Brothers & Best Friends

by Rose, Ashley

  "My little bride," Karen said. "I'm so excited—are you excited?"

  "Of course," Janine said, grinning. "I've only been dreaming of this day since I was like ten."

  "Like that was so long ago," Jess joked.

  Nudging him in the side, Janine shot him a playfully dirty look.

  "So are you hanging out later?" Karen asked.

  Perking up, Janine thought she meant just with them, and she said, "Yeah. Right?" she asked, looking to Jess for confirmation.

  Shrugging, Jess said, "Sure, we can."

  Smiling, Janine was just thinking to herself that she had neatly sidestepped hanging out with Will when Karen ruined her satisfaction.

  "So, Candace and John are looking… kind of cozy. He's not coming with us to Will's tonight, is he?"

  Her spirits plummeted when Janine realized Karen meant she was hanging out with the rest of the group and she had just been inviting Jess and Janine along.

  "Let him have his fun," said Jess. "It's not like Will's any better for Candace; at least with John when he goes back home after the fling, it's not like he's leaving her. Will can just ditch her when he's done with her."

  "He's only been over there for fifteen seconds," Janine stated in disbelief.

  Rolling his eyes, he said, "You lavish ten seconds of attention on Candace and she's hooked; what did you expect?"

  Scowling, Janine said, "How do you know?"

  There was a brief pause before he came up with, "Good guess?"

  Sighing, Janine asked, "Did you sleep with her, too?"

  His whore-ish past was becoming quite an annoyance to Janine.

  "No, I did not sleep with Candace," Jess told her.

  Karen added, "But she may have had a bit of a crush on him…for a couple months."

  "That's it, after we get married you have to get fat and ugly," Janine told him. "I'm stipulating it in the vows."

  Smirking, he said, "I'll do my best."

  Shaking her head, Janine stole a glance at Candace and her brother and saw Candace giggling as she hit him in the arm playfully. John glanced back at Janine and saw her little head-shake, so he offered her a grin.

  ***

  Later that evening it was time to go to Will's, and while Janine had been dreading it, she decided to suck it up. The world would not end because she had to spend another evening in Will's company, and really, other than the fact that he seemed to be a jerk, Janine wasn't even completely certain why she had such an aversion to him.

  Janine did a double-take when her friends stopped outside the incredibly tall building with "Trump Palace" scrawled in gold cursive above the door.

  "Why are we stopping?" she asked suspiciously, thinking it couldn't be…

  But it was.

  "Yeah, this is where Will lives," Karen stated, rolling her eyes.

  When they made it inside Will's one bedroom apartment—that he didn't have to share with anyone—Janine found herself marveling at how nice it was. He even had a little kitchen with a separate dining area, complete with table and four chairs.

  Will was busy greeting the people who actually liked him, so when he finally made it to Jess and Janine and saw the look of confusion on Janine's face as she looked around, he seemed amused.

  "Something wrong?" Will asked idly.

  "Your apartment…you live here alone?"

  Nodding, he said, "Yep."

  Scowling at him, she said, "Aren't you a student? How can you…live here alone?"

  Shrugging, he said, "I'm just lucky."

  "Do you work, or does someone just pay to put you up in the city while you study?"

  Smiling, Will shook his head. "Yes, I work, Janine. I'm not the spoiled brat you imagine me to be. I work thirty-two hours a week, in fact, and sometimes more than that."

  Although she realized it was unfair, Janine hated finding out that Will might actually live a respectable life. She liked to picture him as a combination of a silent movie villain, cackling silently as he twisted his mustache, and a ridiculous, privileged frat boy responsible only for partying while his family paid his way through life.

  She smiled a little at her own visual of a silent movie villain at a kegger. Will mistook the gesture for friendliness or amusement and went on.

  "As a matter of fact, you're a good person; even you might approve of my job."

  "Doubtful," she stated. "Very doubtful."

