by Amy Hatvany
“Yeah,” I said. I didn’t want to think about any of this. I just wanted to go back to sleep. Having sex was her decision as much as mine.
“Did anything else happen? Did you and Amber have a fight?”
“Not exactly,” I said, realizing that there was no way I could avoid telling my mom what really happened. If I didn’t, I knew Helen eventually would. At least if the story came from me, I had a chance to explain my side.
“Then, what?” she asked, exasperated. “Helen’s my best friend, Tyler. If she’s angry enough to barely speak to me . . . to not let me inside her house . . . then she must think something awful happened.” She waited for me to fill in the blanks.
“I’m not sure,” I said, again, another honest statement. “Amber’s been flirting with me since she got home from school, Mom. We’ve been flirting with each other. And at the party . . . well, we got pretty close. When we were dancing, she kissed me.”
“She what?” my mom exclaimed. “Amber wouldn’t do that. She’s engaged!”
“I know that. But it’s what happened.” That’s right, I told myself. Amber started this. I only followed through on what she made it clear she wanted. I took a deep breath, and then spoke again. “We ended up having sex. And now I think Amber regrets it or something. I don’t know, for sure.”
“Why don’t you know?” my mom asked, dragging out the words.
“Because I went straight over there when I left the party the next morning to make sure she was okay. I was worried when I woke up and she wasn’t there. But when I tried to talk with her, she basically kicked me out. I have no idea what she told her parents.” There, I thought. I’m not lying. Every bit of what I just said is true.
“Well, that’s just ridiculous,” my mom said. “You need to go back over there and straighten things out.”
“I’m not sure that’s the best idea.”
“If it was just between you and her, I would agree with that, honey. But she obviously told her parents something that made Helen angry enough to turn me away. I can’t possibly think what could be so bad . . .” She trailed off, and I waited for her to draw her own conclusions so I wouldn’t have to say the words myself. “Oh no,” she finally said. “Do you think she told them that she didn’t want to have sex with you? That you forced her?”
And there was Amber’s voice again, inside my head: Tyler, wait! I closed my eyes and suddenly flashed back to the moment when she put her hands on my chest and attempted to push me off of her. The way she started to cry. Fuck. I rolled onto my back, throwing my one free arm over my forehead. “It crossed my mind,” I said to my mother. “But you know I would never—”
“Of course you wouldn’t!” my mom said, cutting me off. “That’s just insane. Helen has to know that. Tom, too. I mean, good lord. You’re not a rapist. You’re a paramedic. You save people’s lives.”
I nodded, not sure, exactly, what one thing had to do with the other, but still desperate to allow my mother’s words to make me feel better. She was right. I wasn’t a bad person. Yes, I’d treated Whitney poorly, but I wasn’t the kind of man who stalked women, then hid in the bushes, waiting for the right opportunity to attack. I only did what millions of other guys my age are known to do—I got drunk with a girl at a party, and we ended up having sex. I didn’t tie Amber up or hold a knife to her throat. Even if she regretted it, an accusation of force would be almost impossible to prove. Everyone saw how she was dressed, how we were drinking and kissing and dancing. They saw us go inside the house, holding hands.
“Have you talked with your dad?” my mom asked.
“No,” I said. “Why?”
“Because it’s possible he could give you some advice here,” my mom said, with more than a touch of bitterness. “You know he beat a sexual harassment suit right after we got divorced.”
“What?” I said, sitting up and resting against the wall. My room smelled stale, of sweat and sleep. The curtain was edged in a bright square of sunlight. Birds chirped noisily, right outside my window. “No, I didn’t know that. What happened?”
My mom exhaled, loudly. “A woman who worked with him claimed that he promised that if she slept with him, he would use his friendship with their captain to get her off of night shifts so she could spend more time with her kids. There was an investigation, but because he wasn’t her superior and it was shown that she willingly initiated meeting with him multiple times over a course of several months, he was cleared.”
“Wow,” I said, shaking my head. “I can’t believe he never told me.”
