Assault me. My body.
Mouth.
This is what everyone’s seen. My entire naked body. Zac’s penis in my face. On my face. Ricky’s hand on my breasts. While I just lie there, passed out.
Was that rape?
Nausea balloons in my stomach as the bathroom rings with silence. No one moves. Then the door swings open. In my periphery I see Amber enter and know I’ve been discovered, but I don’t look away from the freeze-frame of my humiliation, ready to play again at the touch of a finger.
Tina lowers her phone, turning to Kelly. “So yeah, I almost didn’t share this with anyone, but then I woke up this morning and thought, ‘What the hell? Caylee deserves to see what kind of friend Erica really is.’ ” She shrugs. “And now she has.”
I whirl, fist flying, hitting Tina right in the mouth. The contact makes the wet popping sound of a soda can opening. I gasp as my butterfly bandages give and my cut rips wide.
Tina staggers, dropping her phone and covering her lip. The phone hits the tile with a crack, protective case and all. She stares down at the webbed glass, stunned. “What are you, psycho?”
Kelly wheels on me, alarm coloring her face as she stoops to pick up the broken phone.
“Screw you, Tina,” I spit.
Amber pushes her way to me, getting right in Tina’s face. “You disgust me, you disgrace to womankind. I’d punch you myself, if Erica hadn’t already.”
Tina snarls at Amber, but Kelly tugs her away. “Come on, Tina, let’s go!”
“Yeah, and tell Principal Renall she’s got psychopaths on the loose!” Tina yells before shoving past Amber.
As the door swings shut, Amber calls after them, “Hope it hurt, Tina!” Then she takes in my tears, the hand I’m clutching, and grabs my upper arm. “Come with me.”
She leads me out, parting the sea of girls with her anger.
I realize I’m shaking. Holding my hand to my chest, I feel the reopened cut spreading liquid heat across the gauze. I’ve never been sure if Amber likes me. She’s always snorting when I say anything, or she’s been too interested in her phone and texting her college boyfriend to pay me much attention. And when she told Ms. Adams earlier, I thought maybe she did it for a sense of “right.” And yet, here she is, the only one who’s stood up for me today, looking as fierce as I wish I felt, but I’m as small as the marble in my pocket, like I could drop and roll into a grimy corner, never to be found again.
In the busy hallway, Amber drops my arm and whirls to face me. But for once, I get in the first word. “Amber, you told.”
She shakes her head to clear it. “Erica, I had to. What those guys did, what Tina did…”
“It wasn’t your story to tell,” I say. She hesitates, and I turn for the exit, swinging my backpack over my shoulder. “I’m going to talk to Caylee.”
She grabs my arm. “Erica, you need to talk to an adult. Everyone’s looking for you.”
I slip from her grasp, not caring who in the hallway hears me. “Amber, please! Listen to me. I need to find Caylee first. She blames me, I know she does, but I have to tell her it’s not my fault, that I didn’t ask for this, for any of it, okay? Then I’ll… I’ll do whatever you want.” I promise her this, not knowing if it’s true or not but feeling my world close in even as I say it. I watch Amber waver, so I repeat, “I have to tell her my side. She wouldn’t listen to me earlier, so please let me do this first. Please.”
Amber stares at me for a long time, then she nods once and says the one thing I need to hear right now: “Fine. Maybe she needs to hear the truth coming from you.” She points at me. “But then you’re coming with me after that, got it?” Amber turns, not waiting for a reply, and blazes the trail ahead.
THOMAS
MUSIC BLARES THROUGH MY TRUCK’S speakers as I race to Junie Bee’s. It’s where the guys and I always meet on Mondays, but today, everything’s changed. The gray sweatshirt Erica returned to me slides off the front seat along with my backpack, but I don’t slow, blasting the playlist I made this summer that feels like a lifeline. Vocalists scream. Guitars wail. The truck cab vibrates with the noise of it all. I want to drown out the voice that keeps asking me what the hell happened outside the main entrance with Erica, but my head won’t clear.
There’s a video, and everyone’s seen it. Except for me.
Whose fault is that?
I’m fully wound up by the time I get to the restaurant.
