Cash and the Sorority Girl

by Ashley Bartlett

Once we’d distributed food and plates and gay beverages, we all dug in.

  “So what are you doing camping out at Cash’s? Hiding from the mob?”

  Lane chuckled wryly. She pressed her lips together and took a deep breath before speaking. “A couple of nights ago, I was raped. Being on campus is uncomfortable right now.”

  Nate stopped eating. “Fuck.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m sorry that happened.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Wait.” Nate looked at me. I shook my head, but he didn’t catch it. “Is she one of the five? Because Kallen—”

  “No. It’s not the same case,” I said.

  “What case?” Lane asked.

  “Nothing. We can’t talk about it.”

  “Is Laurel investigating my case? I thought she couldn’t do that,” Lane said.

  I set down my fork. This was going to be a long conversation. “She’s not. There’s another case that’s really similar to yours, but I don’t think they are related.”

  “Good. I don’t want her on the case.”

  Nate cocked his head. “Why not?”

  “They’re probably not going to catch him. I don’t want her to carry that guilt.” Lane snagged a spring roll and held out the container for Nate. He took one.

  I started back in on my food. I didn’t know how to say that Laurel had confirmed that fact just a few hours before.

  “You don’t know that,” Nate said.

  “No. But it’s pretty unlikely. It’s been three days.” Lane shrugged. “Plus, you know, looking for a specific rapist on a college campus is like looking for a specific piece of hay in a haystack.”

  Nate choked, then started coughing.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” He took a drink. “That description was just a little too apt.”

  “I didn’t even want to report it, honestly. My sorority sister bullied me into it. I know she was trying to help, but I wish she would have just let it go.”

  “But then he just gets away with it,” Nate said.

  Lane started one of her breathing exercises.

  “Nate.”

  He turned toward me. “Hmm?”

  “Maybe this is something you should try to understand on your own instead of quizzing Lane,” I said.

  “Oh. Right. Yeah, sorry, Lane.” He shook his head. “I didn’t think that through.”

  “Actually, it’s okay. I can talk about it.”

  “No. Cash is right.”

  “Really. It would be helpful. I process things better when I’m asked to explain them. Plus, you’re safe,” she said.

  “How so?”

  “You’re not part of my immediate circle, but judging by your relationship with Cash, you’re trustworthy.”

  Nate and I looked at each other. I tried to find a flaw in her logic and came up short.

  “Okay.” Nate readied himself. “So it seems like this asshole won’t face any repercussions if you don’t report it. Even if the chances of catching him are slim, at least there’s a chance.”

  “What’s the best-case scenario there?” Lane asked.

  Nate had a list prepared. “He gets arrested. Is actually convicted. Goes to jail.”

  “Great. Cool. And how does that help me?”

  That seemed to stump Nate. “I don’t know. But he has to serve his time.”

  “And regardless if he serves a month or ten years, it doesn’t do a thing for me.”

  “What if the best-case scenario is that he goes to jail and all that, but also learns that it isn’t okay to assault women?” I asked.

  “Good. Yeah. Still doesn’t help me move on. And he is the one who benefits from the lesson. I already knew the lesson.”

  “Oh, shit,” Nate said.

  Lane half smiled. “Yeah.”

  “So what is the best-case scenario for you?” Nate asked.

  Her smiled expanded. “Now you’re asking the right question. The best-case scenario for me would be to deal with the trauma in a healthy manner.”

  “That makes sense.” I really wanted to ask Lane the same questions I’d asked Laurel, but I was afraid she would confirm what her sister had said.

  “Is our justice system pointless then? Should we replace police with trauma centers?” Nate asked.

  “Whoa. You went micro to macro instantly,” Lane said.

  “Sorry. I haven’t talked to off-campus humans in weeks. I’m apparently in a very academic head space.”

  “That doesn’t seem healthy. You should probably get out more.”

  “He’s finishing his dissertation. It’s been a time,” I said.

