Chapter 25 #2
“Could I just have one more?” she complained, her voice drunkenly childish. When I didn’t react, she batted her eyelashes, raised her glass, and giggled. “I swear I’m not drunk.”
Yes, the hell you are.
I got this sneaking feeling that she would only keep asking, and I didn’t know how many no’s I had left in me if she continued to look at me like that. With a shake of my head, I backed away from her, creating some distance until I ultimately ran back into Amir.
“Yooo.” I stopped him before he could walk off. “Take this bottle. And if that girl—” I gestured to Red Dress, not really checking if she was looking “—asks you for anythin’ to drink, could you make sure you get her some water?”
Amir grimaced at the weird request but didn’t comment on it, taking the vodka off my hands.
“Absolut Elyx,” he read off the feminine bottle, an amused smile forming. Of course, he went in on me for it. “Does drinking this make you feel like a bad bitch?”
“Man, shut up,” I laughed.
For that entire evening, I was distracted.
Against a sea of denim and neutral colors, her cherry red dress kept popping into my peripheral vision.
One minute, she was in the kitchen, looking for somewhere to stuff her purse, the next she was in the living room, letting loose to the beat of the music.
For a while, I was all too aware of her presence.
And then I wasn’t.
I was in the middle of a conversation I was half listening to, when I caught myself actually looking for signs of her.
As I felt a headache coming on, the fact that she was nowhere to be seen only served to make this party even less interesting.
My conversation partner was in the middle of her sentence when I excused myself, headed in the direction of my room.
Cierra’s party could continue just fine without me.
The door to my bedroom was closed.
A party with well over seventy young people was going on. Someone was bound to come upstairs looking for someplace to fuck. My room, however, was off limits.
The room was dark as I stepped in, but the sounds of shuffling definitely gave away the presence of unwelcome intruders. Forgoing the light switch, I simply moved deeper into the space, getting closer to the natural moonlight that streamed in from an open window.
“Get out of my room.” The anger in my voice was tired. I was done with tonight before it even started. “Y’all are gonna have to find someplace else to fuck.” I raised a hand to block the view of the nigga getting dressed in front of me. “As in, outta this house.”
Noting that his girl was seriously taking her time, I tossed a pressing look her way.
The dress was what I saw first.
Unzipped and drooping off her shoulder, pulled high up her thighs, disheveled. The confusion in my eyes dissipated as I eventually made sense of the situation.
“What the hell…”
Rape.
“Yooo, what the fuck is this?” I was livid. A surprising reaction.
Because I knew stuff like this happened at house parties all the time.
There are full-fledged courses out there dedicated to teaching niggas to not touch what they shouldn’t.
It still happens. All the time, actually, which is the fucked up part.
Though, within this context, it was even more fucked up.
After pumping her full of shots, I couldn’t help but feel partially responsible. A pang of guilt shot through my chest.
The rapist acted as though he couldn’t hear me, shakily stringing his belt through his pants.
Surprisingly, my vision went red then, my head hot with a flaming rage.
“Answer me when I’m talkin’ to you!” My arm came up, slamming into his chest and forcing him against the wall.
The back of his head crashed into it, giving off an audible cracking sound.
I couldn’t be sure if that was the drywall, or if it was his skull.
I didn’t give a shit. “What the fuck are you doing?”
***
Saturday, June 18th, 2016
(Present Day)
The first night I met Lauren Caplan, I was in the right place at the right time.
She was a bright-eyed nineteen-year-old girl, going through the motions of her first ever college house party, and she’d fallen prey to someone who was all too happy to take advantage of her.
Had I been just a few minutes delayed, her life would have changed forever that night.
Oftentimes I think about it, and I feel a sense of relief.
I stopped it.
I wasn’t too late.
I saved her.
I saved that light in her eyes.
The light in her eyes was gone now. For me, that was harder to look at than the bruises. Jerome’s words echoed in my head as I lead him and his partner further into the house.
I swear I won’t let Grip touch you again.
Whatever happened—I didn’t stop it, I was too late, I didn’t save her. And now the joyful glitter in her eyes was gone like it never existed. This week just keeps getting worse.
