by Amy Hatvany
“Thank you, sir,” Mason said.
“Wait,” I said. “Do I not get a say in this?”
“No,” Captain Duncan said. “You don’t. Just as Mason wouldn’t have a say if you requested it.” He paused, glancing back and forth between us. “I’m not going to have to deal with any bullshit between you two, am I? You can work together peacefully, for now?”
“Of course, sir,” Mason said.
The captain turned toward me. “Hicks?”
I nodded, feeling the muscles along my jaws working as I clenched my teeth.
“Good,” Captain Duncan said. He opened his mouth, about to speak again, but the radio behind him crackled, requesting units be dispatched to the corner of Eldridge and Meridian, where a traffic accident had occurred. “You heard them,” the captain said, pointing to the doorway. “Get to it.”
Mason and I made our way back down to the garage and climbed into our rig, where he flipped on the lights and siren while I let dispatch know we were on our way to the accident. The air between us was thick and heavy as a rock; I had the futile urge to pick it up and toss it out the window.
“Am I really that bad?” I asked, keeping my eyes straightforward.
“I don’t think we should talk about this right now,” he said.
“I saw Amber at the Royal a few weeks ago,” I told him. “She was making out with some disgusting old guy in a dark hallway.” Mason didn’t say anything, so I went on. “What I can’t figure out is, if she’s the kind of girl who grinds her body against her best friend, who kisses him and goes upstairs to a bedroom at a party with him, and then searches out a stranger at a bar, all while she’s engaged to someone else, how can what happened with us be rape?”
“Dude,” Mason said, shooting an angry glance my way, his dark eyes flashing. “You do not want to have this conversation with me.”
“Yeah, actually,” I said, “I do. Because seriously. How is a guy supposed to let a girl get him all turned on, make him believe that she really wants to have sex with him, and then just be okay with her suddenly changing her mind at the last second? If she’s out at bars now, cheating on Daniel and making out with strangers, she can’t be the girl I thought she was. She can’t be the girl you thought she was.” I felt desperate. If I could just get Mason to agree with me, to concede that Amber was guilty of at least part of what happened that night, I might be able to live with myself.
Mason jerked the steering wheel to get around a long string of cars that weren’t pulling out of our way. “Is that you talking, or your dad?” he asked. “Because you sound like a stupid frat boy, trying to rationalize his way out of taking advantage of a wasted girl. You going to make a video, like those assholes at Yale, chanting, ‘No means yes, yes means anal’?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Google it,” Mason said harshly, as he continued to bob and weave down West Holly. “Stop thinking about yourself for a fucking second and get some education about what rape actually is. And for the record, most of the time it looks exactly like what happened between you and Amber. I don’t give a shit who she’s making out with in a bar or whether she’s engaged to Daniel or not. The fact is that she told you to stop and you had sex with her anyway. That’s the definition of rape. That’s what you’re guilty of, and the fact that you won’t own up to it is why I have to get the fuck away from you. I have a daughter, man. And if some fucker did to her what you did to Amber, I’d do a lot more than punch him in the face. I’d kill him.” He paused, breathing hard, and then spoke again. “You make me sick.”
Tears pricked the backs of my eyes as Mason said these last words, and I looked away, out the passenger side window, blinking quickly to get them to disappear. Outside of Amber, Mason had become my closest friend, and hearing him tear me apart like this now, knowing that I triggered such feelings of disgust in him, made me feel like I was cracking open. Loud thoughts ricocheted inside my head, my dad’s and Mason’s voices, each vying to be heard, each telling me conflicting things. I didn’t know who to believe.
As we approached the scene of the accident, my pulse was already racing, my heart pounding like a jackhammer. We both jumped out of the rig and raced around to the back to grab our gear. I went through the motions of my job, running a line, assessing airway, breathing, and circulation. Luckily, it was only a fender bender and no one was seriously injured; I was too distracted to have handled something like that.