  “Okay. That’s less odd.”

  My phone vibrated. I pulled it out. Jerome St. Maris. I really didn’t want to talk to him. Sure, I’d asked him to call me, but I still didn’t want to talk to him. “Sorry, I have to take this.” They both waved me off. I swiped as I walked down the hallway to my bedroom. “Hello.”

  “You called,” Jerome said.

  “Yeah. I’ve got an offer for you.” I closed the door.

  “What kind of offer?”

  “I understand you’re low on Adderall.”

  “Oh yeah? And where did you get this understanding from?” His tone was fussy.

  “All the customers you stole have been calling and asking me and Nate for Adderall.”

  He didn’t say anything for a minute. And then, “Fuck.”

  “I’m guessing your supply dried up. It happens, man. Maintaining a prescription supply line can be hard,” I said.

  “Don’t be a dick, Braddock.”

  “I’ll sell you a couple hundred pills.”

  He laughed. “You’re going to sell me pills so I can keep the customer base I stole from you?”

  “I’m going to gouge you on price.”

  “No shit.”

  “Or you could give me some info and I’ll only mildly gouge you.”

  “Fuck.” He was silent, presumably pondering that offer. “What do you want to know?”

  “Special K. Who is selling it these days?”

  “Special K? Shit. No one does ketamine anymore.”

  “Apparently, someone does.”

  “All right. I’ll find out. But I need at least a thousand pills.”

  I laughed. He couldn’t move a thousand pills. And even if he could, I wasn’t setting him up for that kind of success. “I’ll sell you two hundred.”

  “No deal.”

  “Okay. I’ll sell you two fifty, and if the lead pans out, I’ll sell you another two fifty.”

  “I fucking hate you.” His tone was full of respect. It was a first.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Give me a day.”

  “I look forward to your call.”

  He hung up.

  When I got back to the kitchen, Lane and Nate were in a full-on argument. They both were smiling though, so it was probably fine.

  “I’m not suggesting we do away with it entirely. I’m just saying it’s deeply flawed and we shouldn’t treat it with respect out of obligation,” Lane said.

  “I don’t think it’s obligatory respect. I think it’s fear. The edifice is built on complex weaponry. Those weapons keep the plebeians in line, for the most part.” Nate was waving his hands around.

  “Complex weaponry?” Lane laughed. “It’s good you’re not overly dramatic.”

  “It is complex weaponry.” He was quite riled. “The racism in this country is precise and multifaceted and built with the intention of keeping people of color down.”

  “Agreed. I’m just not sure racism is that complex. As a weapon, I think it might be more of a fist than a well-oiled gun.”

  Nate shook his head. “It’s both. Depends on what it’s used for, who is wielding it, how long they’ve been using it.”

  I sat again. “I’m sorry. How did you guys get from punishing assault perpetrators to race in America?”

  Lane and Nate exchanged a lo
ng look. They grinned and shrugged. “I think it went from no justice for survivors to the justice system still needs to exist even if it’s ineffective,” Lane said.

  “But it needs a dramatic overhaul due to that ineffectiveness. And an overhaul would obviously include appropriate measures to prevent recidivism.”

  “Especially among violent offenders.”

  “Of course.” Nate half-smirked like he knew she was highlighting the distinction for my benefit.

  “But would also need to account for the institutionalized racism in the system, which is difficult to address without addressing overarching American racism,” Lane said.

  “And you came in as we were figuring out the best way to alter the justice system.”

  “I was only gone for two minutes,” I said.

  “How is that relevant?” Lane asked.

  “I guess it isn’t?” I shrugged.

  There was a knock at the front door followed by the sound of it opening. After a moment, Laurel stuck her head in the kitchen.

  “Hey, sis.” Lane held up her can. “I’m drinking gay water.”

  Laurel frowned. “Okay.”

  “What are you doing here? I thought you had to work,” I said.

