Incomplete

by Eliza Park

  I froze and his hand on my throat tightened, but he kept going, his dick spasming after just a few more moments, grunting out his disgusting pleasure. He said some words I chose not to hear, untied me from the bed, and disappeared.

  I closed my eyes, thinking about a summer in the green, humid Maldives, chasing after Maverick’s soaking body as we sprinted out of sudden rain and into a thatched shelter, our wet skin shivering. He’d wrapped his arms around me with a laugh and I could remember feeling warm in his embrace. Nothing would ever compare to the way his lips felt when they brushed against my forehead, the loving concern pouring out of him when he ran his hands up my goose bumped skin. I fell asleep, cold wetness pooled between my legs on the sheets, my hands still above my head, wishing I wouldn’t wake up in the morning to another day of this nightmare.

  Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

  Chapter 20

  Maverick

  Abel Lockwood sat at a long wooden table in the Yale Library, his neat folder laid open under a large lamp. My mentor, Josh, sat across from him, typing furiously on his MacBook. Neither of them had moved in several minutes. Dad flipped over another page and rolled his shoulders in a perfect arch, his head tilting to the side. He leaned back in his chair and dragged a hand down his face, offering me a placating smile. “It’s late, Maverick, you should be…elsewhere.”

  “I still have some studying to do,” I offered, gesturing to the open book in front of me. I should have been studying, but I couldn’t concentrate.

  Abel shook his head and nodded towards Josh, “We’re done for the night, Erickson, let’s clean up.”

  Josh shut his laptop with a click, moving to gather the documents set in orderly piles on the table. “Probably for the best anyway, the library closed three hours ago.”

  “Is that right?” Abel responded apathetically, “Did you bribe someone to keep it open?” There was no humor in his voice, though I knew he was joking.

  Josh was a tall guy with an angular face and a whole head of dark hair. “No, sir. The librarian is a friend of mine.”

  “You’re a man of many connections and a fluctuating sense of morality, Erickson. I do appreciate that about you.” Dad was tired. There were deeper bags under his eyes since he’d taken the case. It had been several weeks since Jonah’s attack and James was still walking around campus. The original legal team pursuing a course of action against him for his torturing of a fraternity member had dropped their case without sufficient evidence. I’d called Josh, who’d considered the job a challenge and a privilege. I offered to pay for his time, but he refused, citing, “a personal interest in destroying reprehensible members of society.”

  “Did you get anywhere with the case?” I asked.

  “That’s confidential,” Josh answered, his leather briefcase packed and loaded, resting on the wooden tabletop. “But yes, soon we should be able to issue a warrant.”

  “Soon?”

  “In the next couple of weeks.”

  Dad came around the table, “Soon, son. He’ll be in jail for a long time.”

  I nodded, “Sure.”

  “Don’t be so grim, kid, you get to testify.” Josh walked ahead of us out of the library, thanking the young woman who waited by the door.

  “You keeping up with your schoolwork?” Abel asked me, his gaze on the cold concrete. The air was chilly, the unmistakable signs of an approaching winter all around us. Leaves had dried, fallen, and been blown away by groundskeepers. Every student was beginning to bundle up, their hands shoved into their pockets, scarves wrapped around their necks.

  “Yeah,” I lied. I was behind. For the first time in my scholastic career, I was behind. I could catch up still, but it was becoming impossible to focus. Jonah, the team, our upcoming game against our biggest rival, and Celeste. Fucking Celeste. I hadn’t heard from her in weeks now. She’d fallen off the face of the planet and last I’d heard from my mom she’d called her dad to ask to come home. In the middle of the semester, she’d wanted to come home. The knowledge made my stomach hurt, the organ in my chest aching in a strange way. Had she and Ramirez split? Were the meds fucking her up?

  Abel’s driver was waiting in the lot, already holding the door. “I’m heading back to the city tomorrow after your game, Josh will be here to follow up.”

