!” I said, maybe a little too sharply, because Daniel just shook his head.
“I knew it,” he fumed. “I fucking knew it.” He stood up and glared at me. “Did you sleep with him last night? Is that why you’re doing this now? I pissed you off so you decided to fuck him. Jesus, Amber! What the hell is wrong with you?”
My throat flooded with so many tears, I couldn’t speak. I just stared at him through glassy eyes, wishing I had it in me to tell him what had happened. Wishing I could say that he was wrong. I heard my mother’s voice inside my head, He raped you, honey, and I thought about showing Daniel my bruises as proof that while I may have been guilty of leading Tyler on, he was guilty of something far worse. All the things I’d heard at orientation my freshman year at college started to run through my head: Be careful if you’re drinking at a party. Don’t go into a room with a guy alone. If someone tries to force you to do something you don’t want to do, fight back with everything you have. Gouge him in the eyes with your thumbs. Knee him in the balls. Hurt him before he can hurt you.
I’d done none of those things, because I’d been with someone I trusted. Someone I never thought might hurt me. And here I was, hurting Daniel, trying to save him from a more excruciating kind of pain.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, and once again, I held out my hand, offering him the ring.
“Yeah,” he said. “I bet you are. I hope you’re happy with that asshole.” Daniel snatched the ring from my palm and shoved it into his front pocket. “I never should have given that to you. You’re a fucking cheater.”
The disgust in his voice sliced through me. But he was right. I had cheated on him the past few weeks, a hundred times over in my head. I’d pictured how it would feel to kiss Tyler, to let him touch me the way I knew he’d always wanted. I’d thought about what it would be like to sleep with him—visualizing our bodies together, imagining how gentle he’d be as his fingers tenderly trailed across my skin. I’d wondered if he was the one I should actually be with, the one who already knew and loved me, even after everything we’d both gone through. And now, after last night, I couldn’t be with either of them, with anyone. I couldn’t imagine feeling safe with anyone else, ever again.
“Do me a favor,” Daniel said. “Pretend we never met.”
I nodded, knowing there was nothing I could say to make up for what I’d just done. He spun around and charged out of my room, leaving the door open. I sat in the silence staring at the wall, feeling the ghost of the ring on my skin, as though it was still on my finger. I felt like I should break down, but my eyes stayed dry. I wondered if I’d finally reached the limit of my tears—if there was only so much one person could cry in one day.
My parents appeared in my doorway, and then walked through it. “What happened?” my mom asked. “Daniel just ran past us and didn’t say a word.”
“Did you tell him? Is he going after Tyler?” my dad asked, looking as though if that were true, he might just follow my fiancé. Ex-fi
ancé, I reminded myself, and then I shook my head.
“I didn’t tell him. I broke it off. I gave him back the ring.”
“Honey, no!” my mom said, coming to sit next to me on the bed. She rested a hand on my leg, and I pulled away from her touch. She sighed. “You didn’t even give him a chance? I think he would have understood. He would have supported you.”
“It’s not that big of a deal.” Strangely enough, I meant those words. I didn’t feel anything about breaking up with Daniel. All I felt was the giant, aching bruise my body had become. I felt the sudden absence of emotion, the all-encompassing lethargy that, even after so many hours of sleep, wouldn’t let me go.
“Sweetie . . .” my mom began, but I held up my hand to stop her.
“Please,” I said. “No lectures. That’s the last thing I need.”
“What do you need?” my dad asked, gently.
“She needs to eat something,” my mom answered, glancing at the untouched, slightly wilted bowl of fruit on my nightstand.
“Not now, Mom!” I said. “Please.” I sunk back down beneath my covers, not answering my father’s question. I wasn’t sure what, exactly, I needed. I needed for them to leave me alone. I needed more sleep. But mostly, I needed to turn back time, take back my bad decisions, and find a way to pretend I didn’t feel like I wanted to die.
Tyler
After I left Mason’s house, I took a long shower, hoping the hot water would help release some the tension in my body. But all I could think about was the look on Amber’s face when I walked into her bedroom. All I could hear was her screaming for me to get out.
I’m not a rapist, I told myself over and over as I dried off and got dressed. This is just a misunderstanding. My head throbbed, so I grabbed some ibuprofen from the cupboard above the stove in my kitchen, and poured myself an enormous tumbler of water and drank it down, knowing that hydration was the only road back from a hangover. Dropping onto the couch, I picked up my phone from the coffee table, where I’d set it when I first got home. I unlocked the screen and clicked on Amber’s contact info, assuming that, if I called, she wouldn’t pick up, but if I texted, she might at least read what I had to say.
“Amber, please. Talk to me,” I wrote. “Whatever happened last night that made you freak out when you saw me, I didn’t mean to do. I love you. I would never hurt you. You have to know that. We can work this out.” I pressed send, wondering if her parents had pushed her into telling them why she’d screamed at me. Would they believe her if she said what happened was rape? Would they make her report me to the police?
With this thought, at the idea of being arrested and taken to jail, I stood up and began pacing in my small living room, just as I had at Mason’s. The anxious energy coursing through my body was a giant, revving engine. I couldn’t sit still.
“Fuck it,” I muttered, then headed into my bedroom, where I picked up a pair of socks from the dresser and my running shoes from the floor. I put them both on, snatched my keys from the table, and headed out, not caring that going for a run was the absolute last thing I felt up to doing. The only thing I cared about was quieting the fear twisting my mind into knots—trying to escape the mistake I might have made.
As I ran, I went over the last couple of days in my head, thinking about my panic attack the night of the tanker truck accident, the fight with my father, and the way Amber had looked at me on the dance floor. It was the same look Whitney used to give me when she’d come over to my apartment and let me lay her down on my bed—a look that said we both wanted the same thing.
