by Pamela Crane
As Geoffrey matched my pace, he turned and walked backward, keeping step with me as he talked. ‘How about instead of shitty cafeteria food you join me for dinner?’
Don’t do it, apprehension told me.
Then Geoffrey smiled, his blue eyes icy and penetrating. Get bent, apprehension.
‘If you say Pizza Joe’s the answer is no. You’re not allowed to take me where you work.’
He shot me a strange, almost guilty look. ‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s lame and unoriginal. If you can suggest someplace more original, I might say yes. But no promises.’
‘You drive a hard bargain, but I think I can win you over. I know a really good place right outside of town. Like Italian?’
‘Who doesn’t like Italian?’
‘All right then. It’s settled. My treat. My car’s parked right over there.’ He pointed across the street at a narrow alley that ran behind the soccer field.
‘Now?’ I glanced down at my bedazzled jeans and stretchy gauze shirt, the latest trend I’d borrowed from Britney Spears, bundled under a thick fur-lined coat. ‘Hell no. I don’t know you well enough to go to dinner with you.’
‘Isn’t that kind of the point of a date? To get to know one another?’
‘No, you’re supposed to call me first. Woo me with your words. Then a date might be on the table.’
‘Wow, old-fashioned, huh?’
‘Yep, I’m a lady.’
He laughed. ‘Why do I doubt that?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Girls who wear jeweled pants and high heels like that’ – he pointed at my shoes – ‘generally aren’t ladylike. But I could be wrong.’
‘And you’re such a gentleman, huh?’
‘I never said that. But I’d be willing to prove I am.’
‘How so?’
The wind was picking up, along with the snowfall. It stirred my hair into a halo and bit my skin. Geoffrey must have noticed me shivering.
‘At least let me give you a ride home, and then I’ll follow all the proper protocol for winning your heart, milady.’ He swept the air with his arm in a gallant gesture.
‘Does that actually work on girls?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve never had to try this hard before. You tell me. Is it working?’
His cheeks, ruddy from the cold, lifted with a grin I couldn’t resist. A warm car sounded really good to my frozen toes. Maybe dinner wouldn’t be so bad either. I hadn’t had authentic Italian food since Lily last cooked for me and had got me hooked. The overcooked noodles and canned marinara our cafeteria served were barf-worthy. How could I say no?
‘All right, I’ll tell you what. I’ll let you buy me dinner, but this better be damn good for me to blow off my friends.’
‘I promise it’s to die for.’
As we walked to his car we chatted about how eggplant parmigiana got an undeserved bad rep for being slimy, and agreed that alfredo was the tastiest among the sauces. In the alley several cars were lined up against a crumbling brick wall. As an extension of campus parking, usually faculty and athletes parked here, and it didn’t occur to me that Geoffrey wasn’t either of those.
‘I’m the green sedan,’ he said, pointing to the crookedly parked car – a nondescript Japanese import, in rough condition – at the end of the row.
‘Nice parking job. I’m guessing you didn’t pass your driver’s test on the first try?’ I teased.
‘Hey, be nice! You try parking against a brick wall with zero forgiveness if you’re too close. I didn’t want to scratch up my nice paint job.’
I laughed, because the car looked older than me … and not in the cool classic car kind of way. My mind flashed back to my earlier impression of G, and I wondered if perhaps he was living out of the ratty car. When we reached it, my suspicion was all but confirmed when I glanced in the back window and saw a tattered pillow and blanket draped across the back seat. Suddenly this didn’t feel right.
He pulled out a set of keys from his coat pocket and led me to the passenger-side door. ‘Allow me.’ He poured the words into my ear as if this was a typical date. ‘See? I told you I was a gentleman.’
‘I don’t know, Geoffrey,’ I said lamely. ‘Maybe this isn’t such a great idea after all. I should be studying—’
His gaze tripped down my body with greedy hunger. I shuffled back a step, but not quickly enough. He threw me up against the wall and pinned me, awakening a legion of goose bumps that crawled over my skin. ‘Don’t hand me that shit, you cockteaser.’
His breath was thick in my ear. His tongue shot out and flicked the lobe leaving wet residue.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ I tried to push him away but he was too strong. ‘Please don’t,’ I begged, but my words were a mere puff of smoke in the cold air.
