Unspoken (The Woodlands)

by Jen Frederick

  “That, too,” I admitted. You can’t instantly change every instinct honed from a young age.

  AM had picked the right night to go out. The back rooms of the party house were packed with people spilling out onto the deck to enjoy the fresh air. Relief from midterms, I guessed. Wall-to-wall bodies filled the makeshift dance floor, and someone was spinning beats in the corner. At AM’s signal, Noah and I walked over to the DJ corner and told them to cut the music. I might have included a few threats about broken fingers and equipment. My reputation for having a short fuse and a heavy fist caused them to cut the music without any bloodshed. Noah, standing by my side, looked faintly disappointed.

  “Sorry. I promised AM I’d try to keep the hospital bills down,” I said.

  Noah just shrugged, and we walked back to the front of the room, where AM had climbed onto a table.

  “You know what she’s planning?” Noah whispered.

  “Nope. I’m just here to catch her.” And hold her, comfort her, and beat the shit out of anyone who made her cry.

  Gray came up to stand on my left and the rest of the boys from the Woodlands fanned out in a semicircle in front of the table.

  The chatter of the crowd quieted, and I heard whispers spread like a wildfire. A flash went off, and I raised my hand instinctively to shield myself.

  “What the hell, Ellie?” I asked.

  “You look like you’re AM’s big bad security detail.” She tucked her phone in her back pocket and mimicked our stance—folded arms, feet hip-width apart, and the grim look. “You’re only missing the suits and earpieces.”

  When AM didn’t move and the music didn’t spin back up, the crowd began to shift restlessly. AM cleared her throat. “I’m AnnMarie West, a sophomore and economics major. I have a three point eight-five GPA. Professor Quinlan gave me a B in her literature class. I didn’t profess enough love for Pride and Prejudice, I guess.” At this, a few people in the crowd laughed. This must be a well-known quirk.

  “You may also have heard of me from your friend or study group partner or intramural teammate as Typhoid Mary or the Lacrostitute.”

  This statement led to titters, clucking of tongues, and snapping of fingers, but few laughs.

  “I’m not really sure who started the rumor that I slept with the lacrosse team, but it become Central College canon before the end of my freshman year. It shouldn’t be a surprise to most of you that the rumor wasn’t true. I mean, when would I have time to do the whole team? Am I right?” She held out both hands, palms up to the crowd.

  The whispers started to crescendo.

  “The truth is that yes, I slept with a lacrosse player in a drunken stupor about a month after I came to Central.”

  “Erik Trenton,” someone shouted. I turned around and looked back into the crowd to see who had spoken. I saw a couple of hands point to the top of dark head. Visually marking the guy’s red t-shirt, I whispered to Noah, “One hundred fifty pounds, about five foot nine, dark hair, red t-shirt. About eight o’clock.” Noah nodded and slipped into the crowd. Seconds later, I heard a thud and scuffle of feet. I presumed Noah had cuffed the guy on the head, covered his mouth, and was now taking him out back.

  AM continued, her voice rising in volume. “I don’t remember much about it other than it wasn’t as painful as I thought it would be. It was my first time, you see. And then, I didn’t have sex with another guy from Central after that, especially not Clay Howard the Third. He tried to feel me up, but I turned him down. I didn’t want him. So in retaliation, he and his buddies and the rest of you started spreading rumors about me. You posted about it to the Central College bulletin board. You tweeted and Facebooked about it. I had to shut my Facebook page down because of it.” She paused and looked around the crowd. I could see her start to breathe more rapidly and worried that she’d break down, which I knew she’d hate. I took a step forward but AM stayed me with her hand. I dropped back and she continued.

  “You wrote on my door, you called me names. But none of it was true. And even if I’d slept with ten guys or a hundred guys, what goddamned business is it of yours? At first, I thought I’d just ignore it, but I couldn’t. For some reason, because you guys have nothing better to do, you thought it would be fun to make me a pariah. Spreading rumors about me having a venereal disease. Telling all your buddies how easy I was. Some of you guys even lied that you had bagged me, but we both know the truth. You haven’t been within a foot of my body. And maybe no one else’s.”

