14. Then #2
He stares at me for one long moment. His mouth opens to speak, but then closes again. He shakes his head and walks inside alone. By the time I follow him, he’s already gone to his room.
I stare at his closed door, feeling emptied by shock—both that I told him, and that it went so badly. I thought he might be the one person who’d be able to see past the ugliness of it all. The one person who’d pull me against him and say, “Oh, Juliet, I’m so sorry that happened.”
If even Danny can’t forgive me for it, who the hell ever will?
* * *
Danny leaves for school the next morning, telling me he’ll call. “I know we need to talk,” he says. “I’m just not ready.”
But he doesn’t call. For three nights, there’s no word from him and even Donna’s pondering aloud at the silence.
It breaks my heart, but I’m angry at the same time. He’s taken the thing I most hate about myself and he’s made me feel like it’s even worse than I thought. All that kindness he aspires to seems to have disappeared the moment it was put to the test.
And what will happen to me if he ends things?
If the Allens kick me out, where do I go?
I won’t be old enough to rent a place until April, and I doubt what I’ve earned at the diner this summer will be enough to get me through the entire school year anyway.
For Danny, it’s simply the end of a relationship.
For me, though, it would be the end of everything.
Four days after he left, I’m at work when I notice a Jeep, just like Luke’s, across the road.
It can’t be him, but my gaze jerks toward it as it drives away.
I know it was wishful thinking. I want someone to hold me right now, someone who will tell me it’s going to work out, that it wasn’t my fault.
But that person wouldn’t be Luke anyway.
Danny calls that night, at last. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m really, really sorry.”
I’m so relieved that I burst into tears, but I’m furious at the same time. He left me wondering for days whether or not we were over; he left me believing he was disgusted by me.
“I know it was wrong,” he says. “I just needed to wrap my head around it, is all. I ended up having too much to drink last night, and Luke said—”
My jaw falls open. Of all the possible outcomes, it never occurred to me he might share my worst secret with someone else. Especially that someone else. “You told Luke ?”
“I didn’t mean to, hon. Like I said…I was drinking, and you know I never drink, and the whole thing spilled out.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. It was bad enough that Danny knew, but having Luke know…it’s just too much. “You shouldn’t have told him,” I whisper.
“Believe me, I know. I’ve got a black eye to show for it.”
“ What? ”
“He punched me and then he yelled a whole lot of stuff. I was pissed at the time but after he left, I realized he was right—you’d have been fifteen or younger and probably had nowhere else to go. I handled it really badly. I’m so sorry.”
“You left me hanging all week, Danny,” I whisper. “I didn’t know if we were even staying together.”
“Of course we were. I was just focusing too much on…” He trails off, and my stomach drops.
“Focusing too much on what?”
He sighs. “That you, you know, you seem to… want that. Sex. Like the thing last fall.”
My chest tightens. He was thinking that I was a slut, that I brought it on myself. “Wow, Danny.”
“I know, I’m sorry. Look, I’m just not used to that.
I grew up hearing one thing from my father and it always surprised me when you wanted more.
But when you told me what you did, I just pictured…
I don’t know. I pictured you being the same way with him.
” His voice breaks. “Please forgive me. Please.”
A churlish part of me doesn’t want to. But how can I blame Danny for thinking something I’ve wondered about myself?
“Luke isn’t going to…tell anyone, right? Like he’s not going to report it?”
“He won’t report it. He’s the one who told me you probably didn’t report it in the first place because then everyone would know.”
Thank God. I can just see the reaction at church if they all heard I’d slept with my much older stepbrother. A whole lot of them, perhaps even most of them, would quietly blame me.
“Okay. Just…make sure he doesn’t tell anyone else. Please. Just because he isn’t reporting it doesn’t mean someone else won’t.”
He sighs heavily. “I haven’t seen him since the fight, but yeah, when he gets home, I’ll tell him.”
I still.
“He’s been gone since yesterday? Is that normal?”
“No,” he says, “but he was really mad.”
I consider telling Danny what I thought I saw earlier, but there are tons of Jeeps like Luke’s, and I’d sound crazy even suggesting Luke drove eight hours north for me .
