“Are you sure you don’t want to come? Kate’s going to be there,” Micah says.
I pull a can of soda from the fridge and look over to Trent and Micah who’re standing in their board shorts, ready to head down to the beach. “I really need to study for these midterms.”
“Since when did you become an overachiever?” Trent quips.
“Far from it. I’m barely hanging on to a C in my biology class.” I pop the tab and take a sip. “Tell Kate to call me later.”
As both of them gather their surf and skimboards, there’s a loud knock on the door. Trent walks over, and when he looks through the peephole, he jerks his head my way, whispering, “It’s Kason.”
My heart leaps for a split second before I dart my eyes over to Micah, who’s mouthing, “What the fuck is he doing here?”
Another knock sends my pulse racing, and as much as I want to run to him just to feel the comfort of his arms, I take a step back, murmuring, “He can’t know I’m here.”
“Micah,” Kason calls, and my chest caves in at the sound of his voice.
“What the fuck do I do?” Trent frets.
Micah then turns toward me. “Go to your room and lock the door.”
On wobbly knees, I do exactly what Micah tells me, locking the door with hands that won’t stop shaking.
What is he doing here?
Voices amplify, and I press my ear against the door, straining to hear just a trace of his beautiful voice I miss so much, but there’s no need for straining when I hear him shout in aggravation, “What the fuck? Why are you ignoring my calls, man?”
“Dude, how the hell did you find out where we live?” Micah questions.
“Rhett told me.”
“What are you even doing here?”
“Where’s Adaline?” There’s an urgency in his voice that grabs on to one of my heartstrings and yanks, choking me in the anguish of my desolate heart that just won’t get over him. “I know she told you; you guys still talk, right?”
“Let her go, Kase. She’s gone, and if she wanted you to know where she went, she would’ve told you.”
A scuffle sounds and something gets knocked over at the same time Kason seethes, “Stop fucking with me, and tell me where she is.”
“Dude, chill,” Trent shouts over Micah’s and Kason’s cursing. “Just leave the girl alone.”
There’s a span of silence, and I have to bite my lip to keep myself from calling his name. God, my heart aches so much with him here right now in total desperation and unwilling to lose me. But he needs to. He has to give up on me because he’s only going to prolong this pain we both need to get over.
Micah speaks, and my stomach sinks under the weight of his lie when he tells Kason, “She went back home to Texas.”
“Texas?”
“You’re only going to make things worse by chasing after her. Like I said . . . let it go, man.”
I wait to hear his voice again, but it never comes. The only sound is the slamming of the door, catching me by surprise.
“Ady?” Micah says cautiously from the other side of the door I’m still leaning against.
“I’m fine.” My voice is unsteady as the tears bleed through the broken seams of my heart.
“I know you aren’t fine.”
“I just need to be alone right now.”
“You sure?”
“Just go,” I tell him, and again, the next sound I hear is the closing of the door after the two of them leave.
In the safety of isolation, I crumple to the floor and weep, clutching my heart because I swear it feels like the shards of what’s left of it are stabbing me from the inside out. I lose myself in an avalanche of gut-wrenching agony. Hearing how distraught he sounded . . . I’m lower than what I’ve ever been. Lower than what any human should be, but here I am, drowning in the misery there’s no escaping from.
I cry because I don’t know how else to relieve myself of this pain. I keep thinking that if I cry hard enough, maybe one day it’ll just disappear. I know better, though, but it doesn’t stop me from indulging in my irrational thoughts.
I hang on until my body tires and I’m nothing but a depleted pile of hopelessness. Dragging myself off the floor, I slip into bed, I look out the large windows to the marina down below, and like so many times before, I begin to count. One boat, two boats, three boats, four . . . until my mind is free enough to finally rest.
“You can’t turn down a drink when you’re in someone’s house. I’ve heard it’s bad manners.”
I look at Liam as he holds out a cup for me. When I take it, I swallow down a big gulp before saying, “It’s good. What is it?”
“Just a little punch.” His smile is infectious, and I notice a slight dimple in his left cheek.
“You want to dance?”
Looking over to everyone having fun as they move along to the beat of the loud music, I smile. “Yeah.” A little too eager, I hold out my hand for him to take and swallow down another gulp.
He leads me to the center of the crowd, and suddenly, we’re dancing. He moves flawlessly as I throw my arms up and tilt my head back. I lose myself to the music, not even realizing his hands are slipping their way down my sides. The touch is exhilarating.
He then takes the cup from my hand and lifts it to my lips. “Drink,” he says before pouring the remaining liquid into my mouth. Once consumed, he smiles, tosses the cup, and wraps my arms around his neck. I don’t resist his touch as we continue to dance.
When I reach the point that I can no longer feel how happy I am, I lean against him, nearly tumbling, and ask, “Can we go lie down somewhere?”
He leads me up the stairs, and with each step, my legs begin to numb until I’m no longer moving on my own. Until he’s carrying me. I giggle as he drops me onto the bed, but I quickly snap out of my humor when his eyes narrow and he begins to remove his clothes.