  AM took a deep calming breath and this time, no one tittered, laughed, or whispered. The entire crowd was spellbound by her words, by their own guilt, by their shitty actions.

  You don’t know how strong she really is. I could hear Ellie’s voice repeating her admonishment. And she was right; I didn’t. I had faced down my dad. My fears. But AM was facing down her peers, people she saw daily, people she might work with, people she went to class with and would have school projects with.

  That took some kind of bravery. My heart swelled with admiration for her.

  “Goddamn,” I heard Finn mutter next to me.

  “Times a hundred,” said Gray. Both of them were transfixed as AM laid out the hypocrisy of the entire crowd like a hunter doing a field dressing on a deer he’s just killed.

  “But I woke up and realized that I’m going to be here for another two years, and I deserve to have the same damn good time on campus as I’ve been having off of it. So I’m here to tell you that you’re all full of shit. Guys, you’re constantly running girls down for not putting out and when they do? You call them names. Is it any wonder you have to work so hard to get laid?” Her voice was mocking. The previous signs of nervousness had been completely banished.

  “And girls, what the fuck? Why aren’t you supporting your girlfriends? So she wants to get laid and you call her a slut and whisper behind her back? Who cares if she sleeps with one guy or fifty? Does it make her any less of the girl who’ll help you with your homework, spot you money for a formal, lend you clothes from her fucking closet? Why are you judging her based on the number of men who’ve stuck a penis in her instead of all the other things she does for you? Grow the fuck up and start treating each other with some goddamn respect.”

  With that, AM jumped down and headed straight for me. Though she tried to hide it, I could see she was trembling with adrenaline—but not fear. Nope, AM wasn’t afraid. She was just high on hormones.

  Her speech might not make a big change on campus, but it’d be something these people would never forget. Never.

  “Will you punch me if I tell you I that I’m totally in love with your girlfriend right now?” Gray muttered.

  “Ordinarily, yes, but tonight, I’m giving you a pass.” How could you not be turned on by the Valkyrie that was AM? This was a girl who wouldn’t be put down by anything. She’d always fight, not only for herself, but for you and anyone in her circle. The natural, animalistic response was to claim her because this woman would make the best wife, the best mother, the best partner.

  I didn’t take a step forward like I wanted to. I waited until she’d come to me so everyone else could see the steel in her spine, but once she was within the circle of my arms, I couldn’t resist telling the room silently that I’d spread the black plague on them if they said one negative word tonight. I hugged AM tightly to me and allowed her to lead us out of the party house, and the rest of the Woodlands guys falling in step behind us like they were the palace guard.

  Ellie met AM outside the door of the back room and gave her a huge hug. “I want to be you when I grow up.” Ryan, too, hugged AM and said she was an inspiration. As we walked through, hands reached out to pat AM. Murmurs of apologies and “preach it” were littered along her path. And with each step, I felt her trembling lessen, her steps become more firm, and her bearing more erect. Whatever changed or didn’t at Central was of little consequence. AM would shape her own destiny with her beautiful, strong hands.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  BO
>
  CENTRAL CHANGED FOR AM AFTER that night. Not everyone, of course. There were always going to be assholes, no matter what. But the next day at biology class, the room gave her a standing ovation as she walked in, and that seemed to embarrass her as much as the cruel whispers. She hid her face in my chest until the clapping died down. Professor Godwin frowned the entire time. We spent the weekend on campus, eating in the café and hanging out in the library and commons. It was incredibly boring and the food was bad.

  “Promise me that we don’t ever have to do this again,” I said to her after eating some meat plate surprise. AM nodded her head in vigorous agreement. Apparently the wilted lettuce and defrosted vegetables from the salad bar weren’t doing it for her, either.

