by Leigh, Tara
Tucker’s tongue is warm and insistent, and I cling to his shoulders as a tremble shakes my frame.
He breaks away. “Cold?”
I know it’s cold outside, but I can’t feel it. Maybe because I’m feeling so many other things. Dizzy. Aroused. Nervous. Guilty. Slightly sick. And very, very drunk. “Maybe a little.”
But I don’t feel mad or sad or annoyed or betrayed or abandoned.
It’s an improvement.
“Come on, let’s get you home.”
Holding hands, we walk the rest of the way, thoughts of Gavin and Wren as distant as the stars suspended within the obsidian dome of the night sky.
Our dorm is practically empty when we return. “Want to come back to my room? We could watch a movie or something?” I ask. Tucker is Wren’s friend, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be mine too.
Oh, please. You never had friends. You had Gavin.
But Gavin’s gone. He doesn’t love you anymore. Maybe he never did.
Liar! He loved me, I know he did.
Then why isn’t he here?
I squeeze my eyes closed, shake my head. Stop it, Poppy.
“Poppy?”
Shit. I blink them open to find Tucker staring down at me. And I like how he’s looking at me. Concerned. Interested. “Yeah?”
“Let’s go back to mine. My roommate’s almost never there.” He lifts his dark brows and kisses me again. I sway in Tucker’s arms, grabbing hold of his biceps to steady myself.
Gavin’s probably kissed someone else by now. He’s probably forgotten all about me.
Tucker’s room is on the opposite end of Caldwell from mine, although we are on the same floor. And it’s immediately obvious we both have odd roommate situations, too. One side of the room is perfectly neat. Bed made, books on the desk aligned with their spines facing out, dresser drawers all pushed in, the top free of debris. The other side looks like a tornado has ripped through it, scattering clothes and books and bedding everywhere. A pile of laundry—dirty or clean, I can’t tell—is heaped on the unmade bed. “Which side is yours?”
“You think I could live like that?” His full lips twist in disgust as he walks to a small refrigerator tucked beside the spotless desk. “No freakin’ way.”
I take the can of beer, even though I know I should ask for a soda instead. Or better yet, water. I sit down on the bed. It’s soft. Too soft. My stomach lurches, and I edge forward, lowering myself to the floor, needing to feel something solid beneath me.
Tucker looks at me quizzically. “You okay?”
His face breaks apart into two, then fuses back together. “Yeah, yeah. S’fine.” He sits down beside me, one hand cupping my jaw, his thumb sweeping over my cheekbone.
“We shouldn’t do this. Wren wrants—” I catch the slur and pause. “Wren wants you. I’m breaking girl code. S’big time.”
“You and Wren are friends?”
My tongue feels heavy and awkward in my mouth. “No. I don’t have any…”
“You don’t have any… what?”
“Friends. I don’t—I don’t have any friends.”
Tucker’s features blur again. “Poor Poppy. No friends. No boyfriend. You’re all alone, aren’t you?”
Sadness coils like a spring inside me and I feel a tear slide down my cheek. “No.”
He brushes it away with the calloused pad of his thumb. “I can be your friend.”
Tucker moves forward, or maybe I do. And then we’re kissing, his arms wrapping around my waist, my almost untouched beer forgotten. Once I close my eyes, I feel like I’m on the Tilt-a-Whirl at a cheap, fly-by-night carnival. I pull away, needing space.
But Tucker is so close. Too close. “You’re so fucking perfect,” he whispers. “And I have you all to myself, don’t I?”
“Need to lie down.” My words are barely a mumble. I’m holding onto consciousness by my fingernails.
Tucker follows, his lips on mine, his body heavy on top of me. I whimper, trying to draw a deep breath. But I can’t.
I press my palms flat against his chest. But I have no strength to push, my fingers wrapping around the collar of his shirt, his skin hot against my knuckles.
I want to speak, to say the words pulsing in my brain like street lights. Stop. No. Get off.
But the sounds I make aren’t words. They aren’t anything at all.
And soon, I am silent.
