The last picture is—was—of the three of us cuddled under a blanket, watching a movie. Now, it’s just two of us. Where Derek had been, there’s only the huge bowl of popcorn.
There’s a caption on this image. “Instead of punishing her rapist, how about punishing the brother who told the court her rapist didn’t need to go to prison for one mistake?”
My lip quivers. Oh, God, Derek.
Justin’s words replay in my head.
You want to punish Derek for the rest of his life.
No. I put the phone away. No. I stand up and scrub the counter that already gleams.
That is not what I’m doing. Derek is a trigger for me. All I’m doing is what I need to do so I can heal, so I can survive. If he can’t take it, that’s his problem. Maybe if he’d spent less time calling me Ash Tray and ditching me on my first day of school and making me feel unwanted and for making me a target in his stupid scavenger hunt and for abandoning me when I needed him the most, when the sun went down and never came back out, when the bad dreams and anxiety attacks and threats from people we used to know poured in. Maybe if he actually acknowledged the worst thing that happened to me, that could have ever happened to me, and called it what it is instead of a mistake—
You’re punishing him for not tearing Victor Patton apart for you.
The thought is a gut punch and steals my breath away.
I clench my hands into fists so I don’t have to think it again, don’t have to face it. Derek deserves the guilt he feels. He should suffer the way he made me suffer for the past…how many years now?
You’re punishing him for not tearing Victor Patton apart for you.
“No! I’m not.”
The dishwasher clicks over to the end of the cycle, and I remember what today is. What tomorrow is. Mom said she wanted all of her babies together. And now she’s upstairs sobbing because Derek had to be a jerk. I stalk out of the kitchen and pace the living room.
You’re punishing him.
Justin’s words are like an itch I can’t help but scratch. As soon as I do, it blooms to a rash that spreads fast and far, and the more I scratch, the more I itch, and damn it, damn it, damn it, okay!
I am punishing Derek. I’m punishing him because he didn’t defend me and because he didn’t do a single thing to help me. In fact, he did the opposite of help.
You’re punishing him.
“Ashley.”
I lift my head and find Mom on the bottom step, mascara streaks down her too-pale face, and her entire body shakes likes she’s being torn into pieces, and oh my God, she is.
Dr. Joyce’s words haunt me. She said I need to avoid the things that trigger me. And then Sebastian’s words join in. He said I’m unstoppable, but I’m not. I’m…
It hits me then, with all the force of an atom splitting, exactly what I am.
I’m scared.
I’ve been scared for years now. Scared all the way down to my bones but not of Victor Patton. I’ve been scared of this, exactly this…of my family blaming me for the rape, of taking Derek’s side instead of mine, of hearing him say it was my fault, that every snub, every harassing phone call, every nasty look and whispered remark…all of it was my fault. Only Derek didn’t do that. My father did.
Derek defended me. Derek, the brother who calls me Ash Tray and ditches me any chance he gets and…volunteers with a sexual assault awareness group. He defended me.
And I made him leave.
Justin is right. I am holding on to the past. But Sebastian’s right, too. I am unstoppable. For the first time in more than two years, I know what I have to do.
I have to choose what to fight for. I thought I was supposed to fight for justice, and I did that. But justice wasn’t enough, not for me. I need more.
Now, I’m choosing my family.
I stand up, walk to the steps, and hold out my hand. “Mom. Let’s go find Derek.”
She stares at me for a minute and then she shakes off her expression the way a dog sheds water. She grabs our coats, and we are out the front door before I can take another breath.
• • •
“You’re sure he’s not here?” Mom asks as we pull up in front of Brittany’s house.
“Yes. She said he left the gift on the doorstep.” I shoot Britt a fast text message, and seconds later, she’s in the back of the car. I twist around so I can see her.
“I’m really worried,” she says with an anxious glance at my mother. “He’s been quiet. Too quiet. I think he’s been planning to leave for good for a while now, and I… God, I didn’t pick up on it.”
“But where would he go? He doesn’t have money to just…take off like this.”
