by Toby Neal
I shut my eyes so I won’t be embarrassed by how he yells, “What the hell?” and shoves past the guy who brought me home and scoops me up like I weigh nothing, carrying me into the house.
Ruby is in a tizzy. I hear her invite the stranger in, and I just shut my eyes and cling to my brother’s neck, because that’s the way I think of him.
Rafe, the big brother I never had, who takes care of me like a dad.
The waterworks start up again. I’m so embarrassed. He’s carrying me all the way up that stupid staircase, and putting me on my bed.
“Pearl. What happened? Did that guy hurt you?”
I can tell he’s getting ready to go kick my rescuer’s ass.
“No, he saved me,” I hiccup, hating how weak I’m being. “I got mugged.”
“She needs first aid,” Ruby says from the doorway. “I’ve already called the cops. This is Brandon. He chased off her attacker and brought her all the way home.”
I open my puffy eyes enough to see Brandon in the doorway. He has short blond hair and brown eyes, and is wearing one of those preppy sweater vests with the argyle pattern on it over a long-sleeved shirt, but he’d had some sort of wool coat on, I could swear. He probably had to take it off because I got so much snot and tears on it, but I remember how it felt against my cheek.
“Brandon. Thanks so much,” I say. “I don’t know what would have happened if. . .” I can’t even complete the thought without my eyes welling up again.
“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “Just relax. You’re safe now.” He speaks to me as if we’re all alone, his voice pitched to that vibration that worked so well to have me feeling utterly safe, safe enough to unlock all the grief I’ve been carrying for months.
I shut my eyes and their voices fade until sirens wake me up. I’m getting checked out by the emergency personnel, and the cops are here too, and they take my statement and Brandon’s statement, and I even get naked with the EMT checking out all my bruises and a lady cop photographs them and asks matter-of-factly if I was raped.
“Not recently,” I say, which isn’t what I meant to say. Eventually they all leave and I get into the hot bath I’ve begged for, and Ruby comes in with me, sitting on top of the toilet seat.
I’m sunk deep in fragrant bubbles, my eyes at half mast, the pain medication they gave me beginning to work when Ruby says, “What do you mean, not recently?”
“I didn’t get raped tonight,” I say sleepily. “Because Brandon saved me.”
“But you were raped before.”
I have only half a brain cell working by then, but I remember I’m not supposed to tell and I shut my eyes, shut my mouth.
“Pearl. Please. Help me understand what’s been happening with you. Tell me.” Ruby’s voice is so soft, and trembling with her own tears. “I know something is wrong, something more than Dad’s death. You never used to be like this.”
“Like what?” I feel that old defensiveness rear up to push her away from getting too close to my pain.
“Like this. Angry. Self-destructive. You aren’t the Pearl I know, that I grew up with. Did something happen at that party at the Carvers’? Mom thinks it did.”
“People change.” I slide all the way down into the bubbles and under the water to shut her out, and when I finally have to come up for air, she’s gone.
The next day I’m hurting. Like, really hurting. I can’t even get out of bed. Ruby’s worried and calls a doctor that makes house calls, and I get checked out again.
“Bruising and muscle contusions,” the doc says. “She’ll be all right in a few days. And probably won’t run off alone at night to the park, right?” He’s a cherubic-looking old guy with a potbelly and pink cheeks, and I hate the way he implies this is my fault, what happened.
I get more painkillers and I’m shocked when Rafe comes to my door, his long hair in a ponytail, dressed to go out in jeans and a sweater. “Get up, Pearl. You’ve got half an hour to get ready for your meeting.”
“What? I can hardly walk!”
“Get up off your ass and get dressed. I’m taking you, in whatever you’re wearing, in twenty minutes.” He leaves.
All my loving older-brother feelings go flying out the window as I curse a blue streak and haul my sore body out of bed and dress in my usual all-black. My hair is a disaster, a waist-length welter of matted curls that I went to sleep on soaking wet. The mugger didn’t get my face, but that’s about the only part of me that didn’t get bruised.
