by Leanne Davis
****
Tristan didn’t sleep at all. When he got up finally he didn’t eat or shave or even dress. He sat nursing a bottle of whiskey on the floor of his bedroom, staring up at one of the pictures he’d finally convinced Kylie to give him. He’d replaced the big art piece from his mother with Kylie’s smaller, darker, pictures. He liked hers a lot better. Now he stared at it. Willing it to forgive him. Hear him. Love him back. He had no idea what to do next. Not the next moment, hour or day. The pain on Kylie’s face… It caused a physical withdrawal in his brain. No. Her first fear had been What were they going to do to her? That’s what she had wondered first. What were they planning to do to her? And why wouldn’t that be her first reaction?
She had truly believed he was capable of physically hurting her.
“Tristan?”
He sat up when his brother’s voice rang out. He got to his feet and walked toward the living room to find Tommy standing in his doorway. “What are you doing here?” His voice was hollow to his ears.
“What happened? You look like someone died.”
“Sometimes I think you did.”
“What? What’s going on? You were acting weird at your office earlier this week. It got me curious, so I got on your computer. There are pictures there, Tristan.”
Tristan kept his gaze impassive as he held his little brother’s gaze. “You got onto my computer? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Tommy’s eyes were wide with suspicion. “Only they weren’t at all the pictures I thought I’d find. They were… sweet. Lovely, sweet pictures of a girl frolicking in the snow, and smiling at you in this very room. They are, in short, pictures I’d imagine a man takes of the girlfriend he’s in love with. There was not one suggestive thing anywhere. There was nothing to help us. What the hell are you doing, man? What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Tommy’s blue eyes, so much like his own, flashed with anger… and fear. There was fear there too. Tristan’s arms were crossed tight over his chest and he shook his head. “She’s nothing like I pictured, Tommy.”
“I don’t even know her. I fucked her one night, Tris. I didn’t spend a lot of time finding out her hopes and dreams. What are you telling me? You have? What are you doing?”
“I don’t know. But I don’t think she made those accusations at you to extort money. I don’t think she believes they are lies. Did you mistake something? She was drunk, right?”
“Yeah. Not new with that one. Whatever she’s done to convince you otherwise, Kylie McKinley slept with dozens of my classmates. I could get you a list, Tristan, if you need to believe me. There was someone else in there that night. He’ll testify what happened if it ever comes down to it. We didn’t want to but he will. My friends, Hanson, Chad, and Jamal remember her leaving the next morning. You know those guys. You know they are solid. There was no rape. There was a college girl who regretted what she did the night before. She was drunk but she was willing and able with both of us. Both of us at once… you get the picture. You get how embarrassing that could be for any good girl. She’s recanting because she doesn’t want to look like that kind of girl. Maybe she’s doing it because her parents found out. Whatever it is, for whatever reason, we didn’t do anything she didn’t want. I don’t know what game she’s running on you. Or what you’re doing, but if you think I’m some kind of rapist, then you need to look me in the face and tell me right now. Do you think that? Because if you do we are done. We aren’t brothers anymore. If you believe that cunt, then you don’t believe me.”
Silence clung to them. They stared across the living room, neither of them moving. Tristan hadn’t expected Tommy to come at him with an ultimatum. Blinding pain flashed behind his eyes. He never expected this. He had no ready answer. He had no gut reaction that told him what to do. He didn’t want to call his brother a rapist. But he could not tolerate him calling Kylie names that would erode more away from her. Nor claiming suddenly she was lying. None of it made sense. Neither person could be what the other was accusing. He knew them both and could not believe either would do it. Tommy wasn’t a monster hiding in the dark, preying on unsuspecting women. He was just a college senior having a good time. Just as Tristan had done. As Kylie had done. But neither was Kylie some gold-digging slutty villain coming after them.
Silence went on and on, and finally Tommy’s shoulders hunched forward. “Jesus, you don’t know. You don’t know who to believe.”