  His grin became even more arrogant as he stated, "I'm the fundraising assistant of a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping underprivileged inner-city kids. We offer them educational resources as well as help them do productive activities that keep them out of the streets."

  She had never felt more annoyed in her life at the thought of someone helping kids. Grimacing, Janine said, "God, you would have to have some facet of decency, wouldn't you?"

  Chuckling, he said, "Just when you thought you had me pegged, right? I actually sponsor a little girl in Honduras, too; I could show you her picture if you'd like."

  "Never pictured you as a do-gooder," Jess remarked, pushing his way into the conversation.

  "Well, it can be difficult to see in other people what you can't see in yourself," Will stated.

  Jess's eyes narrowed at Will, and Janine decided to end the conversation, looping her arm through Jess's and saying to Will, "Well, Gandhi, I'll let you get back to entertaining."

  "Let me know if you're ever interested in volunteering," he called as she walked away.

  "If I liked him more, that's something I would actually like to do," Janine stated.

  Shaking his head, he said, "You would."

  "What? Helping kids is right up my alley. I'm curious."

  Jess merely shook his head again and made his way over toward Chad and Karen.

  ***

  The entertainment value of that night was pretty priceless as far as Janine was concerned. Leave it to John to spice up an evening.

  Will, like everyone else, was aware of how he had Candace wrapped right around his little finger. What he hadn't expected was John Bradley.

  Throughout the night, John seated himself next to Candace and treated her like a human being who actually deserved attention. Candace became aware of one other fish swimming in the sea. No longer was Will her object of obsession. She was visibly hanging on John's every word.

  Will did seem surprised, but he did nothing to stop it, so he must not have cared too much. Still, for Janine, seeing Will's girl—whether she actually was or not—taken by her brother instead gave her a warm feeling inside.

  Karen was tipsy, so she had no problem coming over to Janine and telling her how much fun she was having watching John flirt with Candace in front of Will. Everyone seemed to think having to watch someone actually appear to value Candace was exactly what Will deserved.

  It would have been a lot better, however, if Will had at least seemed to care. Even a little. But he didn't.

  Toward the end of the night Janine was ready to leave. "I'm going to run to the bathroom one more time, but do you mind if we get out of here after?" Janine asked Jess. "I'm getting a little tired."

  Nodding, Jess said, "Yeah, I'll say goodbye to everyone. We'll go, we've stayed long enough."

  Janine smiled as she pushed herself up off the couch and made her way down the hallway for the fourth time of the night—she hated that part of pregnancy. It was so annoying having to run to the bathroom eighteen times an hour.

  The only way to get to the bathroom was through Will's bedroom. Janine couldn't help taking a look around, and she found herself looking at a picture that was hanging on the wall. The background was wilderness—a park, maybe?—and flanking Will were two older adults she thought were probably his parents. The woman had short blonde hair, and she was pretty. The man had a serious look about him, but one feature he certainly shared with Will was the gray eyes.

  They had to be helping him out, she decided as she glanced around the bedroom. Regardless of whether or not he worked thirty-two hours a week, ther
e was no way a college student could afford an apartment in Trump Palace. It just was not feasible.

  Glancing to the little end table with a framed picture on it, Janine opted to look at just that last photo before she went out to tell Jess she was ready to leave. Something about the picture looked almost familiar to Janine, and she picked it up, wondering if it was a snapshot from one of the recent nights she and Jess had been forced to hang out with him.

  But it wasn't. It was a picture of Will and two other guys, grinning at the camera as they sat on a couch. Janine smiled at first, shaking her head at the goofiness of the picture, but then her smile abruptly left her face when she saw something else she recognized.

  Herself.

  Off to Will's right side—not the focus of the picture, obviously, just one of those things where you get other people in your pictures—was Janine. She wasn't turned to face him, but she was seated next to him. Her face was turned as if she were paying attention to some exchange on her other side, but Janine definitely recognized the outfit she was wearing and she knew her own profile, even though it was dark and not very clear.