Zac and the guys already sit around a table in the far corner. From the door, I can see Zac, Ricky, and Steve huddled around Ricky’s phone, Forest across from them. The folder from Coach with practice plays we’re supposed to be studying sits untouched in front of them. From the expressions on their faces, they’re absorbed in whatever shit they’re watching. And I’m pretty sure I know what that is.
As I near, my suspicions are confirmed when Ricky laughs. “God, Zac. You’re such a perv.”
I slap both hands on the table and ask, “What’s up, guys?” My words are sharp. Still, no one across the table glances up, though Forest nods in my direction, flipping his red order number in his hands and looking uncomfortable.
“What’s so funny?” I demand, voice deadly.
Finally, Zac’s eyes meet mine. He shoves Ricky. “Show VanBrackel. He must’ve not seen it yet.”
“Show me what, exactly?” My voice pitches, dripping sarcasm. “Or maybe it’s this video I’ve been hearing so much about?”
Zac rolls his eyes and yanks the phone out of Ricky’s hand.
“Aw, c’mon!” Ricky protests, eyes tracking the phone.
Zac shoves the screen in my face. “Tina sent it this morning, but you’d know that if you ever checked your messages.”
My insides go cold as I take in the visual. Here it finally is. The video.
It’s… her. Of course it’s her, but she’s naked, covered in writing. Ricky, the Sharpie in his hand. Tina’s voice.
Then Zac is…
I shove the phone away. “The fuck is that?” When no one answers, I demand, “The fuck did you do, Zac?” He’s done some twisted shit before, but this? To her?
“Calm down, VanBrackel,” Zac hisses, eyeing the nearby tables. “Don’t get so worked up.”
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” They’re all staring, like me raising my voice is the problem here and not them sitting there laughing, watching that messed-up shit on repeat while eating their goddamned french fries. Like it’s all just another one of Zac’s “Big Funny Jokes” and he hasn’t gone way too far this time. “That video is all over school,” I hiss. “Do you have any idea how much trouble we could get in?” Like that’s the half of it.
Zac’s face freezes into an icy calm. “That’s a far cry from what you said Saturday night.”
I explode back from the table, slamming into a waitress and upsetting her tray. Hot sandwiches and parmesan fries rain down around me, warm lunch meat sticking to my back.
“Oh! I’m so sorry!” the waitress exclaims, and I cringe at the apology. Another fucking apology. She holds her arms away from herself, her red-and-white striped shirt covered in melted cheese and barbecue sauce.
“It’s… it’s my fault.” I back away, brushing cheesy roast beef to the floor.
“I’ll be right back.” The waitress turns and flees.
Forest’s on his feet next to me, looking for a way to help, but there’s nothing he can do. It’d take an industrial-sized broom to undo the mess I’ve made.
“Nice going, VanB,” Zac says, but it’s not him I’m looking at.
Ricky’s phone sits on the table where it fell during the chaos. I snatch it up, dropping it in Forest’s Dr Pepper. Bubbles erupt. The phone hits the bottom of the glass with a plunk. I can only hope it won’t survive.
“What the hell, Thomas?” Ricky demands, but I hardly hear him. Fries and sandwich bread squish beneath my Chucks, food still falling from me as I leave. I don’t care that I have no idea where I’m going. I just need to drive. Bec
ause I can’t go back to school yet. Everything’s so fucked-up, even worse than I thought. Zac and the pictures from his room, the pink bra, those were bad enough. Now there’s Ricky and his phone full of videos and god knows what else, plus the waitress who smells like vanilla, which is to say like Erica, who apologizes for things that aren’t even her fault.
I made her cry at school just now. I yelled at her. And they…
Panic squeezes the air from my lungs. Everything’s so fucked. I’m so fucked.
Zac, laughing. Holding her up like a doll. His hands all over her. Like she belonged to him. Like everything fucking belongs to him.
As my truck roars to life, I crank up the music as far as it’ll go till my ears ring with it and nothing else. I tear at the steering wheel, slamming against it as I try to rip it free. The music mirrors my yell as I shout into the dash. Tires spit gravel as I peel out of the parking lot and away from Ricky, from Zac, and any other prick I was stupid enough to call my friend.
