“Okay.” The professor startles me out of my thoughts with a clap of his hands. “Let’s move to page thirty-two.”
I flip the pages in my text and see the list of practice problems he wants us to tackle. I rifle through my backpack for a pencil because—math. Instead, I find another one of those rally flyers. Tucked inside a fold is a business card.
Ian Russell, Mechanical Engineer
This is the guy whose girlfriend is delivering a speech at the rally. I tuck the card into my pocket and suddenly realize Ashley did have someone looking out for her. It damn well wasn’t me.
It was Sebastian.
After class, I figure it’s time I acknowledged Sebastian’s efforts, so I sink down onto a bench in the quad, pull out my phone, and shoot Sebastian a text.
Derek: Hey. Thanks for looking out for Ash.
Sebastian: No problem.
Derek: I mean it. I never thanked you for what you did that day.
He doesn’t reply. But a few seconds later, my phone rings. It’s him.
“Hey, man.”
“Hey, Derek. I figured this would be easier.”
“Uh, yeah. So anyhow. Thanks.”
“Didn’t do it for you.”
“Yeah, I get that. And I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not the one you should be saying that to.”
I get that, too. “Yeah. I should. The guys treated you like shit, and I should have done something. Stopped them. Stood up for you. I’m sorry I didn’t.”
I hear his loud sigh hiss through the phone. “It’s okay, I guess. I’m captain this year.”
Wait, what? “Wow. That’s…that’s really great, Sebastian. You’ll be a great captain.”
“Yeah. I will.” He says it all solemn, like a promise.
“You’ll make sure there’s no hunt this year.”
“Definitely not. We’ve got a pledge happening all week, with a big rally on Friday instead of the usual homecoming crap.”
I lean back and kick out my legs. “A pledge for what?”
“A pledge to raise the bar. That’s what Ashley’s calling it. Raise the Bar. You know, B-A-R. Bengals Against Rape.”
Holy shit. Ashley thought of it? “That’s really cool.”
“I know, right? She’s been working on it since the first day of school. I’m helping where I can, but it’s her story.”
Yeah. Her story.
“I was the first Bengal to sign the pledge. Then Coach Davidson did. Ashley doesn’t know this yet, but I got your dad and your brother to sign it on video. It’s cool because she decided to record video, too.”
What about me?
I don’t ask him, though. I already know the answer.
“Our goal is to get the entire football team signed up by the game Saturday, but other teams are pledging, too. Even the girls. It’s like a competition now. Which team gets a hundred percent participation.”
I can’t seem to stop being impressed that Ashley thought of this. A memory replays of Ashley, lying small and way too still in a hospital bed, and I shake my head to erase it. I like thinking of her as a fighter way better.
“That’s cool, Sebastian. Really cool.”
“Yeah. It is. You can go online and check it out. Mr. Davidson got it posted to the school’s website.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that.”
“So how’s college, man?”
“Good, good. There’s a big rally here too for sexual assault awareness. And I joined GAR.”
“GAR?”
“Yeah. Guys Against Rape.”
“I like BAR better.”
I laugh. “Yeah. Me too.”
“That’s great, Derek. That you joined GAR, I mean. Ash would like that.”
I doubt that. It would probably just upset her. But suddenly, I want nothing more than to do something she’d like. That she’d be proud of.
“Yeah. Maybe. Hey, Sebastian?”
“Yeah?”
Don’t do it. Don’t ask. “Do you think I could maybe…you know, sign a form on your video?”
He doesn’t answer for so long, I think maybe the call dropped.
“Derek, it’s—”
“Yeah, never mind. It would piss her off. I get it.” I let him off the hook and change the subject. I knew I shouldn’t have asked. “So how’s she doing?”
There’s a long pause, and I hear him sigh again. “She’s okay, Derek. She’s…strong, you know? A real fighter.”
Ashley, a fighter… Hadn’t I just been thinking the same thing? That completely confounds me because when we were kids, she was so damn needy.
