by Young, M. H.
My cell phone rang. John’s name flashed up. I could tell Drew was wondering if I was going to answer it but he didn’t say anything. I let it go to voicemail.
Drew must have seen the name on my screen because he said, “We’re going to have to speak to him. And your friend, Kishani.” He shrugged an apology with his swimmer’s shoulders. “It’s procedure in a case like this. We have to make sure their testimony lines up with your statement.”
Now I really was mad. “What?” I snapped, my face flushing bright red. “You don’t believe me?” My heartbeat skyrocketed, and this time it had nothing to do with his piercing blue eyes.
Drew made a turn onto campus. He pulled the car over to the side of the road. He put it into park, and turned to me. “Nothing’s changed. pretext calls maybe only work out half the time. If that. They’re a way of settling things quickly. If we can get the guy to admit to it, and present him the evidence then he usually takes a plea. It saves the...,” he stopped. “It would save you having to go to court and take the stand. I’m sorry, Laura, I truly am. He’s obviously not as dumb as he looks. Guys like him are usually pretty cunning.”
“So what does that make me?”
Drew blew air out of his mouth. “It makes you someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s all.”
I decided to change the subject. We weren’t going to get anywhere. I knew that logically he was right. It was worth a shot. I already had an idea what taking the stand would mean; being called a liar; having every single word I’d said picked over; being told that I had somehow led him on, that I was a slut, that I had somehow deserved it.
“When are you going to speak to John and Kish?” I asked.
“Soon. Tomorrow probably.”
I stared straight ahead. “I’d better tell John then.”
I opened the car door.
“Hey, where are you going?” Drew shouted after me.
“I can walk from here.”
Feeling angry, and ashamed, and stupid, I kept walking. A campus security car drove past, a campus police officer with salt and pepper hair staring at me. He pulled up next to Drew’s car and stopped. I could hear Drew talking to him.
I didn’t stop. I was hungry, and tired. All I’d done was sit in a room talking, and then made a call but I felt like I’d just finished running a marathon.
I could see my dorm building up ahead. When I looked back Drew was gone. The campus police car was parked, the nose facing me, the cop no doubt, at Drew’s request, making sure I got back safely.
It was all too late, I thought.
Nineteen: Drew
I slammed my hands against the wheel of my car. I wasn’t angry at Laura, I was pissed at myself. I should never have asked her to make that call. There was no way an operator like Bentley was going to fall for something so lame. Guys did, but they were usually husbands or boyfriends, men who felt so confident in the control they exerted over their victim that, who were so arrogant, that they would never even suspect that we knew what they’d done.
Bentley was different. I was almost certain that what he’d done to Laura hadn’t been a one-off, an isolated incident. It had been way too calculated. I had met a few people like Bentley before, and to them something like this was a game.
If he hadn’t been sure the call was being recorded, there was no way he was going to implicate himself so easily. He was going to make us get him the hard way. And now even that was doubtful. I wasn’t sure Laura was up to going through with all of this, and even if she was I couldn’t count on the DA prosecuting. A lot of DAs liked cases they knew they could win, and this was far from one of those.
And yet if we didn’t do something, he would do it again. Maybe not this week, or next, or next month even, but at some point his sick craving would get the better of him.
I was already paying the price for getting too close to Laura. I could already sense how I felt about her beginning to cloud my feelings.
A cop would have tried to guilt into her moving ahead, used the ‘next victim’ line for all it was worth. But driving her home, I just didn’t have it in me. How could I live with myself if I kept shattering this beautiful, delicate creature over and over again?
I slammed my palms against the wheel again, so hard that I felt the sting. I turned around and started back towards the campus. The craziness was deep in me now. It had taken hold. I wanted Laura to know that I wasn’t going to let anything happen to her.
As I pulled into a parking slot out front of her dorm building, I caught a look at my face in the rearview mirror.
What the hell was I thinking? I knew that I shouldn’t even be here. I switched off the engine, killed the lights and sat there in the fading light, waiting for darkness.
Twenty: Laura
I knocked on Kish’s door. There was no reply. She must have gone out. I walked down the corridor to my room. I lay down on the bed, and closed my eyes. My cell phone rang next to me.
It was work. I answered, and told them that I was still feeling sick. The manager was sympathetic but a little snippy, mainly because I hadn’t been in touch for almost a week. I apologized (again), and said I’d call in the morning to let them know when I’d be back.