ERICA
I FOLLOW AMBER OUT OF the building, neither of us speaking. As we near the quad, I see a group huddled around a phone and know without asking what they’re looking at, a fact confirmed when I walk by and one guy glances up then hits the arm of the other. Pretty soon they’re all staring me down with faces that span a whole spectrum of emotion: amusement, confusion, disgust, horror. My face scalds, vivid images of exactly what they’re looking at playing in my mind. I squeeze the marble: I want to die.
“You guys got a problem?” Amber asks. “Because if you know what’s best for you, you’ll stop staring like a bunch of creepbags.”
All the while, I search for Caylee. And I find her, right around the corner.
She sits with Julie at one of the picnic tables lining the East Building hallway, which is two tables down from the one Thomas leaned against when I first saw him. Because of course it is.
I know before I even reach Caylee that there is no going back to the way things were with us. It’s the way her jaw sets and posture tenses when she sees me coming. It tells me what I’ve already known all day.
She’s not going to listen. She blames me for what happened, and she hates me for it.
As I approach, I try to brace myself, but there’s no way to prepare. “Caylee, you need to hear me out.”
“There’s nothing you can say that I want to hear,” she snaps.
Several years back, Mom had been cooking in the kitchen while I did my homework at the table. Dad had rolled through, giving her a kiss on top of her head and asking if she was cooking any more mushrooms, because if she was, then he would kindly excuse himself from whatever meal that entailed. Mom laughed, swatting him with a spoon.
He’d turned to me, winking, spouting yet more Shakespeare: “No legacy is so rich as honesty!”
Only now as I stand in front of Caylee, her face contorted with rage, do I realize something about that quote: It doesn’t talk about what to do when someone doesn’t want to hear your honesty.
Beside me, Amber says, “Hear her out. She’s got something to tell you.”
“Stay out of it, Amber,” Julie cuts in.
“Caylee, please,” I repeat. “All you need to do is listen, but I have to tell you what happened.” I slap my chest. “My version.”
Caylee throws up her hands, then stands, crossing her arms. “Oh, now you want to tell me what happened? Your tragic version of all this? Well, don’t bother. Because at this point, I’m done listening. I’ve heard about all I can stand for a lifetime, Erica.”
She’s said my name like a curse, like I’m the monster in all this. She’s yelling—at me. “Well, tell me what you’ve heard, then,” I start, voice wobbling. “Because I have no idea what you could possibly have heard that would make me the villain here. And if you would’ve picked up your phone yesterday like I asked you to, then I would’ve told you—”
“Oh, I’ll tell you what I heard,” she interrupts. “It’s the part where you stripped in front of my boyfriend. Does that ring a bell?” She fights to keep her voice low, but her aversion to creating a scene in public can’t win out over her anger. Several people stop to stare.
I lower my voice. “Caylee, it wasn’t like that. You know it wasn’t.”
“Oh yeah? Then please tell me because I’m dying to know. What was it ‘like’?”
She doesn’t understand. How can I make her understand? “I was passed out, Caylee. They took my clothes off when I was asleep, wrote on me while I was beyond drunk. And I can’t even remember what—”
“How can you not remember, Erica? How the fuck can you not remember getting naked in front of my boyfriend?”
The hushed quad rings with her words.
Several things about this sentence are so un-Caylee that it shocks me into silence. My Caylee would never get angry, would never yell. My Caylee would never make a scene. My Caylee would never drop the F bomb. But she’s doing all those things—at me—in the middle of the courtyard.
“Caylee, if Erica was unconscious and Zac, or anyone else—” Amber starts, but Caylee interrupts.
“Shut up, Amber! He didn’t do anything! But this slut?”
Erica Walker is a sluuut.
Amber tries to interject, but I cut her off, my chest flushed with heat. “You think I’m a slut, Caylee? Because I passed out and a bunch of guys humiliated me, including your boyfriend? In case you haven’t noticed, Zac’s not a good guy. Have you seen the video, what he did?”
“Don’t you dare!” Caylee’s pure fury now, shaking and crying nearly as hard as I am. “Don’t you dare blame it on him! I defended you, Erica. When everyone talked shit behind your back, laughed at you for being so drunk, I told them off. Told them they were wrong about you, that you were a good person. So, don’t you dare blame it on Zac when you’re the problem here.”