One hand covered my mouth as the other jabbed his car key against my throat. I scraped at him with my fingernails, but the pressure of his heavy chest against mine limited my reach. I screamed into his hand uselessly, then tried to bite it as my breaths grew shallow. He jabbed the key harder.
‘Try that again and I’ll puncture your goddamn throat!’ he warned. Hot spittle sprayed my face. ‘You wanna breathe? I’ll let ya. Don’t want you to pass out. I want you to be awake when I’m fucking you.’
He adjusted his hand on my mouth, giving me a tiny gasp of air, the other ripping the button of my jeans loose. He tugged my pants roughly to the ground and his hand groped between my legs while snowflakes carelessly danced around us. I struggled, but the key returned to my throat.
‘If you just let me finish, it will go a lot better for you.’ He drizzled the words across me. ‘But if you fight, well, I can’t promise I won’t fucking kill you. Got it? Nod if you understand.’
I didn’t want to nod, didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.
‘I said nod or die, bitch!’ he hissed.
I nodded frantically, tears filling my eyes. As he boosted me up against the wall, my skull smacked against the jagged brick. I winced at the stabbing pain of him entering me. But the emptiness filling me felt worse. Falling into a black abyss, I prayed for death.
Chapter 16
Robin
TUESDAY NIGHT
Sticky with sweat, I bolted upright at the sound of my bedroom door squeaking open. When was Grant going to get around to oiling that? I’d only mentioned it a thousand times already.
The nightmare was still vivid in my head, though ripped around the edges. Early evening moonlight streamed through the blinds, casting jail bars on the wall. The glow hung on a silhouette by the door.
The bed was a disheveled mess, Collette snuggled in a nest of rumpled sheets hanging off the mattress and pillows strewn everywhere. I had only gotten halfway through straightening it this morning and never got back to it before falling asleep with the baby at my breast. How ironic that it seemed so important to make the bed every morning when the rest of my life was in shambles.
‘Mom, are you okay?’
It was Ryan. Even in the darkness I sensed his apprehension. I caught it in the way his voice tilted. I knew my son so well. And yet maybe I didn’t know him at all.
‘Yeah, sweetie, I’m okay,’ I whispered, code for baby sleeping so don’t wake her.
‘I heard you crying.’
‘Oh. I fell asleep while nursing and had a bad dream.’ I hadn’t realized anyone heard me crying. I wondered how many times my family had heard me suffer through that same nightmare over the years.
I admit, I was surprised. I hadn’t expected Ryan to come to me. We rarely interacted these days. By the time he turned fourteen he became a stranger in our house, always off at a friend’s, or at baseball practice, or out celebrating a game-winning play, or holing up in the games room with his latest video game.
I smiled grimly at the recollection of Ryan at age four, a little boy who would cling to my leg as if it was his life support. He was my little shadow. And when Willow came along, oh boy,
watch out! The fits of covetous rage as he temper-tantrumed on the floor, legs flailing, fists pumping because I couldn’t hold him while I nursed his sister. Back then I had thought it was so sweet, his jealousy over me, but now I wondered … I wondered if it was a sign of something darker. A demon that lived in him, growing stronger over the years until it finally took full form in our basement two days ago.
I tossed a pillow aside and patted the empty space next to me on the bed. ‘Come sit, honey.’
‘What’s going on?’ Ryan sat, stiff and awkward and uncertain, like he hadn’t been knitted inside my body. He was part of me, and I part of him. Didn’t he realize that?
Tonight he wasn’t the careless teenager whose shoulders slumped casually and whose eyes held a dull gaze, as if he were perpetually just waking up.
‘I need to ask you something, and I need you to be honest with me.’ I searched for affirmation in his pale blue eyes. They weren’t Grant’s eyes, or my eyes either. I could only assume they belonged to his sperm donor.
‘Okaaaay.’ The elongated word meant he was scared. I could only imagine the thoughts racing through his head. I needed to get this over with.
‘I want to know what happened Sunday night – with Aria in the basement. Tell me everything, and be honest. Because I already have an idea of what happened, but I need to hear it from you first.’
