Loren would have dropped out already except for Ross sternly nixing that idea when she suggested it on Sunday.
“You do that, they win,” he said. “I’m not letting you drop out if I have to personally walk you to and from every class myself.”
“You can’t do that,” she said. “You have work, classes.”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I won’t let you let them win. I’ll do whatever I have to do to make this right. You will not drop out.”
She appreciated his support, his strong, comforting shoulders.
But she didn’t know if, long term, she could keep up her end of it.
All she wanted to do was curl up in bed, pull the covers over her, and cry. She refused to go to the campus rape crisis counselor. Even Ross’ stern order about that wasn’t enough to move her, and he finally backed off that when she promised not to drop out. That she’d return to class the next Monday.
* * * *
It was three weeks after that night. Loren was leaving one of her classes when a girl approached her.
“Are you Loren?” she hesitantly asked.
Warily eyeing her, Loren didn’t miss the haunted look in the girl’s eyes.
The same haunted look that now stared back at her every morning in the mirror. “Why?”
The girl swallowed hard. “My name’s Kelly. You aren’t alone,” she said. “You aren’t the only one they did that to.”
Loren felt like she’d been gut-punched. “What are you talking about?”
“Them,” the girl said. “I was at a party there last year. One of my friends is friends with Chelsea and told me she heard you’d disappeared from the party.” The girl glanced around. “Campus police wouldn’t do anything about it,” she said. “I waited too long. I went in three days later.” She stared down at her hands. “I don’t know if you’ll have any better luck than I did.”
White-hot fury engulfed Loren. “Why didn’t they do anything about it?”
She shrugged but didn’t meet Loren’s gaze. “Told me I should have been more careful what I drank.” She finally looked at Loren. “I didn’t drink. Just a soda. Which Walter got for me. That’s the last thing I remembered.”
The white-hot lava turned to ice in Loren’s veins. That was exactly what the damn cop had told her, too. Verbatim. Ross hadn’t been allowed in the interview room with her. Hadn’t heard the guy say it.
And she hadn’t told Ross or Emily that the cop had said it. “They didn’t say anyone else had reported anything.”
“If Sgt. Lansing is the one who took your report, it probably got shredded the minute you walked out,” the girl bitterly said. “I looked into it. He’s friends with Kessling’s father. They went to school together. Apparently poor kids like us, we don’t get justice.”
Loren made her way home after they finished talking. She was curled up in a ball and crying when Ross, who now had a key to their place, came in and found her an hour later.
“What happened?” he asked, gathering her into his arms.
She tearfully told him what Kelly had told her. And that Kelly had found out there were others.
Many others.
Most hadn’t reported it, terrified of the men carrying out their threat to rape them again.
Several of them had dropped out.
As Ross quietly listened, rocking her, gently tapping that comforting rhythm against her arm with his fingers, Loren realized the life she’d wanted for herself was over.
She didn’t know what was in store for her, but she’d utterly lost faith in the system, had lost faith in most humans.
Once Ross graduated, she’d likely lose him, too. At least his quiet, solid presence.
There was no way she could make it through another semester without him. She didn’t even want to try.
“I promise I’ll make this right, baby. I’m going to make this right. You have to trust me.”
“They won’t do anything!” she said. “The cops don’t give a shit. And since it happened on campus, they have jurisdiction. If I try reporting it to the city cops, they’ll just pass it off and say they didn’t have enough evidence to proceed. They’ve won.”
“No, they haven’t,” he quietly insisted. “And they won’t. I promise. Have faith in me, Loren, even if you can’t have faith in anyone or anything else.”
As she settled into his arms to cry, she knew she did have faith in him.
But that was about all she had left.
* * * *
The whispering voice near Loren’s ear scared the crap out of her, almost making her scream. “Just a little reminder that if you try to report us again, we’ll be back with worse.”
She didn’t move, belatedly realizing she’d inadvertently isolated herself in a far corner of the library in one of the study carrels.
By the time she made herself turn and look, she spotted the back of someone she suspected was Walter Kessling disappearing around one of the stacks.
Hands trembling, Loren gathered her books and papers and raced for the elevator bank. She punched the call button several times and finally bolted through the stairwell door, running down the three flights of stairs to the lobby where she burst out into the entryway.
From there, she ran home.
That’s where Ross found her twenty minutes later when he arrived.
“What happened?” he demanded when he got a look at her.
She tried not to tell him at first, afraid for him. But when he finally ordered her to tell him, his mouth set in a grim line as he pulled her close and held her while she cried.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” he whispered. “I’m taking care of it.”
“You can’t do anything,” she said. “They’ve got money.”
“I don’t care how much money they have,” he said. “They won’t get away with this.”
Loren wondered how long it would be until that night was no longer hovering in the back of her mind.
And if she’d have to break her promise to Ross not to drop out.
Chapter Six
Eight weeks after that night, and Loren still didn’t truly have her life back. The bleeding had, at least, finally stopped.
