Wetness is soaking my t-shirt, and I know Sam’s crying too. Not for herself, but for me. She hasn’t asked any questions yet, but I’m sure she already knows. She’s always been the smart one out of the two of us.
When her tears have stopped, and we are still wound around each other, I feel her chest heave a huge breath. “I got two messages,” Sam finally says. I don’t respond, I simply listen as I pet her hair and hold her tighter to me. “The first one said, ‘Your sister is a whore.’”
Swallowing the huge lump in my throat, I attempt to hold back the tears because I really need to hear what she has to say.
“I wouldn’t usually reply to anyone who’d say something like that, but I did. I said to them, ’I don’t know you, you have the wrong number.’ Because it came from a cell number I didn’t know. Right away, I got a reply.”
My heart jumps wildly, goosebumps crawl all over my skin and my eyes prickle with barely-contained tears. “What . . .” I cough to get the roughness out of my throat. I take a huge breath, close my eyes and ask the question, “What did the second message say?”
“It didn’t say anything, Dakota.”
My eyes snap open, while my eyebrows furrow tightly together. “I don’t understand.”
“It was a photo.”
What the hell? “A photo? Show me.” Encouraging Sam, I move her off me and sit up on the grass. Sam positions herself so she’s sitting opposite me, our knees touching while we both huddle over her phone.
“I wanted to delete it, but I already saw it. I can’t get that image out of my head. It’s scary. It made my stomach churn.”
Oh God, please, please don’t let it be bad.
“Show me.” I watch as her finger hovers over the bottom of the screen so she can slide it open. She’s hesitating. I know she is by the way her finger is lingering over her phone. “Just show me,” I say again softly.
“I didn’t believe whoever it was, but then . . . this came through.” She swipes the phone on, and goes to her message icon. “Here.” She hands me her phone and immediately looks down at the triangle of grass caught under her crossed legs.
“Oh,” I gasp as I take the phone and see what it is she’s seen. My hand comes to my mouth as I hold in the screams threatening to break through. “Shit,” I whisper.
“I want to beg you to tell me it’s not you, but there’s no denying it is.”
Even with blurred vision, it’s obviously me. There I am, lying on the grass, in my beautiful green gown with my arm thrown over my face, my dress hitched up, with my lower half exposed. Dropping Sam’s phone I bury my head in my hands to cover my shame, and my tears. “Shit,” I whimper between my heavy tears.
“What happened, Dakota?” Sam rests her hand on my thigh and rubs it in gentle circles. “You had sex? You could’ve told me.”
Gathering my strength, I shake my head. “It’s not that,” I say. Swallowing down the bile and trying my hardest to hold onto the little pride I actually have left, I lift my head from my hands.
“What is it?” Sam tilts her head to the side and offers me a reassuring smile. “You can tell me anything.”
“Promise me you won’t tell anyone, including Mom and Dad.”
“I promise,” she quickly agrees.
“No, Sam. Not like that. Promise me.”
“I promise,” she repeats herself.
“Sam. This is serious. I don’t even want to tell you, I would never have said a thing if it wasn’t for that disgusting picture.”
“You’re scaring me, Dakota. Just tell me.” She squints her eyes as she knits her eyebrows together.
“You have to promise me.”
“Sister first and always.” She crosses her heart. “I promise I won’t say a word.”
“On prom night, I blacked out and woke up early the next morning out by the bleachers. My panties were missing, and so was one shoe. I don’t remember anything at all, except I had, and still have bruises all over my body. And I had dried blood on the inside of my legs.”
“Oh my God, Dakota! We have to tell Mom and Dad.”
“NO!” I yell, but quickly try and calm myself. “You promised me, Sam. You can’t say anything.”
“You said you don’t remember anything. What exactly can you recall?”
“Um.” I look at her and notice the pleading look in her eyes. “The last thing I remember is dancing with the girls.”
“Nothing after that?” I shake my head and look down at my now knotted fingers. “I have to ask. Were you drinking alcohol?”