Well, at least I’m going to have some “experience” to share at the meeting today, I think resentfully.
Rafe drives me to the door of the church hall where they hold the meetings.
“Do I need to walk you in?” His dark blue eyes are still angry, and I’m realizing he’s not someone I want to piss off. “Because if you need help, I’ll walk you in. And if you’re thinking of leaving, I’ll sit with you on my lap and make sure you stay in there.”
“I don’t need these stupid meetings,” I say, for the hundredth time. “I am not an addict. I was just playing around.”
He just stares at me, a muscle jumping in his jaw, and I decide to make the best of it. “Whatever. You’re a jerk. I don’t know what my sister sees in you.”
I open my door and get out, slamming it hard, and limp into the building on my own steam.
The meeting’s just getting started, and I sit next to the leader. “I’m sorry, I forgot to have you sign this,” I say, giving her the signature paper from yesterday.
She looks at me, can tell something’s wrong because my eyes are swollen to slits from crying and my snarled hair is a mess.
“Are you okay?” She signs the paper, for yesterday and for today, too.
“No. I was mugged last night,” I say, and my eyes well up.
That’s how I end up being the first one to share.
“Hi. I’m Pearl. And I don’t want to be here today because every muscle in my body is screaming in pain right now. I was mugged last night, and if you want the truth, it happened because I ran away from the house and went to the park looking for trouble. Looking to score. I was mad at my sister when I left the house, but I didn’t realize what I was really going to the park for until just this minute, as I’m telling you.”
I can’t believe how good it feels to tell the truth for once, to a whole group of people who have been there. I tell about the mugging, and I even unzip my jacket (because my beloved hoodie is in the wash) and show the bruises on my midsection and back.
“He kicked me and kicked me. He was mad I fought back and that I didn’t have anything to steal. He was probably looking to score, too.”
And I sob and cry on the leader’s shoulder right in front of Hot Motorcycle Guy who’s across the circle from me again. He’s listened to my whole story, stone-faced.
But I don’t care if he looks at me or listens to me or even notices me. For once, I don’t care what anyone thinks. Screw him, anyway, and all the guys in the world who only want one thing from me.
I get tons of hugs, and the whole meeting turns to stories of getting assaulted for drugs or assaulting others for drugs, and by the time we end and all hold hands and say the Lord’s Prayer, I actually feel peace coming to me through the familiar words. I know I’m a part of this group, for better or worse. I’m in the right place.
Chapter 3
“How was the meeting?” Rafe asks. He’s pulled up at the curb and pushed open the door of his Mercedes for me. I get in.
“Fine.” I’m not ready to admit he was right about making me go to the meeting.
We drive back to the house in silence, but finally, when he’s pulling into the garage, I ask, “Are you mad at me? Because you seem mad.”
I don’t like how my voice comes out small, like a little kid’s, but I realize I don’t want him mad at me. I need him and Ruby.
A lot.
He sighs, turns off the car. We sit in the dim garage and he clenches and unclenches his hands on the wheel.
“I’m mad that you ran out of the house and put yourself in danger,” Rafe finally says. “And I’m mad someone assaulted you. I need to tell you straight, Pearl. If you can’t take your program seriously, going to school seriously—if you’re going to freak Ruby out all the time and be out of control—we’re going to have to send you back to your mom.”
The tears well up from that deep place that, once it got started, I can’t seem to shut off. “I’m sorry, Rafe. I get it. I’ll be good. I want to stay.”
He looks at me with those dark blue eyes that I can see melt my sister but only make me nervous. He sees too much. “I mean it,” I say. “I’ll take it seriously.”
“Good. Then you won’t mind that we have a counseling appointment for you this afternoon. A woman who specializes in trauma.”
I swallow my curses and anger. This shrink can have a crack at me, no problem. She won’t get anywhere. “Sure.”
He grins. “Was that a “sure” I heard? Now I think I’m the one that’s high.”
I sock him in the arm as he laughs, and we’re back to normal.
