by Kelley York
Brett, to my relief, gets out with me. At least I know Mom won’t yell in front of him. I think. I hope. I let us in the front door and she appears in the living room, drying her hands on a dish towel and staring holes into the back of my head as I inch down the hall toward my room.
Brett says, “Hey, Ms. Howard!” and Mom grants him the ghost of a smile.
In my room, I grab a spare gym bag from the closet and begin shoving whatever I can fit inside. Clothes, hairbrush, toothbrush. Anything I think I’ll need in the next week or two, because I don’t plan on having to slink back into my own house like a fugitive every other day. Brett watches from the doorway. When I go to step past him, he puts a hand to my chest and raises his eyebrows.
“You should talk to your mom.”
“And say what?”
“I don’t know. Just talk to her. Maybe she panicked or something and she’s calmed down now.”
I wasn’t getting that vibe from her. Sighing, I push the bag into Brett’s arms and go off to find Mom in the kitchen where she’s assembling something to bake. She bakes when she’s anxious or stressed. I came home once after she’d gone in for a job interview to find three pies, a peach cobbler, and two dozen cookies. At least she’s good at it.
“Mom?” I stop in the adjoined dining room, keeping the kitchen table between us.
Her back is to me and I see the stiffening of her shoulders. She slides a hand back through her messy curls before turning to face me. “What?”
I’m having a hard time even looking at her face. She slapped me the last time I saw her. My mother has never, ever believed in that sort of thing; she never spanked me growing up, never even laid a hand on me aggressively. “I d-didn’t do it, you know. I promise I didn’t.”
Mom leans back against the counter and rolls her eyes to the ceiling.
“Why won’t you b-believe me?”
“I don’t know what to believe right now, Victor,” Mom says tiredly.
“Okay.” This is not the answer I wanted. My emotions are warring for dominance: confusion versus anger versus hurt. “I’m gonna s-stay with Brett until you figure it out.”
Mom doesn’t argue. No protests, no questions, no nothing. As usual. She only nods once and turns away, back to her baking, letting out a suffering sigh. I’m not a violent person, but I have the strongest urge to flip a chair just to disrupt the stagnant tension in the room. As frustrating as Mom can be, she’s never acted like this before, and I’m at a loss for what to say, what to do. Normally, I would know how to appease her annoyance or her anger. This time…
All I can think is this: if my own mother doesn’t believe me, what hope do I have that the police—and Callie—will?
Chapter Four
When I turned sixteen, my desperation to get out of the house and do something on my own led me to Rick’s Convenience Store and gas station two blocks from home, where I asked for a job and got one. To this day I don’t know why I was hired on. Me, who can hardly get out a sentence to strangers without stuttering…
But Rick’s Convenience Store—which isn’t even owned by any Rick, but rather by a guy named Amjad—has been my place of employment for more than a year now. Amjad moved to the States after his wife passed away, and he didn’t have enough to pay someone full time, so…here I am. Minimum wage and all the slushies I can drink. Too bad I don’t even like slushies, but Brett has taken advantage of the offer.
It’s a much longer trip from Brett’s place to work, but in the year I’ve been here, I’ve called in only twice. Both times when I was extremely sick and Brett insisted. Amjad is kind in all the ways most bosses wouldn’t usually be, and I’ve never wanted to let him down.
He takes one look at my face when I come into work at the end of the week, and instantly he knows something is off. “What is wrong with you?”
“Long week,” I say, but I try to give him a smile so he doesn’t ask questions. He leaves me alone while I pry open boxes and stock the fridge shelves with soda and energy drinks. Given the rising heat outside and the lack of real air-conditioning in the store, being back by the fridges is welcome. Every time I slide open a door, the chilled air glides across my face and down the front of my shirt.
I’ve always liked hiding back here. The supply room is dark and cooler than the front of the store. From behind the fridge units, I can see through the cans and bottles into the shop aisles. Now and again, I catch glimpses of Amjad playing his sudoku games at the counter.