“I think it scared him,” my mom explained. “And since then, you know he’s slept with a disgusting number of women, but I’m pretty certain none of them have been from work.”
I thought about how, over the last few years, since I started my job, my dad had warned me about doing just that. “Don’t shit where you eat, Son,” he’d say. “Don’t dip your pen in the department ink.” Now, the frequency with which he’d said it made sense.
“I don’t want him to know about this,” I said, trying not to sound like I was begging. “Okay, Mom? He’ll just make it worse.” I could already hear how my father would berate me for getting stuck in a situation like this. For finally having the courage to make a move on Amber, but then royally fucking it up. It would only add fuel to what he’d said about me. It would only prove his point.
“All right,” she said, reluctantly. “But you need to work things out with Amber. And I’ll try to talk with Helen again.”
“No!” I said, feeling panicked at the idea of her hearing details from Helen that I couldn’t control. “Let me handle this, please.”
“I’m sorry, Tyler, but I can’t stand the idea of my best friend thinking you would be capable of hurting her daughter. I don’t work until five tonight, so I’m going back over there this morning. You can come with me or not. It’s up to you.”
I felt torn. Part of me was worried that if I showed up at her house again unannounced, Amber would freak out. But another part of me reasoned that maybe all she had needed, like me, was a good night’s sleep to put the events of the party in proper perspective. Maybe she had come to terms with the fact that she was just as liable for what had happened.
It was this last thought that had me meet my mom at the Bryants’ house a few hours later. I’d showered and eaten a good breakfast, grateful that my hangover was gone and, for the most part, my head felt clear. Both Helen’s and Tom’s cars were in their driveway; I knew Helen’s job at the elementary school gave her the summer off, but Tom was typically so busy meeting with clients, he rarely worked from home. The fact that he was here made me uneasy. An uncomfortable lump formed in my gut.
“It’ll be fine,” my mom said, running her hand down the side of my arm. “We’ll work it out.” She wore jeans and a light-blue top that I had given her for Mother’s Day.
I gave her a weak smile, nodding my head once as we made our way to the front steps, which felt a little odd—too formal. I was so accustomed to entering on the side of the house, like family, through the kitchen. I raised my hand and rapped on the door three times, lightly.
When it swung open, Tom stood in front of us, his hand still on the knob. He glared at me with a look so hateful, I dropped my eyes to the ground. “You have some balls showing back up here,” he said, practically growling the words.
“Tom, please,” my mom said, reaching out her hand to try to touch his arm, but he jerked out of her reach.
“Please what, Liz?” he said, forcefully. “Ask your son to come into my house for a sit-down? He raped my daughter. He raped her. And now he’s standing on my fucking front porch, acting like nothing’s wrong.”
“That’s not what happened,” I said, glancing around to see if any of the neighbors were watching from their windows. “You have to believe me—”
“No, Tyler. I don’t.” Tom’s face was red and his blue eyes were dark. I’d never seen him like this. “I believe my daughter. I believe you got her d
runk and you forced yourself on her. And now she won’t leave her bedroom. She won’t eat. She’s in more pain than I’ve ever seen before and it’s your fault.” He paused, breathing hard, looking like he wanted nothing more than to punch me. “So forgive me if I don’t invite you inside. Just be glad I’m not holding a gun.”
“Hold on, Tom!” my mom said. “This is crazy. You know Tyler. You know he’d never—”
“The only thing I know is what I saw,” Tom said. “I saw how frightened Amber was of him when he was in her room yesterday. She was terrified, Liz. I’ve never seen anyone so scared in my entire life. I know he’s your son and you’d do anything to protect him—”
“I don’t need to protect him because he didn’t do anything wrong!” my mom said, throwing her arms up in the air, then letting them drop back down to her sides. “Amber got drunk! She kissed him and led him to believe she wanted to have sex with him, even though she’s engaged to someone else! So who, exactly, is in the wrong here?” My mom was breathing hard, too. Her previously calm demeanor had vanished. “Amber cheated on Daniel and now she’s just looking for someone to blame!”