  “Can I talk to you?” Laurel asked me.

  Nate and Lane suddenly found their food very interesting.

  “Sure.” I stood and led her to my bedroom. My house was becoming far too crowded.

  Chapter Nine

  I closed the door. The click of the latch seemed to reverberate through me. I didn’t want to have this conversation. I didn’t want to hear her justify the things she’d said.

  “I owe you an apology,” Laurel said.

  “Okay.”

  “I wasn’t being entirely honest.” Laurel half-sat on the edge of my dresser and studied the wall just to the right of my head.

  “How so?” I leaned against the wall and crossed my arms.

  “When I said any rapist would get roughed up. That’s not true. Same with the whole thing about how they would call me or Lance if Lane’s rapist got arrested.”

  Really? She was going to say she made it all up? “That’s kind of a fucked up thing to say, especially if it isn’t true.”

  “Yeah, well, you pissed me off.” She crossed her arms. I couldn’t tell if she was posturing or protecting herself. “I’m not proud that it was my first response.”

  “Your first response was to lie?”

  “My first response was to lash out. You suggested I was being dismissive about the punishment for rapists. It irritated me.”

  “Sounded pretty sincere to me.”

  “I’m not proud of that either.” She was still feigning eye contact, feigning calm.

  “What?”

  “My ability to lie so convincingly.”

  “Lying convincingly is a huge portion of your job. It’s apparently one of your strong suits. Shouldn’t you be proud of it?” I asked.

  The muscles in her jaw tightened. “You know what I mean.”

  “Actually, I don’t.”

  “I mean I’m not proud that—I don’t know—that I default to lying when I feel cornered.”

  “I’m confused.”

  “About what?” She sounded irritated. Granted, most of our difficult conversations were resolved with a beer and conscious avoidance, but this wasn’t going to disappear so easily.

  “So now you’re saying cops don’t rough up suspects? That was just for show?” I asked.

  “No. Plenty do. But it isn’t common practice the way I made it sound.”

  “So you’re not like that?” It was a leading question, but I asked it anyway.

  “No. That’s not the kind of cop I am.” At least there was conviction in her tone.

  “So if the guy who raped Lane was arrested, you wouldn’t kick the shit out of him?”

  She shrugged. “Given the opportunity, I would. But that’s not the cop in me. That’s the big sister.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know what to make of this.”

  “What?”

  “You say you’re not that kind of cop, but you keep saying shit that makes you one of those cops. Which version of you am I supposed to believe?”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  I looked at the solid lines carved into the door. I felt trapped, confined by the room. I wanted to run. “Most of the time I feel like I know exactly who you are, but there are moments when you become someone else. The last time I felt that way about you, I found out my girlfriend was an undercover cop so it’s a little disconcerting.”

  Laurel blinked at me. Anger and hurt swirled in her eyes. “How can you make that comparison?”

  “I’m just saying what I see. You aren’t acting like the version of you that I know. Getting angry and lashing out. Lying for no reason. Posturing like a brutal cop. Either you’re acting extremely out of character right now or you’ve been putting on an elaborate facade for months.”

  She met my eyes for a moment, then flicked her gaze away. But it was enough. Her eyes started to fill. “Fuck.” She pressed her palms against her eyes. “Fuck.”

  That was not the response I was expecting. “What? Talk to me.” I crossed the room without thinking about it. My anger was momentarily tempered by my surprise. I stopped a foot away. I was afraid to touch her, to invade her space.

  “I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me.”

  “What’s going on?”

  She dropped her hands and blinked at me through watery eyes. “I don’t know.”

  “I can’t help if you won’t talk to me.”

  “I don’t know,” she practically shouted. Her frustration finally cut through, and I realized her anger was with herself, not me. I didn’t appreciate being the recipient of her ire, but at least this appeared honest.

  “Okay. Well, try to explain. It doesn’t need to make sense.”