It’s Sunday, thank God, so I have another day to get ready for school. After another Percocet and a nap, I face my closet and think about school Monday. I haven’t been applying myself at school or trying to get friends, and that needs to change.
All the usual reasons. The girls don’t like me because I’m too pretty, the guys like me to hit on, but they’re all just pimply babies in my opinion. The truth is, I’ve just been skulking in and out and doing the minimum. But after my talk with Rafe today, I know I have to turn that around.
Like it’s easy, transferring to a big Boston high school halfway through senior year from a place like St. Thomas. But I haven’t really given it a chance, I know, and there’s got to be some halfway measure between my all-black stealth clothes and wearing shiny boat shoes with pennies in them like some prep-school dork.
I pick out a different outfit than usual for Monday. Jeans, the soft caramel-colored half-boots Ruby gave me, and a blue sweater with a snowflake pattern around the neck that I’ve never worn. I’ll probably look ridiculous in it, like a Barbie milkmaid, but if I wear this to the therapy appointment it will help me fend off the shrink.
I put on the outfit and spend another half-hour brushing my hair and finally get all the tangles out. I put on a little mascara and lip gloss, and look in the mirror. I look like the Swiss Miss chocolate girl, sweet as sugar and twice as pure.
I want to vomit. If they only knew.
Someone knocks on my door and I yank it open before I remember I was going to be good and nice.
“What?”
It’s Mrs. Knightly the housekeeper, and her sweet face crumples at my tone. “Miss Pearl. There’s a gentleman to see you downstairs.”
I frown. “Who?”
“He says you met last night. His name is Brandon Forbes.”
Brandon. My rescuer. I dread seeing him by the cold hard light of day, but I owe him thanks at least, and I’m curious about him. I have a sense that he’s older than me, but not that much. “I’m sorry I was snappy, Mrs. Knightly. I appreciate you coming all the way up here to tell me.”
She perks up. We’ve had a bond since the first day I arrived. She’s lovely to me, brings me little things she finds at the flea market she thinks I’d like, and I do the same for her.
“It’s okay, honey. I can’t believe what happened to you.”
“Yeah, it sucks. But I’m feeling better. Now I guess I better get down there and thank the guy who rescued me.”
“Oh, then I want to thank him, too.”
Mrs. Knightly follows me down the long curving stairs to the yellow parlor, where Brandon’s sitting on the silk couch talking to Rafe. Brandon stands up. He’s better-looking than I realized last night. His eyes widen at the sight of me, and I surprise both of us by running across the room to hug him.
“Thank you so much,” I say into the soft wool of his preppy-looking sweater.
“Thank you, Mr. Forbes,” Mrs. Knightly says behind me. “You did a good thing, helping our Pearl.”
His arms come around me and he pats me with that little baby-burping pat. “You’re welcome. I’m glad I could help.” His voice is a low comforting rumble that makes me feel good, just like it did last night, and I can feel him stroke my hair, which is a floating tumble all around us, sticking to his sweater by static electricity as if magnetized.
Rafe clears his throat. I pull away and pat Brandon’s shoulder and smile up at him. “Really. Thank you.”
“So nice of you to come by and check on Pearl, but she needs to get ready for an appointment with a trauma counselor,” Rafe says, as we gaze at each other.
I thought Brandon had brown eyes, but it turns out they’re hazel with specks of green and gold, and he has a very nice mouth that I wouldn’t mind getting a taste of. I can see he’s similarly taking inventory and he says, ignoring Rafe, “I’d like to take you for a walk in the park sometime. Not at night. Revisit the scene of the crime. I think it would be good for both of us.”
“I’d like that,” I say. My hair is still stuck to his sweater, the long blond strands reaching out like quivering antennae to attach to him.
“How about tomorrow?”
“After school. Two-thirty?” I ask.
“I’ll pick you up.”
And I hug him again, because I just have to, and he pats me, and I can feel Rafe glaring at Brandon and he growls about the time, and finally Brandon lets me go and we say goodbye. Suddenly life is looking a whole lot better to me than it did before, in spite of having to go to therapy.