“But she had a flashback or anxiety attack or something, and it messed her up.”
“Oh, shit. She’s still having those?” My stomach pitches and rolls, and I fold over, rocking. These attacks or episodes or whatever they are started right after it happened, and I…I thought she was faking it to get back at me. I’m sorry, April. I’m so sorry.
TWO YEARS AGO
BELLFORD, OHIO
Dad knocks on my door.
“You talked to your sister?” He sits on my bed, looking like he hasn’t slept in a week.
I shake my head. “No. Her door’s shut. I don’t want to bother her.” I’m afraid to talk to her. I’m a big chickenshit coward. Justin’s not. He’s in there practically all the time.
She hasn’t come out of her room since they let her out of the hospital.
“You need to talk to her. Reassure her. Tell her you’re sorry and still love her.”
I blink. “Why?”
“Because she thinks you hate her, Derek. She’s thought that for a long time.”
Oh. Right. That. I never wanted her to think that. I just wanted… Forget it. It’s all just stupid now. All that guy stuff I thought I wanted. I’d give it all just to have Ashley back the way she used to be. April, looking at me like I’m a superhero.
“Yeah. Okay.”
Dad smiles at me—one of those tight-lipped, no-teeth smiles. He stands up, and it takes me a second to get that he means right now. We walk through the shared bathroom to Ashley’s door.
“Hey, April,” I say, calling her by the Ninja Turtles nickname she always loved, bracing for more stupid when she calls me Leo.
She’s in bed with blankets pulled up to her chin even though it’s like seventy degrees. She’s curled up in a ball, Mom next to her, rubbing her back. A hundred balls of tissues litter the bed.
At the sound of my voice, she jerks. “Hey.”
No Leo.
No tone in her voice.
No sparkle in her eyes.
No puppy/kitten/unicorn smile.
There’s…nothing.
Dad nudges me. I clear my throat. “Um. Yeah. So, I was thinking of playing video games. Want in on that?”
Her brown eyes stare at me, unblinking. “What?”
“Video games. Wanna play?”
She shifts, sending half the tissue balls sailing to the floor. “You want to play video games. With me. Yeah, right.”
I shove my hands in my pocket. “I do. Really.”
She stares straight through me with those flat eyes and finally shrugs. “Whatever.”
I take that as a yes and go to fetch the game console. Mom’s beaming, and Dad looks satisfied. I connect the game, hand Ashley a controller, and sit with her on the bed.
And she completely and totally freaks out.
She claps both hands to her face and covers her mouth and nose. Her eyes are wide and unfocused, and she keeps making this sound, this sound that’s tearing my guts apart, like she’s being tortured.
Mom’s on the verge of losing it. “Ashley! What’s wrong? Tell me what’s wrong!”
Dad takes Ashley’s shoulders and gives her a little shake. ??
?You’re safe, Ashley. Open your eyes!” But they are open; they just aren’t seeing what’s really happening.
She cowers and screams. “Stop! Stop, please!”
Mom cries and tries to stroke Ashley. “Ashley, it’s Mommy, honey. You’re safe.”
But Ashley just kept doing that deep breathing thing. “The smell. Oh, God, the smell.”
What a drama queen. “Come on, Ash. Knock it off. You’re making Mom nuts.”
That’s when Dad looks at me with disgust. He grabs me by the collar and hauls me away from Ashley’s bed. I land in a heap across the room by her dresser. “He’s gone, baby. He’s not here. I promise you, he can’t hurt you again.”
“Oh, God!” She keeps shrieking.
Mom and Dad both have tears flowing down their faces. Dad rushes over to where I’m sprawled and—and sniffs me. “Derek. You showered at school?”
I nod.
“Shower again. Right now. Use Ashley’s stuff. Wash that smell off you now.”
