Going Under

by S. Walden

  “Officer Patterson is very friendly, Brooke. She’s here to take your statement and ask you a few questions.”

  I nodded, settling into a light shiver. I stared at the chipped polish on my toes, wondering how the paint got messed up so quickly when my pedicure was brand new.

  Twenty-One

  My mom arrived on the first flight out of San Francisco. It was a little weird, her staying in the house with us. Dad was officially dating Ms. Manning, and Mom was married. She was going to surprise me with the news the following week. I learned that Mom was shopping for a dinner party at the time of my rape. Dad was finishing up his end-of-week reports at work. Ryan was sitting at home with his sister, waiting for my arrival. Everyday, mundane living, and I wish I could have been any one of them during those hours instead of the person I was.

  Ryan came over the night of my attack, concerned because I hadn’t called him. Dad was reluctant to let him in, but I told him I wanted to see my boyfriend. I wasn’t sure if I should tell Ryan what happened, but it was hard to keep it a secret. He knew instantly that something was wrong. He noticed my wrists when he sat down beside me, so I told him the truth. He stayed up with my dad and me the entire night. I was too scared to sleep. Dad wouldn’t let me out of his sight, and Ryan wanted to make sure I didn’t hurt myself. He didn’t say it, but I got the impression.

  I didn’t go back to school. Neither did Cal, Tim, or Parker. News broke early Monday morning about my attack, though my identity was kept private. The boys were at least eighteen, so their faces showed up on television screens all over the city. By the following week the story had gone national once the boys were connected with the Fantasy Slut League. It was the most sensational news story to hit the greater Raleigh area since the Duke lacrosse players scandal. I didn’t want to see or hear any comparisons between the two stories: the Duke players were innocent. Cal, Tim, and Parker were not.

  Tim would prove the hardest to prosecute, I learned. DNA evidence found no traces of semen. That didn’t surprise me. I was certain every one of them wore a condom. I was surprised when DNA tests matched a pubic hair found inside me to Cal. Teeth marks on Parker’s hand corroborated my story of biting him. The marks on my wrists were consistent with being bound. With zip ties, I later learned. But nothing on my person pointed to Tim.

  Hunter, Mike, and Aaron were humiliated for their participation in the league, but they weren’t charged with any crime because they had no knowledge of the rapes. The school could take no action against them because their sexual activities occurred off campus. Patrick Langston was able to dig up additional information I could never find: the girl responsible for feeding sexual statuses to the boys about their “drafts.”

  Annabel Kingsley was the most popular senior at our school. I could never make sense of why she did it, unless she simply loved the power and control it gave her over all those girls. All four graduated quietly and disappeared from the harsh media glare. Their story couldn’t stack up to the rape cases, and I’m sure they were relieved to be forgotten.

  Ryan visited me faithfully every day after school to check up on me and bring me my class assignments. My mother couldn’t be happier. She liked him immediately, told me over and over how good he was for me, and I knew she was right. I showed my appreciation as best I could, but I was still reeling from my attack. Sometimes I couldn’t remember the conversations I had with him when he popped by. Sometimes I cried on him for hours. Other times I tried to kiss him because I thought I should do that as his girlfriend, but it felt strange and scary. I was afraid of intimacy. It scared the hell out of me thinking I was too emotionally damaged to ever have sex again.

  I visited Dr. Merryweather three times a week after the attack. Suddenly I didn’t think therapy was self-indulgent bullshit. I needed her. I needed her to help me sort out my issues. I would not stay wounded forever. I was determined to heal.

  Amelia was the first to break her silence. She called me herself to tell me she was coming forward. Tara was the second. I was shocked when I learned she decided to press charges. She actually visited me one morning, and I didn’t recognize her.

  “Yeah, I decided black hair was too much upkeep,” she said, sitting across from me at the kitchen table sporting her old strawberry-blond locks.

  I grinned.

  “And I guess the goth look really wasn’t me. Just something I hid behind, but I suppose you already knew that,” she continued.

  I nodded, eyeing her surprisingly ordinary khaki shorts and white T-shirt.

