8
Aura
By the time I got back to the apartment, I had convinced myself I was fine, which would’ve been more believable if I hadn’t slammed my keys into the ceramic dish hard enough to make it jump against the entry table.
“I’m completely fucking fine,” I said to the empty living room because apparently my survival instinct had decided repetition counted as evidence.
The Uber ride had been quiet. Too quiet. The driver had asked once if I was okay, and I’d said, “Perfect,” with mascara drying beneath my eyes and my hands clenched so tightly in my lap that my nails left crescents in my palms.
He hadn’t asked again.
Smart man. He probably had a healthy respect for women on the edge of a felony.
I kicked the door shut behind me, locked it, then stood in the entryway with my damp jacket clinging to my shoulders and my phone buzzing in my hand like it had an opinion I didn’t want.
Bliss called. Then Charm. Then Bliss again, followed immediately by Charm.
I declined every call, turned off my location, and walked straight to my bedroom.
The apartment was too still, too full of the girls who weren’t there and the fight still screaming in my ears.
The couch where Bliss and I had eaten takeout from the carton.
The counter where Charm had once organized my nail polish by mood and undertone like a sociopath with excellent taste.
The hallway mirror where the three of us had taken a thousand pictures with our faces pressed together, proof the world had not gotten its hands on us yet.
Tonight, the world had gotten its hands on us, and I had looked around a crowded room for my girls only to feel alone.
That was the part that kept punching through the anger.
Not Easton’s rage, his voice, or the way he had looked at me like I had become every bad thing he had ever believed about love. I could survive Easton hating me. I had been surviving it for seven months.
But Bliss and Charm knew.
They knew what waited behind my locked door, and still, in front of everyone, they asked me to unlock it and let my worst moment fill the room.
I yanked my overnight bag from the top shelf of my closet. A boot, an old tote, and a glittery clutch I hadn’t seen since sophomore year came crashing down with it like my closet had decided to join the emotional collapse.
“Perfect,” I muttered because that was apparently my word of the night.
I dragged open my dresser drawer and started shoving clothes into the bag without folding them. Leggings. A sweatshirt. Two shirts. Socks I probably didn’t need. Underwear I definitely didn’t count.
A bra caught on the drawer handle and snapped free hard enough to make me laugh once, sharp and ugly.
My phone buzzed on the bed.
Bliss.
I let it ring.
Charm’s name appeared next.
I let that ring too.
Then I heard a key turn in the front lock, and my entire body went still.
“Ay?” Bliss called from the living room, breathless and scared.
Charm’s voice followed, tighter. “Aura?”
I closed my eyes.
They had a key because my girls were supposed to be safe. They were supposed to be the people who could walk in when the world got bad and find me without needing permission.
I had never once regretted giving it to them.
Until tonight.
Fuck the metaphor.
They knew.
They knew I was gang raped and recorded just so my humiliation would last forever, and they still wanted me to share it like some kind of peace offering. Like if I ripped myself open in the middle of Hockey House, maybe the tension would finally break and everyone could breathe easier.
I had never told Bliss to shout her truth about Luke at Cade so he would understand her faster. Even when Charm and I didn’t know everything was still happening, we had her back. We protected the pieces she wasn’t ready to say aloud.
I had never told Charm to stand in front of parents who loved her fiercely but controlled every polished inch of her life and explain how slowly their pressure was crushing her just because the rest of us would feel better if the truth had a name.
I had never betrayed their worst moments. Never taken the ugliest, most private pieces of them and treated them like bargaining chips for someone else’s comfort.
But that was what they were asking me to do.
They wanted me to betray myself for peace. For less tension. For a man who needed my trauma explained before he could remember I was a person.
And I love them.
God, I love them so much it makes this worse, but I will not turn my nightmare into a bridge so everyone else can walk over it.
“I’m in my room,” I said, and my voice came out flat enough to scare even me.
Footsteps hurried down the hall.
Bliss appeared first, her oversized hoodie damp from the mist outside, hair tangled around her shoulders, face pale and wet-eyed. Charm came in behind her, still wrapped in the soft cardigan that made her look expensive and untouchable even while her mouth trembled.
Both stopped in my doorway when they saw the open bag on my bed.
Bliss’s face crumpled. “You’re packing?”
“No, B. I’m creating a visual metaphor.”
