Edge of Darkness Box Set

by Margaret McHeyzer

  “We’re over. You hear? We. Are. OVER!” he yells toward my retreating back.

  I shake my head and go straight toward the cafeteria, but make a pit stop in the bathroom. Locking myself in one of the cubicles I do the only thing I can.

  I cry.

  Chapter 8

  “Hey, I heard Levi broke up with you today?” Sam says as she leans against my open bedroom door.

  “Something like that.” I sit up in bed, pat the covers for Sam to come and sit down with me. “I was going to tell you.”

  “Yeah, I don’t like really hearing things about you second hand from others. Makes me think we’re not friends.” She scrunches up her mouth and looks down at her knotted hands. “We are friends, aren’t we?” She looks up at me, and I see her eyes are brimming with tears.

  “We’re more than friends. We’re best friends, Sammy” I say as I move to engulf her in a hug.

  “Then why can’t you tell me what’s going on?” Her words hurt me. They tear me apart, and I can’t look at her. I’m filled with so much shame, and so much remorse that I just can’t tell her what happened.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say with no conviction whatsoever. We both know, by my tone, I’m holding something back from her. The words I should tell her are stuck. They’re firmly wedged in the back of my throat because telling her I was . . . assaulted brings so much shame. I can’t even bring myself to think about saying the ‘R’ word. There’s a stigma to it, and an even worse one attached to the knowledge that it happened to someone you know.

  “One day, Dakota, I hope you can trust me enough to tell me.” She stands from my bed, gives me a weak, hurt smile and leaves closing the door quietly behind her.

  There’s only one emotion dominating me right now—sadness. I’m completely heartbroken to be pushing away the one person who had always had my back.

  I should tell her, get it out there and let her know what happened to me, so she knows what to do. But if I tell her, she’ll act differently around me, as if I’m wounded . . . broken. No, I can’t tell her. I need to keep her from knowing. Once she knows, it’ll be a huge responsibility on her shoulders. And what if she tells Mom and Dad? She’d never betray me on purpose, but knowing your sister has been assaulted? That’s a whole different burden.

  Pulling the covers over my head I close my eyes and pray. Pray for the world to disappear forever. But that’s being selfish. I can’t wish that on everyone else, all I can do is wish these things for myself.

  Maybe if a sinkhole formed under my bedroom I could disappear and never have to look anyone in the eye. Shame would never surface again, and neither would the emptiness and self-loathing that hasn’t left me since I woke on Sunday morning.

  I’m still trying to hold on to any part of the old me, but it’s all been ripped away. Taken, stomped on, and tossed aside as if I was never really worth anything to begin with.

  My Mom often says to Sam and me, “The sun will rise and the sun will set.” Up until today, I never really knew what she meant by it. Of course the sun will rise and set; it’s inevitable. No matter what happens in the world, there’s always going to be a tomorrow. I can’t help but wonder if I should let this go and get on with my life as if nothing happened.

  Or should I trust in myself, in my family, my friends, and the law and tell them all what happened Saturday night?

  Is it too late?

  Of course it is.

  I should’ve said something earlier; I shouldn’t have waited. If I tell them now, they’ll think I had a willing part in it, that I was asking for it, they’ll think I’m trying to lay blame elsewhere, when the blame lies with me. They’ll think I’d been drinking, and because of that, I was definitely asking for trouble. But I hadn’t been drinking. I can’t remember having anything but soda. All I remember was dancing, feeling weird, then waking up outside near the bleachers.

  Dear God, please help me. Help me remember or help me forget. Just please, help me.

  “I can’t do this anymore,” I whisper to myself. “I just can’t.”

  “Dakota!” Sammy bursts into my room as if a nationwide crisis is unfolding.

  “What?” I snap while pulling myself up into a sitting position. I try to wipe the stray tears from my cheeks before she sees them.

  “Are you crying?” she asks coming further into my room.

  “It doesn’t matter.” I notice her phone in her right hand, the screen bright. She’s obviously come in to show me something. “What is it?” I move my eyes to her phone then back to look her in the eye.

