by Kat Bastion
“Didn’t I?” I glanced down at her. “Isn’t my absence in her life acceptance of it?”
“You don’t know why she did it.”
“Sure I do.” I growled and stared up at the ceiling. “Life sucks. Why my mom ended hers. Maybe if Logan’s didn’t suck so bad, she’d have a reason to live it.”
Kiki made a frustrated noise and yanked hard on my arm.
I blinked and turned toward her.
Anger sparked in her eyes. “No. You don’t get to take blame for what someone else does. Not your mom. Not your sister. You can’t control the world. All you can do is survive in it.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” I muttered.
Guess everyone had a different definition of survival.
Hours later, Logan was admitted and moved to a private room. At her new nurse’s insistence, with visiting hours not until 8:00 a.m. and her only willing to bend the rules for one of us, I stayed behind and Kiki went home.
After she left, I dimmed the room lights and pulled out my phone. It was just past midnight.
Planting my ass on a pleather recliner in the corner, a huge improvement over the rigid plastic thing in the ER, I leaned back and closed my eyes. Exhaustion sucked me down into the cushions, and I let it pull me under.
A light knock startled me awake, and I jolted upright. The recliner’s footrest snapped down with a click.
Another double-rap sounded. “Mr. Cole?”
I rubbed my eyes, adjusting to brighter room lights than I’d remembered. “Yeah.”
A quick glance at the bed confirmed Logan was still out cold.
A uniformed police officer stepped through the opening door. Then a second followed. They took up all the empty space in the entryway near the open bathroom: bulky vests under the dark blue, black leather belts holding their guns, batons, pepper spray.
My brows furrowed. “Can I help you?”
Since when is a suicide attempt criminal?
Sudden anxiety spiked through me. What if they deemed me an unfit guardian? Would they file a complaint with social services? Could Logan get shipped off to a foster home?
I shot out of the chair so fast, the officers alerted, bodies tensing. The lead officer raised his hands. “It’s okay, Mr. Cole. I’m Officer Day. This is Officer Blanchard. We just need to follow up on a complaint Logan made.”
“My sister?” Now I was really confused. “She made a complaint?”
They both gave a nod. The lead officer gestured an arm toward the hall. “Mind if we talk outside?”
I glanced back at the bed, then checked the time on my phone: 1:42 a.m. Logan wouldn’t be waking anytime soon, according to the nurse. But whatever we had to discuss was probably better said outside of her earshot. “Yeah.”
When we entered the hall, they kept walking and I followed. They stepped into a waiting room just before a set of double doors. Once inside, surprising scents hit me: brewing coffee, fresh-baked muffins.
My stomach growled and mouth watered as I passed a table covered with platters of cookies, snack bars, bagels, and muffins. A large bowl held bananas and apples. I poured a cup of coffee, grabbed a blueberry muffin and a banana, then took a seat in the corner that the officers had claimed.
After testing the coffee and finding it hot but not scalding, I took several gulps then tore into the muffin with a large bite. While I munched, I stared at them, waiting.
“Did your sister call you at any point last night?” Officer Day asked.
I swallowed the enormous mouthful, almost lodging it in my throat. “No.”
“Well, it seems your sister was at a high school party. No adults present. Underage drinking.”
Sounded typical. Like parties I’d gone to a few years back.
“A girl at the party called 9-1-1.” He glanced down at a clipboard he held. “Monica Schafer. Do you know her?”
I shook my head. “Logan doesn’t talk much about her friends.” I wasn’t sure she’d had any in the past couple of years.
“Does Trevor Donaldson ring any bells?”
“Yeah. She mentioned him a couple of times.” And speaking of the fucker, the guy who was supposedly interested in her, why wasn’t he here with her?
Officer Blanchard leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his thighs as he glanced over at Day’s clipboard. “According to the girl who made the 9-1-1 call, and several other witnesses at the party, Trevor burst out of the upstairs bedroom he and Logan were in. He allegedly shouted ‘Logan is as crazy as we thought. Bitch just downed a whole bottle of pills.’ as he ran down the stairs.”