Chapter 4
Dr. Rosenfeld is a sparrow-like woman with salt-and-pepper hair and no makeup. She wears one of those awful natural-fiber dresses over a turtleneck and socks under her Birkenstocks. I keep my face neutral and shake her hand as briefly as I can get away with, looking around.
Dr. Rosenfeld’s office is decorated all earthy-crunchy, with avocado-green walls, a big bison skull on the wall dangling a dreamcatcher, and some really messed-up art on the walls featuring more skulls, flowers, and dripping blood. A client probably gave it to her. Her office is in a fancy building downtown on the 20th floor; Rafe brought me since Ruby’s working on some business contract for McCallum Enterprises.
I wish I had some idea what to do with my life when high school ends, which isn’t that far away. Maybe I can use this time with the counselor to talk about that, which is something I really need help with.
I sit in the middle of the tweedy couch so I have a lot of room around me. Dr. Rosenfeld goes and sits in an office-type chair across from me. There’s a coffee table with a big tablet of paper and a set of pens.
“So. Your brother-in-law says you were attacked in the park last night.”
“I was mugged. Yeah.”
“But someone rescued you.”
“Brandon Forbes. Thank God.”
“So, tell me what happened.”
I really look at her for the first time. She has a plain face, unapologetically lined, and deep brown eyes. Silver-and-black hair hangs in a neat helmet shape, like she put it on this morning.
“How is that going to help me?”
“Trauma can grow and magnify when it’s locked up inside. Every time you tell your story, it’s like letting light and air over a wound. It helps it heal.”
This makes sense to me because I already feel so much better after talking about the attack at the twelve-step meeting. I relax a little bit against the couch. I might as well get my brother-in-law’s money’s worth, at least about the mugging.
“I was mad at my sister and decided to go for a walk, get some air.” I tell how the mugging happened, and finish with, “and then, when Brandon held me in his arms and I knew I was safe, I just cried so hard. And I haven’t cried hardly at all, since Dad died.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“I…” I choke on all the secrets I’m carrying. “I don’t know. I think I
was just letting it all out.”
“Letting all what out?” Her eyes are sharp, but kind. Still, I’m not ready. I don’t trust her. In general, but specifically not to run and tell Rafe and Ruby even though I signed confidentiality paperwork.
“I don’t want to talk about it. I want to talk about what to do after high school. I’m graduating this year.”
“Ah.” She sits back, as if she knows exactly what’s going through my mind. “We can certainly do that, but I want you to know that everything you say in these sessions is protected, totally confidential. Except if you are planning to hurt yourself or someone else, which I’d have to break your confidentiality to prevent. My job is to help you heal, and to do that you need to know your secrets are safe with me.”
“Maybe another day I’ll talk about that,” I say, refusing to take the bait but liking how straightforward she is. “Can we discuss my future?”
“Sure. It should begin with what you like to do.”
“Yeah. That’s the thing. I’m not sure. I thought I’d end up working in the hospitality industry since I grew up on Saint Thomas, but then we had to move.” We talk about that for a while, and how I came to live here in Boston. It’s a colorful story and takes the rest of the time, and I only get to tell her that I like fashion and design before our time is over.
“I’m seeing you again in three days,” Dr. Rosenfeld says. “I’m looking forward to seeing you again, Pearl.” She says it like she means it. She walks me out, and she and Rafe exchange pleasantries, and then we’re on the way home.
“How was it?”
“Fine,” I say. And I won’t tell him he was right to bring me here, too.
Chapter 5
The next day I’m still sore but I’m moving better. I wear the blue sweater and jeans I picked out to school, and it seems to help things go a little better. A couple of girls give me a smile or say hi. I even get waved over to a table at lunch with several girls that I know aren’t cool but aren’t the bottom of the barrel either, and that’s good. I can’t eat much, because my stomach still feels upset and I walk stiffly from the bruises, but I don’t tell anyone what happened. We’re still at the “so how’s the weather” and “what movies do you like” stage. I’m just happy not to get a cold shoulder for once.