There. It was out. My shoulders stiffened. I prepared myself for whatever came next.
‘So you know.’ He shifted away from me, head hanging. Shame? Fear? I couldn’t read him.
‘No, Ryan, I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you to tell me what happened from your perspective.’ I grabbed his chin, forcing him to look me in the eyes. ‘I want to know exactly what you did, what Aria did – every detail. Even if you did something wrong, I need to know so I can protect you.’
He nudged my hand away and it fell on his knee. I needed that physical connection, because he needed it too.
‘I … I … I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Please, honey, whatever happened, we can deal with it together. But if you try to keep it a secret from me, it’s only going to get worse.’
He sighed. ‘Me, Willow, and Aria were all hanging out, until Aria wanted to try some wine. So we told Willow to leave, you know, so she wouldn’t see us drinking and tell on us. Anyway, I drank more than I should have. Aria did too. We were both feeling pretty buzzed and we ended up kissing.’
‘So you were drinking alcohol?’
He nodded.
I shook my head. ‘I don’t expect you to be perfect, but you should know better than that, Ry.’
‘I didn’t even want wine. Aria just wanted to try it. We were only having some fun.’
‘Yeah, and look where that got you. Anyway, continue. What happened after you kissed?’
Ryan picked at a loose thread on the bedspread, concentrating on it. ‘She kissed me back, and I thought she wanted to, you know, have sex. I mean, she seemed into it. So we started to, like for a minute, when her mom showed up. I swear, it happened so fast, but I didn’t think Aria was upset or anything about it. Did she say she was upset?’
The weight of guilt clearly hung on him like a noose, but I had no consolation to offer. He couldn’t see what bubbled beneath the surface of his life. Possible rape charges. Imminent jail time. A sexual offender record following him for life. These worries curled around me, squeezed every maternal bone in my body.
I didn’t want to tell him, but I had to. He needed to know the truth.
‘Ryan, honey, Aria doesn’t even remember what happened. I think she was too drunk to know what she was doing.’
‘No, Mom, she was into it, I swear. She kissed me first.’
‘But did she verbally say she wanted to take it further – to have sex?’
Ryan examined his bitten fingernails, a nervous habit we shared, then looked up at me. His eyes were confused and unfocused. ‘Oh, God, I don’t know, Mom. I don’t remember. We were drinking and talking and having fun. It started with a kiss … and I don’t know. Did I do something bad?’
I couldn’t speak, and he read my silence.
His breathing escalated into shallow panting, and his gaze darted around the room. ‘What did I do? Mom, am I in trouble?’
I placed a hand on his shoulder, and another one grabbed his palm. ‘Calm down, Ry. Breathe.’ My voice was calm, soothing, but he lingered on the verge of panic. ‘Nothing is happening. I just want to get your side of things so that we can sort it out. Are you okay, Ry?’
His eyes lowered, then met mine as I talked him off the ledge.
‘I know this isn’t easy, but we just need to get to the bottom of this.’ I thought back to my confrontation with Mac. She didn’t know if Ryan had used protection. I dreaded asking him, but I had to. ‘Ry, I know about the condoms in your underwear drawer.’
His hand rose to rub his forehead, shading his embarrassment. ‘No secrets around this madhouse.’
‘Yeah. I have to ask you: did you … have one on?’
He hesitated only a moment. ‘No, Mom.’
I felt my heart drop to my shoes. ‘And did you … ejaculate?’
‘Geez, Mom! I don’t … I mean, I’m not sure. Maybe … a little. Mrs Fischer came in and—’
‘That’s okay, Ry. Can you answer one more question for me?’
He nodded.
‘Did you specifically ask her if she wanted to have sex?’
‘Um, no, I don’t think so.’
‘Okay, well, that’s important. But you know she’s only fifteen. And you’re eighteen. You … took advantage of her, honey.’ As if honey sugarcoated the four-letter reality. The reality that could put my son in jail. He was an adult. Aria was a minor. But I couldn’t utter it. This was my son, not a rapist.
‘Mom, I swear I didn’t mean to. She didn’t push me away or say no or anything.’
