by Ford, Lizzy
I watch him go. He’s got a body girls drool over and a smile that’s friendly and confident.
“Maybe?” Ari whispers. “Maybe? The hottest guy in school asks you out, and you say maybe?”
I shrug. “I don’t feel like dating. I don’t think I ever will.”
“This could be good. You can hook me up with him.”
“Omigod, Ari! I just … I wonder how much everyone knows about my summer,” I say, grinding my teeth.
“Anyone who can read the news or saw it on TV. Or online. Or knows someone who--”
“I get the point, Ari!”
“Come on. Let’s go to our first class.” Ari sounds as eager as I feel. “Did I tell you I’m thinking about graduating early?”
“Can you do that?”
“I can. I get good grades. You…probably not.”
“If you do, I do, too,” I tell her, irritated. “You can’t leave me here alone.”
“True.” Ari stops outside a classroom. “Good luck. See you at lunch.”
I trudge into the classroom. Everyone except myself seems excited to be there and talk about their summers. I sit in back and pull out my phone to text Ari. A shadow crosses my desk, and I glance up.
“We’re in the same class. We got a lame first period,” Benji says, winking at me. He slides into the seat beside mine.
“Yep.” I return my attention to the phone.
I don’t know what’s wrong with me. There was a time that I’d die if he sat beside me or talked to me. The most popular boy in school, Benji was also widely considered to be a nice guy. He should be everything I’m interested in: athletic, bright, from a wealthy family even Molly couldn’t object to, and nice.
Some part of me died this summer. I can’t get the image of Tanya out of my mind. I can’t really focus as the instructor stands up and gives us an overview of the class.
At least school helps me pull my head free from the summer. I’m surprised to find I look forward to things like homework and research. I read each syllabus and start the first assignments, ignoring the teachers and students.
By lunch time, I’m starting to feel less anxious. I even go so far as to talk to a couple other people. Neither teachers nor students seem to know about my summer, even though it was splashed all over the news. Happy not to have to deal with it, I’m almost smiling when I meet Ari for lunch.
“Benji talked to me like, three times today,” I say as I join Ari.
“I heard he dumped Jenna when they were on vacation together,” Ari replies. “He even flew home early.”
“Seriously? Good,” I grin. “I can’t stand her.”
“I still don’t know why.”
“Me neither.”
Ari laughs. “Okay then!”
“No, wait, I do remember,” I say, thinking fast. “You remember when we were freshmen, she used to say Molly was so beautiful and I’m so ugly, that I had to be adopted?”
“Ooohhh. Not adopted. She said you were like the illegitimate daughter of the maid or something.”
“Yes, that’s right! Then she beat me out for head of cheer squad.”
“Ah, I totally remember now. What a bitch.”
I giggle, silently agreeing. It feels good to laugh about something so silly. We catch up on gossip about the other girls on the cheer squad over lunch then part ways for the rest of our classes. I run into Benji one more time. This time, I smile at him. He walks me to my last class. I barely survive without falling asleep in the last class then grab my gym bag and go to the locker room to change.
The other girls are there and greet me as I enter. It’s loud and cheerful in the locker area, and I take the locker beside Ari. I change into leggings and a loose t-shirt then hesitate. I feel exposed in the tight pants. I still feel … weird about wearing clothes that aren’t two sizes too big. I can’t hide in my cheer practice outfit.
“Come on!” Ari says and grabs my arm.
I let her tug me out of the locker room and onto the field. The football team is already practicing. I feel queasy at the sight of them. Benji is a quarterback. Seeing him in his uniform dashes anything I could feel for him. Any reminder of Robert Connor …
No. I refuse to think about anything other than cheer squad. Beautiful, frowning Jenna is already on the field. She looks the same as she did last year. I smile at her and join her with the coordinator of the cheer squad.
“Mia, Jenna, good to see you both,” Deb, the coordinator, says. “Have I got the best routine ever for you guys! I went to …”
Deb goes on cheerfully. Jenna is glaring at me. I make a face back, not at all concerned about some petty girl after my summer. Deb finishes then hands us each a stapled print out of music and moves for practice. Deb steps away, and Jenna flips me off. Petty or not, I’m pissed.