But mainly, I like when people come into the store. I like watching them. It’s not like being stuck at a party where people can see me lingering alone in a corner with a drink I won’t touch. Here, they won’t notice me at all. Sometimes it’s fun to watch people when they don’t realize they’re being watched. I don’t do it long enough to be considered creepy or anything—just for a few seconds at a time. It isn’t uncommon to see kids from school, either. Truthfully, I probably learn more about them and their families here than I do from sharing classes with them.
I’ve learned bad-boy Tommy has a girlfriend from an all-girls Catholic school who calls him “teddy bear” and he goes to church with her every Sunday, after which they stop by the store to share a cherry slushie. I’ve learned Aaron Biggs and his brother live not just with their mom but also their grandmother, who is hard of hearing and always insists on coming inside with them to pay for their gas. Patrick Maloney, Aaron’s best friend, has come in a few times, always with different girls hanging on his arm. Chris Christopher started coming in the day he turned eighteen and could legally buy cigarettes. Just like he did at the party, he always smells like pot.
People are different outside of school. But if they saw me, they would try to keep up appearances. Makes things awkward.
A couple of people come and go while I’m in back during the afternoon rush, when everyone is stopping to get gas on their way home from work. By the time I’m done stocking, things have slowed down and I feel safe emerging again to put product on the shelves.
Amjad eventually asks, “Is it a girl?”
I nearly drop a box of Lay’s snack-sized chip bags all over my feet. “W-what?”
“Bothering you.” He peers at me from behind the counter, pointing in my direction with his pen. He always insists real sudoku players use pens. “Some girl break your heart?”
A wry smile twists at my mouth. “No.” Not exactly, but I don’t want to explain the truth to him.
He huffs. “Girls! They’re headaches. But wonderful. Whatever you did wrong, you go apologize. Make it right.”
“It’s n-not a girl,” I say with amusement.
“Then what is it?”
Deep breath. I stick a few bags of Doritos in their designated place. “Have you ever…been accused of s-something you didn’t do?”
Amjad opens his mouth to speak, pausing when the door chimes. He holds up a finger as though to say hold that thought while the boy who just entered goes immediately to the back of the store. I duck my head and focus on getting the chips put away. He walks past me with two six-packs in hand, which he places on the counter, and offers Amjad a twenty. Amjad looks at it, at the beer, then at him.
“ID, please?”
The blond guy grins, spreading his hands. He can’t be any older than me. “C’mon, man. I left it at home.”
Amjad smiles back at him. He taps the placard on the counter that states that ID is required for anyone who looks under forty. The guy’s bright demeanor fades quickly, darkening to a scowl. He crams the twenty into his pocket and walks out, muttering about terrorists as the door swings shut.
Terrorist: a person who uses terrorism in the pursuit of political aims. That is, something Amjad definitely is not. The word makes my spine stiffen. It isn’t the first time someone’s thrown that insult around in this store, and Amjad always shrugs it off.
This time, though, he looks to me with his eyebrows raised. “I believe the answer to your question… Does that count?”
“It c-cou
nts,” I agree solemnly. “How do you not let it bother you?”
He shrugs and picks up the two six-packs. “I pity them.”
“What? Why?”
“Ignorance is a great weakness. To not try to learn truths and allow judgmental stereotypes cloud your mind…” He opens the fridge, places the beer back in, and lets it swing shut while turning to me. “Why would you not pity someone so foolish?”
Never thought of it that way. But then again, does that advice really apply to me? I’m being accused of rape, something any guy at the party could have done. Not being a terrorist while I work at my small business that I built practically from the ground up all by myself.
On his way back up front, Amjad pats me on the back. “Whatever bothers you, Victor, let it roll off the shoulders. You’re a good boy. No worries.”
I smile at him while wondering why my own mother doesn’t agree.
Chapter Five
The whispers about what happened to Callie have started.
I hear them only because I’ve been listening for them, and because Aaron stops by our table at lunch to lean over and talk about it with Brett as though I’m not there.