My eyes burn with devastation. She really believes it. Everything she’s saying. She actually believes it. “Caylee, please, you don’t mean that. Please, just—”
Caylee scrubs at her eyes, smearing her perfect makeup. “Please what, huh? Calm down? Don’t make a scene? Stay everyone’s good girl who never does anything wrong? Or were you going to say that I should trust you? Because that’s not going to happen. Not anymore. In fact, I should’ve believed everyone from the start when they all told me that my best friend screwed my boyfriend, something I know you’ve wanted to do for a long time. I’ve seen the way you look at him. Don’t even try to deny it.”
A splintered silence follows.
And then I can’t help it. I laugh. It’s a deranged laugh, and I know it. While I’m at it, I should shout to everyone staring: “Welcome to the Erica Walker: Exposed exhibit! On display now! Come one, come all!” But my eyes don’t leave Caylee’s as I ask, “Are you freaking serious right now? Because your boyfriend’s a sick bastard, Caylee, and I’d never sleep with him. The truth is you’re dating a monster. He doesn’t love you, doesn’t appreciate you. He never has, he never will, and everyone knows it but you.” It’s a truth I’ve held on to for so long, but saying it aloud tears at my heart, especially as I watch Caylee’s face crumble.
She’s a mermaid out of water, gaping mouth sputtering. “You liar!” she screams. Fat tears stream down her face, eyes hard as the marble clenched in my fist. She slams her chest with her open palm. “Zac loves me. He loves me. But you’re just jealous because I have everything you want. And what do you have? A porn video and a shack of an apartment. So, screw you!”
Amber gets in Caylee’s face, her entire body red with fury as she shouts at Caylee to wake the hell up. But Caylee only rips her purse from the table and storms away, Julie rushing after her. Watching Caylee race off, I feel a hurt so deep I can’t see the bottom. A heaviness falls over me, heart choking with suffocating mold. Gawking faces surround me—faces that have witnessed the worst moments of my life and seen everything taken from me. Faces that have studied my naked body, watched Zac humiliate me in the halls and Tina humiliate me in the bathroom, and l
ooked on as I lost my best friend, a best friend who believes her predator boyfriend over me.
There is no hope.
Red lips, ivory skin swim in my vision—Amber trying to get my attention, asking if I’m okay. But she can’t understand that it’s not okay, that nothing is, that it will never be okay again. Caylee was my last okay. She blames me for everything. There was never any going back. From the moment I woke in Zac’s room, there was never any chance of going back. And now she’s gone forever. I have nothing, no one.
Go.
I turn from Amber, pushing her hand from my arm, and start to run, rushing past all the judging looks, pointing fingers, humming whispers. My boots crush spongy grass as behind me Amber calls out, telling me to “Stop! Wait!” But for the second time today, I ignore her.
Go.
Grass gives way to concrete, concrete to asphalt, as I sprint. Even after reaching the parking lot, my body refuses to slow.
Go. The word pounds with my pace like a mantra until I spot my car. Go. Don’t stop.
And I don’t, even after I’m in my car, tearing out of the parking lot. To hell with them all. To hell with this place. Why did I ever come back? I fly away, leaving behind Bay City—and all the Thomases and Tinas, Zacs and Caylees—for good.
THOMAS
THERE’S A NEW ERICA RUMOR to toss onto the pile.
I’m late to sixth-period precalc, after skipping Spanish. I know I’ll catch shit for it, but once I saw that video, there was no way I could sit between Erica and Ricky for a whole class.
I’m sneaking into my desk when Nick Frasier hits my arm. “Dude, did you hear? Your girl Erica punched Tina Marcus in the face!”
I collapse into my seat. “Wait, what?”
Nick’s leaning sideways in his desk, not exactly whispering, and everyone a desk-length away is in full hearing range. He takes in his audience. “Yeah, I just heard about it from Nadeeyah. I guess she was in the bathroom when it happened. Said Erica socked Tina right in the face. Seriously!”
After the Ink Dries Page 15