And he shoves me out the door, slamming it after me. I go back to my room, grab fresh clothes, and hit the shower, scrubbing myself raw. When I’m done, it’s quiet.
Too quiet.
I open the bathroom door on my side of the room. Mom and Dad are sitting on my bed, waiting.
“She’s sleeping. I…I had to give her one of the sedatives they gave us.” Mom stares at her hands. Dad looks about a hundred years old. Suddenly, he stands up.
“I’ll go to CVS and buy you some new stuff. Deodorant, body wash. You pack it in your bag, you hear? Don’t use the locker room stuff ever again.”
“I’ll…I’ll go with you.”
We drive all the way to the CVS without exchanging a single word. Inside the store, Dad opens up every bottle of body wash. “Too musky. No. No. No.”
He’s gone through four or five bottles before he finds one he likes. “This one.”
I give it a sniff. It smells like chocolate, that cheap, really bad kind of chocolate they sell at Easter time. “Ick.”
He shoots me a look. “It’s that or flowers. Pick one.” His eyes gleam with a rage I’ve never seen before so I just stick the bottle in the basket I picked up when we walked in.
Next up, deodorant. We grab a baby powder–scented one.
Finally, shampoo. I just used the body wash on my hair, but he goes through the same procedure, opening up bottles, sniffing all of them, finally settling on plain Head & Shoulders. Lastly, we go to another aisle and grab a zippered case to hold them all.
Outside in the car, I can’t take it anymore. “I’m sorry, Dad. I’m sorry.”
He finally looks up, bewildered, like he has no idea how he landed in the middle of a CVS parking lot. He scrubs both hands over his face and makes a sound kind of like the sound you make when you first get up in the morning, only it’s not fatigue. It’s frustration.
“They warned us about this,” he says. “The crisis counselor at the hospital said to expect flashbacks. We’re just lucky she kept saying she could smell him. I could figure out right away she meant you. You both use the same stuff in the locker room.”
“I’m sorry,” I repeat because I really have no fucking clue what else to say.
Dad nods, and his face changes right before my eyes, drooping and trembling, and it hits me that this is where that old saying about falling to pieces comes from. A sob escapes his mouth before he clamps his jaw tightly shut, and then he grabs me in a hug so tight, I’m sure I hear a bone crack.
God. Shit.
This is my dad, the guy who carried me and Ashley at the same time that day at the amusement park when our legs were too tired to walk. This is my dad, the guy who taught me to throw the football that changed my life. This is my dad, the guy who chased away the monsters that lived under my bed, taught me to ride a bike, taught me to drive. This is my dad, crying like a baby in my arms, holding on to me like I’m suddenly big enough, strong enough, smart enough to battle this monster without him, but I’m not. God, I’m not, but I hold him, hold on, until he can catch his breath, and the whole time, the whole fucking time, I don’t say it. I don’t tell him that he was right, that the only reason I asked Dakota out again was because of what was on the list.
I don’t say any of it because I don’t like what it means about me.
13
Ashley
Memories used to be these cool things that made me feel happy. But now, all of my memories—every one of them—have the defendant in them. If I remember a fun time, a happy time from when I was little, it always ends with today. Right now. When nothing is fun or happy and can’t ever be that way as long as he is free.
—Ashley E. Lawrence, victim impact statement
NOW
BELLFORD, OHIO
I flip through the pages of the photo album and find a shot of Justin taken in his freshman year at college. I wasn’t even in high school yet, and Derek had just started. We’re sitting on the sofa in the family room. There’s a Christmas tree in the corner and a thick blanket over all three of us. Justin is in the middle, and Derek and I surround him like bookends. We spent an entire day watching all the silly holiday movies we could find. Elf, Home Alone, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, The Santa Clause. We did that every year.
Until the last one.
My cell phone vibrates, and when I see the caller ID, I just shake my head.
“Justin. You are some kind of psychic.”
“Uh, sure. Okay, we’ll go with that. So, um, what are you up to?”