  Besides the food, however, was the dismal existence of the lacrosse club. While Clay Howard never approached while I was around, I couldn’t be with AM every second of the day. At some point, Howard would corner her, and he’d want his piece of flesh in repayment for the humiliation that both of us had dealt to him—AM with her words and me with my fists.

  He was a loose end that needed to be taken care of and in a way that would ensure he was never a part of AM’s life again.

  “DID YOU GET IT?”

  Gray nodded grimly and held out a little vial with three pills. Mal, with all his connections, had helped Gray with this part of the plan. “It’s too fucking easy to get these, and they aren’t even very expensive. We outta shut that down.”

  “How many?”

  “Enough so that when Campus Security gets the tip about the pot, the marijuana plants will seem like a nuisance charge.”

  “How will you get that stuff back?”

  “After the charges are brought and the club dechartered, Mal and I will raid Campus Security, take back the pills, and destroy them. Campus Police stores everything in their office, which has a back door access and zero video surveillance. We cased it yesterday.”

  “When?” I wasn’t ordinarily the planning type. I left that for Noah, but this was my show, and I wanted to make sure all the details were taken care of, including not introducing a bunch of date rape drugs onto the campus scene.

  Mal folded his arms, “Gray and I will deal with this. You take care of your girl.”

  I got on the phone and called Ryan. “When’s the meet?”

  “Half hour.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Ryan had set up a meet with the president of the lacrosse club. I didn’t know him very well. He was a senior and some kind of philosophy major. I had to wonder what kind of sociopath he was to take philosophy and not think for a moment about the repercussions of his actions. I hated philosophy classes for just that reason.

  “SO WE’RE HERE TO PARLAY.” Brent Davidson rubbed his hands together in anticipation, as if we were playing a game of Risk. We had agreed to meet in the basement of the Alpha Phi house, which apparently violated a thousand sorority house rules, but Lana had decreed it was the perfect place. Neutral territory for both of us, or that’s how she sold it to Davidson. We stood facing each other in a dank room, the water heater of the house not ten feet away.

  I wondered if he thought that this would be some great chess game, with his wits matched against mine. I had a lot to accomplish in the next twenty-four hours, so I wasn’t going to spend a lot of time stroking this guy’s ego. Actually, I was going to spend zero time. Today was the day for a beatdown, and not one meted out by my fists.

  “You’re weak, Davidson,” I informed the lacrosse club president. “That’s why you’re here playing a club sport instead of an Ivy out east. You lack real talent and suck as a leader. Your club is a cancer and needs to be excised.”

  My bluntly spoken words penetrated Davidson’s backward baseball cap, and he looked about as pale as the color of his polo. He glanced nervously at Ryan, who stared back impassively. I continued. “Here’s what’s happening. There is no bargain. Your house is being searched right now, as we speak, by campus police. They will find in your kitchen pantry a grow light and ten weed plants. Now that’s not so bad, right? A few recreational drugs aren’t going to put you down, but in Clay Howard’s room they’re going to find a hundred grams of GHB. That’s a lot of date rape drugs. See, either Clay’s raping every girl on campus, or he’s dealing. Which do you think it is?”

  Davidson’s mouth opened and shut like a fish sucking for air. I waited for his little brain to catch up. “No one’s using GHB in the house.”

  “Is that right? I’ve heard it’s already being called the rape house. Good ol’ Central campus rumor mill is working extra hard today. Turns out that Clay keeps a little ledger next to his pill stash. There are initials in it, and a lot of those initials match the guys in the club. Initials like BRD. That wouldn’t be you, would it?”

  I didn’t think that Davidson could have gotten paler than he already was, but the whiteness of his skin made his eyes look like they were going to pop out. I moved back a bit so that I’d have a decent amount of room to swing, in case it came to that.

  “You aren’t going to get away with this!” Davidson cried. “Everyone will know you’re behind it.”

  “You mean everyone like the students? Because that’d be a good thing. They’ll know not to fuck with me or mine. If you mean campus admin, how would they ever draw the connection? Unless you’re going to admit to a violation of Honor Code ten, Section A, which says that if you knowingly spread false and malicious statements about another student, you’ll be up for expulsion. BRD, dude, you’re only a month or so from graduation. Do you want to jeopardize that?”

