by Young, M. H.
Neither of us said anything for a while. After another minute had passed, I asked Drew: “So how long have you been a police officer.”
He glanced over at me with his bright blue eyes. “Five years total. Just going into my second year as a Detective. I was in the cadets with the LAPD then I went to college.”
“Here?” I asked.
“UCLA,” he said. “Seems like a long time ago now. You know what you want to do when you finish up?”
I could feel my face start to flush. I did know, but I didn’t often share what I wanted to do. It seemed like telling people I wanted to be an astronaut, or a high altitude balloonist.
“I’d like to be a writer.”
He was staring straight ahead through the windshield. When John had asked me the same question on our second date and I’d told him, he’d laughed. That was when I’d known that we might date, but we didn’t have a future. More than looks, or muscles, or a hot body, I needed someone who took me seriously as a person. That included my plans for life.
Drew glanced back at me. “That’s great. What kind of writing? Like journalism, books?” He stopped speaking. “Is that a dumb question?”
“No,” I said, back again to being normal Laura, “No, it’s not a dumb question. I’m not sure yet really. Journalism’s tough these days. Fiction maybe. Short stories. Novels. That sort of thing.” I don’t know what it was about him that made me want to confess my darkest secrets. Maybe the way his eyes penetrated mine and seemed to look right into me.
“Sounds like fun. All I get to write are reports. Speaking of which, what time do you want to do the statement tomorrow?”
I wasn’t sure. If I wanted Kishani to come in with me, that meant I had to tell her tonight, and I was already drained. And I didn’t want to tell Kish before I told my mom. And, if I wasn’t sure how I was going to tell Kish, I was dreading telling mom.
“Could we maybe do it the day after?” I asked.
Drew was quiet. I knew what he was thinking. He was wondering if I was going to back out or had already had a change of heart.
“I just really need a day to...”
To do what? I wasn’t even sure. Get my head cleared? That was going to take longer than a day. A week? A month? Who knew? Maybe it would never clear.
We were getting near to the campus. I felt a flutter of nerves in my stomach. I wasn’t scared of being alone so much as having to face what had happened. Sitting here in the car with Drew, we could talk about stuff, anything. When I switched off the light tonight, it would just be me and what had happened.
“Laura.” Drew’s deep voice snapped me back into the present. “That’s fine. We can do it then. Whatever you feel more comfortable with. That’ll give me some more time to see if I can find a female officer to take the statement.”
“No,” I said, a little too suddenly. “That’s fine. You can do it.” I was starting to blush again. I hoped he hadn’t noticed the rush of blood to my cheeks. “I mean, I already know you, and you know what happened, pretty much. I’d rather not start over with someone new.”
We pulled up outside my dorm building. “Shall we say eleven am?” he said. “Just ask for me at the front desk, and I’ll come get you.”
“Okay.” I made no move to get out.
“You want me to walk you in?” he said.
I did, but I shook my head. These were the little things I was going to have to face on my own if I wanted to get my life back.
I just sat there, not wanting to leave the car or Drew’s comforting, exciting presence. Drew leaned over to brush a loose strand of hair out of my face and I just sort of fell against his shoulder. I didn’t want to cry anymore in front of him. I wanted to regain some of what we’d had on the car ride over just two people chatting about themselves, and liking what they heard. His left arm came around my shoulders as he pulled me into him. I took a deep breath inhaling his masculine scent, feeling the muscles of his chest and arms against my body as he hugged me.
Drew suddenly stiffened, and straightened up and turned away from me. He reached up to the dashboard and picked something up.
I took the hint and opened the passenger door.
“Hey,” said Drew. “This is my card.” He handed me a white business card. It read Det. Andrew Brody, Santa Barbara Police Department. He had already written his cell number at the bottom. “You need anything. Day or night. You just call me okay. This might get rough, but we’re going to get you through it.”
Ten: Drew
Honestly? I drove away thinking that she wasn’t going to go through with it. I wasn’t even sure she was going to show up for the interview. The cop parted of me was aggravated. I wanted Bentley Harper. I wanted to nail this smug, rich, self-satisfied ass to the wall; take four nails and a hammer and literally crucify the guy for what he’d done to how many girls. Nothing was surer than that Laura wasn’t the first victim, and if I didn’t stop him, she wasn’t going to be the last.
As soon as we arrested him, and I perp-walked him into jail (which I was already looking forward to), we would start getting calls. I would bet my badge on it. It was why we always wanted to make arrests for rape and sexual assault public. Asshole civil rights people thought it was because we wanted to start getting payback before the trial, but that wasn’t it. It was our way of drawing out other victims. Other victims helped build a case.
Laura alone on the stand would be less vulnerable if we could add some more young women willing to come forward. It was easy for a slick defense lawyer to make out a solitary witness to be a liar. Trying to convince a jury that two, three, four people telling the same story were all liars was tricky.
But first I needed Laura’s statement. And, as much as I hated myself for thinking like this, I would do what I had to get her to give me it. It’s not an attitude I’m proud of, but I can’t help it. Doing this job changes your attitude to the world.