“Nothing. Just looking through old photo albums and was thinking of you. Then you called.”
“Oh. Cool. So I, um, called to ask, uh, you know—”
“I’m fine,” I cut him off.
“Uh-huh. Okay. So when’s the last time you talked to Derek?”
My stomach knots as soon as he mentions Derek. “I don’t talk to him if I can help it.”
Justin sighs loudly. Through the phone, the sound is like a gust of wind. “Ashley. Look. I talked to Mom and Dad and to Derek. Everybody’s hurting.”
I roll my eyes. Like anybody could possibly hurt the way I am.
“And I get that none of us can possibly understand how you feel, but you need to give us a break.”
Well, at least he tried to soften the sting of that statement.
“I’m worried, Ashley. I think Mom and Dad are separating.”
My heart slams into my throat. “What?”
“I don’t know for sure. It’s just…I don’t know. A feeling. You live there. Don’t you see it?”
See what? “They go to work, they come home, and we eat dinner and watch TV. There’s nothing to see.”
“Really? Nothing to see? When was the last time you saw Mom kiss Dad on his nose the way she always does? Or see Dad tickle Mom?”
I put a hand to my heart, and then I remember it’s cracked in so many pieces, it’s probably not even where it used to be.
“Look, my point is,” he says quietly, “deliberately making anybody suffer isn’t your style.”
It is now. “That was before, Justin. Before the rape, before Derek stuck a knife in my back.”
“Jesus, Ashley, will you get a grip? He testified. He was under oath and obligated to tell the truth as he perceived it.”
“Well, his perception was pretty conveniently flawed, wasn’t it?”
“No. Actually I think yours is.”
“Whatever. The trial isn’t even the worst thing he’s done.”
“Yeah? So what’s the worst? What was so bad you’re willing to break up the entire family over it?”
I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to even think about it. A wave of exhaustion flows through me, and I suddenly don’t want to talk to this brother anymore, either.
“Did you call for any particular reason or jus
t to fight Derek’s battles?”
“Yeah. I did. I wanted to let you know that I’m coming home. I’ll finish school there.”
Really. “Why?”
“Reasons.”
He ends the call without saying goodbye, and I toss my phone to my desk where I left the photo album. With a sigh, I sit up, grab the book, and flip through the photos.
In this picture, Justin wears his university sweatshirt. I wear Christmas reindeer pajamas. Derek wears his football jersey. We all sport identical toothy fake grins, the kind you flash when someone shouts, “Cheese!” Our arms are wrapped around Justin, who’d finished one semester away from home and was back for just three weeks.
I flip the pages and find the next iteration of that photo. This one was taken last Christmas. In it, the three of us are scattered around the room, each under our own blanket. I’m not even looking at the television. I’m just staring off into space, seeing nothing. My hair is way shorter.
I’d hacked it off after the rape in the first of several overpowering fits of rage.
Justin is sitting in his usual spot—center of the sofa. His arms are crossed, and his jaw is tight. He’s not watching the movie, either.
He’s staring at me.
Funny how Justin’s always the one in the middle, even though he’s the oldest.
Guess some things never change.
And then there’s Derek. He’s off to the right of Justin, laughing at the screen. But it’s one of those same toothy fake grins we used to flash for Mom so she’d take the picture and leave us alone.
It’s not real.
What is real are our eyes. Behind his glasses, Justin’s eyes are cold and dark, full of hate. Oh, not hate for me. I know that much, at least. No, hate for Vic. It was pretty damn scary, actually. Justin has always been, well—sort of a nerd. He loves stuff like Dungeons & Dragons, chess club, and really odd music. He belongs to online groups and spends hours discussing games and books and movies. He actually played on a Quidditch team at his school in northern Ohio. It was a bunch of college kids with brooms between their legs chasing a volleyball around a field, while some other player who was not on either team ran around with a tiny golden snitch strapped to his ass.