  Whether it was because of the use of his initials or the threat of delaying his graduation, Davidson decided to stop protesting. I admired the effort he employed to keep from screaming at me. “What do you want?” he asked dejectedly.

  “That ledger, which points fingers at over half the club, goes away if you agree to two things.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “First, you clean house.” I handed him a piece of paper and, when he refused to take it, I reached over and picked up his listless hand. Shoving the paper into his palm, I closed his fingers over it. “This list contains the names of the girls who were the target of the revenge rumors. You have until tomorrow to file charges against the appropriate men in the house in front of the Honor Code committee. With the filed charges, you will have affidavits filled out from members of the lacrosse team speaking in favor of the victims and against the accused. If this isn’t done by five P.M. tomorrow, the ledger stays with Campus Security and will eventually be transferred to the county for investigation by real detectives. You want them sorting through your e-mails and browser history?”

  Davidson shook his head and shoved the list into his pocket.

  “The second thing is that you forfeit the rest of your matches and you apply for a decertification for the club.”

  “No way, man, this is my senior year,” Davidson protested.

  “Hey, your funeral. Don’t know how you’ll play when you have the drug investigation hanging over your head, but I guess you’ll deal.”

  “You’re a fucking sociopath,” Davidson snarled at me.

  “Now I know you never paid attention in any of your classes. Sociopaths don’t feel anything. I’m feeling a lot right now. Glee. Satisfaction. Also anger. Don’t step wrong, or I’ll punch you until every bone in your face is broken.”

  “What about Ryan, here?” Davidson shook his finger. “He’s going to be taken down by this, too.”

  “Nah, see, Renaissance Man is beloved by a number of factions here at Central. The sport factions, the GLBTQ groups, the Greek system. I hear he’s being fought over by the sororities as to who gets to have him as a little brother.”

  Ryan smiled angelically as we both looked at him.

  “Ryan’s going to become the face of the lacrosse club. He will publicly mourn the loss of the club, but acknowledge that it was something that was necessary. Next year, the club charter will be reapplied
for, by Ryan and a select few surviving members deemed by Ryan to not be involved in whatever disgusting shit you guys carried out during your reign.”

  “Why the fuss? AnnMarie had her say.” Davidson had turned petulant now. His quicksilver changes of emotion were almost comical but showed what little spine he had.

  “She didn’t have a ‘say,’ she was doing some much-needed truth-telling. I’m not doing this for AM,” I lied. Of course it was for her, but I wasn’t putting her in the crosshairs. “I didn’t put myself in harm’s way for four years in Afghanistan so I could come home and watch a bunch of assclowns terrorize an entire campus of women. This is a fucking mess, and I don’t want my years at Central to be tainted by it. You with me?”

  Davidson nodded. “What about Howard?”

  “You leave him to me. You’ve got a shitload of stuff to do before five P.M. tomorrow.”

  “Or what?”

  “Or I guess you’ll see how you like seeing your name in the New York Times connected with a date-rape drug. Bet that looks good on the old résumé.”

  With that, I signaled for Ryan and we left.

  “What’s your plan for Howard?” Ryan asked quietly once we were outside.

  “Just a military prank.” I squeezed Ryan’s shoulder. “Why don’t you go to AM and Ellie’s apartment. Make sure they stay inside tonight. Rent some movies. I’ll be by about ten.”

  At 9 P.M., I showed up at Karl’s, a dive bar with about ten tables and cockroaches as dinner companions. People drank heavily for anesthetization both inside and out. Gray was sitting with Howard at one table in the corner. I pulled down my skull cap and flipped up my collar. No need to be too obvious. I sauntered over and sat down right next to Howard, stretching my arm across the back of Howard’s chair.

  “Having a bad day?”

  He was gone. Blitzed. I could barely make out his words between the slurring and spitting. “You’re behind this. I know you are, fucking asshole.”