Dark Intentions

by J. A. Owenby

  My head snapped up at the sound of his voice, and although I willed it not to, my chin trembled. I’d sworn a long time ago that Layne would never see me as weak, but there I was—a mess and vulnerable. I shoved Marilyn’s phone into my back pocket, folded my arms over my chest, and leaned wearily against the wall. I didn’t have the strength to lie, not even to Layne.

  “No. I don’t think so. I’m not … I hurt, but I …”

  “I got these for you.” Layne held his hand out, and I greedily snatched the three Advil tablets from it. He produced a small bottle of water next, and I downed the pills. “Michael promised he’d come to get us if there was any news on Benji. Why don’t we sit down on the bench?”

  My body and exhaustion were beginning to turn on me, and I hesitated briefly before I staggered over to the stone seat. I took another drink of water, and the plastic bottle crinkled loudly in my grip. “Why are you being nice to me?”

  “I have a lot to explain, but the important thing is that it wasn’t me, Tensley. I had no idea what happened until the next morning when I saw you. I realize the timing is shit, but it’s been three years, and I might not have another chance to tell you the truth. I need to make this right.” Sincerity flashed in his eyes.

  My anger simmered below the surface while I chewed on his words. Is he for real? “That shit doesn’t fly with me. Chloe never made a move without you.” Thick tension filled the space between us. “I’m too tired to have this conversation, and my only concern is my best friend, Benji. So maybe we can deal with it another time.”

  Layne nodded. “Can I sit next to you?”

  I scooted over without a word. He’d saved Benji and me tonight, so the least I could do was let him sit down. Fear swirled inside me, causing my chest to ache. Benji had to be all right.

  “What did you tell the police?” I asked, not looking at him.

  “From what I saw, two men were beating Benji, and the other guy was attempting to rape you. You put up one hell of a fight, by the way.” He attempted a smile, but apparently the night’s situation was weighing heavily on him as well.

  “I’ve had a lot of practice.”

  6

  Layne’s brows knitted together in confusion.

  “A lot of foster families come with horny, drunk men. Not all of them, but the majority of the ones I was in. They felt as though they were granted access to my bed when the system placed me in their homes.”

  “Jesus. Did you tell anyone?” Layne’s shoulders squared. I’d rattled him.

  I laughed quietly then repositioned my body on the bench so I could look at him. “No one cared. If I reported it, I would have been perceived as the troublemaker. I would have been placed into another home, maybe worse than the one I was in.”

  “That’s not okay, Tensley. That’s never okay.” He shook his head in disgust. “And you had to deal with shit at school too. You probably never felt safe.” Regret danced across his face. “I’m so sorry for everything that happened.”

  I snapped, my temper rolling to a boil like a volcano ready to erupt. “Why would you apologize? I thought you weren’t behind it?”

  “I wasn’t. I had no clue. But the moment I saw you at school that morning, I knew who was responsible.”

  I jumped off the bench and paced back and forth in the small space. “Why didn’t you stop it from happening? And if it weren’t for you, Chloe wouldn’t have found me!” My voice echoed through the area, but I didn’t care. I finally had an audience with Layne, and I wasn’t going to hold back.

  “I know.” Guilt clung to his words. “I did tell her I saw you sneaking out of the janitor’s closet. After you left, I opened the door and saw a sleeping bag and your backpack. I realized you’d been living at the school, and I told Chloe.”

  I squeezed the water bottle, crunching it in my fist. “Okay, fine. I guess we’re having this conversation after all. So let’s do this, Layne. Right fucking now. You say you didn’t have anything to do with it, but you just stated you ratted out the only safe place I had to live. So tell me, goddammit. Stop bullshitting me and tell me the truth.” I marched up to him and bent over until my face was so close to his that our noses nearly touched. Then I straightened and tapped my boot against the cement. “I’m all ears, so spit it out.” I was seething. Could he really not understand that he’d caused the epic show? Chloe had hated me for no other reason than breathing the same air she did. She’d put mean girls to shame, and once she’d had access to me, she took advantage of it. My skin crawled as the memories assaulted me.

