Just how in the hell do you fix shit after apologizing doesn’t work?
The question makes my head pound as I shuffle into the bathroom across the hall.
“Morning, Derek,” Tommy Heath says with a jerk of his chin that’s all slathered with shaving cream, which is weird because I’m pretty sure Tommy Heath hasn’t hit puberty yet. He’s got on ancient ’80s music on his phone, propped up inside a plastic shower tote. Don Henley’s “The End of the Innocence.”
I take care of business and head for a shower stall. The water’s hot—thank you, God. It helps wake me up and melts some of the tension from my muscles. But the headache just won’t quit, and the lyrics to this song are drilling through my tortured heart. I stay in the shower until Tommy disappears, but it doesn’t help.
The song remains behind.
My reflection in the mirror looks like some stranger. Pasty skin, red-rimmed eyes, stubble on my face… I look hungover, but I haven’t had a drink. I swallow a few Tylenol capsules from the bottle at the bottom of my toiletry case and spend two seconds deciding whether I should shave or not.
I go with not.
Just as I stick a toothbrush in my mouth, my phone rings. I glance at the screen and curse.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, yeah, good morning to you, too,” Justin snaps. He’s been calling or texting me a few times a day for weeks, and I’m tired of him. “Look. We have problems.”
Of course we do because what else can we possibly squish inside my pounding head? “What,” I say, but with a little less attitude.
“Mom and Dad are in their room having a really loud fight. Again. So I’m giving you a heads-up…you’ll hear from Dad any minute.”
“About?”
“Mom.”
My stomach drops a few feet. “Is she okay?”
“No. She’s pissed off. She expects everybody home for Thanksgiving next week.”
“I thought you were home already.”
He sighs long and loud on his end of the phone. “Been home for weeks, Derek. Now it’s your turn. Mom told Dad to buy you a plane ticket. She wants you home now.”
“I’m not going home.”
“Yeah. You are. I just listened to them fight for an hour. I figure you have about two minutes before he calls you.”
My phone beeps. Shit. “Less than that. Gotta go.”
“Good luck.”
I switch over to the second call, and sure enough, it’s Dad.
“Derek.”
“Hey, Dad.”
“I’m buying you a ticket—”
“Don’t. I’m not coming home.”
“I already did. And you are.”
“Cancel it.”
“Derek, this isn’t about Ashley. It’s about your mother. She wants you home. She wants all of her children home.”
I flinch at the pang of guilt that’s now so familiar and then wonder why I’m still flinching. That pang of guilt is almost normal. “Dad, I can’t.”
“Okay, how long are you gonna run away from what you did?”
I double over and fall to the cold, gross tile and stay there. I don’t care if I die of flesh-eating staph. “I’m not…I swear I’m not.” The words are flat, lifeless.
“You are, and I’m sick of it. I supported you on this in the beginning! Do you remember that? You were entitled to your own life. I held your mom back when she wanted to ground you for being mean to your sister. I let you play ball, but this—no. It’s gone way too far now, Derek. Your sister pretends you don’t exist, your brother thinks he’s some kind of U.N. peacekeeper living in a goddamn demilitarized zone, and your mother blames me for this whole mess. I’m minutes away from a total breakdown, and I’ve had it. Do you hear me? Take some responsibility for your part in the entire shit show. If you are not on that plane on Wednesday, I will take the next flight out to retrieve you lock, stock, and barrel, and that means you can kiss college and football goodbye. Are you hearing me?”
“Yeah.” My voice is small.
“Good.”
He hangs up, and I’m still on the cold, germ-covered floor in a towel. I shuffle on my knees into a stall just as my stomach turns itself inside out and upside down. Julian wanders in some time later—how long is anybody’s guess.
“Aw, hell, Derek. You play, you pay. Didn’t anybody teach you that?”
I can’t muster up the strength to tell him I’m not hungover.
