by Patty Blount
I couldn’t wait to start high school. My brother and I are only two grades apart, so I was excited to hang out with him and his friends again, like equals instead of siblings who, for whatever reason, can’t stand to be around each other. Now my brother can’t even look at me.
—Ashley E. Lawrence, victim impact statement
NOW
BELLFORD, OHIO
“Ashley, these are all good. I mean, really good.” Tara shuffles through the printouts I handed her when I sit down to lunch.
I crack the seal on a bottle of water and take a sip. “You don’t think it’s too much?”
She shakes her head, making the sun bounce off her shiny hair. “Nope. I think you covered all the basics without making this seem like a test, you know?”
A test. Hmmm. That’s not a bad idea. Maybe I could do a quiz or something that we can post to the web page that Sebastian wants to create.
Speaking of…
“Hey.” Sebastian stops at our table and runs a hand through his Nike swoosh hair.
“Hi, Sebastian,” Tara says, scooting her chair over to make room for him, and I kind of love that. There’s no question—will he or won’t he? We just assume he will.
He does.
“These your ideas?” He jerks his chin toward the pages Tara left on the table. When I nod, he picks them up and skims them. When he’s done, he stacks the pages carefully, tapping their edges on the table, and hands them back to me without a word. By the time he opens his cellophane-wrapped sandwich, I’m burning with curiosity.
“Well, what do you think?”
“I love the idea of making a speech. I can help you with it, if you want.”
“Yeah. I’m gonna need lots of practice.”
Sebastian shakes his head. “Don’t rehearse. It’s better if you’re you. Real, you know? Just get up there and tell the school what happened.” And then he squirms.
What is wrong with him? “Okay, what else?”
Shrugging, he bites into his sandwich and talks with his mouth full. “Think the pledge signing is awesome. Everyone will think it’s a pep rally, so they’ll be psyched to get out of class.”
“Okay. Cool. What else?” Oh my God, just tell me already!
He lifts his eyes, and they’re kind of yellow today. “Um. The pledge form.”
Uh-oh.
“I think it’s good…”
“But?” I prod because I totally sense a but coming on.
“But I think you should maybe change one thing.”
I glare at him because really, who’s the expert here?
“It’s not a big deal, Ashley. But this one part, about how it could be your sister, your girlfriend, your mom? I think it’s wrong to say that.”
He taps the page on the table between us, and I straighten my back.
“Wrong,” I echo. “Wrong, as in not correct, or wrong, as in morally reprehensible?”
Sebastian’s lips twitch, and he rocks his head from side to side. “Maybe somewhere in the middle of that scale.”
Tara’s brown eyes bounce from him to me and back again, and Sebastian holds up both hands.
“Ash, I just think it’s wrong to tell guys they need to do this because of the girls in their lives. They should do this for all women, not just the ones they know, because it’s right.”
Oh, wow.
This guy isn’t real. Did I dream him?
Tara’s eyes meet mine, and she’s thinking the same thing.
“And we have to remember, it’s not just women who get raped,” he adds.
That’s a really good point. I lower my head, ashamed I’d forgotten. Sometimes…well, most of the time, it feels like you’re completely alone in this. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. Um. Thanks for, you know…looking out.”
He smiles in acknowledgment, but it’s a serious smile.
I sigh as he heads to the trash bin and tosses his sandwich wrapper. There was a time when I wished all boys were just like Derek.
Now I wish all boys were just like Sebastian.
NOW
BELLFORD, OHIO
By Thursday, the signs of panic are circling me like vultures. Homecoming is Saturday. I don’t think I can do this. I don’t think I can stand up in front of the entire student body tomorrow and tell them my story. It was all my idea, and I can’t do it.
I can’t.
But I can’t let this happen again.
I obsess all day and finally come up with a plan B. I grab my laptop and start recording a video.
“Hey.” I offer a lame wave and tight grin to the webcam. “I’m, well, I used to be Ashley Lawrence. Before I was raped two years ago. Seven hundred and twenty-three days ago. It’s not like I want to count the days. I can’t help it.”
I frown and move around my room, feeling like the biggest, most awkward thing alive.
“I have flashbacks, anxiety attacks, and a ton of totally irrational reactions to normal, everyday things. It used to happen a few times a day. Now, it’s a few times a week. So, yeah. I count the days because I figure there will be one day when I’m me again. Ashley. And I want to know how long it takes me to reach that day so I can celebrate my accomplishment.”
Oh my God, this sucks worse than anything. I pause the recording to regroup and start again.
“So here’s the thing. Getting raped pretty much sucks. It’s, like, almost the worst thing that can happen to you. Because it makes you want to die. And every time you remember that the person who did this to you was someone you knew, someone you maybe even liked, part of you does die.”
I pause the recording, rolling my eyes. Not exactly upbeat and encouraging.
“It sucks to have something you value get taken away by somebody else. It sucks that you didn’t do anything wrong but got the blame for it anyway, even from people you thought knew you. And it sucks that the court looks at the person who did this thing to you, did the worst thing that anyone’s ever done to you, and says two years in prison is justice, and everybody, even your therapist, tells you that you should feel proud that you won. It sucks when you finally figure out that there’s no such thing as justice.”
