The nurse and Faye handed me a cup and followed me toward the restroom. I could hear the girls whispering in their room, and I felt sick to my stomach. With shaking hands, I unscrewed the lid to the urine cup, followed her instructions, and peed inside it, laying it to the side. While I wiped and put my pants back on, not even caring how humiliating it all was, she put on a pair of gloves, screwed the top back on and walked off. I washed my hands and met her back at the table while Faye watched.
I sat down in one of our rickety chairs and offered my arm, not even bothering to hide my tears any longer. She swabbed my arm and stuck me with a needle, took three test tubes’ worth of samples, and placed them in a tight storage container. She placed a cotton ball and a band-aid over the site and instructed me to stand up and turn around, to lift my hair, so she could obtain a hair sample. I did exactly what she asked then watched as she placed the sample into a plastic envelope.
When she was done, and without another word, she took a disposable pipette, unscrewed the lid to my urine sample and stuck ten to fifteen test strips through, laying them on a plastic sheet she’d laid out. She put the lid back on and we all stood in absolute silence as she peered over the strips.
“Marijuana,” she dryly spit out and Faye aggressively scribbled. “Ketamine,” the nurse added as if in slow motion, like a punch to the gut and there was Faye with her evil pen once more.
“Can I file a police report?” I asked the cop.
He snorted and rolled his eyes. I swallowed hard. “You don’t believe me.”
“You can file a police report at your local station,” he told me and looked away.
“I know how it looks, but that is what actually happened to me,” I explained, but it fell on deaf ears.
Faye began reading from a document in her stack of papers that I know was supposed to be for my benefit, but I didn’t hear a word she’d said because the cop had started to walk down the hall. I heard him instruct the girls to gather some things, that if they had a bag, they could put their belongings in them, but if they didn’t, he could get a few trash bags.
“Please think about what you’re doing!” I yelled at the Faye woman.
“Miss Hahn,” she gritted, “you have tested positive for a controlled substance and the living conditions here are deplorable.”
“I can change that!” I bargained. “I can change all of this. I know I can. Whatever you require, I can do it!”
She didn’t respond. Didn’t say anything.
The nurse had gathered her things and had walked out of the house toward her vehicle already. Another police officer appeared, throwing the screen door open, and stepped inside.
“You’re going to scare them!” I said. “You can’t imagine what they’ve been going through. Don’t do this. Don’t do this!”
“Please calm down. We’re trying to do what’s best for them,” Faye sputtered out and walked toward their room.
I buried a fist into the thin wall of my parents’ old house. It began to rain heavy and sudden on our shoddy tin roof, the sound hollow and horrible in my ears. I fell to my knees in front of the hall wall. My palms met crumbling wallpaper as their door opened, so I stood. They each held the hand of Faye Briar, a perfect stranger.
“Lily?” Eloise asked quietly as she passed me. My fingers grazed her hair as the woman led them toward the front door. Both girls tugged their hands back, visibly panicking, and reached for me.
“Lily!” Callie screamed, making me want to vomit.
“Lily, help us!” Eloise begged, tears streaming down her face.
I stormed forward, reaching out for them but the two officers reached for my shoulders, holding me back. An unholy noise escaped my lips when the door shut behind them and my knees met floor once again. I bellowed at the ground, slamming my fists.
“What have I done? What have I done?” I asked no one.
CHAPTER TWELVE
KATIE AND ANSEN SHOWED UP an hour later after I called them. When I saw them, I busted through the screen door, popping it off its hinges, and ran to Katie’s arms. She met me with open arms and held me. Ansen guided us inside.
“What happened?” he asked, throwing his keys on the coffee table.
“They took them, Ansen.” I sat on the edge of the sofa and wrapped my arms around my stomach. “I feel like my world is ending,” I confessed.
“Tell me exactly how it happened,” he demanded, his face red.
I relayed each moment to him and he shook his head.
“Why would you willingly take the drug tests, Lily?”
“Because I told them I was drugged. I wasn’t afraid of it. It was the truth.”
He brought his hands to his face and dragged them down in frustration. “Lily, you should have waited until the drugs were out of your system.”
“They said they were going to take them if I didn’t submit a test!”
“But they took them anyway, didn’t they!” he yelled back.
Tears streamed down my face. “It didn’t matter if it was today or next week or weeks from now. They sampled my hair.”
“Yes, but we could have hired an attorney by then,” he said. “We could have arranged for something else. Reported that fucking asshole Trace!”
I stood. “Oh my God, that’s who reported me,” I said, connecting the dots. “It was Trace! He knew he was about to get turned in, knew it would happen. He’s trying to make it look like it was all me.”
Katie rocked back and forth, side to side. “Would Trace do that?” she asked. She turned toward our back door and peered over the fence into Trace’s yard.
“He would,” Ansen said. In the blink of an eye, Ansen threw open the sliding door, scaled the back porch deck, and started barreling his way through our knee-high grass toward Trace’s.
Katie and I screamed at the top of our lungs.
“No!” Katie yelled. “Ansen!” she desperately screamed.
