The detective shook Nick’s hand like Nick was joining the police force. “Well, nice to meet you, Nick.” He turned to Tony. “Are you the brother?”
“Yeah.” Tony stood to shake his hand. “Tony.”
“Nice to meet you.” The detective turned his face and shifted back to Nick. “I’m not here to stay, just dropping off these victim impact forms.”
“What are these?” Tony reached over his brother to take the sheets. They were forms with a few spots at the top for details like NAME, DOB, DATE OF CRIME and then blank-lined space.
The detective pointed at the sheets. “Nick gave a statement to Officer Merlo, and he already saw a SANE nurse, so—”
“A sane nurse?”
“Sorry,” Detective Rice said with a cough. “A sexual assault nurse examiner, over in the emergency department.”
Tony glanced at Nick. Nick was looking down, twisting his hands together in his sheets.
“Oh, right,” Tony said dumbly.
“The SANE nurse usually gets a pretty good statement, so I want to let you rest. But I need to come back tomorrow. That okay, Nick?”
“Yeah,” Nick said.
“Why do you need to come back?” Tony flipped through the sheets; they were all the same.
“To interview him. It’s important in a case like this that I get a thorough, consistent statement as close in time to the event as possible. The sooner you talk about it, Nick, the better your recall will be later, and it’ll help me do my job. For tonight, I need you to fill out a statement of everything you remember that happened, starting at the beginning of your day on Friday. It was Friday, yesterday, right?”
“That it happened?” Nick asked.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah it was last night, late last night. So I just write all of my day?”
“Well, you don’t have to get too into the weeds with stuff before dinnertime, I’d say. And I can ask you for more details tomorrow if I need to. I’ll collect them”—he pointed at the sheets—“sometime tomorrow morning and review them before we talk. Can you get it on paper sometime tonight?”
Tony looked down at his brother again. For the first time since he’d arrived, Nick looked like he was close to crying.
“Yup.”
“Attaboy. Tony, if you could just step out with me and confirm some contact info?”
Tony nodded.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Nick.”
Tony and the detective stepped out into the unit lobby. Tony shut the door behind him as he went. “Is that written statement really necessary, Detective, because I don’t think—”
“Listen,” Detective Rice interrupted. “I understand that this is a difficult time, I really do, but I promise you I don’t ask rape victims to do anything that isn’t totally necessary.”
Tony winced at rape victims. It felt sharp, hearing those words in the place of Nick’s name. Like the detective had hurt him on purpose to back him down.
“We’re building a case,” Detective Rice said. “You have to remember that. Best-case scenario is we catch the guy who did this, but catching him means nothing if we don’t have evidence to prosecute. Nick’s story is part of the evidence.”
“Can I—” Tony’s voice cracked; he was about to cry in front of this man. He widened his eyes so the tears wouldn’t spill out over his lids. He exhaled sharply and tried again. “Can I help him fill out the statement?”
“It’s better if he writes it down himself. A lot of the time, cases like this turn on whose side of the story is more believable. Won’t do us any good if you write out his statement for him. But you can sit with him while he does it.”
Tony answered the detective’s questions about names, numbers, addresses of the Hall family, but all the while rape victim, rape victim, rape victim repeated on a loop somewhere behind his ears.
The detective departed, and Tony stepped back into the room. From his bed, Nick frowned at him. “Why did you shut the door?”
A hot, damp cloth of a headache crept from his temples, spreading over his skull and down his neck. “I just did.”
“Why?” Nick fired the word so fast it was clear he hadn’t even listened to Tony’s response.
“Nick . . .” He stopped. There were no words. “I’m sorry, I’m not trying to baby you, I just wanted to ask him if you really had to fill out those forms tonight.”
“So you did baby me, because it’s literally writing words on paper, and I said I would do it.”
“Jesus, Nick, is it so bad that I would try to baby you today?” Tony’s voice had almost climbed to a shout.
The brothers stared at each other.