There was something else though. Something I could barely admit, even to myself. I wanted to see her again.
Eleven: Laura
I stood in the lobby of my dorm building and watched as Drew drove off into the night. It was completely crazy, but I already missed him. Part of me wanted to call him and switch the interview back to tomorrow. I knew I couldn’t. I didn’t want to come off any more flaky than I must have already seemed, and I had things to face.
A door from the stairwell opened, and a guy appeared. I felt my stomach lurch a little, my nerves on edge. Was this what my life was going to be like now? Jumping at every little thing? Not being able to relax, even for a moment?
“There you are,” said Kishani.
She was dressed in pink pajamas, and had her hair pulled back into a ponytail. She wasn’t wearing make up and her eyes were bleary. She looked like she had just got up.
“Wasn’t last night amazing,” she said. “And what about that house? Oh my God. He should get it on Cribs. Guess you have to be famous for that, huh?”
I really wanted her to stop talking. I didn’t want to just blurt out what had happened here in the lobby with people around.
“Hey,” she went on, oblivious (which Kish could be a lot of the time), “What happened to you this morning. When I got up you had gone. John was looking for you. Bentley was asking too. Y’know, I think he has a crush on you.” She pouted. “I was hoping he’d hook up with me, but I guess he doesn’t like Asian chicks.”
Please, please, just be quiet. I knew it wasn’t her fault, that she wasn’t to know. She clearly had no idea what had happened to me. And neither did John from what she’d said. I still wanted her to stop talking, especially about how cool the house was, and how Bentley had a thing for me. It was making me feel sick.
What I wanted to say was, “Let’s go upstairs and talk,” but what came out was, “I had work, remember? I don’t have a rich daddy to pay my bills.”
As soon as I said it, I felt bad. Before I could apologize, Kish took a shot back at me. “Well, you don’t have to be a bitch about
it. I can’t help that my family have money, and yours don’t.”
That was the other side of Kishani. She had a temper, and she could be defensive about not having had to work for what she had. She was right, she couldn’t help it, and she was hardly alone at this school. There were lots of rich kids who didn’t have to worry about loans that you couldn’t get out of, even by dying. They didn’t have to work a job. They didn’t have to count every cent, and worry about having enough money. But life was like that. Good fortune wasn’t their fault, anymore than bad fortune was mine. Some people got the breaks, and others didn’t. It just sucked that I always seemed to be in the last category.
“Kish, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean...”
That was when I burst into tears. My body must have decided that it’d had enough for one day because I almost passed out. I had to lean against the wall from collapsing, huge sobs racking my body. A couple of other students looked at me as they came in.
Kish came over, knelt down next to me, and put her arm around me. “What’s wrong, Laura? Is it work? Did you get fired?”
I couldn’t answer. I was still too busy crying.
“Come on,” said Kish, helping me back to my feet. I swiped at my nose with my sleeve. I was too exhausted to get a tissue from my purse. I felt broken, like someone had come along and scooped out my insides.
Twelve
Kish sat me down on her bed. She offered me a beer that she’d stolen from someone’s ‘not as secret as they thought it was’ stash in the kitchen at the end of the hall. I waved it away. The last thing I wanted was alcohol. She disappeared to go make me some tea and give me a chance to calm down enough that I could actually form a sentence.
She came back a few minutes with a mug of camomile tea, the steam rising from the surface. I took a sip but it was too hot to drink. Kish sat next to me and rubbed my back.
“Laura, what is it? What’s happened? Is it John? Have you guys had a fight?”
She had no idea. That much was clear. This was the most serious I’d ever seen Kishani in all the time I’d known her. I was freaking her out.
Telling her was going to have to be like ripping off a band aid. There was no use doing it slowly. That would only prolong the agony, and make the whole thing harder. I had to rip it off; get it over and done with.
“He raped me.”
Through my tears, I saw the shock on her face. Her mouth open and closed without her being able to form words. Finally, she said, “John?”
I shook my head. “The guy we met. Bentley.”
Thankfully, she didn’t say anything stupid like “Are you sure?”. She just let me speak. No matter what problems we had afterwards, I’ll always be grateful to her for that. At that moment, when I needed her the most, she was there for me. She did all the things a real friend does when something terrible has happened. She listened. She believed. She didn’t judge. I would have lots of people later who wouldn’t do any of those, some because they didn’t want to face the truth, and others. Like attorneys, because they were being paid lots of money to tear me down, and make me look like a liar.
I told her what had happened, or at least what I had been able to piece together. By the time I finished, we were both crying. Kishani was saying “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Laura.”
“It’s not your fault,” I told her through my tears.
“Have you told anyone?” she asked me.
I told her about the day I’d had. About the flashbacks and going to the police, then the Crisis Centre. I mentioned getting a ride home from a Detective, but I didn’t say much more about him. I was still confused about my feelings. Part of me thought that maybe it was perfectly normal for someone to start to have a crush on a Detective who was going to help you through something so traumatic. After all, people had crushes on Doctors and nurses, and college professors all the time. Another part of me was focussed on how gorgeous and strong he was, and how safe he made me feel.