My chest grew heavy as I struggled to listen.
Officer Day nodded. “Thankfully, that girl called for help right away. Paramedics found Logan unconscious at the scene.”
I scrubbed my hands over my face. “There’s got to be more. Logan told me she’d never kill herself.” Truth. And if the officers didn’t already know about our mom’s and Logan’s rooftop visits, they weren’t going to.
“There is,” Blanchard replied.
My paper coffee cup gave a loud crinkle, and I looked down to find it warped in my hand. I downed the rest of it, even though it nearly scalded my throat, then crumpled it the remainder of the way before tossing it onto a side table.
“We followed the ambulance to the hospital,” Day said. “She regained consciousness shortly after they stabilized her. When we asked for her side of the story” —he flipped a couple of pages over on the clipboard, scanned down the page— “she said Trevor gave her a red plastic cup of beer that she drank from before he led her to the upstairs bedroom. When she pulled away from his hold and said she still wasn’t ready to have sex with him, he locked the door, turned around, and told her that he’d ‘roofied’ her drink and she would do everything he wanted her to.”
“Roofied,” I repeated, breaths suddenly coming in short bursts.
“Rohypnol,” Blanchard clarified. “The date-rape drug.”
I knew what it was. Rapists used it. Trevor was a rapist.
The world began to tilt. I gripped the wooden chair arm. “Was she raped?” My voice cracked on the last word.
“No, not according to your sister,” Day replied.
“Have you arrested him? Is he in custody?”
“Not yet,” Blanchard said. “We’ve contacted his parents, but he hasn’t returned home.”
A buzzing sound filled my ears and the room fuzzed out, turning a reddish color.
Another cup of coffee appeared in front of my face. I hadn’t realized Officer Day had gotten up. “Here. Drink. There’s more.”
“More?”
“Turns out your sister did swallow pills. She’d only started feeling woozy when he admitted what he’d just done to her, but she panicked, grabbed her purse, and downed the whole bottle of pills.”
“Which pills?” For some reason, I needed more information. Every little detail. Because if I didn’t distract my mind with something, I’d be hunting down some fucker who liked to drug then rape girls.
Day flipped another page. “Ascendipam. It was the empty medication bottle in her purse.”
The drug she stopped taking after only two pills. So the bottle had twenty-eight pills left.
“Toxicology report confirmed alcohol, Ascendipam, and Rohypnol.”
“Will she be okay?” Sounded like a lot. Organ failure popped to my mind. And I hadn’t seen the doctor yet.
“We’ve been told she should make a full recovery. They pumped her stomach in time.”
“Thank fuck.” I blew out a hard breath.
“If you see or hear from Trevor, be sure to call us immediately.” Day opened the bottom of the clipboard, pulled out a card, and handed it to me.
I stared at the damn thing, imagining how that meeting would go if Trevor showed his sorry-ass face to me. Sure. I would call them ‘immediately’…right after I beat the shit out of the punk.
“We’ve got the hospital staff monitoring her room,” he continued. “She’s
to have no visitors other than you.”
The rest of the time, however many minutes it was, went by in a blur. They didn’t need me to press charges; it was automatic for attempted rape of a minor. But I signed their forms anyway, pressing formal charges. The rage that welled up within me wanted to do so much more than sign pieces of paper.
By the time the officers left the waiting room, two other families had come in. One had a toddler who ran around the room, bumping into everything, my legs included.
I didn’t care. The jolt of the kid pulled me out of a numb haze I’d fallen into.
Exhausted, I got up and went back down the hall. I stood silently in her doorway. Her sleeping body lay in the same position it had when I’d left with the officers. She looked so innocent. She’d almost had that innocence ripped away—nearly her very life.