  Sammy looks out my bedroom door, then closes it quietly. “Is there something you want to tell me?” She’s holding her phone and my body stiffens at the way she’s holding it. There’s something on there she doesn’t want me to see, but she’s not telling me what it is.

  “No,” I mumble. But what I want to do is scream, at the top of my lungs. To yell and shout and cry. I want to tell her, but I can’t.

  “Dakota.” Her shoulders slump, and her face falls.

  Oh no, she knows.

  Instantly I lower my head, and don’t let Sam see the truth behind my lying eyes. “No,” I repeat. My voice is strangled and no actual sound comes out, just a muffled groan.

  “Dakota.” She sits next to me on the bed. Reaching out, she places her hand on my leg and gently squeezes. “I know.”

  Those two words cause an avalanche of emotions to erupt. They have the power to rip a person’s soul apart, or to put them together again.

  I purse my lips tight, fearing if I open my mouth nothing but a pained cry of raw hurt will escape. Tears are dripping down and I use my hair to cover my face, a veil protecting me from the disgust I’m sure is etched deep on my sister’s face.

  “Dakota,” she softly whispers.

  I shake my head and don’t say anything. I don’t want her to know. I hate that she does. I hate knowing she’ll look at me like I’m less than nothing. I hate it. Hate everything. Hate myself. Hate my life. Hate this happened to me.

  Throwing my covers back, I spring out of bed, and run. I run out of my bedroom, out the front door and down the street. I keep running, completely unaffected by the fact I’m running with no shoes. My hair is swinging from side to side and, as the cool night air smacks me in the face. The cold asphalt is coarse against the soles of my feet, and I have no doubt that soon, my feet will be bleeding.

  But, I don’t care. I need to get away from Sam. From her knowing.

  Hot tears stream down my cheeks. From the outside I must look like a girl jogging, on the inside, though, I’m a broken girl trying to get away from herself.

  My breath rasps in my throat as my feet take me far away from where I once thought I belonged. The streets are dark, isolated and though it is early evening the night sky is blacker than normal.

  My legs take me to a park a few blocks over, and when I get to its secluded green gardens I fall to my knees. Bringing my hands up to cradle my face I do the only thing I can do. I cry. A storm of emotions keeps building, a whirlpool of rage and hurt mix together.

  My tears cease and I look up to the full moon in the dark sky. “ARGHHHH!” I yell. The scream so deep, the sound so forceful my ribs vibrate against my chest. I keep screaming. My throat dries out, and my chest heaves as I gasp for air. With every part of me exhausted, I collapse to the ground. My body is spent. My rage has been consumed by so many other emotions, and I curl into a protective ball.

  Shame.

  Self-hatred.

  Embarrassment.

  Fear.

  Laying on the grass, the heaviness that was so prominent earlier lifts from my body, replaced by a warm body whose arms tighten around me.

  “I love you, Dakota,” the girl whispers. The girl, of course is Sam. “I’m so sorry.” She kisses my forehead while her arms tighten around me.

  We lay on the grass, with our arms wrapped around one another. No words are spoken. No promises are made; no lies are told. We just
are.

  Wetness is soaking my t-shirt, and I know Sam’s crying too. Not for herself, but for me. She hasn’t asked any questions yet, but I’m sure she already knows. She’s always been the smart one out of the two of us.

  When her tears have stopped, and we are still wound around each other, I feel her chest heave a huge breath. “I got two messages,” Sam finally says. I don’t respond, I simply listen as I pet her hair and hold her tighter to me. “The first one said, ‘Your sister is a whore.’”

  Swallowing the huge lump in my throat, I attempt to hold back the tears because I really need to hear what she has to say.

  “I wouldn’t usually reply to anyone who’d say something like that, but I did. I said to them, ’I don’t know you, you have the wrong number.’ Because it came from a cell number I didn’t know. Right away, I got a reply.”

  My heart jumps wildly, goosebumps crawl all over my skin and my eyes prickle with barely-contained tears. “What . . .” I cough to get the roughness out of my throat. I take a huge breath, close my eyes and ask the question, “What did the second message say?”

