Chapter 24
S ILENCE EXPANDED IN THE room. A strong gust of wind blew the scent of charcoal from the grill into the house.
Avery couldn’t believe she’d said it out loud. Confirmed it was real.
“What do you mean?” Morgan asked. It was the first time she spoke since Avery made the accusation.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Noah snapped. “I nev—”
Morgan held her hand up to shush him. “Avery. What do you mean?”
Avery closed her eyes. If only she could shove the truth back into the little box inside her head, where it had existed as a seed of a thought, a fragment of her imagination, an encounter that she’d told herself was an accident, a mistake, not a big deal.
Where she’d wanted it to stay forever. But now it was out.
“I said exactly what I meant,” she said.
Noah made a loud scoffing sound. “Are you fucking kidding m—”
Morgan held her hand up to Noah again. “When?”
“Senior year,” Avery said, her pulse climbing. “That party at Viraj’s apartment fall semester. Remember when everyone thought I hooked up with Ronald?”
“Yes,” Blair said. Her voice was firm. She was sitting next to Noah with her hand on his thigh.
“Well, I didn’t hook up with him.” Avery’s heart was nearly beating out of her chest, the vibrations visible through her shirt.
She swallowed. “Viraj just saw us in Ronald’s bedroom and assumed it was Ronald.
What really happened was that I was taken advantage of.
And it wasn’t Ronald who did it.” Avery shifted her gaze right to Noah, boring straight into his eyes. “It was Noah.”
“What the hell?” Viraj cut in.
Blair turned to Noah. “Wait, you actually had sex with her?”
“He didn’t have sex with me, Blair. He r—” Avery felt faint. The word was so violent and aggressive, something she only thought happened in back alleys, at gunpoint, by a stranger. But it was the truth. “He raped me.”
Everyone was speechless. A few people looked at Noah, waiting for him to respond.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said. His lack of concern was spine-chilling. “You were drunk. We both were.”
Hot anger shot through Avery’s veins. This motherfucker. “That’s not true at all . You were fine. I could barely stand up straight.”
Noah rolled his eyes. “Oh, come on, Avery. We were all drinking that night. If drunk sex is sexual assault, then everyone at this table has been sexually assaulted.”
“That is one-hundred percent true,” Viraj added. “I’ve been nearly blackout for most of my sexual experiences, and I’ve never cried rape.”
“I’m not crying anything!” Avery shouted. She could hear the desperate shrill in her voice. “That’s what it was!”
“But Noah was drunk, too,” Viraj said. “Does that mean you also took advantage of him?”
“No, I know for a fact I was out of it—way more out of it than him. I had to work so hard to even form a sentence.” Avery glared at Noah, willing him to look at her and acknowledge what he’d done.
“I tried to get him off me and tried to say no and he didn’t listen.
” She glanced hopefully at Morgan for backup, but Morgan just sat in her seat, staring at her plate.
“That did not happen, Avery,” Noah said. “That’s ridiculous. We were in college and we hooked up. That’s it.”
Avery felt like she was breathing through a straw.
“Plus, if you were that drunk,” Parker said, taking a corn on the cob from a tray, “how could you be so sure of all these details?”
“Good point,” Viraj added, helping himself to potato salad.
“The fact that we’re implying Noah did that to anyone is horrifying,” Blair said with a shiver.
“I would never forget that night.” Avery had started this whole conversation so strong, but now her confidence wavered.
She’d been wrong about Blair’s bruises. Could she be wrong about this too?
She wouldn’t forget, wouldn’t she? She didn’t just let people believe she cheated because that was what happened, right?
“But you could have,” Blair said. “You have to acknowledge that possibility. If you were as drunk as you say you were, you don’t know exactly what happened.”
Avery always remembered that night in flashes: Noah’s green eyes, the strength of his grip on her wrists, the pressure on her back, the whirr of the ceiling fan. But between those flashes was nothing. It was like being submerged under water and coming up for air, over and over again.
Noah’s face and ears were red with fury. “This is absurd. I didn’t rape anyone.”
“You probably just regret hooking up with him because Ryan dumped you right after,” Blair said simply, like the case was closed and there was no use arguing anymore. “Don’t blame Noah because you don’t want to admit you cheated.”
“That’s not at all what’s happening here,” Avery said. But she was losing steam.