“Shut up, Liz!” Helen appeared out of nowhere next to her husband, as though she’d been hiding behind the door, listening. Her red hair was a tangled mess and her skin was pale beneath her freckles. She crossed her arms over her chest and shot a look full of daggers at both my mother and me. “Just shut the hell up! My daughter is upstairs, still shaking after what your son did to her. I always told you if you didn’t get him into counseling he’d end up just like his father, and now he has! He raped my daughter! He took advantage of her trust and now she can’t stop crying. She’ll never be the same.” Tears rolled down Helen’s cheeks as she spoke, and she angrily brushed them away. She looked at me. “How could you do this, Tyler? Tell me, please. How?”
“I didn’t mean to hurt her,” I stammered, hating the thought that Helen believed I was anything like my father. That she had told my mother I might turn out just like him. “I just . . . I thought . . . we’ve been flirting so much since she’s been home . . .”
“Honey, you don’t need to say another word,” my mom said, but she was too late. Tom flung the door open and it crashed against the wall with a loud thud. He curled his fingers into fists.
“Don’t you dare blame Amber for what you did!” he said. His words dripped with disgust. “Don’t you fucking dare!”
I stumbled backward, down the steps, holding on to the railing so I wouldn’t fall. Amber had told her parents that I raped her, and they believed her. She could go to the police. I could be arrested, prosecuted, and put in jail. I gave Tom an imploring look. “Please, you don’t understand. It was a mistake. She wanted it, too. She kissed me. She let me take her up to the bedroom . . .”
“She told you to stop!” Tom roared, and before I knew it was coming, he flew toward me, down the steps, his right arm pulled back. I thought about ducking, about turning around and running to my car. But then it was too late. His fist made hard and fast contact with my cheekbone, sending a shock wave of pain through the side of my face. The next thing I knew, I fell backward, hit the ground, and the world around me went black.
Amber
I stayed in bed for days after the party. I didn’t go to work, I didn’t eat. I didn’t leave my room except to shower, thinking that if I sloughed off enough skin, I might be able to erase the damage my best friend had done.
I’m sick, I told myself. I feel like I have a fever. That’s what it was. A sickness. Nothing else. My immune system attempting to incinerate the images flashing through my mind. If I just hid beneath the covers long enough, I might wake up in a day, a week, or a month, fully cured. I might be able to believe the night never happened.
I kept my eyes closed as much as possible, constantly trying to force myself to sleep. I took more Benadryl, relishing the black, dreamless oblivion the tiny pink pills brought about. But when I awoke, when I kicked my legs, rising to the surface of that fuzzy, self-induced sea of escape, all that waited for me was the weight of Tyler pressing down on my bones. All I felt was his strong hands, gripping, his knees forcing my thighs to open, the pain shooting through my pelvis like a flesh-tearing bullet, one that was now lodged inside my gut.
Why hadn’t I screamed? Why didn’t I hit and claw and scratch at him until he was forced to stop? Instead, I froze, I gave up and gave in, and let it happen. If I had fought the way I should have, if I had actually said NO, if I had shrieked it in his ear over and over again, he might have heard me. He might have stopped. The Tyler I knew would have stopped. I started to wonder if I had imagined saying anything to him at all. I’d been so drunk, maybe I only thought I’d asked him to wait? Maybe the only protestations I’d made were inside my head.
My parents hovered around me the same way they had when I was a teenager, trying to get me to talk, trying to force bits of food into my mouth. “I made you baked chicken and brown rice,” my mother said a few days after Liz and Tyler had showed up. It was close to noon, and my dad was at work. “No butter, just a little salt and pepper, a drizzle of olive oil. The way you made it for us.”
“I’m not hungry,” I said. This was true. I knew my stomach was empty, that I needed the sustenance, but I couldn’t fathom putting anything other than water in my body. I felt certain if I did, I’d throw it right back up.
“Honey, please,” my mom said. I could hear the desperation in her voice.