Charm stepped forward carefully. “Ay.”
“No.” I pointed at her with the pair of socks still in my hand. “Absolutely not. Do not Ay me in that tone when the two of you spent all week handing me a glitter-covered sword and telling me I deserved to walk into Hockey House with my head up.”
Charm’s throat worked. “That is not what happened.”
I laughed, the sound sharp enough to cut the room.
“Really? Because I remember a lot of very passionate best-friend advocacy about how Easton didn’t get to make every room unsafe for me.
I remember, ‘You deserve to be there too.’ Beautiful speeches.
Moving. Inspirational. Should’ve had a soundtrack. ”
Bliss stepped inside. “And we meant that.”
“Did you?” I shoved the socks into the bag, then turned on both of them.
“The second the fight started, everyone suddenly remembered Easton had feelings. Suddenly, I was the problem. The same girls who told me I deserved to stand there were pulling me back like I was embarrassing myself for reacting after months of him making me feel like prey.”
Charm’s expression tightened. “We saw the massacre at the Sin Bin, Ay. We were trying to stop you from burning yourself down.”
“No. You were trying to stop me from being ugly about it.”
Bliss flinched.
Good.
Bad.
I didn’t know. Everything inside me was too hot to sort right from cruel.
“That isn’t fair,” Bliss said.
“Fair?” I laughed again, breathless now and almost dizzy with it.
“Oh, we’re doing fair. Great. Let’s do fair.
Easton gets to freeze me out for months, fuck puck bunnies where I can see it, look through me like I’m gum on the bottom of his shoe, and everyone agrees he’s being an asshole.
But when I finally get loud, when I finally stop taking it, suddenly we need accountability, nuance, and his side of the story. ”
Charm moved farther into the room, her robe-soft cardigan wrapped tightly around her body, looking like a society heiress trying not to commit violence in cashmere. “Aura, nobody is saying he handled tonight right.”
“But he was right.” I looked between them.
“That’s where this is going, isn’t it? He was cruel, but he was right.
He humiliated me, but I humiliated him first, so he’s justified.
He hurt me, but what I did was worse, so now we all need to gather around the tiny altar of masculine pain and discuss how I could’ve been more considerate while dealing with my own shit. ”
Bliss’s eyes filled. “That’s not what this is.”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s us loving you enough to tell you the truth.”
Something inside me went still.
The word truth landed wrong tonight. It came wearing too many faces: Easton’s truth, mine, the version everyone could see across a crowded room, and the one that lived in places I still couldn’t discuss without feeling seventeen and trapped inside a room I couldn’t remember.
I folded my arms tighter over my chest. “You want truth?”
Charm’s lips parted. “Ay.”
“Yes, I panicked that night. Yes, I was scared, and I hurt him. Yes, I fell for him too, since apparently we’re taking emotional attendance tonight.
” My voice rose, and I let it because whispering had never saved me.
“And yes, I have some very inconvenient male-related trauma that makes me a fucking nightmare when someone gets too close. But until both of you know what it feels like to have people still whispering about a video you were too drugged to consent to, you can shut the fuck up about what my boundaries should cost a man.”
The room went silent.
Bliss covered her mouth. “Aura.”
I pointed at her because if she cried right now, I would come apart, and I was too angry to survive that. “Do not look at me like that.”
“I’m not—”
“Yes, you are. You’re looking at me like I just admitted I’m breakable when both of you know exactly how breakable I am.”
Charm’s eyes went glossy, but her voice remained firm. “Ay, you’re hurting.”
Something inside me went almost manic.
“I’m sorry, did both of you forget?” I asked, laughing once because if I didn’t, I was going to start screaming. “Did we all decide my history got less fucked up because Easton is sad now and it makes an uncomfortable mess for you?”
Bliss went pale. “No, that’s not what I’m saying.”
“No, but it’s how you sound.” I pointed at her, then Charm, my hand shaking hard enough for my bracelet to slide down my wrist. “You both know exactly what Darian did. What all of them did to me. You know they drugged me. You know they left the lights on, and there was no denying it was me. There was no cute little maybe-it-wasn’t-her escape hatch. ”
My chest heaved.
“Darian said my name thirty-seven times. Thirty-seven. He made sure nobody watching could pretend they didn’t know whose body they were judging.”
Charm’s eyes filled, but I cut her off before she could say my name like a bandage.