  Layne stood and shoved his hands in his front pockets. “Why were you living in the janitor’s closet? And for how long?” His voice was haunted, and I wondered what was behind it.

  “My last foster dad was a disgusting pig. He had crawled into my bed for the last time. I was finished. The school was the only safe place I could think of to hide but not call attention to myself. If I attended classes, there was no reason the teachers would think there was anything wrong. Plus my foster parents would continue to receive a check. They wouldn’t report me missing or they’d risk losing the money. I found the old janitor’s closet our senior year, so I knew I had an option. I showered in the girls’ locker room and robbed the vending machine at night. I was doing well until …” My eyes narrowed, shooting venomous darts at him.

  His shoulders slumped. “I had no idea.”

  “Of course you didn’t. Your life was perfect. You never wondered if you were going to eat that day or if you were able to wear clean clothes. Layne Garrison was the school’s track and swim star. The girls loved you, and the teachers and parents thought you could do no wrong. You even dated the most popular girl in school. Why would it have even crossed your mind that another human being was going through hell?” I whirled on my heel and rubbed my temples, my pulse kicking into overdrive. Placing my hands on my hips, I faced him again. “Do you want to know what your girlfriend and her cronies did to me? What you instigated when you gave away my hiding place?”

  Layne’s jaw tensed, but he showed some guts and nodded.

  “We were only days away from graduation, and I stupidly thought I was going to make it without any major issues. The first thing that I had planned … I was going to change my name and leave Arkansas. All I wanted was to fit in and be accepted, and the only way I knew how to do it was to start over. Cut my past off like a cancerous skin growth.”

  “That’s why you came to Washington?”

  “Yeah, and I gave myself a different name. No one knows me by Victoria. When I left Little Rock, I left her behind.” I took another drink of water. My throat was tight at the thought of speaking the horror out loud. “It was after seven that night, and I was headed to the shower in the girls’ locker room. When I rounded the corner, Chloe was waiting for me. She wasn’t surprised to see me, and I immediately knew in my heart you’d betrayed me. Before I could take off in the opposite direction, a foul-smelling cloth covered my nose. I don’t remember anything after that. Only when … I woke up.” I squeezed my eyes closed, unwilling to allow the tears to fall in front of him.

  “When I parked the car that morning and saw you, it horrified me. I’d never witnessed anything like it. And how a human being could do something like that to another …” His jaw clenched. “The teachers were already with you, and I hurried into the school building to find Chloe. When I did, she was with a group of girls, laughing about what they’d done. I grabbed her arm and reamed her right in front of her shitty friends. I told her how disgusted I was, then I broke up with her,” he admitted, shoving his hands in his pockets.

  My brows shot up, and shock traveled through my entire being. “You broke up with her?”

  “Yeah. I couldn’t associate with anyone so coldhearted and ruthless.” He scrubbed his face with his hands and exhaled a heavy breath. “Our relationship was over before she did that to you; I just didn’t want to deal with her dramatics until after graduation.”

  I rubbed my arms, realizing I was
still wearing his jacket. “I didn’t even know the extent of what she’d done until they removed me from the flagpole.” My voice almost sounded foreign to my own ears. Hearing Layne finally speak about what had happened … It was almost as if I were reliving it all over again. But I needed to know the truth.

  Pinching the bridge of my nose in order to hold on to any semblance of sanity, I inhaled slowly, filling my lungs with the fresh evening air. “I woke up hours before anyone found me. I can’t explain to you the terror that consumed me when I was unable to move. My heart was pounding so hard that I thought it would betray me. It would have been a blessing if it had.” My voice shook as I recalled the trauma. “As you saw, my mouth was taped closed, and I was duct-taped to the flagpole that stood at the entrance to our high school. It was then that I realized Chloe hadn’t acted alone. There was no way one girl could have held me up and ran the tape around me.”

  “Tensley.” Layne’s gentle tone did little to calm my nerves. He placed a hand on my shoulder, but I shrugged it off.