He gets an arm under me, half carries, half drags me back to our room, and dumps me back in bed. “Don’t move.” He disappears for a minute and returns, carrying my toiletry bag and my phone. “What’s your code?”
I mumble the numbers, and a few seconds later, he’s got Brittany on the phone.
“No, it’s Julian. He’s in bad shape. Can you get over here? I don’t know. Sick, I think. Okay.”
I stare out the window into the sky. It’s gray and bleak. When we were little, we used to go outside and play in the puddles. Ashley had a pink-polka dot umbrella. Justin and I were too cool for umbrellas. We just wore our rain slickers with the hoods up and bright yellow boots. It was a game to see who could make the biggest splash.
I always won.
I’d get Justin soaked and have Ashley in tears.
Who knew that would be so prophetic? A soul-deep sob claws its way out of me. I’m not strong enough to hide it. Julian curses and sits on the bed next to me, hauling me into his arms like I’m a toddler. I’m gone, man, too far gone to give a shit how weird this is, how inappropriate or politically incorrect or whatever-the-hell term you got. All I know is I can’t stop, can’t fucking stop, and it feels like it’s gonna kill me.
“Derek, talk to me, man. What the hell’s wrong?”
“Me, Julian. Me. I’m wrong. I’m the monster.” I try to tell him, clutching his shirt like it’s all that’s saving me from finishing the plummet into hell, but it comes out all garbled and incoherent.
“I got ya, pal. Whatever it is, we’ll fix it, okay?”
I shake my head. He doesn’t get it. Nobody gets it. I can’t fix this. There’s nothing anybody can do to ever fix this, and dammit, goddammit, the weight of that is so fucking heavy, I can’t breathe anymore.
I can’t breathe.
The air won’t move in my lungs. It’s stuck behind the weight of my guilt. The edges of my vision go fuzzy, and my heart starts to jackhammer its way through my sternum. I cling tighter to Julian’s shirt, but it’s no good. It doesn’t help. I can’t breathe. Jesus, I’m dying, I’m gonna die and part of me stops struggling, stops holding on so tight, because death beats the hell out of trying to carry around all the guilt and pain and shame.
I can’t hear Julian’s words anymore. I turn my head to the side and give up. The last thing I see is Brittany’s anxious face when the world goes dark.
• • •
The most god-awful odor assaults my nose, and I jerk back to consciousness, only to find my room is full of strangers.
Brittany and Julian are sitting on his bed. She’s pale, and he looks worried.
Standing over me are three people—all in uniform. One’s campus security—I recognize him from the Aaron incident. The others? No idea.
“Derek? Hi. I’m Mary Ann. I’m a paramedic. Can you tell me where you are?”
I struggle to sit up and focus on the woman waving an ammonia stick under my nose, but my damn head is still pounding. “Um. My room. My dorm room.”
“Good. How about what day it is?” She puts a cold damp towel on my head, and I want to kiss her, it feels so good.
Day. I know this. “Friday.”
“Excellent. Did you take anything? Drink anything?”
I shake my head, and fuck, that hurts. “Tylenol when I woke up. Vicious headache.”
Mary Ann shines a light in my eyes, and I want t
o hurl the damn thing into Mount Doom next to the One Ring.
“How does your head feel now?”
“Same.”
“I’m told you play football. Any injuries?”
“No.”
“No falls, no accidents, no drug or alcohol use?”
“No. None.”
She moves the towel to my neck. “Okay. That leaves one more question. Your girlfriend here tells me your family suffered a trauma. Your sister was raped, correct?”
I can’t speak. My eyes snap to Britt’s, but she won’t look at me.
“She also tells me you got upset and took off during the Take Back the Night rally.”
I still can’t speak.
“Your roommate tells me you were gasping for air, unable to breathe. That ever happened to you before?”
I shake my head as easily and slowly as I can.
“Okay, Derek. I’m thinking you had yourself an anxiety attack.”
An anxiety attack. Somewhere inside my brain, I swear I hear Ashley laugh.