“Well, if it was really sexual assault, why would you wait this long to say something?” Viraj asked. “Better yet, why didn’t you report it?”
“Another good point,” Parker said, his voice muffled from potato salad.
“Because this would be a crime just like … I don’t know, like burglary is a crime,” Viraj said. “If someone robbed my house, I’d report it that day . It’s the same idea. But you didn’t do that.”
Avery glanced at Morgan again. Her best friend still hadn’t moved, still hadn’t spoken. She just stared helplessly at her dinner plate, stealing occasional glances at Charlie, whose face was ashen.
Finally, Charlie spoke. “Is this true, Noah?”
“Of course it’s not true!” Blair cried.
“No, dude,” Noah said emphatically. “Seriously? Come on. We were drunk and we hooked up. Nothing more.”
Avery lightly shook Morgan’s shoulder. “Morgan, you don’t think I’m lying, do you? Do you?”
“No,” Morgan said with less conviction than Avery hoped. “Of course not.”
Blair raised a confused brow. “Are you saying you think Noah did this?”
“Please tell me you believe me, Morgan,” Avery begged. “Please.”
Morgan massaged the back of her neck uneasily. “Avery, I—”
“See?” Blair jabbed a finger in Morgan’s direction. “Even Morgan isn’t buying it.”
“I never said that, Blair,” Morgan said firmly.
“But he didn’t do it!” Blair was indignant. “He’s such a good guy. You know he is.”
Avery sunk slowly back into her seat. She felt like she was in a courtroom on trial for murder, which was ironic, considering she was the one who’d spent the last year feeling dead inside.
All around her, everyone was defending Noah, the chorus of voices in her jury blending together until they were indistinguishable from each other, until all she heard was that ceiling fan.
“Noah would never do something like that.”
Whirr …
“We’ve all been there. She was drunk.”
Whirr …
“She just doesn’t want to be blamed for cheating.”
Whirr …
“It’s a cry for attention!”
Whirr …
“She—”
“Okay, you know what?” Morgan shouted, so loudly it bounced off the walls and echoed throughout the house. The conversations stopped. “We’re done talking about this.”
“Hey, don’t blame us,” Blair said with her hands up. “Avery started it. We’re just defending Noah.”
Morgan pointed at Blair. “This conversation is over .”
Everyone hesitated before serving themselves from the trays of food once again.
Nobody spoke. The only sounds were chairs scooting back and forth across the hardwood floor and silverware clinking and scraping against dishes.
Avery didn’t get herself any food, could hardly bring herself to move.
All she did was watch Morgan cut up a piece of eggplant and shove it in her mouth, and think to herself, How could you?
She fled from the dinner table and stormed up the stairs, shaking with sobs as she dove into her bed and buried her wet face into the pillow.
She’d never felt more alone in her entire life.
This loneliness was even more acute than when everyone ditched her senior year.
At least back then she told herself she deserved it, because she’d let everyone believe that she cheated, that she’d just made a mistake, to the point where even she could believe it, too.
It was so much easier to accept being treated horribly when you thought you deserved to be treated that way.
But now her head was all mixed up and she didn’t know what was real anymore. What if Noah didn’t take advantage of her? What if she did cheat? She did let that narrative take off without correcting anyone. Why would she do that if there wasn’t a nugget of truth to it?
She squeezed her pillow tighter and kept sobbing until a bone-deep exhaustion pulled her under.
Soon she fell asleep, and awoke hours later numb and needing to pee.
She rubbed the crusts of sleep from her red-rimmed eyes and tiptoed into the hallway, toward the bathroom, passing Morgan and Charlie’s room. Their door was closed.
“What if he’s lying?”
Avery stopped after hearing Morgan’s impassioned voice muffled through the wood. Avery leaned her ear against the door, straining to hear.
“Why would he lie?” That was Charlie now. “Noah’s a really nice guy.”
Avery pressed her ear harder against the door, heard the tss-tss of cologne spritzing.
“But why would Avery lie? What would she gain from lying?”
“I don’t know, Morgan. I don’t know anything right now.”
“Exactly. You don’t know anything. You especially don’t know anything about Avery.
” There was a pause. “You don’t get it. She’s been a mess this year, in a way I’ve never seen.
It’s not like her to be like this. She was always so put together, so responsible.
” Another pause. “He did it, Charlie. I know he did.”
“How do you know?” Charlie whispered.