  The Janine in the picture was not pregnant. It was the thinner version of Janine, before her pregnancy. That outfit hadn't fit her for months.

  Not that she had ever worn that outfit again.

  With a strange sinking sensation, Janine recognized that outfit as the one she had bought in giddy excitement to go to the college party with John, full of idealistic thoughts about how great it would be.

  Frowning at the picture, she thought, "I only wore that outfit once…"

  The night she was raped.

  There should have never been a picture of Janine wearing that outfit, and yet Will had a picture of her in that outfit sitting on his end table in his bedroom.

  Will was at the party the night Janine was raped.

  Suddenly a swarm of voices rushed through Janine's mind—Paula accusing Janine of knowing Will before he transferred, Will's constant badgering about Janine's pregnancy and the snide insinuations that Jess wasn't the father, John demanding to know who the father of Janine's baby was and first coming up with Will Chatham.

  If she hadn't been so caught up in the picture frame, she might have heard the footsteps before Will said quietly, "What are you doing?"

  Gasping, Janine looked at him as if a serial killer had entered the room. Without thought, she began to back away from him.

  Realization flitted across his face and his gaze dropped to the picture frame. Nodding, he said, "I see."

  "I'm leaving," she stated, hating how her voice shook as sudden memories of that night flashed to the front of her mind, and all she could think about was being helplessly trapped beneath a man, staring out the window at the moon as she wished it were over.

  "You seem… freaked out," he said quietly, swiftly closing the door behind him.

  Her eyes widened immediately, and she said, "I said I'm leaving, open the damn door right now or I'll scream."

  "Janine, I'm not going to hurt you, I just want to talk. Don't do anything irrational."

  "Irrational!" she said in disbelief. "You call me irrational?" Holding up the picture frame, she said, "You were at that party, it was you!"

  "Shhh," he said, taking a step closer to her.

  Jumping back a step, she said, "Stay away from me. Don't come any closer or I'll scream. I'll tell everyone what you did. You'll go to jail."

  "Really?" Will asked, not sounding at all concerned. "See, I doubt the truth of anything you just said to me, Janine. For one thing, if you scream, you're going to have to tell people why you screamed. If you told people, then all of your friends—all of Jess' friends—are going to know you've been lying, and they're going to know that baby isn't his. Imagine how that would make Jess feel."

  Frowning a bit to herself, Janine realized he was right. Everyone would know. She didn't want anyone to know her baby didn't really belong to Jess. And Jess surely didn't seem to want anyone to know that.

  "And for the last part, Janine, don't be naïve. I'm not going to jail whether you tell or not."

  That cocky statement was almost enough for her to say she didn't care if Jess wanted everyone to know or not—she was telling on Will.

  "Oh really? You think you're above the law?"

  Chuckling quietly, he said, "Whether I am or not is actually beside the point, Janine. I don't need to be above the law. You have covered my ass very well. Thank you," he added.

  Janine frowned in confusion. "I don't know what you mean."

  Sighing and shaking his head, Will said, "First of all, Janine, if something like that happens to you, the very first thing you need to do is report it. You need to get a rape kit done and you need to report the incident to the police. You didn't tell anyone, let alone the police."

  Taking a small step closer, he ticked off a second point on his finger. "Then there's the fact that you were seen by a whole bunch of people flirting with me all evening to make your boyfriend jealous. This also helps me. If you were to suddenly run to the police now crying rape, you would probably get laughed at. Look at it from an outsider's point of view. A girl goes to a party, meets a guy, they hook up and then nothing comes of it. She may or may not be pissed, doesn't really amount to much either way. Then a couple months later she realizes she's pregnant. Even this would be a sensible time for her to decide to cry rape, because how is she going to explain this to her family? But no, you reunite with your girlhood crush, and he decides to be the father. You guys even tell all your friends it's his—after all, what are the chances the guy you randomly hooked up with is going to show up ever again?"