“Don’t be stupid, Sam. There were teachers everywhere. Anyway, I only had a soda.” An epiphany hits. “Oh my God. A soda. I remember there was the soda Reece brought back for me.” Standing I begin to pace.
“Reece gave you a soda? I don’t get it.”
“He asked if anyone wanted a drink.” As if I’m watching my prom in rewind, I see him hand me a drink. “He asked and I said I’d like a soda. Levi told him he wanted a Coke but Reece flipped him off. They came back a few minutes later and Reece gave me my soda before the girls called me over so we could dance.”
“Is that all you had? One soda?”
I rake my left hand over my face and through my hair, tugging on the silky strands as I reach the ends. “That’s all I remember. Everything else is hazy. Until I woke, I can’t remember anything else.”
“What do you mean by hazy?”
“More like blank. Like a sheet went over me after I had the soda Reece bought over, and it didn’t lift until I woke the next morning.”
“Dakota, that’s not right. Something isn’t adding up.” Sam is on her feet now and leaning against a park bench. “You didn’t drink, so you can’t say you were drunk. Maybe you were drugged.”
“I don’t know how. I didn’t take anything anyone gave me.”
“Dakota?” she says in a serious tone and looks at me with her chin tipped up and her eyebrows high.
“I didn’t!” I protest. “I swear, I didn’t take any drugs.”
“Not voluntarily,” she says quietly. “But you did have a drink.”
It all comes crashing down, answering the ‘how’ question from my prom night. “Crap,” I whisper. Sam’s face tells the story rumbling around inside me.
“You must have been drugged. It was in your drink.”
“I was drugged.” My feet suddenly stop pacing and I freeze on the spot. “Shit.”
“Yeah, Dakota . . . shit.”
“Let’s go over this again,” Sam says when we get back to my room and have closed the door.
“We’ve been going over it for the last half hour. I can’t remember anything else.” I sit cross-legged on my bed, and Sam sits opposite me.
“Reece went and got you the drink.”
“Yes,” I confirm.
“And did you have some straight away?”
Scrunching my eyebrows together I try to recall what happened that night, step-by-step. “I’m fairly certain he handed it to me, then Lindsey said we should dance. I put it on the table and then, Jordan and I went out on the dance floor.” My hands are going through the motion of accepting the drink and putting it on the table. I’m staring at the corner of the bed as I replay what happened from my clouded memory. “Yeah, that’s what happened.” I look to Sam as she’s watching me closely.
“So, Reece handed you the drink. He got it for you? And you said at the park Levi went with him. And you didn’t have any of it before you went to dance.”
“Yep, that’s right.”
Sam takes a deep breath, the right side of her mouth pulls up in an agonizing grimace. “Something’s not right, Dakota. It’s off, like weird, you know?”
“Tell me about it. Reece gave me the drink, but Levi was with him.”
“Yeah, which means they’d be in it together if it was one of them.”
I balk at the thought of either of them doing anything like this. “It makes no sense, why would Levi do this to me considering I was going to have sex
with him.”
“Did you tell him you wanted to wait, like you said you were going to?”
“Yeah, I told him in the limo on the way to the prom and he was understanding. Well, he was kinda pissed to start, but got over it quickly.”
“What about Reece?”
“What about Reece?” I repeat the question to Sam. “Reece is super sweet, there’s no way he’d do this.” Frustrated, I jump off the bed and pace around my room. “Listen to us. We’re trying to accuse everyone, when it really could’ve been anyone.” Suddenly I stop and turn to look at Sam. “Oh my God, Sam. What if it wasn’t meant for me? What if it was meant for someone else?”
Sam shakes her head. “How many times have we watched the news to see a girl’s been attacked, Dakota? Whoever did this knew exactly what they were doing and targeted you specifically.”
I begin pacing again and there are a million thoughts running through my mind. “Crap.”
“What?” Sam looks at me questioningly.
“If what you say is true; if it was a targeted attack, then who’s to say it was a student? It could just as easily have been a teacher.”
“A teacher?” She scratches her chin with a look of absolute disgust on her face. “But that’s . . .” She shudders and grimaces. “That’s seriously messed up. Ugh.”