“I don’t. I don’t know what to think. I don’t… I’m not sure I believe you.” He turned and walked into his bedroom and slid to the floor to keep drinking. He didn’t look up again.
Tommy slammed the door as he walked out.
His brother might very well have just shut him out of his life forever more. Tristan wilted and fell back on the carpet in a stupor. How could this have happened? All of it exploding in the last day? It wasn’t acceptable. Tristan suddenly shot to his feet. What he’d done to Kylie was not okay. He was guilty of crimes against her. Maybe more than anyone. He couldn’t leave it as it was. He could try and do something… anything, more than he was doing now to fix this. To find some kind of solution. Sitting around hiding wasn’t going to produce that. Even as he started to clean up he had no fucking idea what to do.
Chapter Twenty
HER MOM OPENED THE door before they were even halfway up the walk. She dashed out, putting her arms around Kylie and embracing her tightly. Kylie fell into her mom’s embrace and clung tightly. She wilted against her and let Tracy lead her inside.
Donny was there. He stood there, arms at his sides, strung tight. She could feel the energy emanating off him. He was worried about her too.
“What did the son of a bitch do to you?” Donny demanded.
She gently lifted herself from her mom’s embrace. She smiled, but just barely. “It’s a very long story. And I think I need to tell it all to you.”
They nodded and Tracy gently swooshed her hands to make them move forward. Kylie knew Ally had called already, warning Tracy and Donny that they were coming and Kylie had something to tell them.
They each sat. Her parents on the couch and her in a chair across from them. The house was silent… and waiting. It felt like everyone was waiting for her to breathe.
“Is Julia here?”
“No, she’s with Vickie.”
Kylie nodded. “She shouldn’t hear this. I don’t know where to even start.”
“Start with what Tristan did to you.” Donny’s tone was full of carefully controlled anger.
“I can’t. It wouldn’t mean much without knowing the… the stuff before.”
“Okay then, start there.”
She closed her eyes. This was her idea of her own personal hell. Initiating a conversation to admit who she’d been and the kinds of things she’d done. “When I started college…” she began in a low voice. “It was a novelty to me. To be so free and away from home and all the constraints I’d always known. I—I partied quite a bit. I...”
She had no idea how she was going to get through this. To tell them what she was the victim of, they had to understand the context of how she got in that situation. Maybe she just needed them to understand she had some amount of blame in this situation too.
“I—”
Her entire body fell into the chair as if the weight of the world was on her back. She stared down. Embarrassment, indignation, hurt, it all combined to make her want to curl up and hide. Not speak. Not eat. Not feel. Not deal. But look at where her usual way of coping had gotten her. So hurt inside when she’d really needed help she’d been unable to find the words to ask for it. When she was okay, she’d never found the words to say she was.
If this had taught her anything, it was that she didn’t want to be so alone anymore.
She scratched at her wrist, still staring at her fingers as she started again. “As I started to say, when I went to school I was still… me. You know how I am. I don’t talk. I’m so shy I can’t connect with others. I wanted to th
ough. You know? Have friends and fun and all that, but I just didn’t know how. So I found this way. It wasn’t a good way. It was just a way. And I’m sorry. Really, I am. I know better. You raised me better… but…”
She glanced up at Ally, eyes pleading. Characteristically her voice wandered off. She was so weak and broken and sad she couldn’t even tell her family this.
“You want me to tell them?” Ally said.
She nodded to Ally.
Ally kept her voice low. “Kylie partied pretty hard, alcohol, some drugs, and sex. It was kind of scary for a while there, but then she backed off it all. I mean, I don’t know what this has to do with him, but…”
Tracy’s voice cut through them. “Kylie, sweetheart, where is all this leading? I get it. I get you. You just thought you always kept it from me. What was I supposed to do? Point it out when you so desperately didn’t want me to know? I knew. I learned years ago not to push you. It’s a delicate balance I walk of trying to make sure you are really okay, and getting you to talk to me. I push too hard and I lose you. But whatever has you running here to willingly tell me this stuff, tells me something big has happened. What is it? What happened?”
