Chapter 30 #2
I stop. Pearson. What did he want from Jase?
Was it about his tuition fees? Or his scholarship?
I want to ask him all the questions that are going through my head, but Jase avoids my gaze again, and I can’t get a word out.
He takes his position, and his closeness does strange things to my body, not to mention my emotions.
I get warm as he takes my hand, and my heart beats out of rhythm again.
Pull yourself together, Zoe.
I take a deep breath. Francesca gives us instructions. We begin to move, and this time, I’m not the one who is tense, can’t keep pace, and moves stiffly. Jase is.
“Jase, what’s wrong with you today?” Francesca asks disapprovingly.
Jase tenses, and all at once his face is blank.
“Nothing.”
She sighs. She doesn’t believe him, I can tell, but she doesn’t ask any more questions. “One more time, from the top,” she says.
“Jase.” I tug gently on his hand. He looks at me, and I give him an encouraging smile, which is immediately extinguished when his face darkens.
“Don’t do that,” he says, and I bite my tongue to keep myself from asking what he means: Don’t smile or say his name?
Probably both. The rest of the class is agony, and when Jase almost drops me during a lift, Francesca has had enough.
She finishes the lesson and shoos us out of the studio.
Jase is gone faster than I can take off my ballet slippers.
I quickly pack my things and don’t even bother to put my pants on over my tights. I just pull on my cardigan and hurry after him.
We have to talk.
Unfortunately, Jase’s legs are much longer than mine. I see him disappearing into the dorm just as I leave the practice building. It’s cold out, and it’s raining enough to make my cardigan damp and sticky on my skin by the time I finally reach the dorm myself.
I walk directly up to the fourth floor—Jase certainly won’t be stopping at the cafeteria to get something to eat. The corridor is totally quiet, with everyone still leaving their classrooms and on their way to lunch.
I hope I’m not doing the wrong thing as I knock on his door. But it opens, and all at once my mind is totally blank.
“How much of no didn’t you understand yesterday?” he asks sharply.
“I understood it all, and I know why, really. But please . . . can’t we talk?”
“I really don’t know what you want to talk about.
I mean, what do you have to say, Zoe? Are you going to tell me what happened last year?
Or why I suddenly became public enemy number one?
I really don’t care—don’t you get it? I have enough problems, and I can’t deal with you too.
” Jase tries to slam the door in my face, but I block it.
I stop worrying about whether I’m doing this right or whether it feels right. I just know that I’ve considered telling him everything before, and sure, the timing absolutely sucks right now. But I think there’s just no right time for the truth.
You always imagine it that way: a right moment and a right place with the right person to say the things that need to be said. Aside from Jase, nothing here is right, and maybe it’s a mistake, but I’ve already made enough mistakes, and I can’t keep this secret anymore.
“I didn’t come to the treehouse that night because someone put roofies in my drink.” My voice is monotone. I’ve practiced saying these words, the truth, in the hope that they’d lose some of their horror. So far, that hasn’t happened.
After
Zoe
One year earlier
June 26, 6:07 AM
Everything feels wrong when I come to. My head is pounding; my skin is sticky with cold sweat. My entire body hurts, and my stomach cramps. I have to throw up. I fall out of bed rather than get up, and when I do manage to get to my feet, my legs buckle under me.
Dizzy. I feel so terribly dizzy. My pulse is racing, too fast, too frantically.
Everything is wrong.
So wrong.
I feel numb. I try to sit up again but fail.
My body no longer belongs to me; it doesn’t obey me. I feel so sick. Somewhere in my head, a voice tells me to get help.
Help.
I need help urgently, but no sound comes from my mouth. My voice doesn’t obey me any more than the rest of my body.
Slowly, far too slowly, I manage to turn my head. I know where I am. It’s Charlotte’s guest room, familiar from all the times I’ve stayed here before. On the chair are the clothes I was wearing yesterday. My bag is next to it.
My phone. I left it in my pocket, didn’t I? I can’t remember.
I don’t remember anything.
Nothing. My mind is completely blank. I’m so dizzy.
I whimper as I crawl to the chair and reach for my bag. My hands are shaking so badly that it takes a while before I can finally pick up my phone. The letters and numbers on the screen swim in front of me, but I find the right name, the right number.
“Zoe, have you looked at the clock? Do you know what time it is?” Caleb grumbles sleepily. I can only sob, a sob that contains a hint of relief and a lot of confusion.
“Caleb,” I manage to say.
“What’s going on? Are you okay?” Suddenly my brother sounds wide awake, and I want to cry and curl up and sleep.
“Something’s wrong. I don’t . . . feel good.”
“Are you still at Charlotte’s?”
I nod before remembering he can’t see me. “Yes.”
“Okay, I’ll be right there.” He doesn’t hang up. I hear him getting dressed and saying something to someone, but I don’t understand a word. Then he talks to me again, but my brain feels like it’s wrapped in cotton balls. I’m so dizzy.
All I know is that Caleb takes seven minutes and forty-three seconds to reach me, and he doesn’t finish the phone call until he’s there in the room. The back door wasn’t locked, so it was easy for him to get into the house.
I see his look of horror when he finds me cowering on the floor.
He begins to swear, reaches for my clothes, and helps me get dressed.
I’m not wearing my underwear anymore, and I didn’t even notice.
I start to cry, because only now do I realize what must have happened.
And at the same time, I understand nothing.
Because things like this happen to other people, not to me.
I was at a party with my friends. I knew almost everyone there.
“We have to take you to the hospital,” Caleb says. He’s pale as chalk. He seems totally overwhelmed, and I’m starting to feel guilty for having called him. “I have to call the police.”
I shake my head. “No police. Please.”
Caleb looks at me like I’ve lost my mind, and maybe I have.
“I don’t want to . . . Please, I . . .” I can’t tell him why; I don’t even know myself. But everything inside me is protesting against calling anyone. “Just bring me home.”
I just want to be in my own bed and bury myself under the blankets.
Forget everything. I wish I had never woken up this morning, and everything is so, so wrong.
Caleb helps me to my feet, then half-carries me downstairs.
There’s a car I don’t recognize parked in front of the house, and Tristan is sitting in the driver’s seat.
Caleb says something I don’t understand, the car starts moving, and I vomit my guts out.
After that, everything is a blur. They take me to the hospital, where the nurses take my blood and give me an IV. A doctor examines me and then confirms what I figured out too late.
I can’t remember anything.
I only see black spots in front of my eyes, and I want to die.
My parents come. They also want to call the police, and I know it would be the right thing to do. It’s what you’re supposed to do in a situation like this. If you’re thinking rationally, that is.
But I’m not rational anymore. I’m broken, and I don’t know anything anymore.
It feels like drowning. I can’t breathe.
It has to stop. Everything has to stop.
Please.