“Did you hear about Callie?”
Brett hesitates, glancing at me while I pick apart my bologna sandwich. “Yeah, I heard.”
“The cops came to my house. My brother’s in such deep shit for throwing that party and letting in underage drinkers.”
I feel a frown pulling at my face. With what happened to Callie, being caught drinking at a dumb party would be the least of my concerns.
Brett scoots over, nudging me in the process, to make room for Aaron to sit beside him. “What did the police say? Like, do they have any leads or anything?”
Aaron sits with enough force to make the cafeteria bench rattle. “Yeah, but they wouldn’t tell me who. It was a group of drunk people… Had to be from the college, though; none of the friends I invited would do something like that. Though, honestly, it isn’t that big a surprise something like this happened.”
“Not cool,” Brett warns. Aaron holds up his hands.
“Just calling it like I see it, man.” He leans forward to peer around Brett. “What about you, Vicky? They come to question you, too?”
An eerie, icy-veined stillness takes me over. I don’t look at him. He said he didn’t know who was under suspicion, but does he really? “Th-they came to talk to me,” I mutter. “I d-didn’t see anything.” I think it’s only a matter of time before word gets out that I’m the one suspected. I’m surprised Autumn hasn’t told everyone yet.
From the corner of my eye, I see Aaron watching me with a look so intense it makes me want to slide under the table. “Well,” he says, “it’s pretty bizarre. If I find out who did it, I’m gonna cave his skull in.”
Aaron then goes off on a tangent with Brett, talking about school and sports, so I tune them out. I scan the cafeteria for Autumn, wondering if she told Callie that I spoke to her. Probably not, and I don’t really blame her. But…maybe I should find her again, just to ask how Callie is doing.
During my office assistant period the next day, I pull up Autumn’s name in the computer to see her schedule.
Autumn Dixon
Semester 2 Class Schedule
Period 01 - Computers II (L. Smith)
Period 02 - German II (T. Ulrich)
Period 03 - American History (M. Schwartz)
Period 04 - Creative Writing (P. Zinfandel)
Mostly electives. She’s a senior, like me, so she’s already gotten her required classes for graduating out of the way. No wonder I’ve never had a class with her. She was probably in Calculus II while I was struggling my way through Pre-Algebra. She’s in German right now in the east wing. I’ll cut out of the office a few minutes early to get over there and wait for the lunch bell to ring; they never complain.
People begin flowing into the halls, but Autumn is easy to spot among the crowd. Her head is down as she’s trying to cram things into her backpack. I take a breath. This could be a bad idea. No, it most definitely is. She isn’t paying any attention to what’s going on around her and will probably walk right past me if I don’t say anything.
“Uh…Autumn?”
“Yeah?” she asks, turning toward me. It doesn’t register whom she’s speaking to until she looks up at my face, then her expression darkens significantly. “What the hell do you want?”
I have no real idea. Looking at her makes my mind draw a blank. “I j-just wanted to ask how Callie was doing.”
She narrows her eyes, yanks her backpack zipper shut with force, and slides the pack over her shoulder. “Wow, that is so none of your business.”
I glance around anxiously, not wanting people to overhear. When I move closer, Autumn tenses like she’s ready to put me on the ground, but she doesn’t pull away. I just want to be able to speak quieter.
“Th-they took DNA, you know.”
“I’m aware.”
“So you’ll find out it wasn’t me.”
She purses her lips, meeting my eyes easily. “We’ll see about that.”
My sigh is an exasperated one. “W-why does it s-sound like you want me to be guilty?”
Autumn doesn’t miss a beat. “Because if it’s not you, we have no other solid leads and Callie will come back to school always wondering who it was and if she’s going to run into him on the street. I don’t want that for her.”
Her words strike a chord. I don’t want that for Callie, either, and I’d never thought of it like that. Is the reason she hasn’t come back to school because I’m here? Autumn mentioned a restraining order. I have no idea how that would work with school. “I’m sorry,” I tell her, and I mean every word of it. “B-but it wasn’t me.”
