by J. Saman
“Okay, but you promise that if you need me you’ll call.”
I smile. “I promise.”
“I miss you so much. I hate that I wasn’t there to take care of you.” His voice turns soft as he breathes into the phone.
I roll on my side, moving the phone to my other ear. “I miss you too. I’m going to get some sleep, but I’ll call you later.”
“Okay. I—” he pauses and my heart starts to pound, but not out of excitement or expectation, but out of fear. “Bye,” he finally says and then hangs up.
Phew. He may have been about to say something else, and going solely based on his tone, I know he was. And that means I have a decision to make where Brandon is concerned.
By the middle of the next day, I’m a million times better. So much so that I’m able to start working on my manuscript again, which I’ve been neglecting since last week. I haven’t seen much of Xander since yesterday morning, but I didn’t really expect to either. In his mind, he did his job by helping me out and now he’s done. He can go back to pretending I don’t exist.
But in that quiet time I spent in the hospital, before I fell asleep with him holding me, something changed. I can no longer keep going, feigning that we were never something special. Or that the way he treats me now doesn’t hurt. I need closure and if I keep waiting for him to give it to me, I’ll be waiting forever.
I hit a good stopping point on my manuscript, press the save button, and decide it’s time. This could all backfire on me, but I have to try. I’m done being this passive girl where Xander is concerned.
I know he’s home because I heard the door to his bedroom just slam shut, so I crawl out of bed, run my fingers through my hair a few times and find myself knocking on his door before I can talk myself out of it.
“Yeah?” he calls out, so I take that as an invitation to open his door. He’s sitting on his bed, untying his sneakers, a little sweaty from the gym I imagine since he’s wearing track shorts and a gray sports shirt. “How are you feeling?”
“Better, thanks.”
He nods, watching me closely for a beat before going back to his sneakers. “Did you need something?” His tone is soft, but he doesn’t look up at me from his task.
“Yes, Xander. I need something.” I take two big steps into his room so he has no other choice but to deal with me. He sits back on his bed, leaving his sneakers on and untied.
“What is it? I’m sweaty and I want a shower.” He’s not looking at me. His eyes are fixed on the hardwood floor next to my feet.
I swallow hard “What happened to us?” I ask softly, my voice losing all of the conviction I felt moments ago.
“What do you mean?” His eyes don’t move, but he does shift on the bed a little, uncomfortable with where he knows I’m headed.
“You and I were once so close. As close as you are with Aubrey. But, we were—” Shit. Just say it. “We were different too.”
“Abby . . .” He lowers his elbows to his parted thighs, intertwining his fingers and dropping his head between them, looking at the floor. “I really don’t want to do this. Just go, okay?”
I shake my head. I can’t go. I need to do this now or I’ll never get another chance. “You changed on me overnight, Xander.” I take another step towards him. “What did I do? Please, just tell me that?”
Dammit, I can feel the tears starting. The tip of my nose is burning, so I take a deep breath because tears will not help me right now.
He sighs. “Just leave it alone.” His tone is hard. “You can play dumb or naïve all you want, but you and I both know what happened.”
“No, Xander.” I take another step, but still leave plenty of space between us. “That’s the whole point. I don’t know what happened.”
“Bullshit!” he rages, standing up and looking down on me with so much burning indignation in his eyes that I gasp. “How can you stand there and pretend that you don’t know?”
I’m shaking my head, my eyes wide and my mouth agape.
He laughs. “Fine. Play dumb. You want to know what happened? Then I’ll fucking tell you.” He takes a step towards me, eyes narrowed into hateful slits. “You showed up in my room one night freshman year, after you went to some stupid party. You were looking for Aubrey who was out, so you crawled into my bed.”
What?
“You told me that you were falling for me. That you were sick of us pretending like we didn’t want more with each other.”
My hand flies up to my mouth and I’m shaking my head. I have no memory of this.
Please don’t let that mean what I think it does.
“I told you I felt the same.” His eyes burn into mine. “You knew I did. And we decided to try to be together. To be a real couple.” His voice softens a little, but his eyes don’t. His hands are still balled into fits at his sides. “Finally, I walked you home because we didn’t want Aubrey to find you in my bed. We decided that I would come back the next morning and we’d figure out what to tell him about us.” He steps into me, my neck craning to meet his cold eyes. “And I kissed you goodnight. Our first kiss and it was fucking perfect.”
I close my eyes tightly before reopening them, tears rolling down my cheeks. His dark eyes turn to pure hardened resentment. Something I’ve never seen the likes of before.
“The next morning when I showed up at your door, it was open and I heard you talking to Nina. No,” he points his finger at the ceiling, “correction, I heard you crying to Nina.”
Oh. My. God. No.
“You told her that you’d made the biggest mistake the night before. That you were so stupid and that you didn’t know what to do. That you regretted,” he bites out through clenched teeth, “what you did. Nina told you to pretend like it never happened. To just ignore it all and it would be like it never happened.”