  “It didn’t say anything, Dakota.”

  My eyes snap open, while my eyebrows furrow tightly together. “I don’t understand.”

  “It was a photo.”

  What the hell? “A photo? Show me.” Encouraging Sam, I move her off me and sit up on the grass. Sam positions herself so she’s sitting opposite me, our knees touching while we both huddle over her phone.

  “I wanted to delete it, but I already saw it. I can’t get that image out of my head. It’s scary. It made my stomach churn.”

  Oh God, please, please don’t let it be bad.

  “Show me.” I watch as her finger hovers over the bottom of the screen so she can slide it open. She’s hesitating. I know she is by the way her finger is lingering over her phone. “Just show me,” I say again softly.

  “I didn’t believe whoever it was, but then . . . this came through.” She swipes the phone on, and goes to her message icon. “Here.” She hands me her phone and immediately looks down at the triangle of grass caught under her crossed legs.

  “Oh,” I gasp as I take the phone and see what it is she’s seen. My hand comes to my mouth as I hold in the screams threatening to break through. “Shit,” I whisper.

  “I want to beg you to tell me it’s not you, but there’s no denying it is.”

  Even with blurred vision, it’s obviously me. There I am, lying on the grass, in my beautiful green gown with my arm thrown over my face, my dress hitched up, with my lower half exposed. Dropping Sam’s phone I bury my head in my hands to cover my shame, and my tears. “Shit,” I whimper between my heavy tears.

  “What happened, Dakota?” Sam rests her hand on my thigh and rubs it in gentle circles. “You had sex? You could’ve told me.”

  Gathering my strength, I shake my head. “It’s not that,” I say. Swallowing down the bile and trying my hardest to hold onto the little pride I actually have left, I lift my head from my hands.

  “What is it?” Sam tilts her head to the side and offers me a reassuring smile. “You can tell me anything.”

  “Promise me you won’t tell anyone, including Mom and Dad.”

  “I promise,” she quickly agrees.

  “No, Sam. Not like that. Promise me.”

  “I promise,” she repeats herself.

  “Sam. This is serious. I don’t even want to tell you, I would never have said a thing if it wasn’t for that disgusting picture.”

  “You’re scaring me, Dakota. Just tell me.” She squints her eyes as she knits her eyebrows together.

  “You have to promise me.”

  “Sister first and always.” She crosses her heart. “I promise I won’t say a word.”

  “On prom night, I blacked out and woke up early the next morning out by the bleachers. My panties were missing, and so was one shoe. I don’t remember anything at all, except I had, and still have bruises all over my body. And I had dried blood on the inside of my legs.”

  “Oh my God, Dakota! We have to tell Mom and Dad.”

  “NO!” I yell, but quickly try and calm myself. “You promised me, Sam. You can’t say anything.”

  “You said you don’t remember anything. What exactly can you recall?”

  “Um.” I look at her and notice the pleading look in her eyes. “The last thing I remember is dancing with the girls.”

  “Nothing after that?” I shake my head and look down at my now knotted fingers. “I have to ask. Were you drinking alcohol?”

  “Don’t be stupid, Sam. There were teachers everywhere. Anyway, I only had a soda.” An epiphany hits. “Oh my God. A soda. I remember there was the soda Reece brought back for me.” Standing I begin to pace.

  “Reece gave you a soda? I don’t get it.”

  “He asked if anyone wanted a drink.” As if I’m watching my prom in rewind, I see him hand me a drink. “He asked and I said I’d like a soda. Levi told him he wanted a Coke but Reece flipped him off. They came back a few minutes later and Reece gave me my soda before the girls called me over so we could dance.”

  “Is that all you had? One soda?”

  I rake my left hand over my face and through my hair, tugging on the silky strands as I reach the ends. “That’s all I remember. Everything else is hazy. Until I woke, I can’t remember anything else.”

  “What do you mean by hazy?”

  “More like blank. Like a sheet went over me after I had the soda Reece bought over, and it didn’t lift until I woke the next morning.”