Kylie shook her head. She kept her gaze pinned to the toes of her boots. When she started to talk, her voice was monotone, almost bored sounding. “Freshman year, one night I went to a party. Nothing new, I’d been to lots by then. I woke up one morning and I was in this room, at a frat house. I didn’t recognize it. I didn’t remember it at all. It was the oddest sensation. I remembered talking and laughing the night before and then I woke up in this bedroom. Only… only I was naked and I’d had sex. But I didn’t remember any of it. Nothing. It was a deep black void. And…” She shut her eyes. “I can’t imagine what you’ll think of me. I put myself in this place and this situation even… and…”
Silence was heavy. She could not look up. She was scared of the disgust and repulsion she’d find. Then a pair of shoes came into her line of vision. She recognized her mom’s heels. Her hand came to rest on Kylie’s shoulders. She finally had to look up to find her mother’s gray eyes filling with tears as she dropped down to her knees before Kylie and clutched her hands in hers. “Are you telling me you were raped?” Tracy’s voice was surprisingly clear and strong.
Kylie shrugged, shying away from the language she often used in her head to think about it… and then she’d convince herself no, it wasn’t really that. But then all the denial let Tommy get away with it. Let Tristan find her and use her. “Yes. I’m telling you I was raped. I know I was drugged. It wasn’t a blackout or too much to drink. It was completely different.”
Ally shook her head, tears pouring down her face. “I didn’t know. I never had a clue. Not like this. I mean, I knew you were unhappy that year. I just thought it was all that angst that is you. I never thought—”
“I didn’t want you to think this, Ally. I hid it for a reason. I wasn’t ready to tell you guys. Now I am.”
Tracy suddenly swept her up in her arms. She was crying incoherently. Kylie was stuck trying to pat her back but her mom just clung to her harder. For once, Tracy wouldn’t or couldn’t get control of herself. “Mom, shh. I’m going to be okay. I’ve survived with it for two years. Mom, please. This doesn’t help me.”
Her mom finally tried to control her gasping sobs. “Then what will?”
“Telling you. Being honest.”
“Who did this to you?”
“His name is Tommy Tamasy.”
“The quarterback?” Donny popped out with shock. He then glanced around embarrassed. “I’m sorry, I recognize his name.”
“Yes, that’s him.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” The regret, frustration, and pain was almost physical in her mom as she nearly cried it out like a coyote’s howl in the dark.
“I just didn’t know how. For a long time, I believed it was my fault. For being there… for being how I was. I thought I put myself in that situation so it was partly my fault. I didn’t want you to know what I was like.”
“You thought because you liked to have sex and go to parties we—I would ever think you deserved this? God, Kylie, don’t you know? Don’t you know after all these years, how much I love you? So much. I would never judge you for this. How? How did you deal with this all by yourself?”
“I think you have to accept I don’t deal with stuff how others want me to. Not even you. I needed to be alone with it for a really long time and work my way around what you all think is obvious. You guys think I didn’t cause it and that it’s really rape. I didn’t think that. Not until recently. This is how long it took me to get and believe it. You have to understand you knowing and telling me so wouldn’t have made me believe it.”
“No, you never have,” Tracy said finally. She shut her eyes as if the pain was too much for her to bear.
“There’s more.”
“What more?” Tracy’s eyes popped back open. They were washed in tears and more flowed down her cheeks. Donny gripped the armchair until his hands turned color. His face was pale and mouth drawn in a deep frown. She glanced around. She told them about Cadence, and the website and their friendship and Cadence being in the hospital. “I need to go back and talk to her. It’s just, so much has happened. Her parents wouldn’t let me near her. She was a victim too.”
“And Tristan? Where is he? What happened with you two?” Ally asked.
“He’s Tommy’s brother. He just told me yesterday. When I was at the hospital. He told me and now I’m finally telling you.”
Donny was on his feet. He was pacing, scowling, the fury whipping off him. “What was he trying to do to you?”
