It took two trips to carry Licia and Angela into Mia’s apartment. Mia flitted around behind me, alternating between worry and anger. I worried for her. She looked as if she were going to splinter into pieces or go find the guy who did this and cut his dick off.

I winced at my thoughts.

“We should have taken them to the hospital,” she said again.

I didn’t disagree, but this sort of situation wasn’t cut and dry. It was life altering.

My class schedule was heavily pre-med which required a liberal dose of certain classes, like Morality and Medicine and Mind and Medicine, along with a fuckton of Biology courses. It gave me a distinct advantage to look at a problem in both scientific terms, the psychology behind it, and how to fix it.

But sexual assaults weren’t just something a pre-med student knew about. It wasn’t quite an epidemic on campus, but it could be. Freshman orientation had been filled with the details, and statistics, of what constituted assault and rape. In an environment where drugs and booze flowed like water, and teenagers were suddenly free of parental guidance, bad decisions were often made. Sometimes going to the police, or making the situation public, caused more long term harm to an accuser then they were prepared to handle. It was an unfortunate reality in a society that had been groomed to blame the victim.

I wasn’t about to decide for either Licia or Angela. No matter how strongly I felt about what Mia and I had witnessed at that house party.

“When they wake up we can ask them,” I said as I stood beside Mia’s bed.

“Should we do anything else,” she asked.

Her eyes were glued to the girls bundled under the covers. Physically they would be alright. I would bet my future Ph.D. on it. Mentally? Well, that was a whole other issue. I didn’t want to foist a decision onto them. With hospitals came the police, and with police came questions and public knowledge of what transpired. While I believed the assholes who drugged them should be charged, and beaten to within an inch of their life like the sacks of shit they were, it wasn’t my call. The drug would still be visible in any toxic-finding blood screening once they woke up; the evidence waiting until the girls could handle it.

Mia didn’t look like she was going to budge. She’d stay up all night watching over her nest if I didn’t pull her away. I grabbed Mia’s hand and dragged her out of the bedroom.

“There isn’t anything to do but wait. If they decide to go to the hospital or the police station tomorrow, we’ll be there as witnesses.”

Mia worried her bottom lip with her teeth, eating off the rest of her lipstick as if it were candy. “What about calling Jo?”

I squeezed her hand. “When Angela wakes, we’ll call her if she wants.”

Mia finally allowed me to escort her into the living room. She settled down onto the couch, and I joined her.

She curled her legs beneath her. “I can’t believe that’s happening on our campus.”

I stroked her palm with my fingers. “It happens everywhere.”

Her fingertips twitched, and her black-painted nails grazed my knuckles. “You’re so calm. Why are you so calm about this?”

“I volunteered on the campus HelpLine when I was at Penn State.” I’d never told anyone that I’d spent countless weekend nights listening to students reach out to me. I’d met a huge cross section, from those who were suicidal, others who’d had life-altering experiences both good and bad, and still others whose secrets burdened them. “You hear a lot of things. It was anonymous, so it really allowed people to talk about their demons. Good. Bad. Ugly. When I moved here I decided not to volunteer again.”

Mia blinked and turned towards me. Her thigh brushed alongside mine. “What sort of things did you talk about with those who called in?”

I sighed and looked away. Those secrets I’d acquired in the darkest dredges of night stayed with you. A few blackened my soul over the cruelty humanity enacted on others. There were things I couldn’t change, and it frustrated the fuck out of me. Helping those who reached out to the HelpLine really solidified my desire to become a doctor. While I couldn’t, didn’t want, to fix someone mentally like Jo did, I could at least repair their body and give them a fighting chance to overcome their demons; mental, emotional, or physical. “Everything you can think of, and more. We, humanity as a whole, can be ugly to one another.”

Mia’s voice was whisper quiet. “I had no idea you did that.”

“I didn’t want anyone to know. I didn’t need nor want the accolades. Volunteering for something, being charitable, isn’t about flaunting it to the public. You don’t need to announce it. When you do that, it becomes about you, and not the people you are helping.” I sucked in a breath, realizing I’d exposed more of myself to Mia then I had in a long time. Warily, I waited for her reaction.

“Wow,” Mia breathed. Her fingers wove through mine. I focused on our interlocked hands. We’d touched more tonight than the past two years combined. “You do all that and you want me. I don’t understand.”

The meat of our problems rose suddenly. Our relaxed conversation turned tense. I could feel her trying to withdraw, not physically, but mentally. I wouldn’t allow it. Not when I was open and raw, aching for her to share a piece of herself with me. I lifted her hand and kissed the fingertips.

“I more than want you, Mia. You know how I feel about you. I always have.” I whispered my devotion into her skin, hoping she’d come to realize the truth of my words by osmosis.

“Don’t.” She shook her head vehemently. Her dark locks looked like helixes as they flew around her shoulders. “I can’t handle that right now.”

“I won’t say it until you tell me it first. I won’t push you, but you need to know, must know, that this isn’t some fling for me. It never was.” I pulled her closer, shifting her body so that she was tucked into the valley of my chest and arms.

Mia turned her head and buried her face in my shoulder. Her words were puffs of heat against my shirt. “I won’t say it, Regi. I can’t say it.”

I pressed a kiss to her head, lingering over the sweet, sultry scent of her; sandalwood and musk combining into a more adult perfume then she’d worn when we were kids. “You will, when you accept what you feel, I’ll be here. Waiting for you like I’ve always been.”

Always.