I pause the recording again and just stare into the camera, wondering if anybody will get where I’m going with this.
“I never hear anybody saying Victor Patton did a terrible thing and deserves to be punished for it to the full extent of the law. I never hear anybody say Ashley Lawrence’s life was ruined and you feel really bad about that. I don’t hear you saying we shouldn’t blame Ashley Lawrence for canceling football because she didn’t ask Vic to rape her.”
I stop recording and think about my next point. When I’m sure I’ve got it, I start a new file.
“Say you have this car. It’s a really nice car. Expensive. Super cool. Took you years to save up for it, and now it’s all yours. You love this car. You’re driving one day, and you stop at a red light. Maybe it’s a red light on a road you drive all the time. But this day, this one day, bam! Somebody crashes right into your really nice car. Totals it. How would you feel?”
I really hope they understand the point I’m trying to make with this.
“You’d be upset, right? You’d be furious. You know you would. You call the police and report the accident. And the police ask you questions like: Were you drinking? Do you drink a lot? What were you wearing? You wonder what any of this has to do with some moron crashing into your car. You keep telling the police he hit you. Your car wasn’t even moving at the time! But they keep asking you questions. How fast were you going? Do you always drive down this street, at this time, alone? Do you always drive such nice cars? And then, the police say something that hurts more than your car getting wrecked. They say maybe you shouldn’t drive such a nice car if you don’t want it wrecked. They say by driving down that road alone you were just asking fo
r somebody to crash into you. They say that poor other driver is never going to be the same. He’ll probably lose his driver’s license because of you.”
The power flows through me, and I sit up straighter and stare, unblinking, directly into the webcam.
“Maybe they arrest the other driver, and then you go to court where the lawyers ask you more questions. You thought the cops’ questions were insulting, but the lawyers ask you all about a car you drove the year before, or two years before, and ask if those cars got wrecked. The whole time, every single time they ask you a question, you wonder how any of this is your fault. But they’re not done. They save the worst for last. That’s when they ask your brother, your own brother, what he thinks, and he tells the court the other driver shouldn’t have to spend his whole life getting punished. You wonder when anyone’s gonna notice that you are the one getting punished for it—every day, for the rest of your life.”
I’m mad now. I’m so fucking furious that this isn’t obvious to people. That it has to be explained in third-grade terms.
“This is how I feel! Victor Patton took something from me. He wrecked me, not some car. But I’m the one who gets all the hate and the blame.”
I end the video and start a new one because I didn’t realize I had so much to say. I tell them how I was late the first day of school because it sometimes takes me hours just to get dressed. I tell them about the nightmares I keep having. And then I tell them about the brother who can’t look at me.
Suddenly, I notice I’ve got half a dozen video files saved, and I still have more to say.
“Guys, let’s play a game. It’s a trivia game this time, not a scavenger hunt. Take out a pen. Ready? Here’s the first question. It’s for the boys. What do you do if you don’t want to participate in the scavenger hunt?” I pause and hum a game show tune. “Okay, first, why don’t we ask what the girls did during the last scavenger hunt? I’ll tell you. We wore shorts in case guys decided to look up our skirts. We never walked alone. We had our parents pick us up after late practices. Okay, boys, show us your list now. Oh, wait! You didn’t write anything down? Too bad. Guess you lose.”
I drop my notebook and lean into the camera.
“Are you seeing the problem yet? No? Okay. I’ll connect the dots for you. Every time girls try to tell boys what we’re afraid of, you hold up your hand and say stuff like, ‘Whoa! I’m not that kind of guy. I’m nice.’ A whole team of boys thought it would be fun to harass girls to collect points. Did any of you boys congratulating yourselves on not being that kind of guy say, ‘Wait! What if they don’t want their skirts flipped up or their bras snapped? What if they don’t want their boobs squeezed?’ Nope. You went along with it. This is the problem. Every time you laugh at a sexist joke, every time you defend an athlete just because you like his sport, every time you assume a girl who accuses somebody of rape is lying, you’re shouting to the world that she does not matter! Believe me when I tell you it’s not okay. I’m not okay!”
I am shouting now. My voice is crackly and hoarse, but I keep going. “Every time there’s a terrorist attack, everybody starts screaming for border closings and tighter security at airports. Does anybody ever shrug it off and say, ‘Oh, it’s just extremists being extremists?’ So why do you say, ‘Oh, it’s just boys being boys,’ when you terrorize girls? Because that is what you’re doing. Terrorizing us.”
Slowly and quietly, I lift tear-filled eyes to the camera. “I just don’t get why all guys aren’t mad at the ones who make it so unsafe for girls to exist in this world. Guys, you want us to think you’re brave and strong, but when you don’t stand up to your friends who do this kind of stuff? It shows us you’re anything but.”
I hover over the Pause button, debating about this next part. Finally, I decide I may as well go all in. Full disclosure.
“You’re all probably sitting here wondering why we’re doing this, why we’re asking you to sign this pledge. It’s to ask you an important question. Are you ready to raise the bar?”