Mason and I got through the rest of our shift, speaking only when we had to, doing our jobs, the fat elephant of what he’d said—you make me sick—still stuck between us. Maybe he was right. Maybe my father was just a womanizing asshole, and I’d been grasping at empty, meaningless straws by asking his advice. Maybe the desire to shift blame onto Amber was the only way I could keep it from clinging to me. Maybe the only way to get my life back was to admit what I did.
But then, a shock of terror pulsed through me as I imagined what would happen next. I imagined talking to the police, being handcuffed, put into an orange jumpsuit, and locked behind bars. I thought about losing my job, losing my reputation—losing everything I had managed to build for myself over the past several years. And I knew that no matter what I’d already lost, no matter that Mason would soon disappear from my life as Amber had, I wasn’t willing to sacrifice myself. I might have doubts, I might share in some of the guilt for what happened that night, but I wasn’t the only one.
Now, as I grabbed my bag from the rig after Mason had already gone home, I headed out the door into the parking lot. It was late, after midnight, and the air was chillier than it had been when I started my shift. I tucked my hands into my coat pockets, and began to make my way across the lot. I looked toward my truck, and suddenly, I stopped short, because Amber was waiting for me. She was standing next to my truck, her hands shoved in her coat pockets, too.
“We need to talk,” she said, and like a hopeful idiot, I nodded, wanting to believe that she had changed her mind and was there to make peace. I wanted to believe this as I walked around to the driver’s side door and climbed inside. I wanted to believe this as she joined me, slamming the passenger door. We’re going to work this out, I thought, still believing that in the end, after everything, our friendship could win out. I believed she still might love me, right up until the moment when she pulled out the gun.
Amber
It’s almost dawn when Tyler and I finally arrive at the cabin. The sky is a dusky mix of lavender and gray; a few stars still twinkle above us as we walk down a path surrounded by a dense forest of snow-dusted evergreens. The roar of the river fills my head—the water is only thirty feet away. When I was young, falling asleep to that sound was something I looked forward to every year. My mother called it nature’s lullaby. It does nothing to soothe me now.
After we get inside and light a single lantern, I point the gun at Tyler and tell him to sit on the lumpy, plaid-patterned couch. The air is musty and cold; mouse traps, some of which have already done their job, litter the floor around us. I try not to look at the motionless rodents; I try to pretend that I don’t smell death.
“So, we’re here,” Tyler says, as he complies with my request. “Now what?”
I take pleasure in hearing the tremble in his voice, but the truth is that I don’t know what I should do. Getting him to the cabin was as far ahead as I had planned. I want him to confess. I need to hear the words “I raped you” coming from his mouth. But I don’t know how to make that happen. I consider holding the gun to his head and forcing him to speak the truth, asking him to recite, in detail, the way he attacked me.
“Remember the first time you came here?” I ask instead, thinking back to the summer just before my freshman year. Even though Tyler and I spent the first nine months of our friendship at different schools, we had grown close during the many fall and winter evenings he spent at our dinner table, the weekends we watched horror movies together at his house because my mom wouldn’t allow me to view them at mine. Hi
s parents’ divorce was finalized in the spring, and my mom and dad decided to invite Liz and Tyler to the cabin with us for a weeklong vacation in June. We packed up several ice chests and plastic bins full of food, stuffing both family vehicles with sleeping bags, inner tubes for floating down the river, and board games we could play. Tyler and I rode with my parents, while Liz followed behind us. They’d both been camping, but neither of them had stayed this far into the woods before.
“Of course I remember,” he says now. “You took me hiking and made me learn how to fish.”
“And I taught you how to ride the river on an inner tube.”
“You almost drowned,” Tyler says, softly, and I know we are both thinking about the day my black rubber tube had unexpectedly flipped—how I got sucked into a circling undertow next to a giant, craggy rock. I remember kicking and flailing all of my limbs as hard as I could, trying to free myself from the strong funnel pulling me down, trapping me beneath the surface. But I couldn’t, and it was Tyler who grabbed on to a fallen tree with one arm and managed to grab on to my hand and lift me to safety with the other.