“I hear you got dumped this summer,” I hiss.
“You heard wrong,” she snaps, face flushing. “I dumped that bastard.”
“Right,” I roll my eyes. “What matters is it looks like we’re going out this weekend.”
Her eyes narrow. I smile sweetly and turn away. My eyes find Benji, and I’m surprised to see he’s looking at us already. He doesn’t seem happy as he stares at Jenna. I wave anyway. He waves back. Satisfied to have the upper hand for once, I start away.
“You deserved to get raped, bitch!” Jenna’s voice makes me stop cold.
“Say it again, Jenna,” I challenge. Of all the things to say, I can’t believe she’d go there. I face her.
“I said,” she moves closer, “you deserved to get raped. Bitch.”
Something in me snaps. I punch her. Hard. She reels, catches her balance and touches her nose. A look of horror then rage crosses her face as she sees the blood on her hand.
“I just had a nose job last year!” she screams.
“Looks like you need another one,” I snap.
Suddenly, we’re rolling on the ground, screaming and hitting. All the pent up fury inside me is free, and I wail on her then try to avoid her punches. She bites my arm and I slam my elbow into her nose again.
Caught up in the frenzy, I don’t feel people closing in until someone rips me away from her. Two members of the football team are holding her while someone has their arms wrapped around me. I struggle then stop, realizing it’s impossible.
“What is going on?” Deb demands. She looks between us.
Whoever is holding me lets go. I glance back to see Benji behind me. Jenna is a bloody mess, and I want to laugh. It’s not the right reaction. I should feel like crying, but I want to thank her for letting me release the coiled stress that’s been killing me. I feel good for the first time in weeks. Even if my eye is swelling and watering.
Neither of us answers Deb. She waits a moment longer.
“Out of here, both of you.”
I’m not about to object. I turn away. Ari and the others on the squad are all staring in shock. I grin. Ari looks at me like I’ve lost my mind.
Maybe I have. I trot back to the locker room and start to laugh. I laugh so hard, I start to cry. I’m stuck in that laughing-weeping state when Ari enters the locker room and sits beside me on the bench.
“What is …this?” she asks, baffled.
I laugh harder.
“I’ll drive you home.”
I run out of breath and start to calm. My right eye is almost swollen shut. It hurts, more so when I laugh or cry. The look on Jenna’s face is in my mind still, and it makes me want to laugh again.
“Come on,” Ari orders. She’s carrying my book bag and hers.
I stand. Wiping my eyes, I see she’s still staring at me.
“You’ve gone totally batshit crazy, girl.”
“I’m good,” I tell her.
“You started a fight! You know how much trouble you’ll get in?”
“None. Daddy will fix it.”
She rolls her eyes and marches out of the locker room. I follow. I can’t find it in me to care if I get kicked out of school. I had a good
day.
No. I had a great day. Best day of school ever. I beat the crap out of Jenna and have the most popular guy in school interested in me.
“Seriously, Mia, what the hell happened?” Ari demands when we’re both in the car. “I turn around and you’re wailing on her. You don’t fight. It’s not in you. I know she’s a bitch but –”
“I don’t know, Ari. She said I deserved to get raped.”
“She did?”
“Yeah. So I punched her.”
“What a bitch. But you just … you went psycho. Don’t you have a shrink for that?”
“God that felt good.”
Ari looks at me.
“I’ve felt so angry since … you know,” I tell her. “There’s been so much just kinda sitting in me and it all just came out when she said that.”
“Kinda like stress release?”
“I think so. Yesterday I … well anyway, I’ve been angry and everyone keeps telling me I’m wrong, and everything is my fault. And I have to be good for Daddy and do what Shea says and now Molly, who’s telling me what to do. I don’t know, Ari. I guess I just … snapped,” I try to explain.