“Xander,” I cut in, but my voice is so soft. So goddamn soft and he can’t hear me because his is getting louder with the years of built up acrimony and anger he’s feeling. “I don’t remember that night. I was drugged.”
But he’s on a roll and doesn’t pay any attention to my words. He doesn’t even see me anymore. “And you fucking did that, Abby. You pretended like what you said and what you did that night didn’t happen. That you and I never happened—”
“I was drugged!” I scream at the top of my lungs, which burns terribly, making me grab my chest to try and ease the pain. A cough comes flying out of my mouth, but I quickly get control. Xander is finally silent, blinking at me like my words have absolutely no meaning, but he’s trying really hard to figure them out. “I don’t remember anything about that night, Xander,” I tell him before he can start yelling again. “None of it. I was drugged at that frat party I went to with Samantha, and the next morning when I woke up in my bed, I had no recollection of anything from the night before. Nothing.” I shake my head. My arms crossed over my stomach. “That’s why I was crying to Nina. That’s why I told her I felt so stupid and that I regretted what I did.” I breathe out a slow shaky breath. “I would never have regretted you, and I’m so sorry,” I sob. “I don’t remember anything that happened that night,” I repeat so I know he understands.
“You were drugged at a frat party?” He tilts his heads, as if he’s still not sure what to make of my words.
I nod, running my hands over my face and wiping away my tears. “God, I was so stupid. Samantha dragged me there because she wanted to go meet up with some guy. So we went and I accepted a beer that I did not see poured, from some guy that I didn’t know, nor do I remember.” I look down, utterly ashamed with myself. “The next thing I remember is waking up in my bed in my clothes.”
“Fuck,” he hisses, running a hand through his hair. “Were you raped?” he asks horrified.
I shake my head. “I didn’t think so, because I wasn’t in any pain or anything, and I was dressed.” God, I’m blushing so hard right now. “So Nina told me to pretend like it didn’t happen, because she knew if Aubrey found out it would get really ba
d. The last thing I remembered was walking into the jock frat house.”
“You were drugged at a jock party? Does Brandon know about this?” His voice is eerily calm.
I look up to meet his eyes which for once are looking back into mine.
“No. Well,” I stop, shifting under the weight of his stare, “he doesn’t know I was drugged. I never told him that. The night of the party was apparently the first time he and I spoke. We had a conversation for like a half an hour and when he approached me at the library before we started dating, he brought up that conversation and I told him that I had no recollection of the party of ever talking to him.”
I’m rambling now. I have no idea if that even made sense. I don’t want to talk about the party or Brandon. I want to talk about me and Xander and more about what I said to him that night.
“And did he think it was odd that you didn’t remember meeting him or being at the party? Was he surprised?”
Why is he harping on this? Of all the things to talk about right now, this is the least pressing.
“He—” And then I pause, looking past Xander into the corner of the wall, not really seeing that either. My hands come up to my hips, recalling that first conversation with Brandon in the library. About how he reacted when I told him that I didn’t remember any of that night. “No,” I whisper as something starts to click inside me.
He didn’t think it was odd and he wasn’t surprised. He laughed. He thought it was funny and when I challenged him on it, he told me everything that we talked about, as if to prove that we did in fact have that conversation even though I couldn’t remember it.
But never once did he make it seem like there was something wrong with the fact that our first meeting completely escaped my recollection.
Did Brandon know I was drugged that night?
No, that can’t be right. He wouldn’t have done that to me.
Then why is that idea sticking inside me, unable to be shaken?
And how on earth did I not put that piece together sooner? God, I’m such a fool. I mean, I thought about it in the library, briefly, but I quickly discounted the notion that it was him. Because I just couldn’t see it. And you’d think I would have, right? That my suspicions would have been heightened? He just didn’t give me that vibe.
“Abby?” Xander’s sharp voice calls me back and my eyes refocus, looking back up to his.
“I don’t remember that night,” I tell him, hoping that this somehow changes things for us.
“You’ve said that already. And you were drugged.” He’s just staring at me. “You were freaking drugged by some strange guy and you didn’t tell me or Aubrey about it. And fucking Nina told you to pretend like it never happened.” He’s running his hands through his hair now, tugging on the ends in frustration. “Jesus Abby, you have no idea if anyone else was drugged that night. If anyone was raped—even if you weren’t.”
Oh. My. God.
He’s right. I have no idea, and my not coming forward and reporting it might be the worst thing I’ve ever done. I let whomever did that to me get away with it, and all I thought about at that time was how humiliated I was that I allowed myself to be duped like that. He could have done that to a dozen or more girls by this point.
And what if it was Brandon?
No. I can’t think like that. He wouldn’t. But it might explain why he kept his distance for two years, despite saying that he wanted to talk to me again that entire time.
Thank God I haven’t heard about any girls getting drugged or raped on campus. I need to think on this more. A lot more actually, but right now, I need to figure out things with Xander.
“What does this mean for us?”
“Us?” he laughs. “What us?”
“What do you mean, what us?” How can this revelation not change everything for him? At the very least, make us friends again.