Chapter 13
Worthington University
Fall Semester, Freshman Year
The smell wakes me. Vomit and chemicals. Urine and sweat.
My brain is on fire, my tongue thick and fuzzy inside my mouth.
Forcing my eyes open, I’m immediately assaulted by bright lights that stab at my corneas.
“Ah, finally. You’re awake.” A woman dressed in scrubs appears at my side.
Scrubs.
Jägermeister.
Last night.
Last night… What happened last night?
My mind instinctively pivots away from the locked door of my memory and goes into triage mode, focusing on what I do know. I am in a hospital. Everything hurts, but I’m alive. And, beneath a thin sheet… I am naked.
“Hi. Um—” My throat closes as my eyes fill with tears.
She passes me a tissue before thinking better of it and handing over the whole box. “You don’t remember much, do you?”
I shake my head, the slight movement sending a bullet ricocheting through my skull. “No,” I whisper, taking the tissues with shaking hands. Lemonade. Dartboard. Piled laundry. Soft bed. Tucker.
Kissing Tucker.
“You were brought in a few hours ago because you had a seizure in your dorm. Not really surprising, if you want to know the truth. Your blood could have been bottled as a wine cooler.” She clucks her tongue at me. “Unfortunately, I see girls like you all the time, young kids away from home for the first time, drinking whatever anyone hands you.”
“I— I’m really sorry.”
“Don’t have to apologize to me. This is my job.” Disappointment is etched into the lines around her mouth. “But it’s your life. Pull a stunt like that again, and next time it might just kill you.”
Her ring, a simple gold wedding band, taps against the handrail as she reaches for the clipboard hanging from its side. “Oh, and something else. We found evidence of sexual activity. A condom… inside your clothes.” Her pen hovers over the attached paper as her eyes probe mine. “Does that sound about right to you?”
Right? No, no, it doesn’t. It sounds wrong. Very, very wrong.
I look away. “I-I guess so.”
There is the scratch of pen on paper. “Well, I guess that’s that.” She puts the clipboard back. “I have a bag with your clothes. And there is a boy waiting to bring you back to school.”
Air leaves my lungs in a dizzying whoosh. “Tucker?” The thought of seeing him right now makes me… confused. I can’t wrap my head around what the nurse just told me. Did he… ? Did we… ?
She scrunches up her face. “No, something with an M, I think. He’s an advisor from your dorm—”
Relief and disappointment fight a turf war inside my chest. Not Tucker. “My RA, Michael.”
“Yes, that’s it. He asked your roommate for a change of clothes so you won’t have to go home in scrubs.”
Scrubs. My mouth fills with the taste of black licorice and I make a gagging noise, clamping a hand over my face.
The nurse grabs for a plastic bucket and thrusts it below my chin. “There shouldn’t be anything left in your stomach but if you need to be sick, go right ahead.”
She is right, I have nothing left to throw up. Dry heaves shake my shoulders for several minutes until I finally flop back against the mattress, clutching the bucket to my chest like a life vest. “Thank you.”
She gives my arm a final pat. “A doctor will be by in a minute to speak with you. Assuming he signs off, you’ll be back home within the hour.”
Home. I let the word sink in. Caldwell Hall isn�
�t my home. The little house in Sackett never felt like home either. Home isn’t here or there.
Home is a cave inside an enchanted forest. Home is Gavin, his arms wrapped securely around me.
But Gavin’s gone. I don’t have a home anymore. This isn’t a movie and I’m not Dorothy, wearing red slippers and skipping along a yellow brick road. The tornado that’s brought me here is all of my own making, my mind a funnel cloud of questions and regrets.
What happened between me and Tucker last night?
Does Wren know?
What about everyone else on the floor? In my dorm? At WU?
Yesterday I’d been just another freshman. But after last night, being rushed to the hospital in an ambulance—
The doctor appears, looking busy and frazzled. I answer his questions, look into the light he shines at my eyes, and recite my name, birthday, and today’s date. He walks away and I take a quick, fortifying breath. Once he talks to the nurse, I can leave.
