by Leigh, Tara
God, I want to disappear. Either invisible or dead, I don’t care.
“You’re back,” Wren says, stating the obvious.
I nod.
Tucker glances at Wren and then jerks his chin toward the door. Her lips snap together in a straight line and she stands, striding past me without saying another word, her expression glacial.
My roommate is the last person I would ask for support or comfort, but I want to scream, Don’t go!
Because once she leaves, I will be alone. With Tucker.
Yesterday, I would have been flattered by his interest.
Today, I’m… not.
Wearing only a pair of squishy flip-flips on my feet and a towel wrapped like a turban around my head, I’m naked beneath my pale pink robe.
My pulse races as I set my shower caddy down on the floor and begin towel-drying my hair, the pain from my raw, scratched scalp the only thing keeping me from passing out.
“Poppy,” he begins, “I want you to know that I feel badly for what happened last night. I should have known you were drinking too much. I should have realized you were acting…” He pauses, shrugs. “Out of character.”
I think of the doctor with his argyle socks and the condom he’d dropped into the trash bin. I hear his last piece of parting advice in my ears. Stay away from whoever this belongs to, okay? I’d nodded, agreed.
I didn’t seek out Tucker. But he’s here, offering an explanation for what happened last night. Only the two of us were there, but my memory is locked inside my mind. I can practically hear it rattling around inside my brain, like a puzzle piece that’s fallen through a grate. If I could, I would bang my head against the wall, remove my skull from my shoulders and shake it until the truth falls out.
But I can’t.
“And I want you to know that I’m not mad at you, or anything. I meant what I said last night—I can be your friend. I want to be your friend.”
Mad? At me?
My breath hitches in the back of my throat. I’m almost positive he said the same thing to me last night.
But friends don’t take advantage of each other. Friends don’t… do what he did.
There is only one thing I want from Tucker right now. “My necklace… Have you seen it?”
“Your necklace?” He pauses long enough that I feel an obligation to look his way. But I don’t. I can’t. “Oh, the one you were wearing last night?”
“Yes. The moonstone pendant. It’s gone.”
“That’s a shame. I saw how attached to it you were.”
“Could it have come off in your room? Or while the EMTs were working on…” A wave of vertigo slams into me, but I resist its pull. If there’s any chance Tucker has Gavin’s necklace—I want it back. I may have lost Gavin, I can’t lose his necklace too. “Can you check?”
“You saw the way I keep my things. If it’s there, I’d know it.” Tucker stands up and starts walking toward me. With each step he takes, my heartbeat kicks up a notch, the roaring in my ears growing louder, drowning out any further questions about Gavin’s necklace. “Listen, I hope we can get past this. It was a mistake, one I won’t ever make again.”
Tucker’s hands lift, his fingers threading through my still wet hair and pulling me into the well of his chest. Every muscle in my body locks down, oxygen evaporating from my lungs. I can’t scream. I can’t run.
But my brain is working on overdrive, replaying Tucker’s words over and over. One in particular.
Mistake.
I don’t dismiss it. I don’t ignore it or bat it away.
Mistake.
I find myself reaching for it like a warm blanket on a winter day. Drawing it around my shoulders like a shield. Last night doesn’t have to be a four-letter word. R-a-p-e.
No. Last night was a mistake.
An error made from defective judgment, deficient knowledge, or carelessness.
A misunderstanding.
Tucker rubs his hand over the terrycloth covering my back as a lone tear, possibly the only one I have left, slides down my cheek and into the corner of my mouth.
I am standing between two doors, marked by two different labels, leading to two very different places. Do I choose r-a-p-e, or mistake?
But… Am I really choosing? Haven’t I already made my choice, back in the hospital?
I didn’t consent to the rape kit, therefore I am not a rape victim. Even if I wanted to walk through that door right now, to wrap my hand around the knob, cross over that threshold—the door wouldn’t budge. It’s been sealed shut by what I didn’t say, what I chose not to do.
And, really, does anyone want to walk through that door? No. No one does.
So, I back away from it, this door marked by the four-letter-word I can’t say. I embrace the power of this new word, this new place.
Mistakes don’t come with trauma. They don’t require counselors and kits.
I can move on from a mistake.
I am not ruined.
I am not broken.
I. Am. Not. A. Victim.
Chapter 15
Worthington University
Fall Semester, Freshman Year
“Don’t you ever sleep?” Wren grumbles as she rolls over in the middle of the night, her question more of a complaint.
I can’t exactly blame her. It’s been a week since Tucker’s mistake.
“Sorry.” I utter the apology as the nightlight clipped to my headboard remains lit, as the tears silently streaming down my face remain unchecked, as my body remains rigid, sleep far beyond my grasp.
I no longer take comfort in unconsciousness. Not here, anyway. Not when I know Tucker is just down the hall.
My mouth is dry but I don’t allow myself a sip of water. If I could bring back the days of chamber pots beneath beds, I would.
Getting up to pee in the middle of the night means leaving this locked room. I’m not drunk, but my breasts are braless beneath an oversized T-shirt, my pink pajama pants are stamped with Hello Kitty’s smiling face, and my feet are bare. What if Tucker, or anyone else, thinks it’s an invitation?