  “I’m not supposed to be telling you anything, but I think Tim is gonna cave and go for the plea deal. I admit that I’d be relieved to not have to testify in court.”

  “Understandable,” I said. “I’m hoping the same goes for me, but the deal isn’t good. We’re talking years in prison. Those boys may try to take their chances. Well, Tim, anyway. He’s the only one who escaped DNA evidence.”

  Tara scoffed. “Brooke, you think Parker and Cal aren’t gonna try to take Tim down if they know they’re going down? There’s no such thing as loyalty in those situations.”

  I nodded, glancing at my cell phone. Ryan should have been here by now.

  “Well, I better get going,” Tara said. “Again, sorry for being such a raging bitch to you before. You only wanted to interview me about cafeteria food, right?” She winked at me, and I giggled.

  “Lame, I know. I’m not the smoothest investigator, okay? What do you want from me?”

  Tara hugged me and disappeared out the front door, leaving me alone to wait for Ryan. Dad was still at work. Mom went to the grocery store for milk.

  I went into the living room and turned on the TV. The four o’clock news was on, and I thought to switch the channel to MTV or Bravo. There’d be something mindless to watch on those channels, and that’s definitely what I needed right now. I froze, though, when an update flashed on the screen about the rape cases. Another girl had come forward claiming to have been raped by all three of my attackers and a fourth. There they were, same pictures as before, lined up in the center of the screen: Cal, Tim, Parker . . . Ryan?

  Oh my God.

  I stared, blinking several times because I knew I was mistaken. My Ryan, displayed at the end of the line, and I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me.

  It was instantaneous. I couldn’t get to the hallway bathroom in time. I threw up all over the living room rug. And then I collapsed on the floor staring at my mess. I didn’t have time to clean it up. I had to get to my phone. Where was my phone? I looked wildly about, locating it on the couch, and hastily dialed Ryan’s number. Surely this was a mistake. Ryan was no predator. No rapist. Someone got the wrong guy.

  His voice mail picked up immediately. I didn’t leave a message. I threw up again instead, then sat thinking about the third girl. I knew someone who was gang-raped like me. Lucy! And I dialed her number.

  “Brooke, I don’t know what’s going on,” Lucy said on the other end. She sounded panicked.

  “What do you mean you don’t know? Did he rape you?!”

  “I don’t know why they showed his picture, Brooke,” Lucy said. “Listen to me. He—”

  “What the fuck is going on?!” I screamed into the phone. But I couldn’t stand sitting around waiting for Lucy’s explanation. My heart pumped madly, threatening to explode, and I wanted answers from him before I died.

  “He didn’t—”

  I hung up abruptly in the middle of Lucy’s sentence and left my vomit to soak in the carpet as I made my way to Ryan’s house. I banged on the door. Kaylen answered, her red-rimmed eyes large and scared.

  “Move,” I demanded, pushing past her into the house. I immediately saw Ryan sitting on the couch. His parents were with him. “Glad to see you made bail,” I snapped.

  “Brooke, you really can’t be here right now,” Mr. Foster said.

  I ignored him. “What the fuck is going on, Ryan? Why did I see your face on the four o’clock news? Why are you being charged with ra
pe?”

  I shook violently, taking deep breaths when I remembered to in an attempt to settle my nerves and keep from passing out from panic.

  “Brooke, we cannot discuss the case with you. Our attorney advised—”

  “What the fuck?! Your attorney?! What’s going on?!”

  Ryan looked me square in the face. “I didn’t rape anyone,” he said firmly.

  Mrs. Foster spoke up. “Ryan, honey, you’re not supposed to be—”

  “Then why are you on the news? What happened? For Christ’s sake, tell me something!” I screamed.

  “I was there, Brooke, but I didn’t rape her,” Ryan replied. He pushed his hand through his hair. “Jesus, I was fourteen.”

  “Ryan, that’s enough,” Mr. Foster said. “Brooke, please go home.”

  “No!”

  “Brooke, I’m calling your father to come get you.”

  “Did you do anything?” I asked Ryan, advancing on him.

