I Stop Somewhere

by TE Carter

  My father stands with his legs pressing against the tape, the yellow against his jeans. Staring into the hole, into my grave. “When can I have the funeral?” he asks.

  “That’s up to you,” Gomes says. “We can arrange it without the body, or once we’re done…”

  “She’s not here anymore. That body. That’s not Ellie. It doesn’t matter what’s in the casket. My daughter’s gone.”

  He walks away, toward the front yard, down the driveway, and he keeps going. I follow him, my silent footsteps keeping time with his.

  “I’m not gone, Dad,” I whisper. “Turn around.”

  But he doesn’t. It’s not that kind of story.

  chapter forty-two

  Inside the courthouse, people rush from place to place. The media sets up to cover anything that happens during the arraignment. Caleb and Noah are brought in from wherever they’ve been kept. Neither of them seems nervous. Caleb’s confidence hasn’t been shaken at all.

  In a dark room at the end of the hall, a woman stands in the corner, copying something. Gretchen and Kailey sit at the long conference room table, each of them cocooned inside themselves at either end of the giant oval.

  She’s called an advocate, but Gretchen can’t stand the concept of her. She’s too well dressed. Too professional. Too together to be the voice of girls who’ve been raped. While she copies, her suit nearly squeaks from its perfectness. It was pressed just last night, and her hair pulls the corners of her skin back. She takes the papers and passes them out to the two girls. Neither looks at them.

  “I understand you may not want to speak,” the woman says, “and we would generally suggest you don’t. You don’t need to. I’m here to speak for you. I’ll be the liaison between their attorneys and you.”

  “I can speak for myself,” Gretchen says. “Were you there?”

  “I understand you don’t feel I can appreciate your situation, but we’re also trying to protect you. The media can be quite tough in these circumstances. And now, given what’s happened with the Ellie Frias case, this isn’t going away. I hate to say it, but it’s probably only just getting started.”

  Gretchen looks down the long table at Kailey, who’s looking outside. There isn’t enough room in our small courthouse. It’s supposed to serve six towns, but that’s not enough space for the reporters. The ones who got here late, those who couldn’t get in, have filled the parking lot and crossed over onto the lawn. One of them works for a big station, but her car wouldn’t start this morning and now she’s standing on the lawn, fighting with the mud that’s swallowed her heels.

  “I don’t want to talk to anyone,” Kailey says. She doesn’t turn around to address the people in the room.

  The advocate smiles. She sits by Kailey, already giving up on Gretchen, pressing her skirt with her hand as she sits. Gretchen sighs and looks at the paper, a list of resources for rape victims. She crumples it up and tosses it toward the wastebasket. It misses and lands by a stack of folding chairs.

  “You don’t have to,” the woman says, reaching toward Kailey. She puts a hand on Kailey’s shoulder and Kailey jumps. “We all handle things differently. I’m here to help you tell your story in a way in which you’re comfortable.”

  “What’s to be comfortable about?” Gretchen asks. “It wasn’t comfortable for either of us. Why should it be comfortable for anyone else?”

  “Gretchen, I won’t take away your voice, but for Kailey’s sake, let’s try to figure out how we can get everyone on our side.”

  “Yeah, what side is that? The ‘hey, it sucks to be raped’ side?” Gretchen asks. “This isn’t a debate. Those assholes raped us. How is there a side?”

  Kailey turns around and looks between Gretchen and the advocate. She runs a hand down the sheet of paper and sighs. “Let Beth talk. Please.”

  “Fine. Go ahead, Beth,” Gretchen says. She puts her head down on the table, her hands in fists. Beth, the advocate, looks between the girls again, and turns to Kailey. She takes Kailey’s hand. This time, Kailey doesn’t jump.

  “I do want you both to understand that the tactics they’ll use may be troublesome. However, we can try to remember that they’re nothing but tactics, okay? It will feel personal, but let’s try to avoid taking it personally.”

  Gretchen doesn’t look up, but she laughs. “They’ve called me a whore. People I’ve never met—people online—they say I asked for it. Guys have been threatening to rape me since, well, before this happened. Now they’re saying I thrive on it. Yeah, it’s personal, but let the media do their worst.”