“I’m thinking about a specific teacher.”
Her gaze is fixated on the corner of my bed then slowly she lifts her eyes to meet mine. Realization quickly sets in. “You mean Mr. Collins?” I nod my head. “You can’t go saying things like that about a teacher, Dakota.”
She’s right I can’t but something about Mr. C isn’t right. “I know, I know,” I sigh. Taking a huge breath, I go and sit beside her on the bed. “I haven’t looked at my phone since Saturday night. Maybe I should see who’s tried calling and messaging.” I get up and go to the nightstand where my phone is still plugged in and charging. “Damn it, Sam, I don’t want to look at this.”
I hold my phone in a feeble attempt not to buckle under the pressure of what might be on it. “I’ll do it,” Sam offers. “There’s nothing on here that can shock me. So . . . I’ll do it.”
“You know what I’m scared of, right?”
“Whoever sent me that picture, has probably sent it to you too.”
I desperately want to look but I’m terrified of what might be there. Dread is bubbling away inside me, and panic prickles from my scalp down to my toes. “I’m not sure I can do this,” I whisper while still holding the weightless phone to my chest. “It hurts, Sam.” I look at her and see the same pain I’m feeling reflected in her eyes.
“I know it does, but it has to be done.” I nod, agreeing with her. “I’ll do it.” She holds her hand out to me, silently asking for the phone.
Hesitantly, I unfold the arm hugging my phone close to my chest. It takes me forever to find my courage, so long that I’m sure the moon is at its highest point for the evening. I know it’s not. Reality is outside of time for me now. “I’m not sure I can do this.” Gripping the phone I pull my hand back hastily. “I can’t.”
“You have to know what’s going on. We don’t want to be surprised if anything is said in there.” Sam points to my phone. “Let’s get this over and done with.”
She’s right. She’s always right. “I’ll do it,” I say taking a huge breath. “Okay.” I move to sit on my bed, and Sam sits beside me. She puts her hand on my thigh and gives me a gentle, reassuring squeeze. I turn my phone on, wait until it’s powered up, and enter my PIN.
Messages upon messages, a register of countless missed phone calls all brightly display on the screen. First, I scroll through the missed calls. There are over forty of them, from practically everyone I know. There are also four calls from an unknown number which corresponds with what Mr. C said at school.
“You need to look at all the messages too,” Sam says encouragingly.
“Yeah, I know.” I meet her eyes for a moment before turning away completely consumed by shame. “Here goes.” My body violently reacts to the knowledge of what may possibly be on my phone. “Oh God,” I mumble as I roll through the messenger app. There’s a vast catalogue of communications, mostly my friends asking where I am and what’s happened to me. I’ve got messages from Levi, Reece, Jordan, Mariah and Lindsey as well. A few from Mom asking if I’m having a good time, and even one from Sam.
Then there’s an unknown number with an attachment in the body of the message. My finger hovers over the message. I want to click and see what it is, but at the same time, I’m scared too. “It’s okay,” Sam says. She moves her hand from my thigh, and drapes it over my shoulder, bringing me in close to her. “No matter what it says, we’re going to get through this together.”
I nod and offer her a weak smile. “Okay,” I worriedly sigh while letting out a huff of air. “I can do this.”
“You can.”
I touch on the message from the unknown number and it takes me to the top, the very first message. It’s from the night of the prom and it reads, ‘You’re a whore.’ The next message says, ‘You’re a lousy lay.’ My heart is frantically pounding, and my entire body is vibrating so violently I can barely control my hand as I try to get to the bottom of the message. The third message is the worst so far. It says, ‘You were moaning like a two-dollar hooker, but I’ll never fuck you again.’ There’s still more, but I can’t bring myself to look at it. “Oh shit.” I feel the phone slipping from my fingers and hear the quiet thud as it hits the floor. “What the hell happened?” I ask, but know there’s no one in this room who can give me an accurate answer.