  He stared at me, eyes full of anguish. He opened his mouth to reply, then closed it.

  “I asked you if you did anything, you fucking son-of-a-bitch.”

  “Don’t call my brother that!” Kaylen cried.

  I ignored her. “Answer me!” I screamed in Ryan’s face.

  He understood my question and reluctantly shook his head.

  “Then you’re as bad as the others,” I spat. I turned on my heel and walked out the door. It would be the last time I ever stepped foot in that house.

  I returned home and went straight for the wooden knife block beside the kitchen stove. I yanked out the cleaver and headed upstairs to my bedroom.

  “What the fuck is happening? What the fuck is happening?” I whispered over and over.

  I dropped the knife on my bed and grabbed the winter picture hanging on the wall opposite my headboard: the winter picture I painted with Ryan back in November. It was my turn to keep the painting, and I hung it where I could wake up to it every morning.

  I tossed the picture on the floor and picked up the cleaver, considering the colors of our scene and deciding how best to mutilate them. I cried hysterically, tearing and slashing through the canvas until my mother came home, dashed upstairs, and wrestled the knife out of my hands.

  ***

  More girls. They were coming out of the woodwork. I stayed glued to the television, and my parents became worried. I was watching too much news. I was consumed with it, and it wasn’t healthy, they said. I ignored them. I ignored everything. My school work. Gretchen, who visited me on a near daily basis and controlled the TV whenever she could. Eating, sleeping, painting. All of it. I ignored my life in favor of sitting, day after day, watching the stories unfold of victim after victim.

  Ryan wasn’t charged in any other case but Lucy’s. I learned about his involvement a few weeks after I graduated. Somehow, I managed to graduate with decent marks, despite studying very little for my final exams. I took them during after-school hours so I didn’t have to see the other students.

  Ryan tried multiple times to reach me. He called me incessantly, leaving messages I never returned. He came to my house twice only to be turned away by my dad at my request. I couldn’t face him. The pain was too much to bear. I thought it was even worse than the hurt and humiliation I felt over my assault.

  Lucy visited me one Saturday afternoon during the summer because I refused to speak to her over the phone. I wasn’t mad at her; I was just mad in general. I didn’t want any of the situation with Ryan to be true, so if I didn’t speak to her, I didn’t have to know about it.

  “It feels weird and amazing, doesn’t it? Those boys being in jail,” Lucy said, sitting across from me in my dad’s armchair.

  I nodded.

  Cal, Tim, and Parker pled guilty to a slew of rapes. They took a plea deal for every one to avoid a trial by jury and risk the possibility of receiving the maximum sentences for each. I never had to testify in court. I didn’t even attend the preliminary hearing. I was not subpoenaed, the judge requesting I submit a written statement of my attack. At first I thought I wanted to face my attackers at the hearing—that I was supposed to want to go to relish in their misery and fear—but I learned that wasn’t strength. Strength for me was giving them no more of my time. I didn’t need to see them cry. I didn’t even need to hear about it from my attorney, though she told me anyway, thinking the news would give me some satisfaction.

  The boys accepted the terms of the plea deal my attorneys and the defense counsel drew up. Their sentence for my attack was the stiffest since they were charged as adults, but it could have been much worse had they opted for a trial by jury. They knew the evidence was stacked against them, so they took the deal: guilty of kidnapping and rape in the first degree, each would serve out a sentence of fifteen years without the possibility of parole. That sentence didn’t include the years they racked up for their other offenses. They would be in prison for decades.

  “Ryan told me what happened,” Lucy began. She watched me carefully. “He was there that night. Fourteen years old, and he was on the swim team with the others.”

  I immediately feared the worst, and Lucy seemed to know what I was thinking.

  “He wasn’t part of that league, Brooke. He didn’t even know about it until the news story broke.”

  “How could he not know about it?” I asked.

  “Brooke, did anyone at school know about the league? The other swim team members didn’t even know.”

  I was so confused. “Why wasn’t his picture in the yearbook? I never saw him in the ninth grade swim team photo.”