“That makes sense. I mean, I guess you need a physical way to release stress. You’re already going to counseling. Maybe you should like, go to the gym or something. I mean, if you have all this stuff inside just waiting for Jenna to insult you, maybe you could like, start working out in the morning or something instead. Or, here’s an idea,” Ari says. “What about martial arts? That way you can just go somewhere and kick someone’s ass whenever you’re stressed. Daddy made me start going when I was fourteen.”
“That’s a good idea,” I admit. Ari’s daddy is a defense security mogul. I’ve always thought him a bit paranoid for making Ari take martial arts and learn to shoot a gun. “I’m just so tired of all the pressure and feeling bad. I’m sick of feeling this way.”
“Okay, so what happened yesterday?”
“I don’t wanna talk about it.” I sigh. I’m almost relaxed for the first time in weeks.
“Um, ok. You ever think that could be the problem?”
“All I’ve done for weeks is talk. You know everything, Ari. Dr. Thompkins, Chris, my group therapy, Dom. That’s all I do is talk!” I groan.
“Did you dance with Dom Thursday? You didn’t tell me anything about that. You haven’t talked to me in like, days, Mia!”
“I told him to leave me alone,” I say.
“What? Why?”
Grudgingly, I tell her about seeing Robert at the ball. And Tanya. And the baby ward. And how Dom doesn’t hate me, but should. I don’t even get to the point about deciding to get an abortion. I’m sobbing again, and we’re parked in front of my house.
“No, shit?” she exclaims. “But Dom texted you anyway.”
I give a surprised half-laugh, half-sob. Ari giggles then starts to laugh. I don’t know why, but soon we’re both laughing.
“You’re the batshit crazy one,” I tell her, gulping down deep breaths. “Did you hear anything else I told you?”
“Yeah. I see why you snapped,” she replies.
My car door opens suddenly, and we both peer up at Chris.
“I didn’t believe you got in a fight when the administrator called to tell me.” His gaze settles on my swollen eye. “Do we need to talk?”
“No,” I say and climb out. “Bye, Ari. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Call me!” she orders.
I nod and close the door. The release I felt fades, and the heaviness of my world returns. I look up at Chris. He’s not happy.
“I’m just stressed out. You didn’t help by setting me up yesterday,” I say, walking up the stairs past him.
“That reminds me. Where else did you go yesterday?”
I stop. “Are you tracking my every move?”
“Robin called when you left the ward. The driver was waiting for forty-five minutes. I just wanted to make sure everything is relatively okay. It’s not like you to fight.”
“I was upset. I spent the time throwing up in the bathroom.”
Chris studies me. He’s not buying it, but I can’t bring myself to tell him about Tanya.
“Dr. Thompkins will be here in thirty minutes then you’re due at the center at six. Go get cleaned up.”
“Okay.” Relieved he’s not going to grill me, I run up the stairs and slam my door. I’m not sure how I’ll make it through my first week of school. I go to the bathroom and look in the mirror. My chest seizes. I see the same image I saw the day after I was raped.
I close my good eye and suck in a deep breath. I sink onto the floor of my bathroom, not ready to look again. I text Ari to call me when she gets home then text Dom.
Know any good jokes?
His response is quicker than normal. None that I can repeat to a member of the opposite sex.
I smile and rest my forehead on my knees. My eye stings. I’m surprised that I want to talk to him. I don’t like to talk to anyone but Ari, but Dom is like an escape from the crushing feeling. I just don’t know what to say. Or if I can trust him. Letting him in has ended badly twice.
Letting him in means I can’t escape from the rape, from Robert Connor, from the guilt of being helpless that night and not being able to shake that helplessness. Letting him in means I lose control of the few things I can still control. I’m beginning to think I can’t escape those things anyway. Something always drags me back to that night.
I pull up the pic I took the day before at the hospital. The image of Tanya and her mother at her side make me feel ill. Her mother’s pain is on her face. I wish my mom or daddy cared enough to cry for me. Tanya is lucky not to have a family like mine.
