31. Bailey
31
Bailey
T he moment I was tossed into the back seat of a vehicle—a van, by the sound of the sliding door—I tried to slow my breathing and calm down. It was becoming suffocating in the burlap sack. I had heard a few low voices, but none that I recognized. I couldn’t make out what they were saying.
“I get this is some sort…of hazing, but it’s getting…hard to breathe.” Dizzy from hyperventilating, I begged with whoever was there. “Please? Let me go.”
No one responded, and I choked back a sob. “Lachlan?” I asked, but I knew better. If Lachlan thought I was having trouble breathing, he would’ve removed the hood by now. If it had been Ethan, he would’ve touched my shoulder or something, anything to let me know he was there. Nolan would’ve asked if I were all right. Or maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe I’d hurt him too badly tonight.
There was a stifled laugh. I tried to count the seconds in my head, picturing driving away from Chase’s house as I did, so I could figure out where we were going. Except, my fear spiked again, and I lost count. Did we turn left or right? Calm down. Relax. It’s okay, it will be okay. It had to have been an hour by now, right? Maybe half an hour. Everything was disorientating.
The vehicle came to a sudden stop, and I was thrown forward into the seat in front of me. I listened to the door slide open, then hands were on me, multiple people manhandling me. I tried to calm myself again, but with so many people grabbing me, pulling, and pushing, I found it difficult. No one said a word or uttered a peep; that alone was enough to make me want to scream.
I walked aimlessly, my feet stumbling until I was eventually dragged. “Please,” I called. “Who is this?”
It isn’t Ed. It isn’t Ed. It isn’t Ed. Tears slowly slipped from my eyes. What if it was him?
All the hands disappeared, and my stomach plummeted, because now, I was standing in the dark, unable to see, and surrounded by silence.
“Hello?” I whispered.
The hands reappeared in a frenzy, grabbing my clothes, ripping and shredding. I felt the cold metal of what I hoped was scissors and not a knife.
“No,” I cried. “Stop, just wait. Stop.”
It’s not him. It’s not him.
Fuck, it’s him, and he’s come to kill me.
“Please, just say something. Who are you?” The hands didn’t stop, though, until I stood there in only my underwear and bra. “Please stop!” My chest was heaving with every breath, tears falling freely from the assault. If someone would just say something, anything.
I jumped when a wet tip touched the skin on my stomach, but arms wrapped around me, holding me still. The wet tip moved around and traced lines on my skin as tears fell freely, causing the sack over my head to stick to my cheeks.
Do as they say. Do what they want.
I lowered my head. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ll quit the team. Whatever you want, I’ll do it. Please, I’ll stop playing. I’ll go back to before. I won’t talk to anyone anymore,” I cried, but they still said nothing. More wet tips joined and scrawled along my arms. I tried to break free, but the arm around me held me like a vise. “Please!” I screamed. “Just say something. Please!”
The wet tips were removed, and through the burlap, I saw the distinct flash of a picture being taken. I was hauled to my feet again, barely hearing the footsteps around me. There was nothing, and then the arm holding me slipped down, cupping me over the top of my underwear. Another flash lit up. A whimper escaped, but I bit my tongue, stilling beneath his hold. Ed would hurt me more if I moved. If I tried to escape. It was best if I just shut down and let him have whatever he was going to take. Because he always took what he believed he deserved.
“Fuck, she’s hot!” a male voice I didn’t recognize spoke in my ear. He began to move the palm of his hand as I disconnected from my body, refusing to feel any of it.
“I didn’t sign up for this.”
“Emma!” I called out, finally recognizing someone’s voice.
“Shit.” The hand and arm disappeared.
Through the burlap sack, someone grabbed my hair and yanked me back. “Stay away from Chase.” Hadley. She spat in my face with so much force that small droplets made it through the material. I nearly gagged, but then was punched in the stomach, which knocked the wind out of me, before being thrown down into the mud.
I coughed and tried to catch my breath.
“Please help me,” I begged into the silence, hoping someone from the group would take pity on me. “I’ll forget it all if you just call my mom. Please.” I wanted my mom. I wanted her so badly. “I’ll never go to another party. I’ll quit everything. Her number’s in my phone. Please!” I yelled. In the distance, I heard car tires screeching.
Alone. I was alone, in the dark, practically naked. Alone. I rolled in the ice-cold mud and managed to get up to my knees. I tried desperately to shake the hood off my head, but it wouldn’t come loose; they had tied it at the bottom.
“It’s about time someone taught you some manners.” Ed’s voice filled my head as I fell forward, my forehead touching the ground while I screamed. “I’m sorry!”
How? How could I think I deserved anything more than what was given to me here? How could I think I deserved friends, football, fucking happiness? After all I had done, disobeying Ed, acting like a whore, not adhering to the rules, this was my punishment.
I screamed and cried until I fell over onto my side on the wet, muddy ground. My teeth chattered in the cold. No one was going to find me. No one would come looking for me. All I could think was how sorry I was for doing all I had done. For being so messed up. For wrecking everything. For thinking I could be someone more than who I was.
I wasn’t sure how much time passed, but eventually, the tears stopped, the shaking became painful, and it was easier to just close my eyes and fall asleep.
Faintly, I heard the rev of an engine and the beeping of a door being left opened. I thought it was my imagination until I heard his voice. “Bailey!”
Chase. I said nothing. I didn’t have it in me. My throat was raw, and my eyes burned.