  I nodded.

  He pulled me into a hug and put his hand on my cheek, smiling, “I’m proud of you, you know that?”

  I smiled, “No surprise there, I’m the shit.”

  “Watch your fucking mouth,” he said, pushing my face to the side and walking to the car, waving as he went.

  I aimed for my door, looking over my shoulder to see the car pull out of the parking lot. Lifting my phone from my pocket, I pulled up the last conversation I’d had with Celeste. The last thing I’d said was an apology. I’d apologized and she’d never responded.

  I flipped the phone around in my hand. I’d apologized.

  And she hadn’t responded.

  Was she on some kind of sex binge with Ramirez?

  Why would she want to come home?

  Maybe she’d found out the truth about him and his greater love of soccer.

  I froze, my heart racing.

  Or she’d found out.

  I pulled up Bohanan’s number and hit the call button. It went straight to voicemail. Of course. It was 3AM in Switzerland.

  She knew, she had to have known. Bohanan told her or she’d found out on her own, maybe. I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and closed my eyes, letting my head fall back.

  It would have been Bohanan. That motherfucker couldn’t keep it a secret.

  Aside from flying to Switzerland, there wasn’t anything I could do. I twirled my phone around in my hand again, processing, and took a deep breath.

  I’d been continuing to see Mia, despite the worrying levels of crazy she was demonstrating. She kept insisting she knew what we were, and then she’d call me six times in one day and show up to my dorm room with coffee.

  I groaned and texted her.

  Me: You up?

  She responded quickly.

  Mia: I have beer! Come over!

  Too eager. Far too eager. I went over to her dorm anyway, knowing full well I would regret this decision in the coming hours.

  Three hours later I woke up to a headache and a persistent buzzing on the wooden floor of the dorm. Groggily, I reached for it and hit the answer button before I had a chance to look at the name.

  “Yeah?”

  “Maverick, it’s Bohanan. I missed a call from you last night.”

  I moved to sit up, shoving Mia’s arm off of my chest. “Yeah,” I said, looking around for a water bottle, “Yeah, I was wondering if you’d told her.”

  A pause.

  Fuck.

  “Professor?”

  “No, I didn’t tell her.”

  Was he lying?

  “Do you have any reason to believe she knows?” I asked.

  “I don’t think she knows much of anything these days…”

  My heart picked up its pace, “What do you mean?”

  “She isn’t…right.”

  His voice had me sitting up straight in the bed and Mia groaned and shifted. “Is it the screaming?”

  “What? No, I’ve been keeping my distance, like you asked, but I saw her yesterday in the hall and something is wrong.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s lost a lot of weight. And that isn’t the worst of it. There are…rumors, among the teachers.”

  “What kind of rumors?”

  “I really don’t want to say.”

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. “Is she off her meds again?”

  “That’s…part of it, I would guess. But it has to do more with what she’s doing with her boyfriend…”

  Ramirez. “I don’t want to talk about this as much as you do
, Bohanan. But I need to know what you’re talking about.”

  He cleared his throat, “The rumor is she’s being passed around by the soccer team.” He took a deep breath, “I don’t think it’s true, at least I hope it isn’t. But something is going on that doesn’t seem right.”

  Rage boiling, I ground through my teeth, “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  “Mr. Lockwood, I’ve been calling. You haven’t been answering.”

  I closed my eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  There was a long pause, “I’d like to help her, Maverick, but I don’t want to cross any lines.”

  I ran my hand through my hair, “I’ll talk to her parents.” I took a deep breath, “Will you tell me if anything else…happens?”

  “I will.”

  “Thanks. And I’m sorry professor, it’s been…hectic over here.”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen the news. Congratulations on making the team. We’re proud to have you as an alum over here.”

  I snorted, “Thank you.”

  “I’ll speak to you soon.”

  “Bye, Professor.”

  “Goodbye, Mr. Lockwood.”