A heavy pulse beat in my head. Her being there in that bed was my fault. She was my responsibility. While she’d been assaulted, fought for her life, I’d been at some party.
Not just some party. I’d been trying to save Kiki from homelessness.
But I should have been saving my sister from a rapist.
Life wasn’t fair. At times, I felt like a kid myself—with dreams and college—but I’d been shoved into the role of parent. Guess I didn’t get to choose. I’d taken a shot at happiness with all the responsibilities I had and got smacked hard.
Could have been worse. The beeping monitors meant Logan was still alive. She needed me. Now more than ever.
My happiness?
Would have to wait.
A vibration in my back pocket pulled me from my thoughts. I tugged my phone free.
One line from Kiki flashed up on the screen. Six little words came out as an order my exhausted body didn’t think to disobey:
Come over. No matter how late.
Kiki…
“Come on in?” Darren’s voice boomed as he slapped my note onto the worktable.
Anger rolled off him. It snuffed out the cute smartass retort I nearly lobbed back before glancing up. He was in no mood to play.
“I didn’t know what time you’d come by.”
“So you left the door unlocked.”
“You don’t have a key.”
“And you taped an open invitation to every asshole guy walking down your alley to come in and rape you.”
I swallowed hard, pulse beginning to race. I’d never seen him angry. And he was furious. At me.
Arguing with him seemed asinine. I had no idea what news he’d gotten. And I wanted to support him. Help him any way I could. Which meant taking the force of his anger. We could deal with tiny issues like home security later.
“How’s Logan?”
He whooshed out a harsh breath. “They say she’s going to be okay. She’s out for the night.”
What happened? What I wanted to say, but was afraid to ask.
A small meow sounded from below the worktable. Chipmunky. He’d sensed something was wrong.
Darren stared straight down, presumably at the kitten. But he didn’t move. Didn’t react. Like his ability to respond to any stimulus had gone haywire. Like thinking a note taped to my front door had been a beacon to thugs and rapists.
Then he slumped onto a barstool. His face dropped into his hands.
“She’s going to be okay.” I repeated his news with a soft tone, in case it hadn’t sunk in when he’d uttered it.
Silence followed. The eerie kind when you’re sitting in an enormous warehouse and not even the wind dares vibrate a window.
“She almost killed herself,” he whispered.
Killed herself. The impact of those words hit my chest like a sledgehammer. Had to have crushed him like a wrecking ball.
“Because that asshole Trevor was going to rape her.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered, shocked. Suddenly the horrendous images of assholes and rapists had an explanation. He’d been thrust into the middle of that nightmare.
Fury welled up from my gut too. That Logan had her heart into that asshole guy. And he’d wanted to use her—to hurt her. So much worse than what I’d gone through. At least mine had been consensual sex.
Darren just sat there, defeated. I got the sense he wanted to stay there—punish himself.
Before he had a chance to move or reject me, I rounded the table and wrapped my arms around him. He didn’t fight my hold. Instead, he let out a long exhale.
“I’m so sorry, Darren.”
In my embrace, his breaths grew deeper. My arms expanded, then contracted, in ever-widening circles.
“I can’t do this.” His voice had gone so quiet, I almost didn’t hear him.
“Yeah, you can.” I squeezed him harder, hoping my strength would seep through. “We can.”
With a headshake that filtered down to his shoulders, he broke out of my hold. “No, I can’t.” He stumbled off the barstool, distancing himself a good couple of feet from me before he looked up. His expression twisted into something tortured by the time his eyes met mine.
“I can’t do…us.” The barest whisper made it from his lips.
My heart slammed into my throat. I couldn’t find my next breath as tears welled in my eyes.
His teared up too. He pinched his shut and turned away from me, griping the edge of the worktable. “I let her down, Kiki. I wasn’t there for her.”
He’d been at my party. That he’d thrown for me. To save me—and he’d almost lost her.