Unfortunately, the resulting infection she’d gone through had left her with a lasting reminder. The initial opinion was that she likely wouldn’t be able to conceive due to the extensive scarring. But doctors had left the door open to hope, insisting that it was still too soon to tell. That medical procedures were advancing at an amazing rate. That her body might heal itself. That it was too soon to truly tell.
It didn’t take a psychic to read between the lines. That, for now at least, it wasn’t an issue. She didn’t have a boyfriend anyway.
Being able to get pregnant was the least of her concerns when it took every effort to just drag herself to class every day. If it hadn’t been for her parents paying her living expenses to start with, she couldn’t have stayed in the apartment with Emily. She’d told her concerned parents she’d caught mono at work and the doctors told her she couldn’t work there because of the food service, but she could attend classes. They hadn’t pressed for more details and deposited a little extra in her personal account every week for her to buy food.
Ross, when he wasn’t working or in classes, spent as much time as he could there at the apartment with Loren.
And she didn’t miss how he always seemed to bring groceries with him.
Tonight, however, she was alone. It was a Wednesday night, and Emily had gone home with Mark for a family thing and wouldn’t be back until morning. Loren had double- and triple-checked the locks on the apartment door, as well as the latches on the windows in Emily’s room, her own room, and the living room.
At least the bathroom didn’t have a window, a fact for which she was now extremely grateful.
She tried to watch TV. They couldn’t afford cable, and the four network channels—if you counted the PBS affiliate broadcasting from the university nearby—carried nothing to hold her int
erest.
She tried reading.
Finally, around ten o’clock, she gave up and turned on the radio, low, to a classical music station and lay down in bed.
Then she got up, locked her bedroom door, and tried again.
Ross had promised her that, one day, she’d regain her peace of mind.
At this rate, she’d be in her eighties before that happened.
She’d just dozed off when something startled her awake. She wasn’t sure what, at first, until she heard it again.
A very soft tapping on her window. Through the curtain, she saw the shadow of someone crouched on the fire escape outside.
Scurrying backward off the bed, she fell as she felt the scream locked in her throat. The shadow was saying something, too low for her to make out in her panic as she gasped for air and scrambled to get the lock on her door unfastened.
It was only then she realized the tapping was a familiar, soothing rhythm.
Ross.
Turning, she tried to peer through the small gap in the curtains from where she crouched by her bedroom door. Then she could hear him more clearly.
“Lor. It’s me.”
Approaching carefully, she rounded to the side of the window, trying to see past the edge of the curtains without moving them. Sure enough, it was a Ross-shaped shadowy lump perched there.
Opening the curtains, she confirmed it.
Her hands trembled as she got the window open and let him in.
That’s when the smell hit her, knocking her back. “Holy crap, what have you been drinking?”
“I haven’t.” He turned and closed and locked the window behind him, pulling the curtain closed after peering through the window in all directions. “Is Emily home?”
“No. You know she and Mark went home. You scared the crap out of me!” She swatted at his arm, but not too hard.
She was, frankly, glad to see him. “And why’d you come up the fire escape?”
He turned, the smell of gasoline and alcohol wafting over her and nearly churning her stomach. He gently grasped her shoulders. “Before I say or do anything else, I need a serious answer from you.”
Her pulse still struggled to settle into a regular pace, but she nodded.
“I mean it,” he said. “If you can’t promise to do this for me, I need to leave and you need to say you never saw me tonight.”
“What is it? You’re scaring me.”
“When did Emily leave?”
“Mark picked her up about five thirty. Why?”
“Are you prepared to say I was here all night? Regardless of what it might look like to anyone? That I got here around seven and spent the entire night with you?”
“Ross, what—”
“I mean it, Loren. Yes, or no. No is an acceptable answer, but you need to say you never saw me tonight, if that’s the answer you choose.”
“Yes,” she softly said. She didn’t want him to leave. She’d say whatever he told her to keep that from happening.
“We ate, we made love, and we fell asleep,” he said. “I spent the entire night.”
She nodded.
“Say it back to me.”
“We ate, we made love, and we fell asleep. You spent the entire night.” She wished that second option was true. Ross was maybe the only eligible man on the planet she had anything approaching romantic feelings for. He was safety, and lately she only truly relaxed when with him.
Ever since that night.
“When is Emily due back?”
“Not until tomorrow after classes. She went home for the night. Mark picked her up. Their little brother had a Scout thing or something tonight they didn’t want to miss.”
He stepped closer. “Okay. I need to wash my clothes. This part didn’t happen. There was nothing amiss when I arrived at…” When he didn’t finish, she realized he was waiting for her to finish the sentence.
“Around seven,” she said.
He smiled. She realized from the way her heart flipped that she’d kill, do anything to earn that smile from him.
“That’s my good girl,” he whispered, kissing her on the forehead.
“Why do your clothes—”
He gently laid a finger over her lips. “Do you trust me?”
She nodded.