I end the video and sit back. I said the dreaded R word over and over again and didn’t burst into flames. Guess my therapist is right about that, at least. But my hands are shaking. It may be easier, but it’s still not even in the same zip code as easy.
I drum my fingers on the laptop for a couple of seconds. Am I done?
I already know the answer to that question. I have more to say—a lot more, about the ways Derek tore my heart out, about how the harassment from the entire community that occurred after Vic’s arrest and all during his trial chipped away at the once rock-solid foundation of my family, leaving it about to collapse in a strong gust of wind, and about the way the court’s ridiculously light sentence told the entire country that a good football player’s future is worth more than a good dancer’s. But I don’t think there’s enough hard drive space in the world for all those videos.
I save what I have and then text Sebastian, wondering if this will change somebody’s mind.
After all, I never was able to change Derek’s.
12
Derek
NOW
LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK
I snag a table, and while Brittany drowns a stack of pancakes in maple syrup, I eyeball another sexual assault rally sign. Then I study her. She’s really beautiful. Ashley used to say all the time I have no idea what it’s like to be a girl. Brittany never talks that way, but now I wonder. Does she ever get scared that way?
“Britt, I have a question,” I begin, flipping the rally sign around in my hands. “This.” I hold up the sign. “Anything like it ever happen to you?”
“I’ve never been raped, if that’s what you’re asking.”
I let out a happy sigh. Thank God.
“But…”
And the breath stalls in my chest.
“But I’ve been harassed. A lot,” she adds with an eye roll.
My spine snaps straight. “A lot? Define a lot.”
She stabs another bite of pancakes with her fork and swallows it. “Um, well, why are you asking?”
I shake my head and shrug. “I…well, I signed up to speak at a GAR event back home, and I’m not entirely sure what to say.”
She raises an eyebrow.
“It’s just something I need to do, okay?” I snap.
Both eyebrows go up this time. “Did I say anything?”
“You didn’t have to. The Eyebrows of Disappointment spoke for you.”
She laughs. “Now you’re projecting. And for the record, I am anything but disappointed right now.”
Good to know. I crack the seal on my orange juice bottle and chug half. My phone buzzes, and I sigh when I read the message.
“What?”
“My mom. School, like, just started, and she’s planning Thanksgiving already.” The thought of going home fills me with horror. Ashley might kill me in my sleep. And no jury would convict her, either.
“Ooh, Thanksgiving. I can’t wait to go out east and visit the pumpkin farms.”
I grin and toss a napkin at her. “You are such a girl.”
“Lucky for you.”
My phone buzzes with a text message. I sigh after reading it. “I’ve been summoned to the dean’s office to retell my account of the gym incident.”
Brittany looks up at me with a smile. “You know I think you’re really awesome for doing that, right?” she offers after a minute.
The way she’s looking at me makes my knees weak and my cheeks burn. “No. I’m really not. I’m pissed.”
“Good. You should be pissed. I wish more guys got pissed. Maybe then we wouldn’t have so many assholes running around.”
I drop my fork and angle my head. She never did answer my question. “You said you get harassed a lot. Why don’t you ever talk to me about it?”
She gives me the seriously? look. “Uh, because that’s probably all we’d
talk about.”
I give her the same look right back. “Exaggerate much?”
“I’m not exaggerating at all. It’s true. Every day, there’s a hassle of some kind—like the other day, this guy just cut in front of me at Starbucks, so I said, ‘Excuse me, there’s a line.’ And he said, “I’ll let you go ahead of me if you smile. I bet you’ve got a great smile.” I was too mad to smile because—hello, he still cut in front of me. But it’s not like any of the other people protested. So, I had to let it go, even though it just killed me.”
“But not enough to tell your boyfriend about it.” I shoot her a look, and she snorts out a laugh.
“Oh, Derek,” she says with a little shake of her head. “It would literally be all we talked about. You have no idea! You don’t stop to think about where you’ve parked your car and whether it will be dark when you get back to it. You don’t worry about the guys who step onto an elevator after you. And you probably never had to deal with dates who actually expect services in exchange for the money they just spent on you. It literally happens all the time.”
I’m stunned into silence. I really thought she was exaggerating, but now? Jesus.
We eat in silence for a minute and then head to class. Britt presses her lips to mine and leaves me with the taste of maple syrup. “If you want more info, just search these hashtags.” She shows me the Twitter feed on her phone, and I see two—#MeToo and #YesAllWomen.
We go our separate ways. I’m halfway through my statistics class when my mind starts replaying some of the things Britt said. It would literally be all we talk about, she said.
I’ve known Britt since high school, and okay, sure, we didn’t start dating until a month ago, but I think I know her. She’s not the kind of girl who flips out over every little thing like—
My back snaps into a straight line when I realize where my thoughts are leading me.
Like Ashley. That’s what I was thinking. Ashley doesn’t just exaggerate; she makes giant Kilimanjaro peaks out of the smallest little molehills.
But she didn’t exaggerate the scavenger hunt. She was totally right. I just couldn’t see that back then. Someone should have looked out for her…like maybe her brother.