For the first time, Autumn doesn’t look angry. She just looks…sad. I almost wish I could be guilty if it would bring them some peace of mind.
“There were a ton of p-people at the party,” I point out, wanting to make her feel better. “Th-they don’t have anyone else?”
Autumn hesitates, folding her arms across her chest and looking down at her feet. “I’m not talking about this with you,” is all she says before brushing past me and heading down the hall.
I’ll take that as a no. If Callie pointed me out specifically, then maybe they really have no idea. If there were thirty other guys at that party, where would they begin in picking one out? They’d have to go through every single person and get DNA samples. That’s assuming they can figure out the party list in its entirety.
I meet up with Brett in the cafeteria. He already has his tray of food and I really don’t have an appetite, so I just sit across from him empty-handed. He raises an eyebrow and slides a soda he grabbed for me across the table. “I was starting to think you got lost.”
“T-talking to Autumn,” I mutter, wrapping my long fingers around the can and thumbing away some of the condensation on the outside of it.
Brett shoves a few fries into his mouth, pauses midchew, and frowns. Swallows. “What? Why?”
“Wanted to know how Callie was.”
“I’m sure that went over great. Aaron probably told his friends the police questioned him and his brother, and now everyone knows what happened.”
A headache is threatening to encroach. I pinch the bridge of my nose. “That’s not fair to her.”
Brett frowns. “No offense to Callie Wheeler, but I’m more worried about you. If word gets out you’re, like, their prime suspect, you’re never going to hear the end of it.”
I pluck at the metal tab on the top of the can, every obnoxious twang enunciating Brett’s concern. “Yeah, well. I don’t know what to do about it. Any of it.”
That night, Mr. Mason sits me down in his office to better explain some of the police procedures to me. He’s gotten more information out of the detectives than I could. Then again, he’s the lawyer. Of course they’d tell him more.
“Before we really get into all this,” he says, folding his hands atop his
desk and looking over the top of his glasses, “I need you to be one hundred percent honest with me, Vic. Whatever you say won’t leave this room.”
I feel small in the leather chair in this big office surrounded by degrees on the wall and books whose words are beyond my level of intelligence. “O-okay.”
Mr. Mason asks, “Did you rape Callie?”
He has to ask me this. I know he does. Despite his being a defense attorney, I know him well enough that— “N-no. And y-you wouldn’t be doing this for me if you thought I had.”
A smile crosses his normally serious face. “Touché. Well, let me tell you a few things from the police side of things. First of all, Callie didn’t submit for a rape kit until right at the seventy-two-hour mark, so—”
“W-what does that mean?”
He pauses, slides off his glasses. “Sorry. Basically, a rape kit is collected for minors within seventy-two hours of the rape taking place. I don’t know all the details yet, but I have a feeling they won’t find much in it.”
“Why?”
“She didn’t report anything right away. One of her friends had to convince her to tell her parents, who then reported it to the police.”
One of her friends… Does he mean Autumn?
He continues. “Added to the fact that they were trying so hard to get a confession out of you, it sounds to me like Callie probably washed away most of the evidence, or the attacker was likely wearing a condom, so the rape kit isn’t going to give them much.”
“Then what’s the point of doing one?”
“Procedure.” Mr. Mason shrugs. “Perhaps the off chance some evidence was spared. Without it, it’s just your word against hers, and then it comes down to a matter of which of you can make yourselves more credible to a jury.”
I close my eyes and remember what Autumn said. If my name is cleared, they have no idea who to look for next. I’m the only one she could pinpoint. How would that make her feel, when they don’t find anything physical linking me to this and the only evidence is Callie’s word?
At the same time, my insides twist at the idea of her actual rapist being out there somewhere, wandering the halls of one of the local colleges or even our school itself. Patrick, James, Devon, Eli…all the faces I can recall seeing at the party. I could have walked right by Callie’s attacker and not known it.