  “I don’t know,” Lucy replied. “Maybe he was absent that day or they took the picture after he quit. Who cares?”

  “Why was he at the motel room that night if he didn’t know about the league?” I asked.

  “Well, he thinks now that the boys were going to ask him to join, and that’s why they brought him to the motel room. He thought he was going to some stupid underage drinking party.”

  I scowled.

  “Anyway, no one got the chance to tell him their intentions because he freaked out as soon as he saw me lying there on the bed.”

  “He should have fought for you,” I said bitterly.

  “He did,” Lucy replied. “He argued with them: Cal, Parker, and Tim. He tried to stop what they were doing to me, and Parker and Tim beat the shit out of him. They threatened him if he talked. He wouldn’t tell his parents what happened when he got home. They took him to urgent care, but he wouldn’t give up the names of his attackers. It drove a wedge between him and his parents for a long time. He just . . . withdrew.”

  I was furious, unable to contain myself any longer.

  “Oh, poor Ryan! He got beat up! So what? Where were his balls, Lucy?! He should have gone to the police! He should have told someone what happened to you!”

  “Did you tell anyone about Tim almost drowning you in the school pool?!” Lucy shouted.

  I stared at her, stunned.

  “No, Brooke. You didn’t. Because you were scared. And what about after your rape? Were you ready to testify against those boys? I remember you telling me you wanted to run away and forget it all happened. Why? Because you were scared.”

  I opened my mouth to reply, but Lucy cut me off.

  “I’m not saying it’s right that Ryan never talked, but they threatened his life, Brooke. Maybe they would have followed through with that threat; maybe not. But when you’re fourteen and you’re scared shitless, you believe it.”

  I turned my face away, ashamed and disgusted with myself, with Ryan, with the victims. Everyone.

  “He came to my house one afternoon and confessed everything. I’ve never seen a guy cry, and it really freaked me out.”

  “Too little too late,” I mumbled.

  Lucy ignored my statement. “He went to the police. He told them everything. I came forward afterwards. If not for Ryan’s testimony, those boys would have never pled guilty for what they did to me.”

  “A pillar of hon
or,” I said sarcastically.

  Lucy was patient. “I’ve forgiven him, Brooke.”

  My head shot up. “Why?”

  “Because he apologized.”

  My mouth hung open in disbelief. Just like that? Because he apologized?

  “All those other rapes,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Lucy replied. “All those other rapes that he didn’t know about.”

  “But he knew Cal was a bad guy. He warned me about him.”

  “He warned you about the Cal he knew in ninth grade, Brooke. He warned you because of what happened to me. Stop trying to hold him responsible for every subsequent rape!”

  I said nothing. I was seething with anger that Lucy was defending Ryan.

  “Maybe you don’t care, but he got slapped with a misdemeanor. Community service. Probation. I didn’t want him to get anything, but I wasn’t allowed to dictate the terms.”

  “A misdemeanor? He watched you get raped!”

  “Actually, no he didn’t. They beat him unconscious. He only saw what happened in the beginning and at the end. The boys could have very well succeeded in challenging his story, but they were already in hot water with you and those other girls. They knew to concede and tell the truth.”

  I shook my head.

  “Why are you shaking your head, Brooke? You don’t believe me?” Lucy asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “He shouldn’t have been charged with anything,” Lucy went on.

  I was quick to jump on that. “He didn’t report it. So yes, he should have been charged with something.”

  Lucy bristled. “He made a mistake, Brooke. He was young and scared.”

  “Yes, Lucy. You’ve already said that.” I felt impatient and agitated. And then I had a thought. “If he was so innocent, why did his picture appear on the news? Wouldn’t the police have protected his identity or something?”

  “He was still charged with failure to report a crime. They couldn’t let him off altogether. And Brooke, you know how the media is. Someone got word that he came forward, and that was that. It didn’t matter what his story was. They just jumped on the opportunity to reveal another rapist, even though he wasn’t one,” Lucy replied. “Journalists get it wrong all the time. I could run down a list of screw-ups for you if you’d like to hear them.”