So why couldn’t I confide in Kishani about meeting Drew and the connection I felt between us? I already knew the answer. It was because rape isn’t a crime like other crimes. If I’d had my purse stolen, or been mugged, even beaten up pretty badly, no-one would think anything about it. But because rape involved sex, and we had all sorts of taboos and hang-ups about sex, it seemed weird. Even though Becky had told me more than once that rape was not about sex, it was about power, that wasn’t true for me. It might have been about power in Bentley’s sick, twisted mind, but for me it was the most intimate, personal, and painful way of destroying someone’s trust.
It was all mixed up together somehow. Bentley and what he’d done. Drew and how he’d made me feel. I couldn’t shake the sense that I was expected not to feel anything towards anyone for a while, and especially not so soon.
It was messed up. I was already punishing myself for something that wasn’t my fault.
Once I was all cried out, Kish walked with me down the hall to my room. She offered to stay the night with me, but for the first time since it had happened, I wanted to be alone.
I peed, brushed my teeth, got into the brushed cotton pjs I always wore when I was feeling sick or was super tired. Before I climbed into bed, I dug out the card Drew had left me. It was too late to text him. I fell asleep with it still in my hand.
Thirteen: Drew
I got back in my car, and kept driving. It was only a few minutes after I stopped by the side of the road that I realized where I was.
I lowered the windows. I could the smell the salty sharpness of the surf. Bentley Harper’s beach house lay in darkness across the street. If it was possible, my being here was an even worse idea than turning up at Laura’s dorm.
She was a victim, I kept trying to tell myself. Never mind that I would lose my job over getting involved with her. It was wrong. She had just experienced perhaps the greatest trauma a person can have. I was older, a person she had to be able to be able to trust, and I was breaking that trust. Except
Except that’s not how it felt. We had a connection. It had been there when I’d held her. The way she smelled. The way her hair felt against my face as I had pulled her in towards me. The warmth of her body.
Laura brought something out in me, or rather she amplified it beyond all reason. I had always feel the need to protect those closest to me. That was why I had struggled so hard after my sister had been murdered. It had been why I had decided to become a cop and then a detective, instead of a bunch of better paying careers like law or medicine. Cops put out fires and arrested people, but detectives could take dangerous people off the streets completely.
Headlights flashed in my mirrors. I narrowed my eyes as the car slid past. It was Bentley returning home. I was pretty confident he hadn’t seen me. I waited while he slid the car through the garage doors. The doors slid closed. My hand fell to my service weapon. I got out of my car, and crossed the street.
Further along was a set of wooden stairs that allowed public access to the beach. You wouldn’t have spotted them if you were driving past. You had to know they were there. It was the wealthy beach dwellers way of ensuring that they didn’t have to share with the great unwashed.
I took the steps two at a time. The tide was coming in. A narrow strip of sand was illuminated by a silver rind of moon. I took off my shoes and socks and set them on the steps, then walked along the beach until I was directly underneath Bentley’s place.
As I stood there, staring up at the house, I tried to let myself believe that I was here to check entry points in case we raided the place. There was a single staircase that led up from the beach to the house.
Deep down though, I knew I was kidding myself. I had been drawn here by something dark and primal; a need to protect; a need to avenge. I wanted to hurt Bentley because he had hurt Laura.
I felt a wave splash around my feet. It snapped me out of whatever murderous state of mind I in. I was already fantasizing about walking up the steps and into the house, pulling my gun and killing Bentley Harper. I
could see myself do it. I could see the gun floating in front of me. I could visualize him begging for his life, and then the blood spattering all over the bright white walls as I paid him back for hurting her.
As I glanced up, I saw him come to the window. He was stripped down to board shorts. He had a crystal tumbler of Scotch on the rocks in his hand. He was staring out over the ocean, the master of all he surveyed.
Enjoy it while you can asshole, I thought.
I turned and walked back down the beach. That was when I looked back up at the house and saw that Bentley wasn’t alone. Someone was standing next to him and I recognized them. The hair at the back of my neck stood on end as my hand fell back to the butt of my gun.
Fourteen: Laura
I’d spent that first night in fitful sleep, not knowing if I was dreaming or remembering the events of the previous night. The next day I had no classes and called in sick to work. The way I’d left the night before, it wasn’t hard to convince them. No one wants sick wait staff near their food. I had yet to call my mother and spent a lot of the day thinking about if I should tell her, and what I would say. I picked up my phone about twenty times, but couldn’t bring myself to call.
Then, there were all the times I picked up my phone and Drew’s card. I desperately wanted to hear his voice, and was kicking myself that I had put off the interview to the next day. I lay in bed, looking at his cell number that he’d written on the face of the card, but what would I say if I called him? That I couldn’t stop thinking about the way his jaw had felt on my temple, or the way he smelled of soap and citrus?
I went to sleep early, having kept my comfort-pjs on all day. Kish stopped by to see if I wanted to eat, but I couldn’t be bothered.
I woke to a knock at my door. I picked up my cell phone to check the time. It was just after nine. I’d have to get moving if I was going to be in time to do the interview with Drew.