“I made something right tonight. If you trust me, you have to promise me never to ask me about this again. Ever. Never ask about it, never talk about it, never bring it up, never mention it. Understand? This never happened. You have to accept what I’m telling you now as the only thing you’ll ever hear about it. Otherwise, I need to leave right now, and you go back to the story that you never saw me tonight. I will not hold it against you, I promise. But that is an unbreakable rule I cannot bend. I can’t tell you, and I never want to lie to you.”
She studied his brown eyes in the dim light. They looked coal black in the darkness, intently focused on her.
She didn’t want him to leave.
Loren nodded.
He smiled again. “Good girl.” Another kiss pressed to her forehead, tender, and yet still stoking the coals of those fires she thought that night had put out for good.
She did trust Ross.
With her life.
“Can you please show me how to work the washer?” he asked.
She led him to the utility closet off the kitchen where the stacked washer and dryer unit sat. He stripped down completely, grabbing a clean towel from the dryer, from the load she hadn’t folded yet, and wrapped it around his waist. Even his socks and underwear went in. When he sniffed his sneakers, he considered it, then tossed them in, too. He ran the water level at full, temperature warm, and added enough soap for a full load.
Once that was going, he turned to her again. “May I please take a shower?” He didn’t smell as much like gasoline and booze now, but she nodded and grabbed an extra towel and washcloth for him from the clean load in the dryer.
“Have you eaten yet?” she asked before he closed the bathroom door.
“No.”
“Can I make you something?”
He turned, opening the bathroom door again, that smile on his face. “I would greatly appreciate it, sweetheart. Thank you.”
Chapter Seven
It wouldn’t be hard to lie about what they ate. Loren made him a grilled cheese sandwich and fed him the rest of the leftover tomato soup she had put in the fridge. The same meal she’d had earlier.
When he emerged from the bathroom in a cloud of steam fifteen minutes later, no trace of the two strange odors remained. He smelled like her shampoo and soap, his hair damp.
She sat at the table with him and watched while he ate. “Oh, I didn’t get you something to drink. I’m sorry.” She started to stand, but he gently caught her hand and brought it to his lips, kissing it, staying her.
“I can get it, sweetheart.” He stood and retrieved the clean glass she’d used earlier from the drain board, a few ice cubes, and water.
When he returned to the table, he smiled. “This is good. Thank you.”
She blushed a little at the compliment, secretly thrilled by it. “Just grilled cheese and soup. Nothing fancy.”
“Is this what you ate earlier?”
She nodded.
His smile widened. “Good girl.”
Something inside her twisted in a good way. She loved the way it sounded when he said that.
He also wouldn’t let her wash his dishes for him. He did it, standing there wearing his towel and nothing else. By the time he finished with that, his clothes were ready for the dryer. She pulled the clean towels and sheets out of the dryer and dumped them on the couch to fold.
After a test sniff of the wet laundry, Ross nodded and put them into the dryer. He started to put his sneakers in with the clothes, then reconsidered.
“These will make a lot of noise. If they’re still damp in the morning, it won’t kill me.” He walked over to her bedroom door and set them inside the doorway. Then he joined her at the sofa, helping her fold
the laundry.
“Can I use one of these sheets tonight?” he asked.
“Why?”
“For the couch. And do you have a spare pillow?”
“Why are you sleeping on the couch?”
He turned to her again, his arms resting on her shoulders. She wanted to drop to her knees in front of him, wrap her arms around his legs, and beg him to never leave her.
Instead, she struggled to focus on what he said.
“Sweetheart, believe me, I do want to sleep with you. But I don’t think you’re quite as ready for that as you might think you are. You and I need to have some talks before that happens.”
“We can talk tonight.”
He gently smiled, looking a little sad. “I know. But I also need to see what the next few days bring. I refuse to make you a promise I can’t keep yet.” He captured her hands again and drew them up to his bare chest.
She felt his heart beating against her hands. “Loren,” he said, “In addition to what I’ve already asked of you tonight, I need to ask one more thing.”
She nodded.
“I need you to trust me. And to understand that I have a plan I can’t talk to you about right now. I need to ask for your patience. I’m not going anywhere. Not willingly, at least.” That caveat chilled her, but he continued. “We’ll have a talk soon. But I need you to be able to wait. Can you do that for me?”
“For how long?”
“Not long, I hope. Likely before the end of the semester.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. That was just a few weeks away. “Okay.”
* * * *
Ross had apparently meant what he said. He refused all her attempts to get him to sleep in bed with her, even if just to sleep, or to let her take the couch and let him have her bed. Or even take her bed and she’d sleep in Emily’s room.
He did tuck her into bed, though. And told her she could keep her bedroom door open, if she wanted. From there, she could see him lying on the couch, the TV on, volume turned down low as he watched an old B monster movie on the late show.
At least his presence proved a comfort to her despite his absence from her bed. Knowing she was safe with him there in the apartment, she was able to quickly fall asleep.