His hands were scorching as they grabbed me by the shoulders, sitting me up. The bag was removed from my head, and I looked into Chase’s grey eyes and…was so broken. “Bailey. What happened?” he demanded, but I didn’t reply. I couldn’t even move.
He grabbed me, pulling me close and cradling me to his chest. I should soak in the warmth. I could fall into him. But I was a doll. “No one was here,” I whispered, my throat scratchy.
No one had come for me now, and no one had come for me then. No one would come for me ever.
He was warm, the kind of warmth that went beyond the surface, but I couldn’t bring myself to truly feel it. I heard another car screech to a stop.
“Over here!” Chase yelled.
“Holy shit,” Nolan said. I looked over as Ethan took a pocketknife from his pocket and cut the ropes around my wrists. My shoulders ached once I was able to finally relax my arms. Nolan pulled his shirt off and dropped it over my head. “Are you okay?” he asked, but then he froze when his eyes met mine.
“Jesus Christ, Nolan! Of course she’s not okay, look at her!” Lachlan yelled. He was pacing, his hands on top of his head.
Ethan held out his hands. “Can you stand up?”
I closed my eyes and leaned my head into Chase’s chest. I wasn’t sure if my body wanted to move, ever again. My stomach still ached from that punch. “I can carry her,” Chase said.
“Give her to me,” Ethan growled.
“I’m fine.” He moved with me in his arms, and I just allowed myself to be moved. What was the point anymore?
“You’ve been drinking. Do you have any idea how fast you were going?” Ethan’s voice rose.
“And thank fuck for that! I got here before you guys.”
“Not even two minutes, Chase. You’re reckless. Let me take her. It was likely your girlfriend that did this, anyway.” I flinched at Ethan’s tone.
“Enough!” Nolan hissed. “Bailey, I got you, girl,” he said, keeping his voice soft. My feet touched the ground for half a second before I was scooped back up into someone’s arms. I kept my eyes closed, so beyond exhausted, and leaned my head into Nolan’s bare chest.
“Let me get in first,” Lachlan said. I opened my eyes briefly as Nolan helped me up into the back seat of the truck, where Lachlan was waiting. “Baby, I got you,” he whispered, settling me against him.
“Turn the heat up,” Nolan said. “No, Chase, you’re coming with us. We’ll pick your car up tomorrow. Sit next to Bailey. You and Ethan will get us into a wreck with your fighting.”
There was another body beside me, and I opened my eyes to see Chase, his face in his hands. “We should take her to the hospital,” Lachlan said.
I shook my head slowly.
“Baby, your clothes were in shreds around you.” His voice was near breathless. “Please, say something.”
“I don’t want to go,” I whispered to him.
“We can take you home,” he said.
“No. Not there, either.” I leaned my head back against Lachlan. He didn’t give me a choice, his arms staying firm around me. “My mom can’t see me like this.” As the cab warmed up, my shaking ebbed.
“We can go back to my place,” Chase offered.
“Yeah, let her walk through the party for everyone to see what you did.”
“I would’ve never allowed this!” Chase snapped back at Ethan. “Bailey, I can take you up the side entrance. No one will see you.” His hand rested on my bare thigh, but he was quick to pull it away when I flinched. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to touch you.”
For the longest time, I didn’t say or do anything. I didn’t respond. “I want to go to Chase’s,” I finally murmured. It wasn’t for me; it was for my mother. I didn’t want her to be hurt if she saw me in this state. If I could just get cleaned up, put on a brave face, then I could go home and pretend this never happened.
Lachlan was threading his hands through my hair rhythmically, whispering something over and over. Counting. Lachlan was counting.
I wrapped my arm around his stomach and leaned more into him. “I’m okay,” I promised him.
“Would you tell me if you weren’t?” he asked.
No. There was no point in doing that. “How did you know where I was?”
“We were looking for you when a picture was shared with everyone,” Nolan said.
I knew what the picture would be of. “Can I see it?”
Lachlan shook his head and looked out the window. Chase did the same. Ethan refused to meet my stare, but Nolan held out his phone. He always gave me what I asked for, no matter what. I didn’t deserve it.
I took the phone from him, seeing what the wet tips had been on my skin—marker. I stood, practically naked in my bra and thong, with black marker all over my stomach and arms. The words that keep getting thrown at me, by Ed, within my own mind, by students at school, were now written on my skin. Whore, slut, fake, fat…
“We were at the field, the football field,” I whispered. I raised Nolan’s shirt and looked down at my stomach with the light from his phone. Sure enough, the ugly words branded my skin, though some of them were smudged from the mud. At least the ink wasn’t permanent. I pulled the shirt back down and looked at the picture one more time. “This was sent to everyone?”
“Most of the people at the party saw it,” Chase said.
I handed him his phone back. “You can barely tell it’s me. Right? With the hood…you can barely tell it’s me.”
“It should be reported. Did you see anyone? Hear anyone?” Lachlan asked.
Yes. Emma…Hadley…but I shook my head. No one heard my cries in the past, nothing was made out of anything, so why should it matter? Why should I matter? “It all happened so quickly. I heard a guy’s voice, but I didn’t recognize it.” I shivered, remembering how he had grabbed me.
The truck became quiet, and I slowly drifted off into a light sleep, woken only when Lachlan moved to say we were here. He got out of the truck and turned around, moving as if to carry me, but I stopped him. “I’ll walk.” He nodded but kept his hands on me at all times, almost as if he was afraid I would disappear again.