  Celeste was fucking the soccer team now, and she was off her meds.

  I hung up the phone and jumped off the bed, grabbing my jeans off the floor and pulling them on tightly over my boxers. Mia sat up, her eyes bleary from booze and sleep, “Where are you going?”

  “To my own room,” I answered simply, searching for my sweatshirt.

  “You always leave like this, right after we have sex, and I’m trying not to take it personally—.”

  “Mia,” I said, holding my hands up to stop her, “This is just us fucking. Not a relationship.”

  She pursed her lips together and sat up further, sniffing.

  That was another weird thing about Mia recently. She was developing strange habits. And losing weight. I sighed, messing up my hair with my hand, “I’m sorry, this just isn’t the right time. Let’s take a break and we can revisit this next semester.”

  Her mouth fell open, “Next semester?”

  My sweatshirt hung off the corner of her bed and I yanked it on, the fury growing in my chest. “Yeah. I’ll see you in class, but I think we should stop doing,” I gestured around the room, “This.”

  “You can’t just end things like that,” she said, sniffing.

  “I just did.”

  She scoffed as I backed up to the door, “Maverick! I love you!”

  “You knew what this was!” I called, ignoring the last part of her admission.

  I left the room, storming across campus to my own dorm, where I grabbed my baseball bat and called a taxi, unwilling to bother my driver at this time of night.

  ——————————

  I found James at the bar he was rumored to frequent, getting drunk with his stupid friends. It was on the outskirts of New Haven and had a more upscale crowd, despite having James the Rapist as a patron. It was dimly lit with some kind of jazz music on in the background, though you could hardly hear it over the drunken chatter. James was up towards the front, talking to some girls with a big, ugly smile on his face.

  I pointed to him with my baseball bat. “You. Outside. Now.”

  He smirked and set his drink down, following me out the front door.

  “Look, Lockwood, I don’t want any tr—.”

  Before he could finish his sentence, I swung, my bat, connecting with his wide forehead. He stumbled back several feet and bent forward at the hips, eyes closed, hand hovering over the spot I’d thwacked him. I swung the bat around in my hand. His two goons were too shocked to understand what was happening and I flashed them my craziest smile. “I know what you did to Jonah, you piece of shit.”

  He straightened, holding his hand up to keep me from swinging again, “I didn’t do—.”

  “Don’t try to deny it, James-y. I saw him myself. Had to convince him to go to the ER, even.” I tossed the bat from one hand to the next.

  James shook his head, a smile creeping onto his ugly mug. “Whatever he said, he’s lying. He just wanted me off the team permanently.”

  I grinned, “Oh that won’t be a problem, lover boy. I’m gonna break your fucking legs.”

  He laughed, nervous, “You’re crazy, Lockwood. We’re gonna go back inside and have another drink. I won’t report this. See you at school.” He turned to leave, and I took a big step, my bat connecting with his lower leg.

  He fell to the ground, howling, this time his two goons descended on me. I was lucky, again. They were both shorter than I was and hadn’t spent as much time being privately tutored in krav maga.

  The first moved to hit me with his right hand and I held the bat up to block it, my fist connecting with his solar plexus in a hard thud. I heard the air leave his body as he fell forward, and I stepped out of his way. The next guy came at me with terror in his eyes. I bent at the knees, smiling and aimed my fist at his jaw, enjoying the crack of bone against bone. The skin of his face appeared to disconnect from his skeleton for a moment and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. He staggered back, regained his momentum, and charged at me again, bent slightly at the waist and holding his hands up to protect his face. I used my trusty bat, tossing it into my right hand and dancing forward, swinging hard to connect with his kneecap.

  He fell to the ground, groaning.

  James was backing away from me with wild eyes, stumbling.

  “Let me make this easy for you, babe,” I said, smacking the thick side of the bat against my hand. “You confess and I won’t break your legs.”

  “I can’t confess to something I haven’t done, Lockwood.”