“So, what?” Tony said. “I’m supposed to pretend everything’s fine?”
“I am fine,” Nick said.
Tony shook his head. Looked down at the sheets in his hand. Looked at the words VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENT.
Nick stared at him. Said nothing.
“I don’t know how to ask you what happened.”
4
Nick Hall, 2015
This is what happened.
On the first Friday of October, Nick Hall got a text message from the boy he liked.
In the middle of an Economics 101 lecture, Nick edged his phone from his pocket to check his notifications. The screen listed the names ELLE, MOM, and CHRIS. As his eyes registered the final name, a rush of butterflies pummeled his throat. No question: a text from Chris was worth the risk of getting caught with his phone out in class.
Nick pulled the phone free and balanced it on his thigh, quickly flicking past the other messages.
Chris G:
Hey
That was it. No punctuation, no response to Nick’s last text, no effort. But at least he had texted. And hey was kind of sexy, Nick thought, in the right voice. Chris would have said it in the right voice in person: the kind of hey that had an ellipsis after it. The text was only twenty minutes old. Nick couldn’t respond yet; too desperate. Unless responding now would show Chris that Nick didn’t play games and wasn’t afraid to go after what he wanted. Yeah, Nick thought, maybe he should respond now. He glanced up. His professor was lecturing right at him. He grinned sheepishly and shoved his phone back into his pocket.
* * *
As a junior in good standing at the University of Maine Salisbury, Nick had the privilege of living in a shithole off campus as opposed to a dorm on campus. A single management company owned a number of houses on Spring Street, which generations of students had long dubbed Frat Row. Although UMS had no official Greek life, house parties were frequent occurrences on the street. Nick and three friends had rented the yellow house on Frat Row for their junior year. Their freedom from the tyranny of dorm life came at the price of sticky doors, a damp basement carpet, and tiny closets.
As evening fell on the first Friday of October, Nick stood in front of one such closet, considering his reflection in the cheap mirror hanging on the door. He was wearing fitted blue jeans and a short-sleeved button-down with little polka dots. Add his dark navy kicks and gray utility jacket, and this was his latest feel-good outfit. He’d worn it to dinner a couple of weeks ago, and Tony and Julia had both gushed about how good he looked. And they’d been right . . . so why did it look like shit tonight? He crossed his bedroom to his dresser, crouched down to open his T-shirt drawer. Ran his fingers over the soft cotton band tees on the left side of the drawer, contemplating a cooler look. Chris had that effortless I-don’t-give-a-fuck thing going on all the time. It was the sum total of Chris’s short Afro, his nose ring, his perfectly worn jeans, his attitude he wore like an aura. Nick had taken one look at himself and realized that he looked like he gave a fuck, very much so, and that was bad. He pulled out his well-worn Springsteen tee: it was faded white with his Born in the U.S.A. album cover on the front. Just looking at it Nick could hear a crackling hiss, the
pop of a needle, and then “Dancing in the Dark” was grooving out of his dad’s record player. He was eight again; his dad was buzzed and pulling his giggling mother around the living room. They’d been fighting, but the Boss could cut through their bullshit better than anyone. It didn’t matter what his mother had threatened (calling the cops, getting a divorce, “taking Nicky to my mother’s and you’ll never see him again”), and it didn’t matter what his father had broken (a plate, a beer bottle, the window in the back door once). All Ron Hall had to do was drop the needle on that ancient record player and they made right up.
The music and any reminder of it infused him with a mixture of nostalgia, homesickness, and something like regret. It was the perfect shirt to take his look from eager to brooding.
As Nick reached for his top button, his bedroom door creaked open slowly. Mary Jo, one of his roommates, appeared in the doorway.
“You decent?”
“Not that it mattered.”
She grinned. “Just tryna sneak a peekatha deek.”
“Ew, get out!” He whipped the T-shirt at her, and she caught it with a shriek.
“If you still want a ride, Eric is picking me up in like ten or fifteen.”