But he doesn’t go far. Just a few steps to grab a stool on wheels, pushing it beside my bed. He sits. “You know, I have a daughter almost your age. I’m hoping she’ll go to Worthington, too.” He pauses, crossing his leg over his knee. I stare at his sock. It’s argyle.
I want to look away, cover my ears, make the world stop turning. A few minutes ago my heart was racing but now it’s just a slow, dull thud inside my chest. Whatever he’s about to say, I don’t want to hear it.
But there’s nowhere to go. I can’t escape. I’m trapped.
“I’m going to tell you what I would tell her. You were in no condition to have sex last night. I’d like you to consent to a rape kit. It won’t take very long, just an exam and some paperwork. And, of course, the police—”
A shiver vibrates through me, and I recoil. “No.” I stop to swallow a golf ball-sized lump of panic. “I don’t want a,” I can’t even say the word, skipping over it entirely, “a kit. Or another exam. There’s no need to call the police. Really.” My voice is high, my sentences short and choppy. Tears overflow my lashes.
I want this to be over. The sooner I leave, the sooner I can pretend last night never happened.
The doctor’s shoulders drop, and he exhales a defeated sigh. “That’s your right. But you should consider counseling. Sometimes it takes a while to process trauma like this, and you don’t have to do it alone.” He lifts a transparent bag containing a yellowish… My breath sticks in the back of my throat as I realize what it is. The condom. “Stay away from whoever this belongs to, okay?”
I manage a jerky nod, speech beyond my capacity.
At the door, he sends a final glance my way, one last chance to change my mind. But I don’t.
And then he drops the bag into a trash can and walks away.
I am staring at it, trying to catch my breath, when the nurse comes back in carrying my backpack and a plastic grocery bag, knotted at the top. She sets the bag at the end of the bed. “Your clothes from last night are in here. I recommend washing them as soon as possible.” Gently placing my backpack on my lap, she offers a kind smile. “Best of luck to you, Poppy. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope I never see you again.”
A feeble croak shudders from my lungs. “Me, too.”
Chapter 14
Worthington University
Fall Semester, Freshman Year
As soon as she leaves, I gingerly get out of the hospital bed and change into my jeans and sweatshirt. My entire body aches, and I feel like an octogenarian instead of an eighteen-year-old college student.
I reach for the bag containing my clothes from last night but, even knotted tightly, the smell emanating from it is nauseating. After one whiff, I throw it in the garbage.
It seems fitting that all the physical evidence of… whatever transpired, is in the same trash bin together. I’m glad to leave it behind.
Emerging into the main waiting room, I cross my arms in front of me, trying to make myself as small as possible. Right now, I wish I could disappear.
Michael is waiting in a chair, and he jumps up when he sees me. “Poppy, hey. So glad you’re okay.”
I hold up a hand to keep him from coming too close. “Believe me, you want to stay as far away as you can.” The sour smell of vomit clings to my skin, like Linus’s dirt cloud in a Peanuts cartoon.
He freezes, his soft brown eyes shining with concern behind rectangular framed glasses. “Don’t worry about that. Come on, let’s get you back to the dorm.”
I follow Michael out the exit and into the parking lot. “Thanks for coming to get me.”
It’s a dreary November day, and I swallow another wave of nausea as a cold wind gusts, blowing my disgusting hair into my face.
Will I ever not feel like I’m on the verge of throwing up?
“Of course, of course.” He fishes his keys out of his pocket, pointing them at a red Honda. There is a click as the doors unlock and I slide in, immediately lowering the window. “I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine this was a part of the job description when you signed up.”
Michael lowers his window, too, and pulls slowly out of his parking spot. “Poppy, really. It’s not a problem.”
Tears prick my eyes. Everyone is being so nice—the nurse, the doctor, Michael—but I’m pretty sure things will change once I get back on campus. Teenagers are vicious. “Can I ask you.” I take a quick breath, not knowing where to start. “About last night? What you saw. What others saw.”