  “When the teachers broke me free, I was too weak to stand, but it didn’t escape me that I was completely naked.” A hard, clipped laugh rushed out of me. “I stood naked in front of two male teachers. Thank God they’d cleared out the rest of the students. They covered me with a blanket as the cops showed up. Mrs. Glendale walked me to the locker room, and when I passed the mirror …” I lost the battle, and tears streamed down my face. “They’d chopped off my hair, and all that was left was short, jagged pieces jutting out of my head. Bitch was painted in red across my forehead.” I angrily swiped at the tears that fell. “They stripped me of my clothes, hair, and dignity, Layne. The entire school saw me! I fucking hate you for telling her where I was hiding.” Spittle flew out of my mouth, and I sank to my knees as my sobs wrecked me.

  A strong arm encompassed me as Layne sat next to me on the ground.

  “They got away with it too. A cousin of one of the girls was an attorney, and all they had to do was community service. What the fuck kind of sentence was that?” I continued to cry into my hands, furious with myself for showing my vulnerability to him, but it was the first time I’d spoken about the incident since it happened.

  “I had no idea. Please, you have to believe me. I know you had a tough time at home, but you and I had classes together. Hell, we were study partners in tenth-grade biology. I realize we weren’t friends, but I never wanted you to get hurt. When I mentioned to Chloe that I thought you were living in the janitor’s closet, it wasn’t because I was trying to be mean. I was concerned, and I asked her because I wanted to know if her dad could help you find a better place to live. I was worried.”

  My cries settled down, and I pulled away from him. “What?” That was the opposite of what I’d expected to hear.

  He leaned his head back and stared up at the star-filled sky. “I never meant to cause problems for you. I actually tried to help. No one lives at school, hiding, unless it’s super shitty at home.”

  I sat up, surveying him. He seemed sincere, but there was no way to know if he was lying to me.

  Layne’s arm slipped away, and I leaned against the cement bench, even though my back screamed in protest. Maybe I was more banged up than I thought.

  “I realize you have no reason to forgive me, but I’d like to try to make it up to you. Let me help while Benji is recovering. Give me a chance, Tensley.” His blue eyes pleaded with me, but somewhere deep inside my soul, I had a feeling I wasn’t the only person he was trying to make amends with.

  Unable to answer him right away, I mentally reviewed what had just occurred between us. Had I been blaming him when he hadn’t had anything to do with what had happened? Maybe. Maybe not. Or maybe something had changed him. If I understood anything, it was leaving my past behind and creating something better, or at least new.

  “You’re on probation.” I looked at him, gauging his reaction to my comment, but it didn’t seem to faze him. “Benji is my best friend, Layne. You have no idea how much I love him or what I would do for him. What happened to him tonight was a hate crime, and I hope those motherfuckers go down, but I might need a ride to the hospital some … or someone to talk to about shit. Since you were there and witnessed it—”

  “Anything you need,” he interrupted.

  My pulse did a double take, and my walls crumbled a little while he stared at me. How had everything changed in an evening? With one brutal beating and a near rape, my world as I knew it had turned on its axis.

  “We should go back in and see if there’s any update, not to mention you’re shivering.” Layne stood, then held out his hand to me.

  I placed mine in his and allowed him to help me stand. “I hurt,” I admitted.

  “I know. You put up a hell of a fight tonight. Would you let a doctor look at you?”

  Placing my fingers over the sharp pain in my side, I nodded. Layne continued to hold my hand as he guided me back into the emergency room and directly to the front desk.

  “Excuse me, she needs to be seen. She was in the same attack as Benji Parker,” Layne said, keeping his focus on me.

  “Of course,” the nurse said. “Just fill out this information and have a seat in the waiting area. We will tend to—”

  “Tensley!” Layne scrambled to catch me as I teetered.

  Black dots blurred my vision as I sank to my knees and crumbled to the floor, grabbing Layne’s arm.

  “Hang on. They’re coming,” Layne whispered.

  I moaned as I was lifted onto a gurney.