Nick grabbed his phone off the dresser. Three hours after Nick responded to the “Hey” text, Chris had suggested that they “meet for a drink.”
Chris was a senior, twenty-two, and tired of house parties. Chris went out to bars. Nick wouldn’t turn twenty-one until March of next year, so he was relegated to using a fake if he wanted to even get in to most bars, let alone get a drink.
Nick had responded:
Jimmy’s?
Salisbury was located tantalizingly close to Ogunquit, which housed some of the best bars and clubs in southern Maine. Or so Nick had heard. All the places he’d tried to get into in Ogunquit had turned him away after one look at his fake ID. Jimmy’s Pub, on the other hand, had let him in twice. Jimmy’s was near campus in Salisbury; pretty divey, but it had everything you could want: dim lighting, cheap drinks, and a small, sticky dance floor. Chris hadn’t responded yet, but what else was new?
“I dunno if I need a ride after all,” Nick said to Mary Jo with a wave of his phone.
“Fuck Chris, okay? He’s jerked you around long enough. Why don’t you meet me and Eric after dinner? We’ll go to Jimmy’s with you!”
Nick’s phone vibrated in his hand. He looked down to see Chris had responded.
It read:
Interesting choice. 10?
Nick couldn’t help but grin. Mary Jo was right—Chris did like to jerk him around—but right now, Nick didn’t care.
“As much as I’d love to third-wheel it,” Nick said, “looks like I’ve got a date.”
Mary Jo rolled her eyes. “What did he say?”
“He thinks I’m interesting, and he’s meeting me at ten.”
“Ten? TEN? It’s barely past seven and you’ve been texting all day and he wants to meet you at ten. He’s a jerk, Nick; he’s not even pretending this isn’t a hookup.”
Elle’s head appeared in the doorway behind Mary Jo. “I wasn’t eavesdropping,” their roommate began, “but if I had been”—she pushed her way around Mary Jo—“I would have an idea for you.” She plopped herself onto Nick’s unmade bed and brushed a hand through her glossy black hair. “We go to Jimmy’s, have a couple drinks, maybe a shot, just get a buzz on but no more.” She gestured Stop with her hand. “When Chris shows up sometime after ten—you know he’ll be late—I’ll leave you alone and you can tell him off!”
“I’m not telling Chris off,” Nick groaned. “You’re wrong about him. I mean you’re right, but you’re wrong. It’s so good when we’re together.”
“But he makes you feel like shit when you’re apart,” Mary Jo replied.
She was right. They were all right. Even Johnny, their other roommate and a man of few words, once said of Chris: “Seems like an ass.”
Mary Jo and Elle stared at him expectantly.
“Fine! God. A couple drinks to give me the balls to tell him to shape up or get lost.”
Elle squealed and clapped like a child.
“Now get out while I change!”
* * *
It was 10:38 and not a word from Chris.
Nick had made good on Elle’s suggestion that he have a couple of drinks: three since they arrived just after nine, though the first was a shot of tequila. Nick wasn’t exactly in the mood to rip shots, but Elle had been so sweet to come with him, and Elle was all about shots.
The first hour had zipped by. Elle had ordered them into a booth across from the bar, and she made Nick sit with his back to the door, reasoning she’d have his full attention that way. Elle was the perfect friend to keep him out of his own head, and they lightly gossiped about their roommates and other mutual friends to pass the time. When Nick pressed his phone screen and it read 9:59, he steeled himself to his plan. He would tell Chris how he felt. They’d been doing this on-and-off thing—Nick was always on; it was Chris who was wobbly—since the end of last year. He was crazy about Chris, so why didn’t they just do this thing already, for real?
At 10:03, every creak of the door behind Nick rocked him with a wave of adrenaline that crashed each time he craned his head and it wasn’t Chris. At 10:16, he started to feel angry.
I’m a catch, he thought, a goddamn catch, so he needs to act like it or cut me loose. No, or I’ll cut him loose.