“If you head over to the infirmary, we can get you some antianxiety medication, but honestly, there’s only one thing that helps this.”
I wait, hoping whatever it is won’t hurt.
“You need to face it head-on. No holds barred.”
So much for hope. I’ll just skip off to battle the one person on earth who actually hates me more than I hate myself.
After ten more minutes of instructions and warnings, everybody finally leaves.
Except Brittany. She still sits on Julian’s bed, studying me carefully.
“Take off, Britt. I’m fine.”
Her face falls, and it hits me again, that stab of guilt.
“Derek, talk to me, please,” she says so softly I could hardly hear her. “I know you’re in pain.”
Pain? I wish. “I’m not in pain. I’m in disgust—if that’s even a thing. How the fuck can you stand me?”
“You didn’t—”
“I did, Brittany!” I shout at her and then clutch my pounding head. “I am the reason a fucking rapist is back on the streets. I am the reason my sister can’t seem to make it a day without having the same kind of anxiety attack that just about killed me, and I’m a hell of a lot stronger than she is.” At least, I used to be.
Suddenly, she jumps off Julian’s bed, blue eyes snapping. “I am so sick of this.” Flinging both hands up, she shouts, “I keep telling you you’re not a monster. Why can’t you believe it?”
I stare at her, because hello? Isn’t it obvious? “Britt, you were at that rally. You heard all those sexist, misogynistic things women like you have to put up with from guys like me.” I pound my chest. “I participated in a sexist scavenger hunt with not just enthusiasm but actual excitement. I never saw rape even when it was right in front of me. I am all those sexist, misogynistic things! Every one of them, and I can’t. Fucking. Stand it.”
“Fine.” She takes a step closer and leans over to get right into my face. “You know what? Maybe you are the kind of guy who thinks he should be allowed to have whatever fun he wants, no matter who gets hurt.” She shakes her head and shrugs. “Now what? I admitted it. You’re the bad guy, Derek. The monster. What are you gonna do about it?”
I don’t understand. I don’t get what she’s so pissed off about. I study her, unable to say what she wants me to say.
She makes a sound of disgust.
“Anybody can see all this guilt is eating you up alive—except you, of course.” She flicks a hand at me and turns away. “I was patient. I gave you some space, I tried to be here for you, be supportive, but I’ve done all I can. Now it’s your turn.” She turns back to face me, jabbing a finger in the air between us. “You heard that paramedic, and I know you heard every single word people said at the rally. You’ve had years to figure this out, Derek. Your family is disintegrating, and I am tired of waiting for you to do what you know you have to do! You think you’re some kind of monster, fine! Now change.” She finally stops yelling and stands there, staring at me. When I don’t say anything, she rolls her eyes. “You still haven’t heard anything I said, have you?”
“Yeah. I heard you. You want me to change.”
“Oh my God.” She stalks to the door, whips it open, and shoots one more bullet at me. “Your dad bought you a ticket on my flight so we could travel together. You better be there, Derek.”
As the door slams behind her, I sink deeper into my pillow and squeeze my eyes shut. I don’t know what to do.
Christ, I don’t know what to do.
21
Ashley
I sometimes wonder what he’ll do if he sees me. Would he apologize? Would he run the other way? I don’t think he would do either of those things. He doesn’t see me as a person. When it happened, I was just a way to collect points. After it happened, I was just the girl trying to ruin his life. He doesn’t see himself as having any fault or blame or part in this entire ordeal.
—Ashley E. Lawrence, victim impact statement
NOW
BELLFORD, OHIO
There’s been no sign of Victor, even though we all know he’s out of prison. Tara and I have had several classes so far at Street Warriors. It’s called “Real-World Self-Defense.” There’s no bowing and thanking each other or any Zen crap.
This is kill-or-be-killed class.
