28. Octavia
OCTAVIA
She heard him breathe out before she turned around. When she did, she watched as he took off his boots, coat, and toque and then took a few steps toward her, launching into an explanation.
“I didn’t know, not all of it anyway. I didn’t know it was what it was. I only heard things. I should have known. Should have asked questions. Shou—” He stopped abruptly when she held her hand up.
“Have you ever…” She swallowed, looking skyward, her hands fisting and unfisting while she desperately tried to hold it together.
“God, no,” Nathan stuttered, stepping forward and stopping again when she shook her head.
“Octavia,” he said calmly. “I have never once done something without getting consent. I have never wanted to.” He stared down at her, his eyes wet now too.
“But I should have called out the behaviour from others. Silence is expected, and I was complicit in that. I know I’m part of the problem, Octavia.
But I’ve never taken advantage of someone.
You have to believe me. And if I’ve ever made you feel like you have to do something or if—”
“You haven’t,” she rushed to say. “I’ve never felt threatened by you. Never felt like you were coercing me. Everything we’ve done I’ve wanted to do.” Still want to do, hanging in the air between them. “Where were you?”
“I had something to take care of. May I?” He gestured between them, walking quickly to her when she nodded.
“I’m sorry, Octavia. I’m so fucking sorry for making you doubt me and ultimately doubt yourself.
” He took her in his arms and held her tightly as if afraid she’d slip away.
“I’m going to fix this,” he promised into her hair.
“I don’t think anyone can fix this, Nathan,” she whispered into his chest. “This isn’t the first time. It won’t be the last.”
Nathan stayed silent but his hold tightened. She wanted him to tell her she was wrong and that this would all work out. Part of her appreciated that he didn’t lie about it, but the other part desperately wanted to believe that he could fix it.
“Can you stay?” Nathan asked, pulling back and moving his hands to cup her face.
Octavia dropped her arms, her hands falling to Nathan’s hips. “I don’t know.”
She was struggling just being here in the first place. Like she was letting down every woman who’d been turned into a victim and ultimately survivor by a fucking predator.
Nathan was gone for a week the next day on a short road trip. Before this, she would have soaked up every minute she could with him before he left, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized a break would be good. She came over to get an answer and she had it now.
“I need to go. I need to think.” She looked up at him as she said it, watching his expression carefully. He looked defeated but didn’t argue with her. Didn’t try to convince her to stay.
“Can I drive you home at least?”
She nodded. “But you’re not coming in.”
He smiled sadly. “I know.”
Octavia didn’t watch Nathan’s next game, or the one after that.
She wanted to cheer him on, but seeing the other players and wondering how many of them had done disgusting shit made her sick to her stomach.
And if she was being honest with herself, she was still unsure if she could believe what Nathan had told her.
At work she went through the motions, doing her best to drown out the topic of the hour but always seemed to catch the latest bit of gossip.
She sat through meeting after meeting where voices turned into the teacher from Charlie Brown. Random noises from one side of the table or the other.
The weird thing was she started noticing things she’d either never noticed or ignored. The way certain male coworkers leered at others. Looks and laughter at the expense of women in the office.
“Have you read this?” Amanda walked into her office brandishing a newspaper.
“A newspaper?” Octavia asked, leaning back in her chair, smirking. “Not for a few years.”
Amanda rolled her eyes and slapped the paper down on the desk. “No, this article.” She pointed down at where a cryptic image of a hockey player was placed at the top of the page.
Nothing Surprising
Professional hockey player reveals that nothing about the Hockey Seven is surprising and that it was only a matter of time before legal action was taken.
Octavia looked up at Amanda, who tilted her head toward the paper, signifying that Octavia should continue reading.
And read she did. The player who had come forward was anonymous.
Coward, she thought. Why not reveal who you are?
He went into detail about the kind of things talked about in dressing rooms. Acknowledged that there was an aggressive culture of silence and that despite hating the phrase, the boys will be boys mantra was alive and well within hockey.
She looked up at Amanda when she reached the end, feeling hopeful for the first time in a week.
“It’s something, eh?” Amanda said.
“Who do you think it is?” Octavia asked, knowing Amanda may have a better idea.
Amanda shrugged. “Someone who can string a sentence together in an intelligent way.”
“I wasn’t sure at first. All I was thinking was how this guy is a coward for saying all this stuff without attaching his name to it.”
“And now?”
“Well, it’s a step in the right direction. Maybe I should just be happy about that.” She laughed. “The bar is subterranean at this point.”