By 10:38, Nick had looked at his phone maybe forty times. No text, no Chris. He contemplated telling Chris not to bother coming . . . but texting him anything at all would betray how much he cared.
“Okay,” Elle said loudly, slapping her palms on the sticky table. “I’m calling it. I’m going to the bathroom, then we’re doing another shot and dancing. And if he shows up at all, I’ll kick him in the balls and we’ll leave.”
Nick smiled but couldn’t muster a laugh. God, he was pathetic. Why did Chris keep doing this to him? And why was Nick letting him? “Just go, I’m fine.”
Elle scooched her way out of the booth, then stood over him. “Two more tequila shots,” she said, then turned away.
As Nick approached the bar, he knew the night would end one of two ways. If he was lucky, he and Elle would close down Jimmy’s, drinking and dancing until staff started putting the stools up on the bar. If he was lucky, the night would be a surprise hit. More likely, though, was the second outcome: Nick would take the shot, half-heartedly dance with Elle for a song or two, then steal away into the bathroom to stare at himself in the mirror. He would watch his features grow pronounced and strange under the influence of the cheap tequila and poor lighting, and he would try to discern what it was about him that was so easy to reject.
The bartender deposited the two shots in front of Nick.
“Is one of those for me?”
Nick turned toward the voice to his left. The voice’s owner was settling onto a barstool. Nick hadn’t seen the man come in—he’d been watching the door for Chris, and he couldn’t have missed a face like this. The man was uncomfortably handsome. He wore his hair longer on the top, so a dark curl drooped over his pale forehead. Light blue eyes, high cheekbones, a dusting of facial hair. Ho-ly shit. It might have been the lighting, or the first three drinks, but this might be the best-looking guy who’d ever talked to Nick.
“Uh,” Nick breathed. The man waited with a sly grin. Elle will understand if I give away her shot, especially to a guy who looks like this. Actually, she’ll take credit, since she sent me up here in the first place.
“Yeah,” Nick said. “Yeah, I always buy shots for guys way out of my league, just tryna level the playing field.”
The man laughed, and Nick swelled with pride. How he had managed to put any words together was beyond him. He slid one glass toward the handsome stranger.
“You sure she won’t mind?” The ma
n nodded in the direction of the bathroom. He must have seen Elle.
“Nah,” Nick said. “She probably won’t even make it back to the booth—she’ll be out there dancing with some girl she met in the bathroom.”
The man moved the shot glass in a tight circle on the bar. “So you two have an understanding.”
“Oh, yeah,” Nick said. What the man meant, Nick wasn’t sure, but he kept his voice confident. He felt smart, cool—the opposite of how Chris made him feel. How was that possible when he was talking to a guy who looked like he was fresh off a modeling gig?
“I’m Josh,” the man said, and lifted the glass.
“Nick,” he responded. He threw his head back and felt the cheap tequila wash down his throat; it tasted like burnt rubbing alcohol.
“Whew!” Josh exclaimed, looking at Nick as though he’d poisoned him. “That might be the worst tequila I’ve ever had. You must be a poor college student to drink that shit.” Josh leaned forward and pulled his wallet from his snug back pocket. “Next round’s on me.”
As he watched the handsome stranger flag the bartender, Nick realized he’d been wrong. There was a third possible outcome tonight.
* * *
Sunlight beamed onto Nick’s throbbing face. He began to roll himself over, and his brain swirled in his skull. Nick held still for a moment, trying to ease the sensation, but instead it spread. The pain seemed to pulse down his neck, shoulders, abdomen . . . Oh. Oh my God. Nick shifted and felt a hot ache deep inside him. No. No.
In his ear, Josh’s voice from last night: “You like that?”
No, STOP, he thought, I’m fine, I’m fine. He sat up, head pounding, and the pain stabbed beneath his belly. You like that? STOP.
He was alone. It was a motel room, small and beige and stinking of cigarettes.
He pulled back the thin comforter. Blood. There was blood on the sheets beneath his thighs.
The Damage Page 3