I Google her to see how she is. There’s only one article dated today, and the rest of my world crashes. My eyes water again, but I feel too numb and cold and dead inside to cry. I don’t even feel the pain. I stare at the wall across from me. I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting in the bathroom before someone knocks.
“Mia?” It’s Chris.
“What.”
“Dr. Thompkins is here.”
“I don’t want to talk to him.”
“Mia.” He opens the door.
He takes one look at me then kneels in the doorway. There’s more than concern on his face; there’s alarm, too. The idea that my uncle actually cares about me filters through me. I realize that of everyone in the house, he’s been the only one who helped me every step of the way this summer.
“Mia, sweetie, do I need to get you to the hospital?” he asks in a hushed voice. He pushes loose hair away from my face.
I hand him my phone with the pic of Tanya.
“Who is it?” Chris asks.
“Her name is Tanya. She’s number eight. I went to see her yesterday after that fucked up trip you made me take to the natal ward,” I whisper. “They took her off life support this morning.”
Chris looks at me.
I start crying. “Why do I get to live, and she doesn’t? Why do I have to remember every day of my life?” I take my phone back and clench it, staring at the picture. “I deserve to die, Chris. That should be me in that bed, not her.”
I expect him to walk off and leave me for Dr. Thompkins to fix. Instead, Chris settles against the wall opposite me. There’s compassion in his eyes, warmth unlike any I’ve seen from him. I didn’t know Abbott-Renous knew what that was.
“It’s not your fault, Mia,” he says gently. “You don’t deserve to die.”
“I c…can’t live like this,” I stammer.
“Like what?”
“I can’t live knowing … I could’ve saved her.”
“The people who did this to you and to her are responsible for their actions, not you,” he tells me in his no-nonsense tone.
“But I know who they are!” I shout at him. “I know, but I’m a fucking coward. I didn’t want … I didn’t want to lose everything. I listened to Daddy. I did what he wanted me to. I did what was best for the famil
y. But I can’t … I’m not Molly or Joseph or Mama. I can’t …” My throat is too tight to finish, and I sob quietly.
He says nothing for the longest time. I run out of tears. Ari tries to call, but I reject it, unable to handle anything more than sitting on the floor.
“You need to do what you feel is right, Mia,” Chris says at last. “I don’t want you to spend the rest of your life trapped in the closet or bathroom.”
I wipe my face with shaking hands. “Will you hate me, Chris?” I ask.
“Mia, I’ll never hate you.”
“Daddy will. Why won’t you?”
Chris wipes his face. “I can’t speak for my brother. However, I will support you, no matter what you choose to do. I owe you that, Mia, if not much more.”
Always careful with his words. He’s hiding something. His face is tight, and he looks worn down. He’s upset about more than me. Maybe he already knows Daddy will disown me. They both know I could bring down two families and cost Daddy an election. Yet somehow, I believe Chris when he says he’ll support me.
“Even if Daddy hates me, I don’t want to lose him. I don’t want to lose you, Chris.”
“You won’t lose me,” he promises. “I’ll handle Gerard. You forget how good I am.”
I almost smile. “Ari’s dad is afraid of you.” The man who looks like Fabio shouldn’t fear anything, but her dad has told us both he’d never tangle with Chris’s legal team.
“The DA subpoenaed you Friday. I buried him in paperwork,” Chris speaks slowly, pensive. “It’ll take him months to get to you, if he does at all.” He rubs his face again. “Mia, are you sure this is what you want to do? You won’t change your mind tomorrow?”
“I don’t know what else to do.”
“The nightmare will get worse before it gets better. If it gets better. You’re pitting my team against one of the best in the country. It may never get resolved, when two teams like ours are at court. It’ll be messy.”
“I just know I can’t live with her death. I won’t back out, Chris. I swear it,” I whisper.
Chris rests his head against the wall behind him. He holds my gaze for a long moment. I’m terrified, but I have to do it.
“It appears as though I submitted the wrong response to the DA. I’ll send him the appropriate one and let your father know,” he says. “Mia, this will not be easy on you.”