“Female intuition.”
Relief poured into Avery’s body. Morgan believes me.
“What are you suggesting we do?” Charlie asked with a sigh.
Morgan mumbled something incoherent. Charlie’s voice became quieter, too.
Avery pressed her ear so hard against the door that she nearly fell through it.
She heard a drawer opening and slamming shut, then shuffles of footsteps growing louder and coming closer to the door.
She scrambled to stand up and brush herself off, and the moment she was upright the door swung open.
Morgan was dressed in black flare leggings and a white tank top, her freshly showered hair combed and dangling wet at her sides.
The hollows underneath her eyes were stained purple.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” Avery said back.
Laughter erupted from downstairs. Charlie murmured, “Let me go check on that,” and put his hand on Avery’s shoulder as he passed her.
Morgan and Avery stared at each other in silence. A few heavy, loaded beats passed before Morgan spoke. “Can we talk?”
Avery said nothing, just followed Morgan to the front yard, where they sat side by side on the cream couches under the stone archway.
The early evening air was crisp and refreshing, the perfect setting to watch the sun disappear behind the mountains and fill the sky with streaky reds and oranges.
It could’ve been a beautiful night, a beautiful weekend, if not for this. If not for Avery.
“I don’t know what to say,” Morgan said quietly.
Avery picked at a loose thread on the couch. “Yeah, well, you didn’t have much to say inside either, so …” Her voice trailed off. She wasn’t mad at Morgan, exactly, for not defending her at dinner. She was just sad. And not quite sure where they went from here.
“I think I was just shocked.”
Avery blinked. “Shocked.”
“Yeah. Shocked that Noah could do something like that.” Morgan leaned back on the couch and chewed pensively on her lip. Then she met Avery’s eye. “I don’t want you to think I don’t believe you. I do believe you. I just … I just can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”
“I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t even tell myself.
” Avery stared into the sunset. The trees stretched high into the sky and rustled with the sounds of birds and insects settling in for the night.
“I mean, I thought it was my fault. I know we’re not supposed to think that.
But I really did get too drunk and wear a slutty outfit to that party.
And I was definitely giggly. It would’ve been easy for him to think I wanted to hook up.
And then I failed to stop him once it started. ”
Morgan reached for Avery’s hand. Avery knew what so many people still thought about rape victims: that it was their fault, that they put themselves in a compromising, vulnerable position, that they could’ve prevented it if they hadn’t acted in this way or that way.
It’s the equivalent of someone leaving their wallet hanging out of their pocket and getting pickpocketed.
It’s hard not to think that person should’ve safeguarded their stuff better.
Avery knew women weren’t wallets, but society was just as quick to label them as objects, so really there was no difference.
“But you didn’t want to hook up,” Morgan said. “And him thinking you did is not on you. At all.”
Avery sighed, feeling all at once validated by her best friend and devastated that this really happened.
“I know,” she whispered.
Morgan buried her face in her hands and dragged her fingers across her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I wish I could’ve been there for you. I feel like I made it worse.”
“You didn’t make it worse. How could you have known? Noah’s done so much for your wedding. He helped you guys with the venue and got you your dream dog. And look at this house! Nobody, not even you, could’ve known he was a bad guy underneath everything. He fooled everyone.”
Morgan put her arm around Avery. “I love you. I hope you know that.”
Avery leaned into Morgan’s embrace. The sounds of laughter drifted from inside the house, through the open window.
Avery peered inside. Noah and Blair sat on the couch in front of the fireplace with their feet perched on the ottoman, relaxed and happy like everything was fine.
Avery shuddered as she watched him take a generous sip of his beer and plant a kiss on Blair’s cheek.
Morgan exhaled an irritated breath. “And I’m uninviting him from the wedding.”
Avery untangled herself from Morgan’s grip, squared her shoulders to look at her. “Morgan. You can’t.”
“Why? I can’t keep him around knowing what he did to you.”
“You’re the only person who cares what happened. Kicking him out would be more drama than it’s worth. This is why I didn’t want to say anything in the first place. I didn’t want it affecting the wedding.” Avery searched Morgan’s face. “Please don’t do it.”
Morgan sighed. “Avery—”
“Please,” Avery begged again. “Don’t.”
They sat in silence for a long time after that, until the sky was almost black and the porch lamps dinged on, flooding the couch with light.