“You saved me,” I say, tears welling in my eyes. Remembering moments like this in our friendship only added to the nightmare of what he’d done to me in July. It magnified his betrayal, amplified my pain, and made me feel like I’d never be able to trust another man again. The friend Tyler had been to me for so many years was the polar opposite of the attacker he had become. Most of the time my mind didn’t know what to do with this disparity. It made me feel crazy, one moment remembering how close we’d been, how often he was there for me, listening, refusing to abandon me when everyone else seemed to. Then I’d be hit with the memory of the weight of him on me, the stench of alcohol on his breath, and the sharp pain of him jabbing at me with his hips. I couldn’t reconcile these two versions of the same person. My mind kept telling me it couldn’t be real.
“Sometimes I think it was you who saved me,” he says. His green eyes reflect the flickering light from the lantern on the table in front of the couch.
“What’re you talking about?” I say, momentarily distracted from the fury I feel by the memory of that day. “You pulled me out of the water.”
“I’m not talking about the river,” he says. “I’m talking about how you came over and sat next to me at your parents’ party after my dad threw me in the pool. Having you as a friend saved me in so many ways.”
I let out a short, barking laugh and sit down in the pleather recliner, opposite him, and drop the gun into my lap. “You have a fucked-up way of showing your gratitude.”
“I know,” he says. “Trust me, please. I know how badly I screwed up. But you have to believe I never meant to hurt you.”
“So you keep saying. And I keep saying that what you meant to do doesn’t matter. What matters is what you did. You raped me, Tyler. Just say it. Just fucking admit it so I don’t have to shoot you.” I try to sound strong, worried he might call me out on my bluff. I don’t know if I actually have it in me to pull the trigger. I don’t know if I can follow through on my threats.
“You’re not going to shoot me,” he says, but there is a hint of uncertainty in his voice. He is testing me, seeing if he can come out the winner in this battle of wills.
“How can you be sure?” I ask, holding his gaze while I run my free hand over the cool steel of the gun. With one quick bend of my thumb, I turn off the safety and give him a challenging look. Go ahead, the look says. Try me.
“Because that’s not who you are,” Tyler says. “The only person you’ve ever been able to hurt is yourself.”
“Fuck you,” I whisper, knowing he’s referring to the years I spent starving myself, the same way I’ve been starving myself since the night he led me up to that room and pinned me down on the bed. Restricting what I eat is my go-to act of self-defense, the best way I know how to feel strong in the midst of turmoil. I’ve lost twenty-six pounds since July, my weight sliding back into double digits. My old behaviors have snuck back in, embracing me like a familiar blanket.
“Is your heart okay?” he asks. “With all the weight you’ve lost?”
“Stop pretending like you give a shit!” I say. My tone is an octave higher than usual, on the verge of shrieking. “Nothing you say right now can make a difference, except admitting what you did!”
“What we did, Amber,” Tyler says. “Don’t forget how drunk you were, too. Don’t forget that it was you who kissed me, first.” His voice is still soft, but it’s also laced with a hint of defiance, a fact that only serves to feed my rage. When we first climbed inside his truck, he’d said he was sorry—he’d said he hated himself for hurting me. And now he was going to blame me? Fuck that. Fuck him.
“Kissing didn’t give you permission to have sex with me! I told you to wait! I asked you to stop! And you ignored me!” I lift the gun again and point it at him, my arm shaking so much that I have to cup the butt of the weapon with two hands in order to hold it still. “You made me bleed! You left bruises all over my body. I couldn’t move without remembering what you did. Goddamn it, Tyler, just admit it! Admit it and promise that you’ll tell the police. That you’ll turn yourself in! That’s all I’m asking you to do!”
“I’m sorry,” he says, “but I can’t. I’ll lose my job. I’ll lose everything.”
“What about what I’ve lost?” I say. I stand up, arms held straight in front of me, gripping the gun. “You don’t give a shit about that, do you? All you’re thinking about is you. What might happen to you.” I breathe in and out, rapidly, feeling my heart flutter, and I am suddenly terrified that I might have another heart attack. But then it hits me that I’ve come too far, fought through too much, to give up now. A renewed sense of determination flows through me. I’m going to right this wrong. “You know what, Tyler? You sound exactly like your father. Like an egomaniacal, self-absorbed, rapist bastard.”