I try to push up on to my elbows, but I can’t move—I weigh too much.
“What are you doing?” I panic when he rips his underwear down.
“What the fuck does it look like?”
He then grabs ahold of my waistband and violently yanks my shorts and panties off. My heart ruptures, spilling gallons of bile into my veins as I scream. My bones thrash and punch, I can feel them, but when I look down, I’m paralyzed. There’s no movement at all. Blood from the razors slicing my vocal cords choke me, silencing me . . .
Jolting awake, my eyes flick open and my body jackknifes up, throwing me into consciousness. Panic strikes fiercely, and I gasp against a strangled cry as I fist the sheets in my hands. My eyes dart around the room, and as I take in the familiar surroundings, I’m able to inhale a decent breath.
“It was just a dream. It was only a dream,” I whisper to myself repeatedly until the chilling prickles along my skin begin to wane. Looking out of my window, the sky is a tad darker, and I wonder how long I was asleep. “Micah?” I call out, and when no response comes, I know the two of them are still out surfing.
Pulling my knees up to my chest, I drop my head to my knees. With no one home, I allow my walls to crumble, and I cry through the terror that has its claws sunk into me, holding me to the flames of every fear I’ve been fighting against this whole time.
Thoughts of how I behaved that night puncture wounds I led myself to believe were healing, but they’ve been open all along.
Did I really come on to him like that? Did I practically ask for it? Am I the one who holds all the blame?
I close my eyes, and I’m back in that frat room, waking up naked from the waist down. Did I enjoy what happened? Did I moan and say his name? Did I scream and shout no? Or was I passed out and dead to the world?
Each unknown is a dagger impaling into my lungs, and before I know it, I’m struggling to breathe. A million questions stab me, throwing me into a turnstile of panic, and when I brace my hand over my heart, I feel it hammering against its cage. Every gasp provokes more fears, and I cry even louder as my body attacks itself in this colossal storm of confusion and horror.
“Jesus, are you okay?” Trent shouts when he bursts into my room, and the intrusion ignites an unexplainable eruption of fear.
He rushes toward me, and my hands fly out in front of me as I yell on a strangled breath, “No!” I fumble back on the bed until I’m flat against the headboard. “Don’t come near me!”
His eyes are wide with alarm, and he takes a cautious step closer to me. “What the fuck happened?”
“Don’t touch me!”
“Ady, you’re scaring the shit out of me.”
“Don’t touch me!” I cry out, my words splintering as tears sting my eyes. The walls are closing in on me, crushing down on my chest, and then I hear Micah yelling from afar before he appears.
“Don’t come near me,” I warn when he steps into the room.
“What the hell’s going on?”
“She was freaking out before I even walked in.”
Micah then turns to me, and as he stalks across the room, closing the gap between us, I rise to my knees with growing panic, begging in fear, “Please stay away. Stay away. Stay away.”
“Fuck that,” he mutters as he climbs onto my bed.
The second his arms band around me, I fold into him and release a god-awful agonizing sob. It pours out of me like acid, burning holes through every single wall of mine.
“Give us some privacy, man,” he tells Trent, and when I hear the click of the door closing, his arms strengthen around me. He doesn’t say a word, and for the first time, I really cry. I wail for stolen moments and broken souls. For all the pain I’ve caused everyone around me. For the lies. For the fears. For everything that’s been ripped away from me.
I cry until my limbs are lifeless and my cheeks burn, until my heart deflates and my soul is dangling by a withered thread. I cry until there’s no more crying, only half breaths and trembling bones that Micah is still holding on to.
Through bleary eyes that ache beneath swollen lids, I watch the sky darken. Micah gives me the opportunity to completely drain myself, never once saying a word, until I’m limp in his arms, and it’s in that moment when I feel I can’t go on that he says, “I won’t let you stay quiet any longer. Whatever this is, you have to tell me.”
I blink with eyelids that feel like sandpaper. “I’m just so tired.”
“I don’t care.” He sits up and pushes me back a little, forcing space between us. “What’s going on?”
I drop my head into my hands and somehow manage to blink out another tear.
He takes my wrists and pulls them down. “Why won’t you talk?”
“Because I just can’t.” My voice is so strangled in exhaustion that I barely recognize the sound.
“Why?”
“Because it’s really bad, and I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“Of everything,” I say, closing my eyes and feeling the streams running down my cheeks.
He pulls me to him and hugs me with so much strength. “Of me?”
I nod, and he’s quick to respond, saying, “I swear to you, Ady, there is nothing that you need to be afraid of when it comes to me.”
“It’s humiliating.”
“No. God, don’t feel that way. Not with me.”
I slip my arms around him, knowing I’m at my end. Knowing I can’t go on like this. That holding it all inside is destroying me.
“I don’t know how to do this.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he assures. “Whatever it is you tell me, I’m here for you. I promise you.”
