Chapter 4 Ruby
Ruby
The DNA results proved that what I said was true.
The investigation and the court case and the verdict took seven months and then there was the sentencing weeks after that.
The court case was gruelling and way more traumatic than the incident itself.
It was a jury trial. It went on and on and on.
Milo had to admit that I’d said no three times.
He admitted that he’d told me, ‘This never happened, nobody has to know,’ but he didn’t admit the incident.
He didn’t try to say it was consensual. He said that I had tried to seduce him.
I was quizzed many times by his attorney about what I was wearing.
He’d said I was wearing shorts, but I told them I was wearing jeans.
And the prosecutor insisted that it didn’t matter.
I was a sixteen-year-old innocent, and he was a nineteen-year-old working man.
But the DNA was the biggest, most undeniable factor.
Neither Erin nor I went to school that academic year.
Erin came back from Aunt Rachel’s to appear as a witness in the trial.
She was a different person. She grabbed me and hugged me and sobbed how sorry she was, but then she went to her room and rarely came out.
We stayed home for months, unable to offer comfort to each other.
Dad tried to persuade me to come back to church, but I was ashamed.
I was no longer pure in the eyes of God.
After the sentencing, Mom’s solution was to take us out of Boston and back to her home in Ireland. ‘It’s for a few weeks,’ said Mom. ‘Your grandma will be pleased to see you and Erin.’
I nodded along when the trip was suggested.
Mom had been asking Dad for years about moving back to Ireland.
Now Dad and Mom fought about it. ‘Move there?’ said Dad, incredulous, then he saw me in the doorway and his voice softened.
‘Hey, Ruby, how are you today?’ he said, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes, and I knew how he wanted me to respond, to run into his arms for comfort so he could kiss the top of my head, like he used to.
But I turned away and went back up to my room and shut the door behind me. The trial had been awful.
Erin did not want to go to Ireland. She was broken-hearted and broken.
‘You girls need to stick together,’ said Mom. Erin looked at me and I saw her shame and anger.
It was agreed that Mom and I would go on our own four days after she suggested it. Erin refused to come. She went to some prayer retreat instead. Nobody talked about what would happen after the summer.
I said goodbye to Laquanda and Tasha and Janet, who promised they’d write.
I was glad to be getting away. Milo had his supporters who apparently called me horrible names.
My name was graffitied all over walls in South Boston.
I had been out of school for eight months and I was desperate to get away.
Grandma’s little house had always felt safe to me. And I needed to feel safe.
Leaving was horrible. We all cried, Erin and I clinging on to each other, telepathically saying all the things that had gone unsaid.
Mom and I had one-way tickets. I didn’t know if we were going to come back.
Dad’s eyes were red-rimmed, and my mother sobbed as they parted at the airport.
Once again, I felt guilt for breaking our family in two, but this was only four days after the thirteen-year sentence had been handed down.
I had hardly processed what had happened yet.