Chapter 16 – Haley
My last class of the day—Brit Lit—is a total blur, but at least I sail through the reading quiz. The story is etched in my brain. After class, I go back to my room and plan to shut myself in for the rest of the day. I can relax a little bit and read more of Jane Eyre.
After a while, I get sleepy—probably because I got so little sleep last night—and end up dozing off.
* * *
Melissa returns to our room in a heated rush around five. “There’s free pizza and brownies downstairs in the community room. Want to come down with me?”
I shake my head. “Thanks, but no.”
“Have you eaten?”
“No.”
“Then come on! You’ve got to eat something. If you want to, we can grab some food and bring it up here.”
I slept through lunch today, and I’m starving. “All right. I’ll come.”
I hop off my bed, straighten up the bed covers, and put on my shoes.
I follow Melissa down the stairs.
There’s a huge crowd in the community room, mostly due to copious amounts of free pizza.
I can’t even count how many pizzas are here.
And they thought of everything, from cheese only to veggies, meat lovers, and even Hawaiian style pizzas with pineapple.
There are numerous trays of brownies and plenty of chilled bottles of soft drinks, teas, and water.
We grab paper plates and help ourselves to pizza and brownies. We grab soft drinks from one of the several iced coolers.
“Do you want to stay here and eat?” Melissa asks as she juggles two plates and a bottle of tea.
Our hands are pretty full, so I say yes. We find two available seats at the end of one big table.
While we’re eating, I keep thinking about Philip and how much I miss him. I haven’t seen him since Friday, and I need to hear his voice. I make up my mind to call him when I get back to my room and tell him what’s going on.
After we’re done eating, we throw away our trash and head back upstairs.
Melissa unlocks our door, and I follow her inside. I nearly run her over when she stops abruptly and bends over to pick something up off the floor.
“It’s for you,” she says as she hands me a white envelope. She closes the door behind us. “Someone must have slipped it under the door while we were downstairs.”
I stare at my name written in all capital letters with a black marker. He was just here.
“Aren’t you going to open it?” she asks as I stand frozen to the spot, staring at the envelope.
With shaky fingers, I open the sealed envelope and peer at what’s inside. It looks like a page ripped from a magazine. I pull it out, and as I unfold it, what I see makes me gasp.
The colorful, glossy image on the page is bad enough, but what’s wrapped inside is even worse.
It’s a condom.
A used condom, with semen leaking out.
Startled, I drop everything, and we both stare down at the mess on the floor.
Melissa jumps back. “Oh, my God! Is that what I think it is? Seriously?”
I’m glad I’m not alone and that I have a witness. I’m not imagining this.
“Don’t touch it,” Melissa says sharply. She darts into her closet and returns a moment later holding a pair of blue latex gloves. “Courtesy of my anatomy and physiology lab.” She pulls them on and bends down to pick up the magazine page.
She unfolds it fully. “This is so gross. Don’t touch any of it. The police will want to get prints and test the DNA.”
The page is torn from the kind of magazine I never knew existed.
It’s a picture of a young woman with long dark hair, lying on a bed, naked and hog tied.
There are ropes wrapped tightly around her body, including her breasts, and there’s a black ball gag in her mouth.
Her expression is ecstatic, like she’s turned on.
Beneath the image, someone wrote a note in all caps.
I JERKED OFF LOOKING AT THIS PICTURE AND PRETENDING IT WAS YOU.
SHE LOOKS LIKE YOU, DON’T YOU THINK?
YOU’D LOOK SO PRETTY LIKE THIS.
“What the hell!” Melissa cries after she reads the note. “Who sent this?”
“I don’t know.” I meet her horrified gaze. “Someone’s been harassing me for days now. I think someone is stalking me.”
“Haley, you need to call campus police right now and report this.”
I feel like I’m in an alternate reality because things like this just shouldn’t happen to a person like me. Why me? It makes no sense. Why would anyone spend their time and energy harassing me?
I pull out my phone. My voice shakes as I say, “I’m calling Philip.”