  I laughed, “That’s hilarious, James. Hilarious. You raped him and soon the whole world will know.”

  “I didn’t—.”

  “You did. And Jonah’s going to press charges. He’s gonna do it with the best lawyer on the East Coast. Pro bono, of course. Your time at Yale is done.” I glanced back at the goons behind me, still rolling on the ground in pain. “We’re going to keep you from hurting anyone else, James-y.”

  “You’ll lose the championship without me.”

  I stared at him, surprised, “You really think you can come back after what you did, you sick fuck?”

  “I’m not going to confess.”

  I laughed again, “Then I’m gonna break your legs.”

  I took a step towards him and he straightened, “I fucking dare you to try.”

  I laughed, feeling maniacal, and whipped my bat around.

  His screams bounced off the brick walls of the bar’s alley.

  I walked back to the dorms, a solid hour of time passing under my sneakers, letting the adrenaline drain from my body. My hands were bruised and bloodied, my bat wet from the water I’d poured over it at the bar to wash off the evidence. I felt…better. A little guilty, but better.

  I’d had my driver drop James at the nearest police station and asked him to park nearby in case he tried to leave, offering him a huge bonus for the blood he’d have to clean from the seats.

  Brody was awake, bent over another textbook, scribbling furiously on a notebook. He looked me up and down quickly and turned back to his notebook, then he stood suddenly. “You’ve got blood on your—.”

  I nodded, setting the bat down in the closet. “I fucked up James.”

  Brody’s mouth fell open in astonishment, “What?”

  “I took a bat to his knees until he offered to confess.”

  Brody looked horrified. “What?”

  I fell down on my tiny bed, exhausted. “For what he did to Jonah.”

  “You went vigilante on our former quarterback.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Because he beat up that skinny dude?”

  I looked away from him, “It was more than that. It’s not my story to tell.”

  He hesitated, then understood, “What the fuck.”

  “Yeah.”

  Brody’s expression changed and he sat down on his bed, “So
he’s just gonna confess, like that?”

  “Let’s hope.”

  “Well, fuck.”

  “Indeed.”

  “You alright?”

  I stretched my arms up over my head. “I fucked a girl, a beat up a guy, and I hopefully just made my dad’s job a lot easier. Pretty successful day, actually.”

  “Man, you’re crazy.”

  “I’m a big fan of justice.”

  “You know when you a lawyer, you can’t go around fucking up dudes with baseball bats, right?”

  I smiled tiredly, “Is that like a solid rule, do you think?”

  Brody folded his hands in his lap, looking thoughtful, “Well, you had your reasons. I’m kinda mad I wasn’t there.”

  “I can invite you next time.”

  He raised his eyebrows, “There’s gonna be a next time?”

  I frowned, thinking of Ramirez, “Yeah, I think there might be.”

  Chapter 21

  Celeste

  Whispers floated around my ears for days, circling like vultures over dead flesh. I hoped I smelled like dead flesh, wished the vultures would be too disgusted by the smell to mock me. Tall men in matching jerseys filtered by me, smirking. A hand connected with my ass and I jumped, keeping my head down. Laughter rang through the halls, vibrating through my empty stomach. I ran into someone. He smelled like pine and…something warm. Cinnamon or cloves. I didn’t look, just kept moving, hoping Eli hadn’t seen me bump into another man. My eyes were blurry around the edges, my books digging into the skin of my stomach. I was grateful for the pinch of stiff paper, reminding me to stay awake. If I stopped going to classes, he would know. He would find me. I kept moving through the days like I was walking in a deep pool, my head barely above the watery surface. My concentration was getting worse. I only knew the time because he showed up when the curtains were closed, and the room was black. With his once gentle hands carrying pink sticks that only made him angrier. He watched me, standing in the doorway to the bathroom as I peed in front of him, disgusted when his dick would bounce at the sight.

  Negative.

  So, the poor have hope and injustice shuts its mouth.