The world spun off its axis. I gripped my section of the table edge trying to hold on. Finally, I sucked in a breath to keep from passing out. But the air burned going in.
Everything from my skin to my soul ached.
“She almost died.” His tone held somber finality. Like that horrifying truth had become his death sentence.
“You couldn’t have prevented what happened to her tonight.”
“You don’t know that.”
I didn’t. And I wasn’t selfish enough to kid myself that I knew best in their circumstances.
“So you’re just going to shut me out?” My voice sounded thready.
“I never had any right to let you in.”
“But you did!” The anguished roar bounced off the concrete floors, echoed from the walls. A sob tore free as I tried to hold it together. Tears streamed down my face. “You were—” The words got stuck in my throat. “You were only supposed to be a one-night stand.”
“I’m sorry, Kiki. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.” He didn’t move. Just stared at the table.
“But it did.” I closed my eyes, unable to believe what was happening.
“It was my worst nightmare. Taking something for myself…then having it cost Logan.”
“You didn’t take ‘something.’ You took someone. You took me.” I opened my eyes and glared at him.
Finally, after a long shaky inhale, he glanced at me. “The last thing I wanted to do was hurt you.”
“You didn’t hurt me. You are hurting me. Right now.” I wrapped my arms around myself, pinching my eyes shut as I tried to fend off the pain.
Heart shredding, I curled up into the chilling emptiness of my mind, even as I willed him to see that I was worth it. Just as much as Logan was worth protecting and fighting for, so was I.
Warmth wrapped around me, his powerful arms banding around my body. And in that heartfelt gesture, I lost it. My head fell against his chest and my shoulders shuddered as gut-wrenching sobs racked my body.
Long seconds later, when it began to subside, I gasped for breath, only to have it all crash into me again.
My lips started to tingle from hyperventilating.
His measured breaths were labored, forced. “Please, baby. I’m so sorry.”
I hiccupped. “Stop saying that.”
“But I am.”
“Doesn’t change anything.” Bitterness clipped my accusation.
He let out a heavy sigh. “No.”
“You said we could only be just friends.”
He let out a sardonic laugh. “We should have listened to me.”
I pressed my palms to his chest, pushing away from him to meet his gaze.
Unshed tears glittered in his eyes.
Mine filled anew as my voice fell to a whisper. “You made me fall in love with you.”
He stared down at me, brushed a tear from my cheek as one of his finally broke free. Then he sucked in a deep breath. “I know, baby. I know. Me too.”
My next breath kept catching as I battled to fill my lungs. “Great. So now what? You saved me from homelessness. Now you’re abandoning me.”
“Not abandoning. Just…I can’t do us right now. It’s…it’s too much. For now.”
After the crushing shock of it all, I gradually began to see his side. I got it. He’d said from the beginning that we couldn’t be together. His reason had been that it was complicated.
It was now more complicated than ever.
I clung to him, fisted my hands into his shirt at his lower back. I didn’t want to let go. After an unsteady breath, I sighed. “Not sure I can be ‘just friends’ with you.”
I felt a slight pressure on the top of my head. Like he’d rested his chin there. “Me either.”
So there it was. We were nothing.
For now. Those temporary hope-filled words finally filtered into my brain.
“You need to sort things out.” Maybe he only needed a few days to get a grip on things.
I felt him nod gently over me. “I need to make sure Logan is okay. That she’s stable. We’ve got to make it two more years before the state can’t take her away from me—from the only family she’s got.”
Of course. In my selfishness, I hadn’t realized how precarious they had it. And what an enormous responsibility he had. I knew they loved each other deeply. They just struggled how to right themselves in the aftermath of tragedy.
He didn’t need a few days. He needed years.
Could we survive that?
“Will you wait for me?” His voice trembled.
My insides caved at his uncertainty. Hope had tinged his plea.
I squeezed him tight as tears began flow again. “Yes.” I swallowed past the giant knot in my throat. “Yes. I will wait for you.”