  Kailey takes her hand away from Beth and turns back to the window. Beth stands and walks over to Gretchen. She tries to whisper, but her voice echoes in the dark room.

  “I understand you feel like this is a sadly common experience for you,” she says. “But we can’t get anywhere if you resist help.”

  “Please stop saying you understand. You don’t.”

  Beth nods. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to see if I can find out where things stand. See if they’re making any progress.”

  I can’t decide how I feel about Beth. I sympathize with the fact that she’s trying. It’s not an easy job, and I suppose she’s doing it with the right intentions. But Gretchen is right. Beth doesn’t know. She wasn’t there. She’s not even from Hollow Oaks or the surrounding area. She was shipped in from Albany or something because this has become a big case. After it’s all over, she’ll probably write a paper on us. And everyone will think she’s some kind of hero. The savior of the girls the Breward boys raped. Or at least two of them. Maybe three. Because the others … well, everyone forgets.

  “You shouldn’t be so defensive,” Kailey says to Gretchen once they’re alone, still looking outside. Still wishing she wasn’t a part of all this.

  “Don’t tell me what I should be,” Gretchen replies.

  I leave the room. They’re not getting anywhere. Meanwhile, Caleb and Noah are being read charges and people are building alibis and narratives to turn it back on us. Beth will come back and coach Gretchen and Kailey on how to say the right things. I don’t know if anyone is coaching the boys, but it seems unfair. Why do Gretchen and Kailey have to learn how to be the right kind of victims?

  And what about me? Beth can’t speak for the dead girl. There’s no advocate for me.

  It seems backward. It seems pointless and hopeless. They’ve been trying to get more girls to come forward. But I can’t imagine why anyone would. The system is set up to make you want to be quiet.

  Outside, in the hallway, people flitter. I don’t know if Caleb and Noah have been through the arraignment yet. I don’t want to go in there. I hate looking at him. I hate remembering how much I used to want to look at him.

  Gina Lynn came today. I don’t know who she’s here for. I don’t know if she’s here to defend him or if she’s going to tell the truth. I see her cross the hall into the bathroom and I follow her. She interests me. They found me because she said something. They listened because Gina Lynn spoke.

  She stands at the sink, her hands gripping the coldness of it, looking at herself in the mirror. Her makeup is perfect. Everything is perfect, except she doesn’t feel perfect. She’s still golden, but as I watch her, I see how her eyes fill up. How she bites her lip. Not hard enough to make a mark. Always balancing. What they see with what she feels.

  “I can’t do this,” she says to no one but herself. “I can’t.”

  She was so sure. She wasn’t nice, but she was sure. She knew who she was, what she wanted. Did Caleb break her? Or was the girl I thought I knew, the one I assumed had all the answers, just as lost as the rest of us all along?

  The door opens. Gina Lynn looks up, and Officer Thompson comes in.

  “Oh. I can—” She turns to leave.

  Gina Lynn looks at her, and the girl she was, the one who was better than us all, disappears. “Help me,” she says. “I can’t do this.”

  “Do what? How can I help?” Officer Thompson clo
ses the door, but she doesn’t move.

  “He doesn’t know. I came to you, but he doesn’t know. He expects me to be here. He’s called. I’m supposed to lie when the time comes. I don’t know what to do. I’m so scared.”

  “He’s under arrest. He can’t hurt you while he’s in jail,” Officer Thompson says.

  “How long will that last? Do you really think he’ll lose?”

  Thompson goes over to Gina Lynn, puts her arm around her. She’s not a hugger and Gina Lynn isn’t used to being weak. Neither of them knows what to do.

  “Do you really think he’ll hurt you?” she asks. It’s a ridiculous question. He’s being arraigned on murder and sexual assault charges. His record isn’t great for not hurting girls. Gina Lynn doesn’t bother to respond.

  The two of them are reflected in the courthouse bathroom mirror, not much different on the outside. But Gina Lynn shines, even when she doesn’t want to. Thompson just looks tired. They wait for something to reveal itself. Something to make sense. The mirror of a girls’ bathroom is always being stared at by women who wish it could become a window.