Then again, when I think of his reaction to the bike thing last summer…maybe it wouldn’t sound crazy at all.
* * *
I’m woken just before daylight by someone knocking on the front door. The pastor and Donna are already there with two policemen by the time I get downstairs.
The pastor turns to me, his eyes dark and unhappy. “Your stepbrother is in the hospital.” He folds his arms. “He thinks Danny and Luke are behind it.”
I frown. “That’s impossible.”
“We told them that,” he says. “They’re eight hours away. But someone matching Luke’s description was at the scene, and his Jeep was seen in town earlier.”
I swallow hard. God, Luke, what did you do?
Except I already know. He defended me.
And more importantly, he believed in me. He didn’t suggest I was to blame. He didn’t demand to know what part I’d played and why I hadn’t tried harder to save myself.
He just went straight to the source, Justin, and made him pay for what he did.
“I spoke to both of them last night,” I reply, bold in my terror. “At their apartment.”
“Are you sure about that?” one of the cops asks.
Donna looks at me for a long moment. “I answered the call,” she adds. “I spoke to both of them before she did.”
She lied—for me or for Luke, or both of us. She lied.
I excuse myself to get ready for school. The second the cops leave, I take off without a word to anyone and call Luke as soon as I’m out the door. I’ve never called him before, and only have his number from texts Danny sent us both. My heart beats hard as I wait for him to answer.
He picks up on the fifth ring, voice groggy and hoarse.
“Juliet?”
“The police came to the pastor’s house a few minutes ago, looking for you. I told them I spoke to you last night. If they show up there, you’ve got to tell them you were home. I’ll get Danny to back the story up.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “I stand by what I did, and I’d do it again. I’m not lying about it.”
I squeeze my eyes shut in frustration. It’s the same bullshit as the fight on the beach all over again…Luke defending me, in his own way, but refusing to defend himself.
“Luke, please. You’re going to allow a child molester to be the victim here while you go to jail for aggravated assault?”
“I am not going to slink away like I did something wrong.”
“If you won’t do it for yourself, then do it for me and Donna.
We both just lied to the police on your behalf.
And if this whole thing comes out, everyone will know what happened.
Do you know what that’ll be like for me, sitting in front of the whole church every Sunday with the pastor talking about a girl who was molested?
God, he’s told half the stories already.
Everyone there has heard about my dislocated shoulder and how I was scared to go home. ”
He sighs. “Jules, it wouldn’t matter anyway. I’m sure I was caught on camera somewhere between here and there. I wasn’t in class yesterday either.”
“Just try,” I beg. “Please.”
After a moment, he sighs again. “I’ll do my best. And I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to turn this into a thing that would come back to bite you in the ass.”
“Luke…” I begin, and my voice breaks, “don’t apologize. I love what you did. I love it so much.”
I hang up before I burst into tears, because I need to keep my shit together for the next part of this, and I really pray it goes the way I plan.
It takes three buses and a short bike ride to get to the hospital.
At the front desk, I ask for Justin Mead, choking a little as I say I’m his sister.
They tell me they’re running tests, but I’ll be notified when he gets to the room.
I wait for two hours before I’m led back.
I’ll get in trouble for being this late to school but I can’t worry about that now.
Justin’s alone, thank God, and asleep. His entire head is bandaged. I wouldn’t even recognize him if I didn’t see his name on the hospital ID bracelet. The cops said Luke fractured his eye socket, among other things.
“Justin, wake up,” I say, shoving his shoulder.
He groans. Beneath the bandage, one bleary eye turns toward me. “You did this, you fucking bitch.”
“I wish I’d done this,” I snarl. And it’s true.
I’ve spent so much time feeling culpable, and in a way, I still do, but Luke’s reaction tells me…
that maybe it really wasn’t my fault. “By the way, do you know the penalty for statutory rape if the victim was under sixteen? Four years. But that’s just for one count of statutory rape.
How many counts would they bring against you, I wonder? ”
“You lying bitch. That wasn’t rape and you can’t prove a thing.”