“I don’t know!” Britt shakes her head. “He was supposed to speak at Ohio State. There’s a GAR event there tonight.”
I wave that away. “He won’t be there. Derek hates public speaking.”
But Brittany shakes her head. “He volunteered for this, so I don’t think he’d blow it off.”
“Volunteered for what?” Mom echoes. “And what is GAR, anyway?”
“It stands for Guys Against Rape. Derek’s been involved in our school’s chapter since September.”
Mom glances over at me in the passenger seat. “Did you know about this?”
I shrug. He may have mentioned it in that bragging sort of way. That’s Derek…doing whatever he can for the points.
“Text Justin and Dad. Tell them what’s up and that we’re driving to Columbus now,” Mom orders.
Sighing, I do. Neither one responds. The ride is tense and long. Traffic is ridiculous, as it always is before a holiday. By the time we arrive and park, it’s after nine.
“We missed it. I know it,” Mom says, her voice choked.
“No, I don’t think so. At our school, these events go on for a while,” Brittany says. “Come on.” She takes off at a jog, heading for one of those you-are-here maps under lighted glass in the center of a footpath.
We follow the signs and eventually find the building where the GAR event is being held. The room is on the first floor. It’s a large theater-style classroom, filled to capacity, which is about a hundred and fifty people. We sneak in, slowly closing the heavy steel door so it doesn’t make a sound, and find ourselves at the rear of the huge lecture hall, where it’s dark. Below us, a man in a suit speaks at a podium, his head facing the slides displayed on a screen behind him. People take notes and look bored. The room smells like industrial cleaner and just the barest hint of male sweat. I roll my shoulders and put that thought firmly out of mind.
“Okay, that’s it for me. I hope you’ll seriously consider joining GAR and standing up for those who have been hurt.”
Polite applause rings out across the large hall.
Mom’s frantic. “He’s not here. Maybe we should—”
“Mom.” I point to the podium. She gasps, but I grab her hand and hold her back. Derek is walking toward it like a man about to be executed. I want to see what he’s going to do. He shakes the man’s hand and spends a minute hooking up his computer to the projector. When he’s ready, Derek clears his throat and shoves his hands into his pockets. He leans into the podium’s mic and over the reverb introduces himself.
“My name is Derek Lawrence. I’ve been a GAR member for a couple of months now. I joined because somebody close to me got raped.”
Mom’s hand, still clasped in mine, squeezes before I can even react to that.
“No. That’s not entirely true,” Derek continues. “That may have been the reason I went to my first meeting, but I signed up because I finally realized rape was my problem, too.” He spreads his arms apart. “I mean, look at me. I’m six-foot-three and two hundred pounds. Rape isn’t something I worry about. I walk outside at night. I park my car anywhere I want. It doesn’t bother me who gets on the elevator after me. I’ve neve
r had a date demand services after she spent money on me. I go through life feeling relatively safe. The women I know? They go through life scared…and the part that sucks the most? It never occurred to me to help them.”
A ripple of discomfort skates over the crowd. Derek adjusts the mic’s flexible neck.
“My girlfriend,” he begins, and immediately stops like someone just kicked him in the groin. “Well. We’re not exactly together right now.”
Next to me, Brittany covers her mouth with both hands. Mom wraps an arm around her.
“This really great girl I know told me to check out these Twitter hashtags. Maybe you’ve heard of them. Me Too and Yes All Women.”
Derek clicks a few keys on the computer, and when Twitter appears on the screen, he displays the current tweets from the hashtag, scrolling down. The tweets are horrifying. Derek stops scrolling and reads one out loud. “Every woman I know has a Me Too story. Every single one, even my mom.”
I stare at my mother. “You do?”
“Shh.” She flips what I said away, her eyes glued to Derek.
He turns back to his audience. “Guys, I know what you’re thinking. I thought it, too. Trust me. They’re not exaggerating. The more tweets and stories I read, the more I understand that this rape culture thing? It’s everybody’s problem.”