  “Let me see what I can do,” Thompson says. “Just go in there. Do what you can. We’ll figure it out as we go, but I promise, I will fix this.”

  “People always say that when they can’t fix things, you know.”

  Thompson nods. “Yeah, I know.”

  “I’m sorry,” Gina Lynn says. “I’ve made so many mistakes. I don’t want to make this one, but I don’t know how to change. It’s important, though. I need it to be important.”

  “It is.”

  “I…” Gina Lynn pauses. A girl who always knew what to say. Knew how to make people listen. And now she’s just another girl. Another broken girl with secrets, who can’t figure out how to say the right thing. “My sister lives with my dad. Most of the time. She’s ten. I’m not there. But maybe … I don’t want my sister to be better off the farther away I go. I don’t want her to need to be apart from me to be safe.”

  “I get it,” Thompson says, “I do. Because I have a daughter. She just turned four, you know? She’s only four years old and I don’t know how to keep her safe, either. I don’t know how to make sure she’s okay. It’s what I do, and I have no idea how to do it.”

  They continue looking at each other through the mirror, taking reflection as reality. Thompson sighs. “I need my daughter to grow up someplace different.”

  “You could move,” Gina Lynn says.

  “I don’t mean scenery different. I need her to grow up and not be standing here in ten or fifteen years. When I said I promised, I wasn’t just promising you. I was talking to her. To myself. To Ellie. I need my daughter to have a chance at growing up and surviving. Isn’t that ridiculous? That it’s not something I can promise?”

  “I don’t know,” Gina Lynn says.

  “Look, I’ll figure it out, okay? I have to. There’s too much counting on it.”

  “I can’t stand the thought of him touching me.” Gina Lynn still doesn’t cry. She doesn’t have her purse with her and she can’t cry; her mascara will run. “I’m so afraid he’ll get out. Every night, I want to be sick. I can’t stop wondering. What happened that night? I let him in. I kissed him. He was in my bed. Was she…?”

  If I could speak now, I would say something. I spent a lot of time blending. Being quiet. Being good. But I want her to know that, despite all the cruel things she’s done, despite her videos and forgetting my name and being with him when I wanted to, despite all that, I know she didn’t know. I know she couldn’t have known, because in a dark room at the other end of the hall, Kailey Howe sits. I didn’t know about her, and I let him kiss me, too.

  “He won’t be able to touch you,” Thompson says. “Not now. They’ll keep him locked up. At least until the trial and hopefully for much longer.”

  She turns on the water and washes her hands. Gina Lynn looks to her side. “What if he’s found not guilty?”

  “I told you. I can’t let that happen.”

  “What about his family?”

  “What about them?” Thompson asks.

  Gina Lynn shakes her head. “I don’t know. But someone had to know, right? Why not them? I can’t explain it. I don’t know, but there’s something wrong with all of them.”

  Their moment is interrupted when Cassie comes in. Three very different women—all strangely connected to me. She looks at them, sees the way they’re talking, and she turns to leave.

  “Wait,” Gina Lynn says.

  “I don’t want to intrude.”

  “Can you help me?”

  Thompson shakes her head. “Not them. They don’t care, as long as they get a story.”

  “For someone who let six months pass while a teenage girl waited in the ground, you seem pretty confident about deciding who cares,” Cassie says. She puts her bag down and takes out a small wallet. A business card holder, I guess. She passes a small white card to Gina Lynn. “I’d be happy to talk to you. On or off the record.”

  “I need people to know,” Gina Lynn says. “People have to know. I just can’t be the one who tells them. I can’t. I’m so sorry.” I didn’t like her, but I didn’t know her well enough to hate her. I don’t want her life to be full of my pain. I wish she wasn’t a part of it, but we aren’t that different. Not really. We both want to be noticed in the right ways. We both want to belong.

  “I do care,” Cassie says to Thompson. “You could have asked. We all have our reasons for being here. Don’t assume you know mine.”

  “I’m sorry,” Thompson says. “You’re right.”

  “Yeah, well, a hell of a lot of good sorry does. This town is full of sorry people. Ellie Frias is still dead, isn’t she?”