  Marilyn and Michael appeared next to me, concern flickering across their faces. “Oh, honey. You’re hurt, and I didn’t realize it. It’s going to be okay,” Marilyn assured me as she clasped my hand. “We’re right here with you while they take you for an ultrasound.”

  Bright lights burned my eyes as I was hurried in for an test.

  “We’ll be here waiting,” Michael promised.

  A sudden sharp pain speared my lower right side. I gritted my teeth, bound and determined not to scream. I moved my head and peered behind me to find Marilyn, Michael, and Layne standing at the end of the hall, watching me with worry etched deeply into their expressions.

  I was loopy as hell. A silly smile eased across my face when my wobbly focus landed on Marilyn. “How’s Benji?” I croaked, my throat raw and parched from the anesthesia.

  “Hang on.” Marilyn moved over but continued to hold my hand.

  “How’s my patient feeling? I’m Lily, and I’m here to take care of you tonight.” A young nurse dressed in hot-pink scrubs approached my bed. “Are you nauseous, hon?”

  I started to shake my head, then thought better of it. Surgery had left me woozy.

  She smoothed a loose curl away from her face and smiled. “Do you remember why you’re here?”

  “The doctor said I had appendicitis,” I replied.

  “Yup. It ruptured this evening. I suspect your attack pushed it over the edge.”

  I didn’t respond. Instead, I worked on pushing back the wave of nausea.

  “Uh-oh.” Lily snatched up a little bag and shoved it in my face seconds before I vomited.

  “Shit.” I grabbed my right side as pain erupted. “Shit.”

  “Let me take that for you.” The nurse took the used barf bag and tossed it in the biohazard container.

  I grimaced as my eyes landed on Layne. He stayed? Leaning into the pillow, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “Benji?”

  “He’s out of surgery,” Marilyn said, stepping up to the side of my bed and patting my arm. Her fingers were freezing cold. “Michael is with him in ICU.”

  “ICU?” My forehead creased in confusion. Apparently the anesthesia had hit me harder than I thought.

  “He had internal bleeding and, well, we’re waiting to talk to the doctors. They’re monitoring him closely. The next twenty-four hours are critical.” Tears silently slipped down Marilyn’s cheeks as she spoke.

  “No. No. No.” I tossed the covers off me and
attempted to sit up. “I need to see him.”

  The nurse gently pressed my shoulder, forcing me back in bed. “Nope. No, ma’am. You’re to rest right now.” I was too weak to fight her.

  “I’m going to join Michael now that you’re awake, but Layne offered to stay with you. I’ll send word the second anything changes,” Marilyn promised.

  “What about the men they arrested? Have they been charged?” I asked.

  “They’re investigating what happened, but we don’t know what charges they’ll face yet.” Marilyn’s expression fell. “Apparently they were in the comedy club and saw Benji and Thomas together.”

  “That’s so messed up.” I took a deep breath before I asked the next question. “Are they waiting to see if Benji lives or not?” I snapped my eyes closed, trying to block out the nightmare. I couldn’t lose Benji. Marilyn and Michael couldn’t lose their son due to something as awful as a stupid hate crime. Faggot was such a hateful word, and it shouldn’t be used to describe anyone, especially Benji. He was a beautiful man with a heart and soul that people loved. He was a human being who had as much right to live in this world as anyone else.

  I shook my head, guilt overwhelming me. “I should have told him no when he said he’d park in the alley. It wasn’t far from the parking lot, and I didn’t think it was a big deal. I’m sorry, Marilyn. If I’d only said no.” My shoulders shook with my sobs, and I swore a blue streak while I grabbed my side.

  She sat down gently on the edge of my bed and allowed me to cry. Her own tears flowed freely. “In no way did you make those men hurt you and Benji. This isn’t your fault. It’s not Benji’s either.”

  “He’s going to make it. Dammit, he’s strong and hardheaded. He’ll fly those bastards the finger and get out of his bed tomorrow.” I willed all my energy and strength to Benji. He would need it to recover. My injuries were superficial compared to what he’d already gone through, not to mention what waited for him ahead. I would be walking within a few hours, but Benji might still be in ICU … or worse.