But then I remembered the last time we were together, a couple of days before she went home for the summer. “Damn,” she said, once we were done. “You were on a mission. I’m gonna have bruises.” She rolled onto her side in order to curl up with me, not seeming to notice my body flinching in response to her touch.
“Sorry,” I said. She didn’t understand that my physical intensity wasn’t a result of how much she, specifically, turned me on or how desperately I wanted her. It was the swell of my anxiety, adrenaline seeking release—the only thing I was desperate for was relief.
“That’s okay. I kind of liked it.”
The hopeful tone of her voice only amplified my discomfort. She thought I had something to offer her. I turned so I could sit sideways on the edge of the bed, half-facing her. “I hate to do this,” I said, “but I’m pretty wiped. Do you mind . . . ?” I trailed off.
She stared at me with hurt in her dark brown eyes, which she quickly attempted to mask by looking away. “You can’t sleep with me here?”
“Sorry,” I said again. “I’m sort of used to sleeping alone.”
She sat up then, too, yanking the sheet up over her breasts. “Oh,” she said. “Okay.”
“I’ll text you later.” I pulled on a pair of boxers, waiting for her to take the hint.
“Want to maybe catch a movie sometime this week?” she asked.
“I wish I could, but with work and it being my mom’s birthday and everything . . .” It wasn’t my mom’s birthday. I was simply willing to say anything, tell any lie, to get her to leave.
“Oh,” Whitney said, laying a small, cool hand on my bare back. “Do you ever talk with her about me?”
“No, I don’t.” My insides itched. I stood up to get away from her hand on my body. “Listen. I like hanging out with you. It’s fun. But I can’t do a relationship right now, okay? I’m just not there.” Not with you, anyway.
“But I like you. I mean, like, really like you.” She dropped her gaze to the floor and then lifted it back to mine. In that moment, she looked so much younger than her twenty years. So vulnerable and insecure. “I just want to know . . . is there any chance . . . ?” She trailed off, waiting for me to fill in the empty spaces of her questions.
“No,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh,” she said again. Her voice was small. She scooted down to the bottom of the bed to avoid having to climb over me, then quickly got dressed. I did the same.
“So this is done?” she asked as she slipped on her shoes. “Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yeah,” I said. “It is.”
Now, I remembered feeling relieved when I’d finally locked the door behind her, despite the fact that sex with her was the best remedy I’d ever found for the anxiety that coursed through my blood. And then it hit me—I had used her. I’d taken advantage of her age and compliant nature and said all the right things, whatever it took to get her to sleep with me. I’d done exactly what I’d watched my father do with women for years. Realizing this made me stop running. I stood in the middle of the sidewalk, breathing hard, terrified to think I was capable of that kind of behavior—that, despite my best efforts, I might still be like the man I sometimes hated. If I’d basically manipulated Whitney into having sex, did that mean I was capable of forcing myself on Amber, too? No, I thought. No way. I love her too much. I would never do that. We were both drunk, and we both wanted it. I am not my father. Having sex was her decision as much as mine.
On my way back home, I made those last two sentences my mantra. I repeated them as I showered again and then forced myself to eat a peanut butter sandwich, along with two more big glasses of water. I checked my phone for a message from Amber, but there was only a short text from Mason. “You hear from Amber yet?” it said, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him the truth. If I said that she still wouldn’t talk with me, he might take it to mean that she really did have a reason to be scared. That maybe I actually did force myself upon her.
Having sex was her decision as much as mine. This was the only thought I could allow myself to have. Anything else was too horrifying to comprehend.
I watched a little television, trying to get lost in the convoluted plotline of a stupid movie, and finally, around six o’clock, I felt drowsy enough to pull down my room-darkening shades and collapse into bed, still fighting the lingering aftereffects of my hangover. Mason and I weren’t back on shift until the next ev
ening, so I planned to get all the sleep I possibly could to make up for the alcohol I’d had to drink. Sleep would let me escape. It would erase, at least temporarily, the look of terror that had taken over Amber’s face when I stepped inside her room. It would silence the sound of her screaming, and I could pretend, at least while I slept, that my life wasn’t about to fall apart.
• • •
I didn’t wake up until seven the next morning, when the sound of my phone ringing served as an annoying alarm. Amber was the first thought in my head, so I scrambled to answer the call, disappointed when I saw my mom’s face on the screen.
“Good morning,” I said. My voice was more graveled than usual, so I coughed to clear it.
“Honey,” she said, not bothering to greet me. “Did something happen between you and Amber? I went over there last night and Helen wouldn’t even let me inside.” She paused. “She was so upset, Ty. I’ve never seen her like that. She could barely look at me. When I asked her why, she said I should talk to you.”
I froze, not knowing how to tell her everything that happened. I couldn’t bring myself to say the words “She thinks I raped her” to my own mother. I couldn’t imagine saying them to anyone.
“Tyler,” she prompted. “For god’s sake, tell me what’s going on!”
“I’m not really sure,” I said, thinking that this was actually true. Amber hadn’t accused me of anything. Not yet. I still didn’t know what she was thinking. “We got drunk at the party we went to, and Mason and Gia ended up driving her home.”
“What? Why?”
“I overdid it,” I said, trying to be as honest as I possibly could. “I passed out.”
“Oh, Tyler,” my mom said. “What were you thinking?”
“She was drunk, too,” I said, realizing that I sounded like a child again, trying to defend myself by saying, “She hit me first!”
“That doesn’t matter,” my mom said. “You were her ride, and it sounds like you basically deserted her.” She sighed. “But why would Helen be so angry? Amber got home okay, right?”