I ran through and caught up to him, Katie right behind me. We yanked on his sleeve and shoulder together, but he was bigger than us. Katie raced in front of him and held him with her palms, tears streaming down her face.
“Ansen,” she breathed and he stared at her. “Not like this. Please, let’s just go back inside. We’ll go to the police station and file a report.”
Ansen’s eyes appeared glassy. “I won’t do anything,” he gritted.
Katie shook her head at him. “Yes, you will. Let’s do this the right way. Let’s figure this out in such a way that no one else gets hurt worse than they already are.”
Ansen pointed at me. “More hurt than that?” he asked her, his chest dragging in large gulps of air.
“Hard to imagine,” Katie admitted, swallowing a sob, “but if you caught a charge, it would make Lily’s case that much less convincing, don’t you think?”
With that, Ansen visibly calmed. She led him back inside and I followed, the adrenaline leaving my body quick and painfully.
“Let’s go,” Ansen said.
I grabbed my bag, a million thoughts racing through my mind, and we piled into Ansen’s car. The police station wasn’t very big or busy. My heart raced as I headed inside. There was a cop sitting behind a sliding glass window so I stood in front of it. He looked at me but didn’t acknowledge me right away, busy writing something down. When he was done, he set his pen down, and slid the window back.
“Yes? Can I help you?”
“Yes, I’d like to file a police report.”
“What’s this about?” he asked.
“Three days ago I was drugged at a party. I don’t know what happened after I passed out, but I have photos others took where my clothes have been removed.”
The guy nodded his head. “Okay, let’s have you come across here,” he said, pointing to a door with an automatic locking mechanism.
“I’ll be back,” I told Ansen and Katie who sat in the lobby.
“We’ll be right here,” Katie assured me.
I heard a buzz, indicating the door
was unlocked so I opened the door and walked through.
“Just this way,” he said, pointing toward a section of cubicles. “Take a seat here,” he said, gesturing to a plastic chair inside one of the cubicles. “A detective will be with you shortly.”
“Thank you,” I said, taking a seat. My knee bounced up and down quickly. The nerves, the anxiety, the sheer awfulness that had been my last few days taking residence in that obsessive bounce.
Five minutes later a man sat down across from me. “Detective Johnston,” he said, sliding in his chair. He reached for a pen and pad and faced me. “I understand you’d like to file a report?”
“Yes, sir,” I told him.
“What happened?” he asked, not yet making eye contact.
“I was at a party three days ago. While I was there, I was offered a blunt, but it was laced with ketamine. I didn’t know this and when I passed out, I believe the boys there did something to me.”
The detective finally looked at me, then through me. “You willingly smoked the blunt, though?”
“Yes.”
“Well,” he offered, not finishing the thought.
“Well, what?”
“Well, I mean, how do you know it was even laced with ketamine? You could have just passed out on your own.”
“First, I know because I was tested and it was positive for ketamine. Second, I was under the impression it was only marijuana.”
“But you willingly took it.”
“It doesn’t matter if I did or not, Detective, they took advantage of me.”
He shook his head. “But wouldn’t you agree that since you admit to willingly taking the blunt, that you also ran the risk of someone taking advantage?”
My blood ran cold. “Sir, are you saying that because I took a hit of a blunt, which I was led to believe was only marijuana, that it’s my fault boys undressed me, possibly worse?”
“You admit to breaking the law. If I were you, I’d chalk this up as a life lesson and let it go.”
“Is this a joke?” I asked him.
He looked at me sternly, set his pen and pad down, and scooted his chair up really close, intimidatingly close.
“How do you know these boys even did anything?” he asked.
“I don’t know for sure. I just know that I have pictures of them after they’ve undressed me, without my consent, and them doing pretty gross things to me.”
“Let me see these photos,” he said.
I took my phone out and showed him the forwarded images. He scrolled through them quickly and handed the phone back.
“I’ll admit they shouldn’t have done that,” he said, “but this just looks like a bunch of boys being stupid. There’s no proof they did anything worse than this.”
I pointed to a picture of my naked breasts being held by a laughing Trace.
“Is this not enough to press charges?” I asked.
“Well,” he hedged, leaning back. “Listen,” he began, picking up his pen and tapping it on his pad, avoiding eye contact again. “I think it would be best if you just brush this off as youthful indiscretions and maybe next time, when a boy offers you a blunt, you control yourself and not take a hit from it.”
I stamped down the rage I felt. “Regardless,” I told him, “I want you to take my statement.”
“Now, now, listen,” he said, getting close again. “What’s your name?” he asked. He knew my name. All the men there knew my name. They’d all pulled Sterling off me at least once.
“Lily.” I played along.
“Lily, if you drag this out like this, you’ll be in trouble yourself. Do you really want that? A drug charge?” he asked.
“Of course not.”
“Well, you see, if we take the statement, that’s what it will come down to, do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“And you still want to do that, do you? You’d ruin these boys’ lives because of something you willingly took? I mean,” he explained, barking out a short laugh, “I can’t tell you how many times boys just do stuff because they think it’s funny, and I think that’s what’s going on here, okay? Let’s not make this worse than it already is.”