Amanda stood and reached for the paper. “Listen, we both know that shit goes on around here and no one says a thing. Why? We like having a job. We hate rocking the boat. This shit”—she flapped the paper—“could be career suicide. He’d be seen as not having his teammates’ backs.
Wouldn’t be seen as a team player anymore.
He’d be headhunted on the ice. Subjected to hostile and friendly fire.
I mean the shit my brother told me about in junior and then begged me to stay quiet about.
There’s a code of silence.” She held her hand out when Octavia opened her mouth to argue.
“I know it’s different. The stuff they aren’t talking about could be illegal and dangerous.
I’m just saying I get why he’d want to remain anonymous.
And you’re right, it’s a start. Maybe this will inspire someone else to come forward, and maybe they’ll put their name on it. ”
Octavia nodded as she peeked at her watch, releasing a groan. “I have a meeting with Truman. A meeting where the man will spend more time looking at my legs than my face, and you know what I’ll do about it?”
“Nothing,” they said at the same time.
Truman had indeed allowed his eyes to wander beyond Octavia’s face and she’d bit her cheek and shifted uncomfortably instead of saying something.
Then on her way back to her office, she did what she always did after a meeting with him, imagined all the things she could have said or done.
She had just started to smile at the thought of “accidentally” knocking over his coffee when she heard something from the kitchen that stopped her dead in her tracks.
“Gotta feel for the guys. They just want to play hockey and there’s all this noise distracting from the game.”
“All because some chick wants money. Maybe try working.”
An ugly laugh followed. “The need to bag a hockey player is so pathetic.”
Listening to the two men laugh about serious accusations of sexual assault made her skin crawl. She turned back the way she came, took two steps, and stopped again.
“What are you doing?” she berated herself.
Ignoring what was being said under the guise of professional courtesy?
There was nothing professional about what was being said in that kitchen.
Why was she going to be the “bigger person”?
Why was it always on the shoulders of a woman to be the bigger person?
And how exactly did ignoring it make anyone the bigger person? Everything was so fucking backwards.
She turned back, walking until she reached the door. Confident until she was about to step into the kitchen, and then she stopped again. This could be damaging to her career. Standing up for herself and other women could ruin everything she’d worked hard for.
This is so unbelievably fucked up, she thought.
“Hey,” she snapped, stepping into the room, freezing momentarily when the two men looked at her.
Both of them were third-year associates. Cockier than they had any reason to be. Law firm poster boys. In short, they sucked.
“This shit wouldn’t happen if pricks like you two called out your bros.
You stand in here with your suits off the discount rack, judging a woman for her choices without ever holding the penis havers responsible for theirs.
It is always the woman’s fault. She was asking for it.
She was wearing inappropriate clothes. She was drunk.
She likes hockey players. Women are allowed to like sex, and they are also allowed to say no when things get weird or they become uncomfortable.
Women are allowed to change their minds.
Hell, you twat waffles like to make fun of us for how frequently we do that.
But heaven forbid the result of her changing her mind is you being left with blue balls.
Then it’s the end of the goddamn world. Then you deserve to take what you believe you are owed. ”
Blue suit opened his mouth and Octavia nearly shoved her finger in it to keep him quiet.
“She was one fucking woman with seven—this many, in case you can’t count that high.
” She held up seven fingers. “Seven men in peak physical shape surrounding her. I want you to think for one fucking minute about what you’d do if say…
you were being held at gunpoint by multiple people.
Would you comply? Would you say or do anything to survive? ”
Grey suit shifted and rolled his eyes.
“Oh no, of course you’re thinking you wouldn’t.
You’d fight them off because you’re a big, tough man and you could fend off multiple people with a gun, right?
” She got close enough that she could smell the everything bagel he had for breakfast. “But in that moment you would do anything they told you to do. So I want you to think about that woman alone with all those guys, and I want you to put yourself in her shoes and guns in their hands. It doesn’t matter if she wanted to ‘bag a hockey player’ or have a good night.
She’s saying she didn’t ask for what happened to her.
If she’s stating she did not consent to it, then we believe her.
Do you understand me? Grow up and believe women for a fucking change.
This right here is why we will always pick the bear.
For a bear, it’s survival. For men, it’s a game. A conquest.”
Octavia didn’t take a breath until she was leaning against her closed office door, gasping for air and wringing her fingers as her hands shook. When she calmed down a bit, she walked to her desk and fired off a text to the only person she wanted to talk to right now.