‘Not saying no isn’t the same as saying yes, Ryan. You know that, right? Just because a girl doesn’t fight back doesn’t mean she wants it. Please tell me you understand that!’ I was yelling now as my own trauma needled every nerve in my body. Hands pressing against my mouth. Fingers squeezing my neck closed. Pressure, then a snap of pain as he forced himself inside me.
My face fell into my palms as I pushed the images away. Please, not now. I can’t fall apart in front of my son!
‘Mom, I love Aria. I’ve always loved her. I would never do anything to intentionally hurt her. I didn’t know – I didn’t think. Are you saying I … I raped her?’
Ryan was crying now, and I cried with him. I pulled him into a hug, because I couldn’t say anything more. I couldn’t pacify his fear. I couldn’t free his conscience.
‘I don’t know, honey, I don’t know.’ I shook my head sadly. ‘Mackenzie is going to tell Owen, and God knows what he’ll do. He could take matters into his own hands, or press charges …’ My fears piled one on top of the other.
‘And then what?’
‘And then it’s up to the court to determine what happens. I’m so sorry, Ry.’
We sat huddled together, Ryan sobbing into my shoulder for his sins, me weeping into the darkness for my son. Finally Ryan sat up, looking more intense than I’d ever seen him.
‘I’ve got to talk to Aria. I need to tell her I’m sorry. I need to make things right with her. And if Owen kicks my ass, so be it. I’ll get what I deserve.’
‘Honey, Owen could turn you in to the police! What you did is a crime. And you’re not allowed to see or speak to Aria – not until things cool down. Or until we speak to a lawyer. We need to figure things out first.’
‘Mom, Aria needs to know. It’s not fair to her to keep her in the dark. And she needs to hear it from me.’
‘No, Ryan. Some things are better left unsaid. When it’s something that could really hurt someone you care about, it’s not always best to tell them. Sometimes secrets protect others.’ Like the secret I couldn’t tell Grant, the secret I couldn’t tell
Ryan.
Ryan looked at me, confusion stamped on his young face. It broke my heart to see him so broken like this.
‘I don’t know, Mom, I think you’re wrong. I don’t think lying protects other people. I think lying protects only yourself. So if you want me to lie, I’m sorry, but I can’t. I’ve got to tell the truth. Aria deserves to know.’
I had to stop him from doing something he’d regret, something that could destroy his chance at a future. Any admission to Aria could convict him. I could plead with him, but he wasn’t listening.
The words tumbled past my lips before I could pull them back.
‘Ryan, your dad isn’t your biological father.’
Chapter 17
Mackenzie
TUESDAY NIGHT
It wasn’t the first time Owen had pointed a gun at me.
The first time was shortly after we’d gotten married during a vicious reaction after I told him I wanted to go on a girls’ getaway with Lily and Robin. That night I learned two important things: placate, then extricate.
‘Owen, I’m not the one you want to hurt.’ Although my voice remained calm, fear exploded inside me. ‘Together we can deal with Ryan, but not like this. Think about the risk. Think about Aria. There’s another way to handle it, but not with a gun.’
Owen’s gaze shifted to his trembling hands, then flicked back up at me. I’d managed to soothe him from his rage, but prying the handgun from his tense fingers was another matter.
‘I’m here for you, honey,’ I assured him. ‘You and me, a team.’
When his arms slackened, I stepped forward, then lured the weapon from his grip, dewy with sweat.
I carefully placed it on the dresser, then pivoted the barrel toward the wall. I was too distracted to secure the safety switch, which was probably best. Considering how violently my hands shook, I’d probably end up firing off a round instead.
Ever since that day, the day Owen’s real nature clawed its way out of his charming costume, I had developed a fear of guns – well, guns in the wrong hands. After all, I was a dyed-in-the-wool Southerner who grew up with rifles and shotguns, went target shooting with my daddy, always maintaining a healthy respect for a firearm’s power. But then Owen showed me what a gun could do beyond a hole in a wildly flapping target hanging from a branch, or an empty beer can perched on a tree stump. That tiny conical projectile could shred flesh, tear sinew, splatter gray matter. I didn’t want it anywhere near this rampaging Hulk version of Owen.