  It’s funny the people who remember you. I suppose we all have our reasons for caring about what happens, for choosing which parts of the world count, which lives we let shape it. I don’t know Cassie’s reasons, but I know she’s right. She’s been here from the beginning. She cared.

  She’s also right about Hollow Oaks. Everyone is always sorry when it’s too late. When it was too late for the factories and people’s jobs. Too late for the families who had to leave their homes behind. And too late for all the girls who’ve been hurt in this town.

  She’s right. What good is sorry?

  chapter forty-three

  After the arraignment is over, Caleb and Noah stand to the side while Adrien and their father talk to the press. Guards stand by them, not just to make sure they don’t run, but to protect them. From being harassed. Because they deserve to be protected, I guess.

  A reporter calls Caleb’s name. He smiles at her. Not a happy smile. Not a smirk. The smile of someone who’s been stuck in an awkward situation that he doesn’t understand. He charms them by being sorry. By pretending. He always loved pretending.

  The words they’re saying should not be in my vocabulary. Murder. Sexual assault. Premeditation. That’s the worst one. Premeditation. Planning. Deliberate. Every conversation. Every afternoon. Every time he kissed me. Which ones were true? Which ones were deliberate? Which were part of the premeditation?

  I watch it all and none of it truly surprises me. I was nobody. Gretchen and Kailey are nobodies, too. They aren’t even remembered now that my body was found. They’re just extra. Bonus points for the DA. And none of it matters as Wayne Breward jokes with the press.

  Gina Lynn waits. She smiles at Caleb, waving to him when he looks at her. She lets Wayne Breward hug her after he’s done giving his speech. The media takes her picture while she stands beside them. Some will use her to compare us. What motivation would Caleb Breward have to hurt me, when she was so pretty?

  When my dad leaves the courtroom, when he enters the hall with his head down, the media focuses on him instead. They don’t see how Adrien and Wayne Breward walk away, laughing about something unrelated, unconcerned about us. The media follows my father and he appeals to the humanity that might be left in the people at home.

  �
�My daughter, Ellie Frias, was my best friend. Maybe that sounds odd, but it’s true. When I came home every night, she was there and I knew she would always be there. I loved my daughter and suddenly she wasn’t there.” His lip shakes but he doesn’t cry. “Someone took her away from me, and I don’t know how or why. All I want is answers. I’m not looking for revenge, but someone should be brought to justice for this hole they left in my life.” He pauses and looks at the sea of reporters. “To the people who have children, I beg you. Hug your kids tonight. Tell them you love them. Please just tell them you care. I loved my daughter. I wish I’d told her that more.”

  “Were Caleb and Ellie in a relationship?” someone asks. They’re not interested in his regrets.

  “I don’t know,” he says. “The police believe there was an existing relationship, yes, so I imagine there was.”

  “How do you not know?” another reporter asks.

  My dad swallows. The DA is standing nearby, ready to intervene. Gomes watches from the side, but my father wants to speak for himself. For me. He looks at the guy who asked, the one who doesn’t have children of his own yet questions my father’s parenting. “I’m sorry. I loved my daughter. Unconditionally. But that doesn’t mean I knew everything about her. And if I had, it doesn’t mean I always would have agreed with her choices. I loved her. Whether she was or was not dating Caleb Breward is irrelevant. No matter what, she should be here today. Their relationship isn’t a correlation to her being gone.”

  “Could it be a misunderstanding? Do you believe the charges against Caleb?”

  My dad shakes his head. “You know what? I don’t care. I don’t give a damn who did it. I don’t care about all the reasons or rationalizations people may have. She’s gone. Tonight and tomorrow and every goddamn day from here on out, I have to go home to an empty house. They threw her in the fucking ground.” He starts to cry and pushes through the crowd, needing air. Escape.

  Gomes meets him outside and silently hands him a cup of coffee. They stand on the steps to the courthouse while the media below and behind them are kept apart by police officers. The questions are white noise, yelled to both men. Neither answers; each sips his coffee instead. My dad cries, breathing slowly, and tries to find small solace in the midst of it all.