On our first day, I took a six-foot-tall attacker wearing enough protective gear to turn him into a blob to the ground, and Tara, who stands barely five feet tall, managed to flip him over her shoulder. The instructor is a retired army sergeant who used to teach cadets hand-to-hand combat.
Now he teaches soccer moms and crime victims how to feel safe.
So far, we’ve learned some basic hold breaks and grappling. I can’t wait until we get to pressure points and palm strikes. I’ve been reading ahead and looking at lots of YouTube videos. Our instructor says the problem with videos is that they don’t give you the opportunity to correct bad form, so that’s why we spend a good portion of the class sparring, which is really helpful. It gets your body thinking so your brain doesn’t have to do all the work. The moves become smooth. Automatic. Someone throws a fist, and my arm comes up in the perfect way to block or deflect it. And the best part? No anxiety episodes. I feel capable. Less afraid. Strong.
So when Sebastian suggests we try that movie date we never got to take, I immediately agree. I am seriously tired of living like a prisoner.
I spend some time dressing up. I put a little lip gloss on, smooth my hair, and find something to wear. Jeans are safe. Boots. I finally decide on a sweater I’ve never worn. It’s blue and kind of sparkly, and when Sebastian’s mouth drops open, I figure I must look okay.
“Ready?”
He offers me his hand, and we climb into his mom’s car. The theater isn’t too far, but the movie doesn’t start for a while. “How about some hot chocolate?” he asks.
I grin. He knows I never say no to that. We head to the diner, which is one block south of the theater, holding hands. I really like holding Sebastian’s hand. It’s just so…normal. We slide into a booth, order, and sit, awkwardly staring and smiling at each other.
“You look nice, Ashley. Really nice.”
My smile turns a little less lame. “Thanks, Sebas. Hey, you look nice, too.”
He’s wearing shoes—actual shoes instead of tennis shoes—with black pants and a button-down shirt. His hair is combed neatly and isn’t doing its usual Nike swoosh thing. I miss it, but he looks amazing and smells great, like snuggle-up-close great.
“Hey, thanks for all that Photoshop help.”
“No problem.” He shrugs. “It’s a tough program to learn, but there are tons of tips online that’ll show you how to do exactly what you want to do. What’s this?” He angles his head to see my phone.
“A Pinterest board I
made.”
He takes the phone and scrolls down. “This…this is really good stuff.” He scrolls through some of my efforts to learn Photoshop. I’ve been playing around with ads and headlines that offend me, changing them into more honest representations. The first one I changed? Our local newspaper’s headline announcing Vic’s release.
The original headline reads “Bengals’ Running Back Comes Home.” The article itself is even more offensive. Bengals star running back, Victor Patton, 19, was released from prison after serving just thirteen months of a two-year sentence for the sexual assault of a classmate during a scavenger hunt gone awry. Despite the good behavior that resulted in his early release, Victor Patton’s name must remain on the sex offense registry for at least eight more years.
Gone awry. Are they freaking kidding me? The only reason that hunt went awry is because boys like Victor perverted it.
I changed the headline to “Victor Patton, Convicted Sex Offender, Released Early.” And then I changed the body of the article to explain what really happened. Convicted sex offender Victor Patton, 19, was released early from prison today. Sentenced to two years for the sexual assault of a classmate, Patton was released after serving only thirteen months of his sentence for good behavior. Nevertheless, his name will remain on the sex offense registry for ten years, as ordered during his trial.
Then I printed out a bunch of them and started hanging them up and down Blaine and on the school’s bulletin boards.
Those have already been taken down.
“Awesome, actually.” He looks at me, something that looks a lot like amazement in his eyes. I squirm under the scrutiny.
“What? Do I have something on my face?”
“No. Your face is fine.” He smiles.
“What then?”
Lifting a shoulder, he sits back in the booth. “Nothing, it’s just…you. You’re different.”
Great, just what all the girls long to hear. “How am I different?” I ask as the server slides two mugs of hot chocolate in front of us, each with a tower of whipped cream floating on top.