“We got company,” I informed Vance as Lauren and the two strangers followed in behind me.
There must’ve been something off about my energy because Vance squinted as though he was having trouble recognizing me before replying, “I can see that.”
“Yeah, we finally bagged Miami’s Most Wanted,” Jerome informed behind me as if expecting to be congratulated for it. Vance only blinked, setting the remote in his hand down on the coffee table before throwing me a questioning look.
“Remember the girl I was telling you about the other day?” I posed, explaining, “This is her.”
Vance raised a single eyebrow, confusion still weighing heavy on his features.
In the days that came after Memphis, I’d been spending a lot of time at home. Depression ate away at my better judgement one particular evening, and in a Hennessy-induced confessional, I confided in Vance.
I told him about Lauren.
Nothing too deep, just that she was from a different world, and that we would probably never work out in the grand scheme of things.
To my wonder, he seemed to be completely unsurprised by my confession—as though my eventual falling in love with someone I had no business falling for was the predictable outcome.
Falling in love…
I didn’t say that; Vance did. Although, I couldn’t recall disagreeing.
What I’d neglected to mention was that Lauren wasn’t just any girl.
She was the daughter of Miami’s state attorney—the prosecutor in my father’s case.
I’d skipped that in my recap because it added a layer of questioning that I wasn’t ready to debate.
Even though I trusted Lauren with my life lately, in everyone else’s eyes, my relationship created weak spots in the impenetrable world of my family.
I understood both sides, which made it impossible to argue.
To them, Lauren was an outsider—the worst kind of outsider, at that. And they weren’t wrong.
To me, however, being with Lauren was like laying your head down on a pillow after days of sleep deprivation.
It was a symbolic analogy at first, until I realized that being with Lauren really did make me sleep easier.
For a while, she was the one thing in my life that didn’t add to the noise; she was my peace.
Vance offered Lauren a seat on the sectional, saying something about how she looked spent. Lauren eyed the unfamiliar face warily, casting a questioning look my way.
“Go,” I encouraged.
I couldn’t have her so close by my side with the plan that was formulating in my head. Ideally, it would have been best if she wasn’t in the room at all.
The first night I met Lauren, when I happened upon her as a disheveled mess, an unwilling participant trapped between my bed and a rapist—I was fully prepared to commit the most unforgivable sin. Why? Because he deserved it. Because she was helpless. Because I was pissed the fuck off.
I couldn’t remember the last time anger had consumed me so powerfully. Anger that boiled red and hot, vibrating every cell in my body. The kind of anger that makes your hands itch for the feeling of a dying pulse.
And then she closed her eyes. She shut them so tight, crinkles formed at the bridge of her nose.
Some people get attacked and they want to see their offenders burned at the stake.
Lauren, however, couldn’t even stomach his distress.
Miraculously, I found myself cooling off at the sight of her, somehow coming down from an anger that was so strong that it initially felt permanent.
I’d breathed out a sigh of resignation and lowered the gun. Nobody died that night. She didn’t need to see that, especially not in the emotional headspace she was in. Instead, I stayed by her side, watched her sleep for hours, and when she woke up… I fell for her—hard.
“How’d she get that bruise on her cheek?
” My tone was casual even though I was furious.
In my peripheral vision, I could see Lauren curiously brushing her fingers along the discoloration, being made aware it was there for the first time.
The second she touched it, she drew back and snatched her hand away, wincing.
“You want some ice for that, ma?” Vance asked her quietly, to which she shook her head.
Jerome’s eyebrows came together skeptically, confusion etched into his expression over her being treated like some sort of esteemed guest. That should’ve been his first sign that something wasn’t right. However, he didn’t outwardly question it so much as awkwardly grimace at the spectacle.
“Her face,” I brought it back up, tone still easy as I ambled over closer to the two men standing off the side of my living room. For a brief moment, I looked at the white carpet beneath my feet and inwardly groaned. Blood is a bitch to get out of white carpet. “What happened?”
An unusual cross between a squint and a sheepish smile spread across Jerome’s face as he tossed a look to his partner. Something was apparently funny. The joke was clearly lost on me. “You wanna tell them what happened to her face, Grip?”