“Um, yeah. Sure.” Michael pulls onto a main road, busies himself adjusting his mirrors. “Not much. Tucker came running into my room, said you were sick. As soon as I saw you, I called the campus emergency line. You were on the floor, shaking.”
Shame wraps around my chest, compressing my lungs. “Was anyone else around?”
“In the room with you? No, just Tucker. By the time the ambulance arrived, there were a few people on the floor. But only a few.”
A few could mean three or thirteen, but I don’t press for a more exact number. “Did they see?”
“In the room—no. But they did see you get taken out.” He glances over at me. “Listen, you’re not the first person to wind up in the hospital after a night of binge drinking your freshman year and, unfortunately, I’m sure you won’t be the last. It happened, but you’re fine and now life can go on.”
I don’t feel fine. I feel like an idiot. And fragile. And like I’ve lost something, something I can’t even define but that is important. Self-respect. Confidence. Feeling safe in my own skin. “You’re right,” I lie. “Thanks.”
We arrive on campus a few minutes later, and it is exactly the same and yet completely different. Not nearly as innocuous as it looked the first day I arrived, with my mom and sister, feeling like all I needed to do was focus on my schoolwork and try to forget about Gavin.
Gavin.
The trees have begun to turn colors, vibrant reds and golds bursting from within the lush green landscape. Memories of another autumn day press heavily on my heart. Leaves fluttering to the ground like confetti. Broken shards of sunlight piercing through a shadowy, mysterious forest. And a boy who had treated my body as if it was sacred and special. A precious gift.
My hand flies to my throat, needing proof that those memories are real. Tactile confirmation of the best, most sacred moments of my life. Maybe it was just an illusion, but right now, I need to believe that I was once loved.
But instead of grasping moonstone, my fingers close around empty air, my nails scratching skin.
Horror hits me like a mallet striking bone, shattering my remaining strength.
My pendant is gone.
Just like Gavin.
Could it have been ripped away by the paramedics? Was it in the bag of filthy clothes I’d thrown away?
I’ll call the hospital as soon as I get back to my room.
A brutal cold penetrates my clothes and I swathe my terror in silence. Is this karma? Maybe I’ve lost the right to wear Gavin’s necklace. It represents something I no longer d
eserve.
Trudging upstairs, I am weighed down by guilt and regret and disgust. I keep my eyes on my shoes, not wanting to see anyone until I’ve showered. Or maybe ever. But it’s Saturday, and the dorm is filled with students. I walk silently, my head bowed, hurrying to my closed door. My closed, locked door.
Shit.
But Michael holds up the universal key all RA’s are given. “No worries.” Lock-outs aren’t uncommon.
I mumble another thanks and slip inside, quickly grabbing my robe, towel, and shower caddy full of toiletries.
Although the floor is co-ed, the bathrooms are not. Inside the girl’s bathroom, one of the showers is in use, but other than that, it is empty. Turning the water to its hottest setting, I quickly undress and slip beneath the spray. It stings my skin, but I welcome the pain. If I could make it hotter, I would.
The heat doesn’t penetrate where I need it most though. Places deep inside my body that are crusted with ice. Permanently stained by something I can’t even remember.
But the pain on my skin somewhat balances out the pain in my heart. Scrubbing my body dulls, if only slightly, the ragged edges of my shame.
I shampoo and condition my hair once, twice, three times, letting the sudsy water drip down my face and sting my eyes. I scratch at my scalp with my fingernails until I’m sure the skin is flayed and raw. Until I’ve created a thousand shallow cuts that no one but me will know are there.
I don’t want to leave this small enclosure. Here, my tears run straight into the drain, and I can stuff my fist in my mouth to stifle my sobs. Here, I am alone, the sound of the water a buffer between me and whatever is waiting beyond these three walls and the thin white shower curtain.
Eventually, the water cools. Only a few degrees, but it feels like a betrayal. Another one.
When I return to my room, skin pink, eyes bloodshot and red-rimmed, Wren and Tucker—Tucker—are both there. My stomach lurches as I clutch my bathrobe to my chest, squeezing the terrycloth inside my fist.
They sit on her bed, their penetrating stares ripping into me.