He closes his eyes momentarily, and I know that I’ve hit him where it hurts most. Good, I think. I want you to hurt. I want you in so much pain you feel like you’re going to die. He’s just said that I couldn’t shoot him. But there is a fiery ache in the pit of my stomach and I think I’m capable of doing anything it takes to get him to speak the truth.
“There has to be some other way,” he says, sounding as though he is struggling to remain calm.
“There isn’t,” I say, cocking the hammer with my thumb. “Admit what you did. Say it. Promise you’ll go to the police.” If he refuses, there’s only one thing I can do. One way to make him pay.
“Amber, I can’t. You have to understand. If you’d just stop—”
“The same way you stopped that night?” I take a step toward him, and he freezes, realizing his mistake.
“We can find another way,” he says, again. He stands up then, too, looking like he might come at me, like he’s trying to figure out a way to grab the gun.
“No,” I say, gripping the weapon as tightly as I can. With the safety off, all it will take is a single twitch of my finger. “Sit down. Now!”
He holds completely still, except for his eyes, which bounce between my face and my hands. I can see a thick blue vein pulsing in his neck, and beads of sweat sprout across his forehead, but he doesn’t comply with my order. I am white-hot with rage.
“You won’t shoot me,” he repeats. “Give me the gun, Amber. This has gone on long enough. You can’t prove I forced you to do anything. If you could, I would have been arrested by now. Bringing me here was a mistake. If you stop this, if we just get in the truck and drive back home, I won’t tell the police.”
“Tell them what?” I goad him, preparing my stance the way my father taught me at the shooting range back in high school. “Steady legs and tight, strong torso gives you the most control,” he said, and even though I never thought I’d have to use his advice, I’d never forgotten it.
“That you kidnapped me,” Tyler says, taking one more step toward me. We’re less than six feet away from each other now. “At
gunpoint, no less.” He waits, trying to stare me down. “I think that might be even more jail time than rape.”
When I hear him suggest that it would be me who would be incarcerated instead of him, the fury inside me explodes, blotting out any restraint I might have left. This is not the Tyler who sat by my hospital bed, helping me find my way back from my own personal hell. This is not the Tyler who saved me from drowning. That Tyler is gone—he disappeared the night he yanked down my panties and speared me until I bled. This Tyler, the one who stands in front of me now, is pure evil, a spiteful, monstrous doppelgänger of the boy who was once my best friend.
With this realization, I meet his intense gaze with one of my own, and in that moment, everything changes. My breathing slows, and my body relaxes. I’m no longer afraid. No longer unsure. I feel calm. Full of resolve. I know exactly what has to happen next.
“Go to hell,” I say. And then, just as he lunges toward me, his arms outstretched, I put my finger on the trigger, take aim, and shoot.
Tyler
The bullet from Amber’s gun tears through my right shoulder, causing me to cry out and topple onto the dusty floor. The acrid stench of gunpowder fills the air. The pain is unbearable—a searing sensation my mind can barely process. I can’t move.
“Motherfucker,” I say, spitting the word through tight lips. She shot me. My best friend had done the one thing I didn’t believe she would do. I lie on my left side, in agony, but manage to lift my free hand up against my shoulder, knowing I need to apply pressure to the wound.
“Say it,” Amber says, standing above me, still holding the gun. “Admit what you did. Say you’ll go to the police.” She sounds like a maniacal windup doll, a haunting creature created for a horror movie, repeating the same words over and over again.
I squeeze my eyes shut. My deltoid muscle is on fire; I can feel blood oozing down my back, and I hope this means the bullet isn’t lodged somewhere inside my shoulder, wreaking havoc on my joint. I might be okay if it went straight through, though it still could have bounced off the bone on the way out. It’s possible I’ll suffer nerve damage and maybe even lose partial function in my arm.