Sam leans down and picks up my phone. She stands and leans against my bedroom door. “I’m going to see what’s happening.” I turn away from Sam. Out of sight out of mind, right? But there’s nothing ‘out of mind’ about this. It’s completely consuming me. My life has been dramatically altered. This has changed me forever and no part of me will ever be the same. “It’s the same picture that was sent to my phone. And one more message which says ‘Enjoy the show, I have plenty of pictures with you as the star.’”
“Oh.” Sitting on my bed, I’m numb. Completely dazed, and non-responsive to whatever the hell happened. Something died inside me the night of prom, and now, another piece of me has cascaded down to the pit of eternal darkness.
“It’s okay, Dakota, we’ll get through this.”
With no expression, and absolutely no emotion, I simply nod at whatever Sam said.
“Dakota.” I can hear her calling my name, but I can’t bring myself to respond. I’m powerless. “Dakota,” Sam’s tone has now taken on a sense of urgency. “Dakota!” she almost shouts at me. Blankly I turn my face to where her voice is calling me. “Screw this,” she says. She looks down at my phone, does something then lifts it to her ear. “Damn it, the number has been disconnected. Hang on.” Vaguely I register what she’s doing. I think she opens her messenger, compares the number, then brings her phone to her ear. “Bastard,” she spits. “Different number and they’ve both been disconnected.”
“It’s okay,” I say in a detached tone. My voice reflects my lifeless emotions. On the inside, where no one can see, I’ve . . . departed. That’s exactly how everything inside of me feels. Empty, cold . . . extinct. “You tried.” My stomach churns with those two words stumbling out of my mouth. “There’s nothing else we can do.”
“Like hell there’s not. We’re not going to give up on this, Dakota.” Sam is igniting a tiny spark deep down in the pit of my stomach. “We may not know who the hell this person is, but we’re not going to let them rule your life either.”
I collapse on the bed and absolutely hate myself. “I’m so damned weak. I’m not sure I can get through this.” Hugging my pillow, I bury my face in it, completely ashamed of myself.
“Jesus, Dakota. Weak? Are you serious?” The bed dips beside me. “Weak is not the word I’d use.”
“I can’t do this.”
“Then we have to tell Mom and Dad
.”
“NO!” I say with authority. “You promised me you wouldn’t say anything.” I look to where she’s sitting.
“Then you can’t blame yourself either.” Sam takes a deep breath and moves her hand out, silently asking for my mine. “I don’t know what you’re feeling. But I can imagine how painful, and . . .” She looks off into the corner of the room, trying to find the words she wants to use. “And humiliating this must be to you. But you didn’t bring this on yourself, all you did was go to your junior prom, expecting to have fun with your friends. There’s nothing you could’ve done differently, and if it wasn’t you someone else would have been targeted at the prom.”
“That makes me feel sick. The thought of someone else waking up in the back field. I can’t even imagine it. I don’t wish this on anyone, Sam.”
“Come on.” She pulls me up from my bed. “We’ll get through this,” she says as she engulfs me in a hug. “Together.”
“Together,” I say, though really, I feel so alone.
“What happened to you two last night?” Mom asks as she sits down opposite Sam and me with a cup of coffee.
My hand freezes, with my spoon mid-air and my stomach nervously churning as a cold wave covers me. Sam elbows me, and her gaze goes to my spoon. “Dakota bet me she’d win in a race down to the park, but she cheated. She took off before I even had a chance to put my shoes on. She cheated, because she went barefoot.” Sam lifts her eyebrows and looks at me.
Crap, she’s good at lying. “Yeah, I did,” I confirm and smile at Sam’s story. Taking another spoonful of my cereal, I block out the sound of Mom and Sam’s insistent chatter.
“Did you hear what I said, Dakota?” Mom asks while Sam kicks me under the table.
“Sorry, what?”
“What’s happening with you? I could swear you just transported somewhere else, like you weren’t even here,” Mom says, standing to take her cup to the sink.
“Just thinking about cheerleading practice.” Great, now I’m lying too.
“I said when you’re ready, let me know. I’ll take you two to school today because I need to head over to the mall.”
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