“I don’t know what to really say because I don’t even know what happened.”
“Just tell me what you do know.”
I take in a deep breath that is filled with so much hesitation I have to force the air all the way into my lungs. Then I waver back and forth until I finally release it, saying, “I woke up after going to a party.” As soon as those few words come out, I stop. I then notice how tightly I’m clinging myself to him, but I can’t let go. I’m too scared.
He doesn’t let me struggle alone though when he starts to guide me. “What party?”
“Some Greek rush party my dormmate took me out to. Kason had to work the next morning, so it was just her and me.”
“What happened?”
“I lost track of her and then ran into this guy that I had met earlier that day.” I say this and can feel the constricting of his muscles around me, and I wonder if he already knows what I’m so scared to say. “I was so stupid.”
“Don’t ever say that.”
“But I was,” I weep, his shirt soaking up the agony I’m left with from making such foolish choices. “I followed him back to his frat house without my roommate. I didn’t even know the guy.”
Micah drops his cheek to the top of my head with a pained sigh. “What did he do?”
My body quakes as I try to silence my cries, but I’m too weak, and I’m too exposed right now. “That’s the thing . . . I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
I stall, afraid he’ll never look at me the same way, afraid he’ll lose all respect for me, afraid he’ll blame me.
“Don’t shut down on me,” he whispers, and I hear every bit of his worry. “Whatever it is you’re afraid to say, you can trust me.”
His hand moves to the back of my head, and as he cradles it against him, I knock down my very last brick and expose the truth. “All I remember was drinking something that he gave me one minute, and then the next minute . . .” He hugs me harder. “The next . . . the next minute, I woke up, and I . . . I was naked, and he . . . he was in the bed next to me.”
“Fuck,” he breathes harshly, and I begin to cry all over again.
“I’m sorry. Please, don’t be mad at me.”
He pushes my shoulders back and holds me firm in his hands. “Mad? Why would I be mad at you?”
“Because I was so stupid to—”
“You’re fucking kidding me, right?” he questions with fervent eyes piercing through me. “Some motherfucker rapes you, and you think this is your fault.”
I flinch the moment he says what I’ve been hiding from. What Kason was always too afraid to say, and what my mother has avoided all this time. I want to scour it away and pretend it was never said, but he sees me shaking, and his face drops when I tell him, “No.”
“No, what?
“You can’t call it that.”
His brows pinch. “Ady—”
“No,” I snap, knowing it all along, but actually hearing that word . . . someone speaking it and putting it out there in the universe . . . gives it life and meaning and relevance that I’m not ready to deal with.
Micah’s jaw grinds down, and his eyes fall from mine. When they finally come back to me, they’re rimmed in unshed tears I’m responsible for.
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop fucking saying that. Don’t you dare think that you played a part in any of this. You don’t even need to say another word because it’s so damn clear what the hell happened and what he did.”
“I don’t want any of this to be happening.” I fall back into his arms. “I just want it all to go away, but it won’t. I’ve been trying so hard.”
“I know,” he murmurs, tucking my head beneath his chin. “But you can’t keep going on like this and ignoring it.”
“I don’t know what else to do? I feel completely lost and disconnected from myself.”
“Is this the real reason why you moved here?”
“Mostly,” I tell him. “It was also Kason. I couldn’t tell him what happened, and the secret just tore us apart. I was scared to be on campus because I had run into the guy a couple times after that night.”
“Did you tell anyone?”
I shake my head. “My mom knows, but I didn’t tell her. She just pieced it together the night you came over. But you’re the only one that knows anything.”
There’s so much tension in his body, but he never lets go of me. “And at night . . .”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“I want to know.”
I take a moment before admitting, “Ever since that night . . . not being able to remember anything . . . I’ve been scared of the dark. That’s why the lights are always on.”
He takes my face in his hands and presses his lips to my forehead. When he pulls back, I feel so guilty for the tears in his eyes.
“Tell me what I can do. Tell me what you need, and I’ll give it to you.”
I shrug. “I don’t know.”
For now, he simply holds me, never loosening his grip. He promises to make this better, but we both know there’s nothing that can be done to take away what’s already happened. It’s a horrible feeling to realize how powerless you actually are. I do my best every single day to fight, only to be reminded how feeble and weak I truly am. No matter how hard I push, that one night has managed to take control over my life.
Sometimes I think it would’ve been better if I had been conscious. At least then I would know, and I wouldn’t have to be haunted by all the missing pieces. It’s the not knowing that scares me the most.
“I don’t ever want you to feel like you’re alone in this, because I’m right here with you. However you need me, you have me.”
And within those words, I find a sense of contentment I’ve been without. I want to tell him how much he means to me, how thankful I am to have him and for letting me move in with him. I want him to know how grateful I am for his strength and for not tiptoeing around me. His persistence is what finally gave me the ability to say what I’ve been so afraid of, and now that I have, there’s a tiny part of me that feels relief in someone finally knowing.