“You may not remember that night, Abby, but I do. And I’m so goddamn sorry that happened to you. Sorry really isn’t the appropriate word for what I am about that. But what are you expecting from me? You told me that night that you were falling for me and that you wanted to be with me, and then I believed that you regretted everything. For two years, that’s what I believed and it broke my fucking heart.”
My head drops to the floor, my eyes instantly watering.
“I’m not saying this to be a jerk or to hurt you. I’m not. I just can’t automatically flip a switch because you tell me you don’t remember that night and all of this was a mis-fucking-understanding. Our only connection for the last two years has been Aubrey.”
“So you feel nothing for me other than obligation to him? We can’t even be friends?”
“I didn’t say that either.” He spins around, pacing a small loop before he kicks his trashcan over with a loud bang and a curse under his breath that makes me start.
“I don’t know what to say.” And I don’t. I think I’m just about talked out. I feel like a weight is released from my chest, but at the same time, I’m still completely weighed down. We may have figure out what happened all those years ago, but apparently, it no longer matters to him.
And then he stops his angry pacing tirade and stands before me. He looks broken.
“It doesn’t matter, does it? It’s been two years and you’ve got a boyfriend. You’ve got a boyfriend,” he says again with something that sounds similar to finality. Like this important detail solidifies everything for him. “And Aubrey is my best friend and . . .” he trails off, nodding his head. “Fucking hell. Aubrey is my best friend and you have a boyfriend and you only want to be my friend.” He shakes his head, with bewildered eyes. “I need to go.”
Xander blows past me, leaving me standing alone in his room drowning in a world of anguish.
CHAPTER 22
XANDER DIDN’T COME HOME LAST night. After I managed to pull myself out his room, I paced mine relentlessly, debating if I should call or text him. I decide not to do either, figuring that he just needs space and time to think everything I said through. Surely he must know that I didn’t mean to hurt him? That it wasn’t my fault that I didn’t remember?
But deep down I know that it is my fault.
College girl rule number one: never accept a beer that you did not see poured, from a guy you do not know.
I will always regret that night. I will always regret not reporting it or saying something to my brother and Xander. Now more than ever.
I broke Xander’s heart.
And I broke my own in the process, because I know without a shadow of a doubt I meant everything I said to him that night, whether I remember it or not.
I was falling for him.
Hell, I had already fallen for him.
And all this time that he and I wasted on being apart, on him hating me, absolutely kills me.
The other issue I have to deal with is Brandon.
The more that I think on this, the more I believe that he either knew I was drugged, or is responsible for it himself. I told him straight up that I had no memory of that party or ever meeting him, and he told me that we talked for thirty minutes. That is not some insignificant amount of time to have a conversation with someone and not remember it afterwards. And it’s not like he said I was drunk or even implied it.
I wasn’t, and he knows that.
He. Knows. That.
I have to confront him on this, but it’s not something I can do over the phone. I need to see his eyes, his facial expression and his body language when I ask him. Because I think he might try and lie to me and if he does, I might not know if I don’t see how him do it.
I may be naïve like Xander said, but I’m not stupid, and I can usually spot a lie a mile out. I dodged his calls yesterday and this morning, because I just can’t talk to him right now. I can’t pretend to have a normal conversation with a man that I think tried to hurt me.
The one question that keeps going on repeat through my mind? What would he have done to me if I hadn’t left the party when I did?
I like to think that he wouldn’t have, but I honestly don’t know.
I don’t know who he was back then, only who he is now, and the Brandon that I know now, would never hurt me. So that’s why I can’t seem to make sense of this. I’m hoping that I’m jumping to conclusions that aren’t based in reality, but something inside tells me that I’m not.
He squeezed your wrist at the bar.
Right. He did that. Maybe I’ve got him all wrong.
And how the hell did I not figure this out sooner?
By the time dinner rolls around, I’m going out of my mind. Xander still hasn’t come home or contacted me. I’ve been cooped up in my apartment for days. I’m feeling better, and I think some fresh air is exactly what I need.
I’d love to go for a run, but I don’t think my lungs are quite there yet.
I throw on a heavy sweater and my Doc Marten combat boots. Wrapping my hair up into a messy bun, I grab my keys and head out the door. It’s dark out, the way it always is this time of year at this hour, but I don’t mind. The air is mild and the street lights set off a nice glow around me. I find my eyes searching everywhere, every person, but he’s nowhere to be found.
I hate that Xander left me like that. I hate that we didn’t figure anything out and instead, I made everything worse. Pulling my phone from the pocket of my jeans, I see that he hasn’t called, but Brandon has texted twice wondering where the hell I am. I shoot off a quick text back saying that I’m fine, just busy.
He messages back instantly
Brandon: I’m coming home tomorrow. Craig—that’s his brother—was called back and I’m going crazy without you.
Me: I’ll see you tomorrow
He doesn’t respond and I’m glad for that. I’m also glad he’s coming home tomorrow so we can have this talk. My fingers somehow manage to find Xander’s name and I stare down at the letters, deciding I can’t handle the silence anymore.