“Sir, are you going to take my statement or not?” I asked him.
His face was growing more and more red by the second. “Did you not hear what I said?”
“I heard it.”
“And you still want to proceed forward?”
“Yes,” I insisted.
“Boy, you are a handful, you know that? Never in my life,” he blustered.
He made a big show of grabbing a pen and the statement form. He handed it to me and I took it.
“You’re creating more problems for yourself,” he continued, but I didn’t hear him.
Seventy-two hours prior, I would have been tired enough to let him influence me, but I didn’t have time for that poor excuse of a man. It wasn’t even about me getting justice, though that was important; it was mostly about clearing my name so I could get my sisters back. It was the least I could do for my mom.
He took the statement and I asked for a copy. He nearly bit my head off when I asked, but I didn’t flinch. I was done being intimidated.
I was done with men like him.
What this detective didn’t realize was that I knew exactly what he was all about. I’d seen his kind, grew up with his kind, been beaten by his kind. I knew blustering and the bully coercer. I saw him for what he really was. He didn’t realize it, but I saw through him.
So he took my statement. He gave me my copy. I walked out of there with my head held high but my stomach sunk low, straight to the clinic to get myself checked out.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE HEALTH CLINIC I VISITED right after filing my statement found no evidence of rape, much to my relief. It didn’t excuse the stupid, disgusting, violating things they’d done to me, that they’d documented in the photos, but it did help ease my mind a very little. I got tested for STDs regardless, though, as it was part of their procedure.
I found a legal aid in Smithfield and made an appointment the next day. The woman assigned to my case was gentle and kind, overwhelmingly helpful, but she didn’t sugarcoat things for me. I told her my predicament; she laid out a course of action and I promised to follow it faithfully.
By the time I’d left that afternoon, I had her promise that she would petition the courts on my behalf for visitation and custody, and I promised I would have a job soon and start improving the house so it was suitable for the girls to come back to. She also arranged for me to take voluntary drug tests once a week. I agreed immediately.
On my long drive back, I passed Granger’s. I pulled over and vomited on the side of the road, overwhelmed by it all.
“No, I don’t have time to mourn right now,” I told myself. “Later,” I promised, choking back tears.
I hadn’t heard from the county yet concerning my mother’s cremation and made a mental note to check with them as soon as I had an opportunity. Sterling’s local veteran’s chapter had already rang me up and left a message for me with the promise they’d take care of everything, but I didn’t call them back. I didn’t care.
I went home, straight for the shower, and readied myself.
Bottle Co. Market was busy for a Thursday night. I slowly perused the lot for a free space. I found one in the back and hopped out, taking a deep breath to steady my nerves. I started walking but startled short when I caught a glimpse of Salinger’s Jeep. I shook my head and kept walking.
Inside, the entire front of the store stopped still and stared at me. They know. Their stares were mixed with pity and sadness. One of Mom’s friends saw me and burst out crying. She came up to me and hugged me hard.
“I’m so sorry,” she said.
I nodded, fighting back tears, and thanked her. I left her where she stood. I couldn’t do that right then. I was in a hurry. I needed to get my sisters back.
I knocked on the door of a closed room labeled “Manager” at the fro
nt left corner of the store.
It opened and the manager, Casey Goodwin, who was just a couple years older than I was, came out.
“Hey, Lily,” he greeted with a small smile.
“Hey, Casey,” I began, but he cut me off.
“I was sorry to hear about your mama,” he offered. No mention of Sterling.
I nodded. “Thank you. Listen,” I began, unable to give that any further thought or I’d crumble into a pile on the floor, “I need a job, Casey. Anything. I’ll take anything.”
Casey nodded in turn and patted my upper arm. “Of course, of course. I have night crew open, if you’re up to it? Hours kind of suck, though.”
“I don’t care,” I told him. “I’ll take anything,” I answered, trying not to think on the fact that I’d be working side by side with Salinger.
“Okay then,” he said softly. “Come on in here and we’ll fill out some simple paperwork.”
I followed him into his small office and the door closed behind us. He gestured toward a chair and I sat.
“When would you like to start?” he asked.
“As soon as you’ll let me,” I told him, meaning it. Any movement felt like progress and a wonderful distraction.
“Well, I’ve got a girl who called in sick tonight, but if that’s—”
“I’ll do it. What time?”
“Shift starts in an hour.”
“Done,” I agreed, eager.
“Fine, finish this up, leave it on my desk, and go home. Get some clothes on that you don’t mind getting a little dirty.”
“Sure, of course,” I said and feverishly filled out the form.
It felt like my hundredth form that week and I felt a little ill. I breathed deep.
“Lily,” he said, staring at me. “If you need some time, I’ll hold the position for you.”
I brought my eyes to his. “No, Casey, this is perfect, thank you.”
“If you change your mind, just let me know.”
“Thank you,” I told him as he left his office.
When I was done with the paperwork, I laid it across his desk and hauled to the parking lot to get my car so I could go change.