The truth is, no matter what I wear, I feel exposed. Like my skin is an undressed, open wound.
I wipe my face on my comforter, laying with the tip of my nose tilted to the ceiling, resisting the Kleenex so that I don’t further piss off my roommate.
Wren tosses again, sighs. “Are you… okay?”
I almost want to laugh. Okay? Will I ever be okay again? But I say, “I’m fine.”
“You know, if you want to talk…” She doesn’t finish her sentence, and I’m not sure if she would have said I’m here to listen or there’s a student counseling service you could call.
“Thanks.” Since she’s obviously awake, I decide to blow my nose.
After a few minutes pass, she says, “It must have been scary, waking up in the hospital like that.”
My already tense muscles clench even tighter. “Like what?”
“Like, I don’t know. Just waking up after passing out, but in a new, strange place.”
“Has that… has that ever happened to you?”
“Waking up in a hospital, no. But passing out and not remembering where I am or how I got there, yeah.”
Is Wren saying… ? My breath is a heavy, choking mist inside my throat. “With Tucker?”
She releases a low laugh, unaware that my lungs are barely moving up and down in the dark, so still is my chest. “Sure. Whenever I try to keep up with him, I get in trouble. I should really know better by now.”
“Trouble? What do you mean?”
“Just the stupid shit we’ve pulled over the years. Last winter, we took the kayak at his parents’ lake house out in the middle of the night. I woke up in the bottom of the boat, completely hungover, with no memory of what we did with the oars and no way to get back to the house that didn’t involve swimming in fucking freezing water.”
“Oh.” No, Wren isn’t implying what I thought she was. Not even close.
�
�Yeah. I finally shoved Tucker overboard and made him swim back to the dock for an extra set of oars.” She sighs. “Tucker is a troublemaker. I honestly don’t know why I love him, but I do.”
“You love him?” Shame gnaws at me as I recall enjoying Tucker’s attention. Flirting with him. Kissing him.
If I’d been a better person, his mistake never would have happened.
His mistake is my fault.
“Of course. We’ve grown up together. He was the first guy I ever kissed. I can’t imagine my life without him.”
Wren could be me, talking about Gavin.
“I-I didn’t realize—”
“Wait, did something happen between you and Tucker? Before the hospital?”
“I—”
“Whatever, it’s fine if it did,” she says, although her voice has a layer of strain to it that wasn’t there before. “We haven’t hooked up since we both decided to come to Worth U. He wants to see other people and so do I.”
She makes a high-pitched sound that’s not a laugh. “I mean, we’ll pick back up eventually though. Our families have been planning our wedding for years. Don’t get too attached, Poppy. If you guys are having some kind of thing… just know he’s only on loan.”
I cough. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
“So,” Wren sounds wide awake now, “what did happen between you two?”
“Um, what did Tucker say?”
“Nothing. Just that he thinks you’re cool. And he felt bad that you got sick.”
I don’t even know how to respond.
“So, did you?”
“What?”
She huffs in annoyance. “You tell me.”
“I don’t know.” My voice is quiet.
“What… what does that mean?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You don’t remember? Nothing?”
I close my eyes, the face of the doctor and nurse projecting onto the blank walls of my eyelids.
We found evidence of sexual activity. A condom… inside your clothes. Does that sound right to you?
I’d like you to consent to a rape kit. It won’t take very long, it—
I blink my eyes open. “I don’t remember,” I say again, a little louder.
“Well, you can rule out sex then. If you had sex with Tucker, you’d remember it.”
“How do you know?” This time my voice is sharp, slicing through the still, stale air of our small room. I need to know what Wren knows, if there’s a possibility that nothing happened. Not even a mistake.
“Just that Tucker’s damn good at it. He’s not like other guys. He makes sure I come, every time. The few times I haven’t, he goes down on me until—”
I feel sick. “Okay, I get it.”
Wren laughs. “No need to be a prude about it. Sex isn’t anything to be ashamed of.”
“I’m not ashamed.” Not about sex itself. With Gavin, it was beautiful and tender and poignant. Sex was special. He made it special.
Pain claws at my heart, ripping my soul into shreds. What happened last week was the opposite of special. I don’t remember it, but I can’t forget it.
Why can’t I forget something I don’t even remember?
This is just one of the many questions that have been keeping me up at night. Why didn’t I go back to the library like I wanted to? Why did I act on the petty impulse to prove Wren wrong? Why didn’t I realize that Everclear is a grain alcohol twice as strong as vodka?
Why didn’t I go back to my room, alone?
How could I have been so stupid?
Questions that pulse inside my brain on an endless loop. So many, every night. I’ve started fantasizing about drilling a hole through my skull and pouring a gallon of bleach into my brain. Will I sleep then?
“Do you like him?” The question comes after at least twenty minutes, startling me. I thought Wren had fallen back asleep.
“No.”
“You liked him enough to go back to his room.”
“It was a mistake,” I say quickly, firmly.
Suddenly, her night light turns on and she bolts upright in her bed. “Wait. Do you think Tucker… Do you think he hurt you?”