“Really? What would you call it when a really young girl says ‘No’ and you do it anyway? What would you call it when she says ‘No’ and you dislocate her shoulder trying to force her? I have witnesses, by the way. I told Hailey when it was happening and the Allens too.”
The last bit is a lie, but he won’t know that.
“Hailey’s a bigger whore than you are.” He tries to laugh but it comes out as a cough. “No one’s gonna believe her either.”
I shrug. “Maybe not.” I hold up my phone. “But I bet they believe you admitting to it all right here.”
He scowls, but his mouth stops running. He knows he’s screwed at this point.
“What do you want then?” he finally asks.
I hand him his cell phone. “Call the cops. Tell them you fucked up. Tell them you were hallucinating. Tell them it couldn’t possibly be Danny or his roommate because they’re eight hours south. Tell them you owe some guys money and it was probably them.”
He waves off the phone. “I’ll call later.”
“You think I’d trust you after all the shit you did? Call them, now .”
I don’t leave his room until I’ve heard him thoroughly recant his statement to two different officers, and then I hustle out of the hospital, hoping that if I make it to school by lunch, they won’t tell the pastor.
I’m thirty yards from my bike when I see my mother walking up with a woman in her late twenties—Justin’s girlfriend, I assume.
I’m her only remaining child and I haven’t seen her in a year, but I know this will go badly.
I’ve been a thorn in her side since I was small—the burden that sent her first husband running for the hills, and then the teenager her second husband enjoyed looking at too much.
“Good riddance” was all she said when I told her I was moving out.
I glance around me, hoping to flee, but her gaze catches on me and she starts walking faster in my direction.
I guess this is happening.
“What are you doing here?” she demands. “You’ve already killed my son and now you’ve got the nerve to show up after you nearly killed my stepson too?”
“I wasn’t responsible for what happened to either of them.”
My voice doesn’t exactly ring with conviction, though, because I sort of agree with her. I’m the reason Justin’s in the hospital, and I’m probably the reason my brother is dead.
“You’re poisonous,” she hisses. “You came out of my womb poisonous. I better not see you around here again.”
The woman beside her, a woman who’s never even met me before, nods vigorously. “And keep your boyfriend away from Justin.”
“Ah, you must be the girlfriend?” I ask sweetly. “Surprising. You’re about fifteen years older than he likes.”
My mother’s hand comes at me so fast I can’t even prepare for it.
My left ear rings, my left cheek burns, and for a moment I’m simply stunned.
You’d think a lifetime of being slapped in the face would have had me on guard already, but I’ve gotten soft over these two years with the Allens.
I’d almost forgotten there are people like my mom who think giving birth to you means they can hit you whenever and wherever they want.
My hand itches to swing back at her, to give her a taste of her own medicine, but she’s still my legal guardian and I’ve got another few months until I’m eighteen, which she could make difficult if she so chose.
So, I hold my temper, but take one long step until I’m in her face.
“I’m keeping count, Amy ,” I reply, because I will never call her mom again, “and every time you hit me, I’m going to remember.
And when the time comes, I’m going to fucking pay you back for every one of those slaps you love to dole out.
” I walk past her, ramming into her shoulder so hard that she stumbles into Justin’s girlfriend.
“You fucking bitch!” she screams from behind me, and passersby turn to stare. “I should have aborted you!”
I keep walking to my bike as if I haven’t heard her. I unlock it, holding myself stiff, and it’s only once I’ve biked around the corner that I climb back off and crumple to the ground.
That sticks and stones saying is bullshit.
Words are the worst kind of pain because they’re the kind that never fucking leave.
It doesn’t matter what I claim to the world: the things my mother has said, the things Justin has said—I carry all those words like a stain, and I already know it’ll never wash away.
I seethe—at all of them and at everything that’s happened—but when my tears finally dry, I feel the start of something else, something quiet and hopeful. Because as terrible as it all is, it’s also beautiful.
Someone finally took my side. Someone knows what happened and took my side.
It allows for the possibility that I can be stained and poisonous but, someday, be loved in spite of it. It almost feels like I already am.