  “I feel like I’ve been running for miles and I can’t breathe. But I can’t stop either. I can’t focus on anything.” She blinked long and slow. Tears spilled out and spread across her eyelashes. “It’s like I’m constantly thinking about six things and I can’t land on one long enough to get anything done.”

  That was a lot. “Why do you think that is?”

  She shrugged, shook her head. “I don’t know. Because I’m stressed and I’m anxious.”

  I could certainly guess what was stressing her out and making her anxious, but attempting to predict her feelings probably wasn’t helpful. Or fair. “What are you stressed about? What’s making you anxious?”

  “I feel so goddamn guilty about Lane. She got hurt and I wasn’t there.”

  “I think that’s a pretty normal feeling.” I finally realized that her emotional state wasn’t about me and making it so was selfish. I wanted to touch her. I wanted to do something, anything to take her pain away, but I knew I couldn’t, and I didn’t know if she would want it even if I could. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You just need to remind yourself that you can’t follow her around and protect her all the time. She wouldn’t want that.”

  Laurel nodded enthusiastically. Tears dropped off her chin. Some continued to drip down her neck. “And then I feel so guilty about you. You’ve been there for Lane in ways that I wasn’t—ways I didn’t even think of. It’s like you know what to do and say, and all I can think to do is yell or punch someone. Which makes me feel like an idiot because that’s a Lance response.”

  “Okay, but you don’t need to be everything for her. Your feelings are valid too.”

  That just made her cry harder. “Fuck. And then there’s that.”

  “Sorry.” I did my best to keep calm, but I was clearly not saying the right things. “What did I say?”

  “That’s it. You keep saying exactly what I need to hear, what she needs to hear.” She sniffled. “You’re doing all this emotional labor and that’s not fucking fair to you. You don’t need to deal with this bullshit.”

  “Can I hug you?”<
br />
  That made her cry more, but she nodded. I pulled her close. Her hands felt warm on my shoulders. The heat from them radiated down my back, up my neck. The front of my shirt slowly became damp. I traced the lines of bone and muscle in her back, smoothed my fingertips over the bumps in her spine. Her breathing started to even out. She leaned back.

  “I’m getting your shirt all wet.”

  I shrugged. “I’m not worried about it. You shouldn’t either.”

  “My nose is running on your shirt. That’s worth worrying about.”

  “It’s really not.” I chuckled.

  “It’s still not productive to sit here crying all day.”

  “I’m pretty sure no one cries to be productive. That’s not really a function of crying.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut and more tears spilled out. “I’m just so tired. I keep trying to move forward and I can’t. I can’t help Lane. I can’t solve this case. I’m stuck.”

  “Do you need to do all that?”

  Laurel’s brow wrinkled. “Yes.”

  “Okay.” Seemed inaccurate, but what did I know.

  “Why are you putting up with me?”

  “Because it’s not putting up with you. Same with the whole performing emotional labor thing. I’m not performing emotional labor that you’re supposed to handle. There is no supposed to. We’re working together to deal with a shitty situation.”

  “But you shouldn’t have to.”

  “None of us should have to deal with this. It’s bullshit. It’s the patriarchy come to life. But this is where we are and we’re not going to parse out who is dealing with what trauma. We’re just going to shoulder what we can.”

  “You’re carrying more than we are.”

  “At the moment, maybe. Who knows about tomorrow. Maybe it’ll be you. Maybe it won’t. It’s okay. This is where I want to be. This is one of the benefits of loving someone.”

  She seemed confused. Like there was a trick in what I was saying and she just needed to find it. “How is this a benefit?”

  “Do you know how hard it is to convince someone to let their nose run on your shirt? There’s a whole fetish culture around it.”

  Laurel finally looked at my face and realized I was grinning. “You’re a dick.”

  “Being able to do this, talk to someone honestly is a fucking gift. Nothing you’ve said in the last twenty minutes made a bit of sense. But I got it because I get you. Do you know how cool that is?”