  “Dakota, that’s not right. Something isn’t adding up.” Sam is on her feet now and leaning against a park bench. “You didn’t drink, so you can’t say you were drunk. Maybe you were drugged.”

  “I don’t know how. I didn’t take anything anyone gave me.”

  “Dakota?” she says in a serious tone and looks at me with her chin tipped up and her eyebrows high.

  “I didn’t!” I protest. “I swear, I didn’t take any drugs.”

  “Not voluntarily,” she says quietly. “But you did have a drink.”

  It all comes crashing down, answering the ‘how’ question from my prom night. “Crap,” I whisper. Sam’s face tells the story rumbling around inside me.

  “You must have been drugged. It was in your drink.”

  “I was drugged.” My feet suddenly stop pacing and I freeze on the spot. “Shit.”

  “Yeah, Dakota . . . shit.”

  Chapter 9

  “Let’s go over this again,” Sam says when we get back to my room and have closed the door.

  “We’ve been going over it for the last half hour. I can’t remember anything else.” I sit cross-legged on my bed, and Sam sits opposite me.

  “Reece went and got you the drink.”

  “Yes,” I confirm.

  “And did you have some straight away?”

  Scrunching my eyebrows together I try to recall what happened that night, step-by-step. “I’m fairly certain he handed it to me, then Lindsey said we should dance. I put it on the table and then, Jordan and I went out on the dance floor.” My hands are going through the motion of accepting the drink and putting it on the table. I’m staring at the corner of the bed as I replay what happened from my clouded memory. “Yeah, that’s what happened.” I look to Sam as she’s watching me closely.

  “So, Reece handed you the drink. He got it for you? And you said at the park Levi went with him. And you didn’t have any of it before you went to dance.”

  “Yep, that’s right.”

  Sam takes a deep breath, the right side of her mouth pulls up in an agonizing grimace. “Something’s not right, Dakota. It’s off, like weird, you know?”

  “Tell me about it. Reece gave me the drink, but Levi was with him.”

  “Yeah, which means they’d be in it together if it was one of them.”

  I balk at the thought of either of them doing anything like this. “It makes no sense, why would Levi do this to me co
nsidering I was going to have sex with him.”

  “Did you tell him you wanted to wait, like you said you were going to?”

  “Yeah, I told him in the limo on the way to the prom and he was understanding. Well, he was kinda pissed to start, but got over it quickly.”

  “What about Reece?”

  “What about Reece?” I repeat the question to Sam. “Reece is super sweet, there’s no way he’d do this.” Frustrated, I jump off the bed and pace around my room. “Listen to us. We’re trying to accuse everyone, when it really could’ve been anyone.” Suddenly I stop and turn to look at Sam. “Oh my God, Sam. What if it wasn’t meant for me? What if it was meant for someone else?”

  Sam shakes her head. “How many times have we watched the news to see a girl’s been attacked, Dakota? Whoever did this knew exactly what they were doing and targeted you specifically.”

  I begin pacing again and there are a million thoughts running through my mind. “Crap.”

  “What?” Sam looks at me questioningly.

  “If what you say is true; if it was a targeted attack, then who’s to say it was a student? It could just as easily have been a teacher.”

  “A teacher?” She scratches her chin with a look of absolute disgust on her face. “But that’s . . .” She shudders and grimaces. “That’s seriously messed up. Ugh.”

  “I’m thinking about a specific teacher.”

  Her gaze is fixated on the corner of my bed then slowly she lifts her eyes to meet mine. Realization quickly sets in. “You mean Mr. Collins?” I nod my head. “You can’t go saying things like that about a teacher, Dakota.”

  She’s right I can’t but something about Mr. C isn’t right. “I know, I know,” I sigh. Taking a huge breath, I go and sit beside her on the bed. “I haven’t looked at my phone since Saturday night. Maybe I should see who’s tried calling and messaging.” I get up and go to the nightstand where my phone is still plugged in and charging. “Damn it, Sam, I don’t want to look at this.”