I roll over so she won’t see my swollen eyes, my tear-stained cheeks. “I think it’s late. Go back to bed.”
She does the opposite, her feet hitting the floor and padding over to the light switch on the wall. “Ow.” I cover my face with my comforter at the sudden brightness. Small night lights clipped to headboards are one thing, but unforgiving fluorescent bulbs suspended from the ceiling are completely different.
Wren sits on my bed.
Wren never sits on my bed.
“This is serious.” She yanks at my blanket. “You’ve been different, ever since you came home from the hospital. Did you accuse Tucker of something when you were there?”
I don’t know what comes over me. Maybe it’s because it’s late and Wren, who isn’t my friend, is in my face. Maybe it’s because I’ve barely slept, barely eaten, and have no idea what to do with my body and my brain and the fear and the shame.
“I didn’t have to. I didn’t have to because the nurse, the doctor—they already knew. They told me!” Words I’ve been pushing down and pushing down and pushing down come up in a violent heave.
Wren recoils from me as if I’ve slapped her. “That’s bullshit. You’re disgusting. Tucker saved you.”
Some volcanos explode in a massive torrent of steam and fire and lava. Others release intermittent eruptions of exhaust, just enough to alleviate whatever pressure is no longer tolerable. Some never explode at all, keeping their churning, virulent chaos completely hidden.
I must be the middle. Because my three heated sentences are enough. I shrink back against the wall, clutching my sheet and comforter to my chest. Wishing I’d said nothing at all.
“Just forget it,” I say, my body already shutting down.
“Tucker can have anyone he wants. He doesn’t need to force himself on an unconscious girl, practically a warm corpse.”
“I said, forget it.”
“Not until you promise to forget about this crazy idea of yours. Think about it, Poppy. If you’re pissed at Tucker because he hasn’t come back for seconds—”
I gasp but Wren ignores me.
“—and you turn this into something it isn’t, Tucker will be embarrassed, his parents furious. But do you think the school will kick him out, or do anything really? I mean, come on. He’s a Stockton, for God’s sake.”
I let her words pummel me, reminding me of everything I already know.
“And you… who the hell are you? You’ll be just another slut looking for a payout from a rich jock.”
The tremble starts in my bones, shaking me like a twig in a windstorm. “Thanks for the perspective. I get the picture.”
I’m quivering so hard even my teeth are chattering.
Wren slides off my bed, sighs, then turns back to face me. “Listen, I know I come off like a bitch. I am a bitch, I guess. But I know Tucker, better than anyone. You’re wrong about him. He would never…”
Her voice chokes up, and I can see the glisten of unshed tears in her eyes. The idea of Wren Knowles crying is just as shocking to me as our having this talk at all. “If you really think he did… something, you should talk to him about it.”
I shake my head. “No. I don’t want to talk to him, or to anyone. I just want to forget about it, all right.”
Her features harden into a resolute expression that practically screams, If you won’t, then I will.
“Don’t,” I warn. “I’m serious, if you breathe a word about this conversation to him, or to anyone else, then so will I. I’ll tell everyone, and even if nothing comes of it officially, it will be a black mark against Tucker.”
Wren is still glaring at me, nothing about her posture indicating that she’ll back down. I pull another threat out of thin air. “You know an accusation like that would follow him forever. So if you really mean it abou
t wanting to marry him one day, you’ll keep your mouth shut.”
It works. Her eyes blaze with indignation but after a minute she straightens her spine and walks back to me, hand extended. “I won’t say anything. But you better keep your word, Whitman.”
It feels strange to mark this mutual code of silence with a handshake, of all things. But it makes our promise feel more official than it would have otherwise, more than just a pre-dawn secret between two college freshman.
She slaps at the wall switch, crawls back into bed, and turns off her own night light.
But not me. I leave mine on until the whisper of a new day is written in the streaks of milky light coming through our closed shades.
Chapter 16
Worthington University
Fall Semester, Freshman Year
Michael pokes his head through my door. “Hey, do you have a minute?”
I’m sitting cross-legged on my bed, re-reading an essay I finished at three in the morning last night. “Of course.” After I email it to my professor, I’ll pack a bag and catch the shuttle to the train station.
I’ve been counting down the days until I can get off campus for Thanksgiving break, and yet I’m terrified of going back to Sackett, too.
Will my mom and sister sense the change in me? I look exactly the same, physically. Mentally, though, it’s like I’m an entirely different person. And frankly, I don’t like this new Poppy. She’s a stranger living inside my skin.
She’s so afraid of saying the wrong thing, she doesn’t say much at all. She doesn’t like studying at the library or going for long walks on campus. Even fully clothed, she feels exposed and vulnerable. Rushing from Caldwell to class and then straight back again, she takes no comfort beneath the shade of a gnarled elm tree on the quad.
It’s driving Wren nuts, I know. Every time my roommate walks in the door she gives me a look like, You’re still here?
I am.
But not for much longer. Soon I will be back in the town I couldn’t wait to escape. Back in my old room, my bulletin board filled with pictures of things I’d torn from the pages of magazines. Things I wanted. Things I thought would make me happy.