“I don’t know. Trying to seduce me, take pictures of it. The weird thing is, I don’t think he ever did any of it. He had every chance. It’s been months.”
“How did he keep it a secret?”
“I never snooped. I only went to his office once. He kept me separate from his personal and professional life and I let him. He told me his name was Tristan Aderly, which is his middle name, his mom’s maiden name ironically. And I never pushed the limits.”
Donny’s head hung. “Yes, only you would respect someone’s privacy so completely.”
She smiled sadly. “It’s how I am. Look, I know this is awful for you guys to hear and I know how hard this is… but I can’t talk about it anymore tonight. I needed you to know. Now? I just need to be quiet for a while, okay?”
They all nodded and let her go. She quickly went to her old bedroom and curled up on her old bed and lay there, staring at the ceiling. It all swirled in her brain. The words, the actions, the lies and remorse and the people. Tommy. Ally. Cadence. Her. Tristan.
Tristan Tamasy. Tommy’s big brother. He was coming after her to protect his little brother. What else had he done to protect Tommy? Gone after Cadence? She didn’t know yet, what Cadence’s full story entailed, but obviously there was some lies told to Kylie. But Cadence wasn’t bad. Kylie was sure of that. Cadence had been hurt and was vulnerable, a victim, and the Tamasys were a rich powerful family. Tristan didn’t make sense. None of what he did made sense. It made sense actually how he first came after her. The Tamasys were protecting their interests. They know how to do such things. They were power players who could come after stupid, clueless college students like her and Cadence.
That made sense.
What did not was the last four months Kylie and Tristan had spent together essentially living as boyfriend and girlfriend. There was no reason for it. One time up having sex and she’d have been “neutralized.” Why would he bother to keep seeing her? It honest to God made no sense to her and she could find no reason for it.
“Kylie?” She rolled over when she heard her name. Ally carefully opened the bedroom door and came over and crawled into the bed with her. She snuggled up to Kylie.
Kylie let her embrace her. “I know you don’t understand how I could keep this to myself.”
Ally sighed. “No, really, I can understand. I
know you and I somehow let my way decide your ways. I’m sorry too, Kylie. My own sister was raped and felt like she couldn’t come to me. It sickens me. I—I know him. I know Tommy. We had classes together. I partnered with him last quarter on one of my psychology classes. He was so nice and congenial. Sick fuck. Probably got off on knowing what he’d done to my own sister.”
“He probably did, yes. He thought he had me kowtowed. I think that’s his thing. Young freshman girls in awe of him. The girls popular guys look past. The girls on the fringe—weird like I was, or shy and wholesome and so painfully new like Cadence was. He gets away with it because we’re too intimidated to say anything.”
“I wish I’d been a sister you could come to. With whatever. Not just with what you thought I wanted to hear and see.”
“I was ashamed. All the sex and partying you witnessed, and then this? I was afraid you’d say, ‘Well duh! Kylie, what did you think was going to happen?’”
Ally took her jaw in her hand and anchored her head so Kylie was forced to make eye contact with her. Kylie’s eyes widened in obvious shock. “You get I would never, ever have reacted like that. This shit I was pouting over with Dad was my deal, not yours. You know Mom and Donny are devastated. I heard them both crying. Just know how loved you are. Okay? Your pain, our pain. Don’t hide again. What if I was raped? Would you ever blame me?”
“Never.”
“Well, then, understand we feel the same way. It can happen to anyone, anywhere. No is really no, and all that.”
“You know what’s helped most of all?”
“What?”
“Talking to Cadence. She just gets it. No long-winded explanations. No consoling her. She just understands. There’s this group home on my list of approved internships, it’s for battered women, but it has a rape support group. They meet once a week. I was thinking, I might go. See if maybe I could help others. I think… I think I’m good at that, believe it or not. Because I’m not overly emotional, I can talk about things, and let others talk, you know? Tristan noticed that about me, of all things. He thought I was compassionate or something. I don’t know, maybe, social work is a good choice for me, not because of what happened to me but—”