“That’s just bull. Not everybody rapes, man. Not every guy is a pig,” someone down in the front row calls out. “I’m a nice guy. I don’t treat girls like that.”
Still on the stage, Derek walks away from the podium and asks him, “So you’re not that guy?”
“Yeah. Exactly.”
“Great!”
I take a step forward and lean over a half wall that circles the top of the theater, dying to hear what he says next.
“Show of hands—how many of you are nice guys?”
Unsurprisingly, all the hands go up.
“Keep your hands up. If you’ve ever said nothing while one of your pals harasses a girl walking by, put your hand down.”
A bunch of hands go down, but not without more grumbling.
“Hold up. I’ll explain in a minute. If you’ve ever said ‘She’s lying’ after an athlete or celebrity you admire got accused of rape, put your hand down.”
More hands disappear.
“If the first thing you said after hearing the news about a rape was something like ‘Why was she jogging there by herself?’ or ‘Why was she wearing that outfit?’ put your hand down. If you’ve ever used feminine words as insults, like calling your friends a pussy or saying they fight like a girl, put your hands down.”
When there are only five or six hands still in the air, Derek lifts his own. “You seeing the pattern now?”
Nobody answers him, and Derek holds up one finger. “Okay, guys, put your hands down. The point I’m trying to make is I didn’t get it, either, not for a long time.” He moves back to the computer and clicks a couple of keys. He shows an image that dumps acid into my gut.
“Anybody recognize this?” he asks, jerking a thumb to the screen behind him. It’s his scavenger hunt list. “I’ll give you a hint. Two years ago, I played football for the Bellford Bengals.”
This time, the sound is no ripple. It’s a collective gasp.
“Yeah. Those Bengals. The ones who played a scavenger hunt that got our coach fired, our football program canceled…and my sister raped.”
Another gasp. Someone calls out, “The Bellford High School rape victim is your sister?”
“Yeah.” Derek nods, and I feel a wave of shame wash over me. That title has become my name now.
“Two years ago, when I was a high school junior, there was one guy on our team who said he wouldn’t play in the scavenger hunt because it scared the girls.”
Sebastian. My heart flips over.
“I wish I could tell you I was that guy, but…no, I played and scored over a hundred points, completing my card. Some cards had stuff on them like sex in public, sex on a moving vehicle, sex with a virgin. That’s the one that led to my sister’s rape. Over the past two years, I’ve replayed the day I chose my card, that moment, a few million times. If I’d stood next to the guy who said no and backed him up, I’m convinced a few of my buddies would have stood up with me. And maybe a few more guys with them. If I’d done that, I think my teammate wouldn’t have picked my sister to target, and if he hadn’t raped her, I’m dead-set sure my family wouldn’t be falling apart.”
Beside me, Mom lets out a broken breath and stretches out a hand to Derek. But he can’t see us way up here. He clicks some more keys, and the screen refreshes. This time, it’s a picture of us. Justin, him, and me. Big cheesy smiles, Derek in the center, as always.
“This is us before.”
Click.
“And this is us after.” Great chasms of distance with Justin on one end of the sofa, me on the other, and Derek on a chair. He’s the only one attempting a grin. “My sister can’t…” His voice cracks, and so does my heart. “She can’t tolerate my presence, which is funny in a way, because this before-and-after idea? I got it from her.”
From my Pinterest board. Derek saw my Pinterest board. I lift a hand to my face because it aches. I’m…I think I’m actually smiling.
At my brother.
“It doesn’t matter how sorry I am, and believe me, I am. I used to be a superhero to her. My roommate and my girl are both psych majors, so I’ve learned from them that I’m kind of a walking, talking trigger for Ashley. The tension is massive,” he says, holding his hands apart as if to measure it. “And it’s hurting everybody. My parents are on the brink of divorce. My chess-club brother has taken up bare-knuckle fighting.”
What? What? I whip around to my mother, but she drops her head and won’t meet my gaze. I asked her, and she said everything was fine. I should have known. How could I not see any of this?