“Maybe later,” I replied, which was the same answer I used to give her whenever she tried to get me to eat in high school. I lay in my bed in a ball, my knees brought up as close as possible to my chest. If I closed my eyes tight enough, maybe the memories couldn’t find me. If I made myself small enough, maybe I could just disappear.
“Your dad and I are worried,” she said, as she set the plate she carried onto my nightstand. “You need to talk to someone.”
“No.”
“We understand you don’t want to—”
“I’m not doing it, Mom,” I said, cutting her off. “So you can stop right now.” I didn’t tell her I was too afraid to talk to the police. I couldn’t stand the idea of being told that I was wrong, that my worst fears would only be confirmed—that this was my fault as much as his, and I was just a drunk, stupid girl who decided too late that she’d made a mistake.
My mom sat down on the edge of my bed, placing a gentle hand on my hip. “You can’t pretend this didn’t happen, Amber. Pushing it down is just going to make it worse. Tyler needs to be held accountable.”
“What about me?” I straightened my legs and rolled over onto my back, looking at my mother’s angst-ridden face. She looked as tired as I felt, and her eyes were swollen, too. “Aren’t I accountable, too?” She opened her mouth, like she was about to rebut what I’d said, but I held up my hand to stop her. “No, Mom. I’m serious. I totally led him on. I gave him every sign that I wanted to sleep with him. It’s not just his fault.”
“I know you think that’s true, honey, but you’re wrong. Even if you said yes at first, what matters . . . what makes what he did to you so wrong . . . is that you also told him to stop.”
I considered her words; the guilt I might feel about leading Tyler to believe that I wanted to have sex with him—hell, even believing, temporarily, in my drunken state, that I wanted it, too—didn’t make what he did to me any less heinous. It didn’t make it any less of a betrayal. I racked my brain, trying to remember the moment that the word “no” left my mouth, and couldn’t come up with it.
When I didn’t say anything, my mother tried another approach. “What about a counselor?” she asked. “Someone who knows how to help with issues like this? I can make some calls—”
“Mom! Stop it, please. I’ll be fine. I just need to rest.” I shifted so I was on my side again, facing away from her. I knew she was only trying to help, but there was nothing she could do. Nothing anyone could say to take away the lightning bolt of pain in my chest every time I took a bre
ath.
“You can’t stay in bed forever,” she said, quietly.
“Watch me,” I said, and a moment later, she stood up and left the room.
• • •
But hiding in my room fixed nothing. As the hours and days passed, I grew antsy, unable to sleep as much as I wanted, and the antihistamines I took began to jack me up instead of knock me out. I finally forced myself to go back to work ten days after the party. Most of my bruises had faded by then, and my body didn’t ache as much as it had the first week. Still, I dressed in full-length black leggings and a long-sleeved, moisture-wicking shirt, not wanting to risk my boss or any of my clients seeing the ghostly yellow smudges of Tyler’s fingers on my skin.
I got to the gym early, around five thirty, thinking that I might be able to get in a quick workout of my own before my first client came in. I still wasn’t eating any solid food—the thought of chewing anything made me nauseous—but I’d managed to sip down half of a protein shake my dad made for me in the kitchen before I left, the same kind of shake he’d been bringing to my room for several days.
“You sure you feel up to this?” he asked, looking at me with an equal mix of fear and sorrow in his blue eyes. He was up earlier than usual, too, unable to sleep, he said—too many thoughts spinning in his head. He was still in his pajamas.
I bobbed my head and glanced at his right hand. His knuckles weren’t swollen anymore, but his skin held hints of black and blue. “Do they hurt?” I asked.
He flexed his fingers, and then curled them back into a fist. “Nah,” he said. “And it would be worth it, even if they did.”
I managed a small smile, and then hugged him. “I love you, Pops.”
“Love you, too, baby girl,” he said, and I knew he was fighting back tears.
Now, as I exited the locker room and went out onto the gym floor, I took several deep breaths, in and out, trying to steady my pulse. I felt shaky and a little weak, like I was recovering from the flu. That’s all it was, I told myself again. An illness. And now you’re going to get over it by focusing on what you do best.