Chapter 2 #2
He sips from a red Solo cup. “You know you’re driving me crazy with the way you look at me in school.”
“How do I look at you?”
“Like you want to fuck me.”
She crosses her arms. “Well, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No, I really don’t.”
“There’s nothing worse than a cock tease. That’s what all the guys say about you. That you’re a cock tease, among other things.”
“They can say what they want. I know the truth. I thought you said you wanted to talk to me about Louisa.”
As if she hasn’t said anything, Ryder moves closer to her. “You don’t care what they say about you?”
“Why should I? I don’t even know them. I don’t know you. Why would you think I want to fuck you?”
He moves so quickly she never sees it coming—and neither do we. One minute they’re standing a foot from each other, the next they’re on the ground, and he’s on top of her, his hand over her mouth as he pulls at her clothes.
She struggles against his tight hold, fighting him fiercely, but she’s no match for him.
Sienna’s fingers dig into my arm.
I want out of there right now. I don’t want to see this. Bile burns in my throat.
Neisy bites his hand, and he slaps her hard across the face.
She screams, but no one can hear her over hundreds of voices and “Empire State of Mind” playing at full volume.
“We need to do something,” I whisper to Sienna.
“We can’t. We’ll get in huge trouble.”
“He’s going to hurt her.”
His hand is between her legs.
I look away. I want to go. I tug at Sienna. “Please. Let’s go.”
“He’ll see us if we move.”
Bile burns my throat.
Neisy begs him not to do what he’s already doing. “Please, I’ve never—” She cries out in pain.
“Shut up,” he says, grunting. “Shut the fuck up and take what you’ve been asking for since the day we met.”
I want to die.
I’ve never experienced anything that would’ve prepared me for this.
Sienna weeps silently next to me, her fingers pressed so tightly into my arm that I’ll have bruises.
If we so much as move, he’ll see us.
Our parents will know we were there. We’ll be grounded for the rest of our lives. We’ll be ruined for spying on the party. For spying on Ryder.
We barely know Neisy.
But we know him. We’ve known him all our lives.
I’m revolted.
After he finishes with a loud groan, he gets up, pulls up his pants and walks away from her, leaving her on the ground sobbing.
“We need to go to her,” I whisper to Sienna.
“We can’t, Blaise.”
“What do you mean? Who cares if we get in trouble?”
“He’s Cam’s brother and Arlo’s best friend. We can’t.”
I look at her like I’ve never seen her before.
Neisy is curled into a ball, still lying on the ground, her underwear around her ankles as she sobs.
Sienna pulls me toward the SUV.
“We can’t just leave her there.”
“We don’t even know her,” she says on a hiss.
“Sienna! Who cares if we know her? He raped her.”
She drags me back to where we left the SUV. “Let’s go home and forget about this.”
“Are you insane? I’ll never forget this.”
“You have to. She’s nothing to us. He’s been part of our entire life. He’ll be in my life forever. You can’t say anything. No one will believe us anyway.”
She’s right, and I hate that.
People at school hate Neisy.
They love him.
It’d be our word—and hers—against him. We’d be vilified.
I lean over and puke up the meatloaf, which burns on the way out.
I’ll never eat meatloaf again.
“For God’s sake, Blaise, you’re being so dramatic.”
We ride home in stony silence. My hands shake so hard I can barely keep the vehicle in the lane. To think my biggest fear upon leaving the house was getting caught with the car across the river. Now that’s the least of my concerns. I pull up to her house, a two-story colonial with black shutters.
“You can never say anything about this.”
I maintain my stony silence. I feel like I don’t know her at all.
“Swear to me that you won’t say anything, Blaise. No one knows this, but Ryder’s up for an appointment to the Naval Academy.”
Hearing that, I feel sick all over again. His gilded life will go on like nothing happened while Neisy will never be the same. And neither will I.
“Blaise?”
Almost ten years of close friendship has come down to this.
If I do the right thing, I’ll lose my best friend and be made a pariah at school.
Not to mention Arlo will hate me. Ryder has been his best friend since T-ball.
I’ve never been more conflicted. If I tell what I saw, life as I know it will be over.
People will hate me for taking Neisy’s side against Ryder.
“I won’t say anything.”
“Good.” Sienna gets out of the car and slams the door. She disappears inside the house, leaving me shaking uncontrollably. It’s so bad I fear I shouldn’t drive the short distance to my house. I sit there for a long time, trying to get myself together so I can get home safely.
I’m sobbing so hard I’m afraid I might vomit again.
Later I won’t recall driving home. Those few minutes will be a total blank while everything I saw in the woods will exist in my memory bank in bright, living color forever.
My mother is in the kitchen when I come in through the door from the mudroom.
“You’re home early,” she says as she makes the sleepy time tea she says is critical to getting any rest.
“Not feeling good. My stomach.”
She comes over to feel my head. “Have you been crying?”
“From feeling sick.”
“You’re not warm. Did you drink anything?”
“Of course not. I was driving. I just want to go to bed.”
From under the sink, she produces the lime green bowl that’s served as our puke bucket my whole life. “Take this with you. Just in case.”
I take it from her, hoping she doesn’t notice my hands are shaking. “Night.”
“Come get me if you need me during the night.”
“I will.”
My dad is in the family room when I cut through on the way to the stairs. “What’s up? Thought you’d be out for hours yet.”
“Not feeling good.”
“Oh, too bad.”
“Yeah. See you in the morning.”
“Feel better.”
“Thanks.”
I close my bedroom door and slide down to the floor, burying my face in my hands, sobbing harder than I ever have in my life, even after my grandpa died.
Every part of me feels sick. We were wrong to leave Neisy there.
I’ve been raised to treat others how I’d want to be treated.
If something like that happened to me, I’d hope someone would help me.
What I couldn’t have known then was that the sick feeling would stay with me forever.