Because you never wanted to look too closely.
“It all goes back to that moment, in the locker room, when I picked that stupid card and decided to play a dishonorable game instead of saying no, instead of standing up to the guys who think this is how you prove you’re a man.”
Derek wipes his face and…God, he’s crying. The last time he cried…it was in my hospital room.
He clicks another key, and suddenly, it’s there. My Pinterest board. “Here’s the work my sister’s been doing. Every day, there are moments like these,” he says, stabbing a finger toward the screen. “No big deal, right? They’re funny. They’re not meant to be taken seriously. What’s the big deal? Well, if you look at the tweets under those hashtags, you’ll see. Better yet, ask. Go home tonight and ask the women you know—moms, sisters, friends. Ask them if they have a Me Too or Yes All Women story. I guarantee they will. In fact, they’ll have more than one. Because every day, while we’re busy pretending it’s not happening, the women we know are facing questionable, creepy, and outright threatening behavior from guys. What I’m saying is it doesn’t matter if you’re not that guy. What matters is we’re the guys who keep ignoring this crappy behavior because we’re afraid we’ll look like wusses.”
Derek pauses.
I lean forward.
He waits and scans the faces he can see.
“We’ve ignored and pretended for way too long. The reason men like Ariel Castro and Elliot Rodger and Aaron Persky exist is because men like us never called them out on their bullshit the first time they showed it.” One by one, Derek clicks through newspaper accounts of the man who kept women imprisoned in his house for a decade, of the man who went on a shooting spree because women didn’t pay attention to him, and of the man who sentenced a rapist to only six months in prison.
I swipe a hand over my face, shocked to find it wet from tears. There’s this warmth in my chest…a comfortable, soothing warmth right under my heart, and I swear it’s actual pride. All this time, I thought De
rek was bullshitting me, going through the motions to placate Mom and Dad, but he wasn’t. He gets it. He truly gets it, and oh, God, that’s worth more to me than infinite apologies.
Derek moves out from the podium to the center of the stage. “I’m here because we need you. Not GAR, but women. Humanity. We need men like you, men who don’t need to prove anything to anybody. Men who do what needs doing because it’s right. So what do you say, guys? If you’re not that guy, are you strong enough to call out the guys who are? Will you speak up when you witness misogyny and sexism and shut that shit down?”
The room erupts in applause and cheers that rattle my brain. A few of the guys stand and approach Derek to shake his hand.
I’m on the top step, moving down. I’m not even thinking about it. Just moving.
One step.
Another step.
Another.
I’m on the floor now, surrounded by men I don’t know…so close, I can feel their heat. They could hurt me, but there’s no fear, no anxiety. All I feel is relief…this huge satisfaction, this immense joy. It’s like I finally found that thing I’d been missing, hidden in the shadows of ourselves.
April and Leo.
Me…and my brother.
“Leo,” I say, and my voice is nothing more than a rasp.
Heads swivel my way. I hear Derek’s sharp breath, and the crowd separating us moves aside. Our eyes meet, and his mouth falls open, and he goes so completely still, I swear even his heart stops beating. There’s this seismic shift that realigns all my broken, scattered, and missing pieces, and suddenly, we’re crying and laughing at the same time, and he’s hugging me so hard, I may snap, but I don’t care a bit.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Ashley. God, please, please, please tell me you believe me.”
I do. I do believe him.
“It’s okay now, Derek. It’ll be okay now.”
I believe me, too.
Epilogue
I know drinking beer at my age is wrong. I think ignoring me when I tell you I’m dizzy and sick is also wrong. I think stripping my clothes off and putting a hand over my mouth because I’m screaming for help is wrong. I think forcing me down into the dirt and garbage to take points in a scavenger hunt that never should have been started is wrong. The defendant did all those things, Your Honor. He should be punished to the fullest extent of the law because doing anything less tells him he wasn’t wrong, that what he did to me, what he took from me, is okay, and it’s not. I’m a person, not a trophy, not a game. I deserve justice.