  "I didn't hook up with anyone!" she argued.

  "I know that," he said with a nod. "I'm telling you how it looks. So then, by some chance, you do end up running into Party Guy again, and since you're fighting with your boyfriend anyway you flirt with him. Boyfriend gets really pissed, and when he finds out this is the real father—the guy you hooked up with—it gets worse. You could cry rape at this point just to try to appease your boyfriend. Or maybe it's not that, maybe you're just scared and you don't know how you're going to raise the kid if he leaves you over it. Or maybe when you figured out the guy you hooked up with is actually more valuable than you had realized, you thought you could get some money out of it. Really, Janine, no matter how anyone looks at this situation, you've made rape look completely unrealistic. You waited too long to decide to tell now. No one will believe you."

  She could feel tears burning behind her eyes as she told him, "I didn't recognize you. I never would have flirted with you, I never would have…gone anywhere near you…"

  He looked almost sympathetic when he responded, "I know that. I'm sorry. I didn't mean…"

  Janine looked up at him as the sentence just trailed off, and she found herself surprised that Will could be at a loss for words.

  "Regardless, Janine, it's not that I want to hurt you, it's just that if it comes down to covering my own ass or protecting your reputation…obviously I'm going to have to cover my own ass."

  Shaking her head, she said, "You're a bastard, and what you did was—was just so wrong."

  "I know that," he said, seeming sincere. "I'm sorry for what I did, Janine. I was really wasted, and to be honest with you, I only even remember bits and pieces. Even I'm not completely sure how it happened."

  "Well you should never get that wasted," she stated. "You should never ever lose control of yourself and hurt an innocent girl." Feeling a burst of anger, she hauled off and hit him as hard as she could. "I was a virgin, you asshole, and you took that from me."

  He didn't even try to move away from her when she swung at him, and then after she hit him he nodded. "I know that now, and I am sorry. If you've noticed, I never have more than one or two drinks at any party now. That night was kind of a turning point in my life. I realized I was wasting my life, losing sight of my long-term goals….My whole lifestyle was damaging. I was drinking way too much, I was beginning to lose
focus on my studies. But after what happened at the party, it was just…a wake-up call. Get your shit together, Will. When you didn't report what happened, it gave me a chance to salvage everything. I stopped partying and busted my ass to bring my grades back up, and I figured it would be best to get out of there, away from the people who were used to me partying all the time, so I transferred to a more serious school, too."

  "Well, good for you," she said sarcastically. "I've been dealing with emotional trauma and trying to explain to all of my family how a supposed virgin could possibly end up pregnant—but I'm just so glad it was such a good moment in your life."

  Instantly abashed, he said, "It wasn't a good moment, Janine. I really am sorry about what happened but, I mean, it's too late to undo any of it now."

  Shaking her head, she said, "It doesn't matter anymore. Jess and I have made a life together, and…you're right, I messed everything up by not reporting you. But whatever. It's done now. Just stay the hell away from me and my family. After tonight, I never want to see your face again."

  Janine moved toward the door, but Will reached out and stopped her, lightly grabbing her around the wrist. "Now, wait just a minute. Now that you know…I wasn't done."

  "Well, I am," she stated, pulling her wrist but stopping when he didn't let go and looking up into those cold gray eyes of his.

  "I have an idea or two to run by you, Janine."

  "I'm not interested," she said, in no mood to cooperate.

  "Well, get interested," he stated, his eyes expressing mild irritation. "I think you might be forgetting something. You're having my child, Janine."

  His voice was like velvet, but it cut through Janine like a knife and she visibly grimaced. "No, I'm not. I'm having my own child, and Jess is going to be—"

  "Jess is going to be with you, since you have poor taste, but that doesn't change the paternity by any means. Biologically, that baby is mine. It has come to my attention after some careful thought that I'm not content to just…be absent from his life."

  Janine's jaw went slack. There were no words.

  "I would like to adopt the baby after it's born. I—"