I held the phone in my had and scrolled through the names. Mom. Kish. John. Drew. I couldn’t face having to disappoint anyone else today. John would have his ego hurt, but I was really worried about telling Mom. It would confirm all her worst fears about my moving away for college. I knew how much she worried about me, how much she missed me.
There was a soft tap at the door. Gone were the days of Kishani practically busting it down, while joking about being a serial killer.
I got up, and opened it. Drew stood in the hallway, his thumbs dug into his pockets.
He didn’t say anything, he just looked at me with those laser like blue eyes. He reached out and took my hand. He pulled in to him, wrapping his muscular arms around me. I snuggled into his chest.
This was what I had needed. Not words. They weren’t enough. I needed to be held.
I could have stayed like that forever, but he broke away. I wanted to wrap my arms around him again and never let go. He reached up and swiped away a tear with his thumb.
For the first time I was aware that we were out in the corridor. That at any moment someone could see us. But I didn’t care.
“I wanted to make sure you were safe,” Drew said. “That’s all.”
He was lying. We both knew it.
“Stay,” I said.
He shook his head and looked down at the floor. “I can’t.”
Twenty-One
I sat on the edge of my bed. I was even more confused than ever. I couldn’t get involved with Drew. I knew I couldn’t. It was crazy to think otherwise. But I wanted him so much. And not just because I felt safe with him. I had never been so attracted to someone before. I loved everything about him from those eyes that seemed to look deep inside me to the way he carried himself, with complete confidence and self assurance.
If only I hadn’t met him like this. But then if it hadn’t have been for what had happened, where would I have met him? We might have lived in the same town, but that was about as much as we had in common.
My cell phone rang again. It was John again. This time I answered. Being with Drew, properly being with him, even if only for a few moments had given me some kind of strength I’d lost. The only way through this nightmare was to be one step at a time. And the first step for me was confronting what had happened.
“You finally picked up,” said John. “I’ve been trying to talk to you for days.”
“I know,” I told him. I had to stop myself apologizing. “Listen, there’s something I have to tell you. That night when we crashed at that guy’s place....something happened.”
John’s voice was tentative. “What do you mean? You’re starting to freak me out here, Laura.”
“He put something in my drink.”
It was the John came out with the si
ngle worst thing he could have said to me. If it hadn’t been over between us before, I knew as soon as the words were out of his mouth that we were done.
“Are you sure?” he asked me.
“Yes, I’m sure,” I said. I could feel my throat start to tighten. I dug my nails into the palms of my hand to stop myself from crying. I was not going to break down. I refused. I swallowed away the fear of what I was going to tell him.
“He raped me,” I said.
There was silence on the other end of the line.
“And don’t dare ask me if I’m sure, okay?” I warned him.
“Oh my God...Laura...I....I,” he stuttered.
“The police are going to want to talk to you.”
“Uh, okay,” he said. “Listen. I’m sorry about asking you if you were, y’know...”
I wanted to accept his apology, but I was still angry. The damage had been done. We had never really felt like a couple, and if I was going to be with someone then I wanted it to be a man rather than a boy. I needed someone who would be there for me when things got rough, and right now was about as rough as my life had been.
“I just wanted to let you know,” I told John.
“I’m sorry, Laura. I really am.”
“Me too,” I said, ending the call.
I was almost falling asleep when I Kish knocked at the door. “Hey, Laura, you awake?” she whispered.
I threw back the sheet and padded to the door.
“Sorry, didn’t know you were in bed,” she said, wearing that same sympathetic look she had before.
It didn’t bug me as much as it had done. After all, if our situation had been reversed, I would probably been the same. If you knew that one of your best friends had been hurt like that you were hardly going to be cracking jokes.
“Come on in,” I told her.
She squeezed through the door, and gave me a hug. “How’d it go?”
We sat together on my bed. I told her about the interview. I didn’t tell her about Drew showing up afterwards, and the moment we’d had. I wasn’t ready to tell anyone. It still felt shameful to me, like somehow because of what Bentley had done, I should be chaste, or somehow sexless. I did tell her about my conversation John, and she was suitably outraged.
“He asked if you were sure? What an asshole!” Kish said. “I hope you broke up with him.”
“I don’t think there was anything there in the first place,” I said. “I think I just liked having someone around.”
“Well, you’ve done the right thing. He was a loser. If it hadn’t have been for him getting in that dumb fight, we would never have ended up back at that guy’s place.”
I didn’t argue with her. But I didn’t agree, or rather, I didn’t want to start thinking like that. What if this hadn’t happened? What if we’d gone to another club? What if I’d had the flu and hadn’t been able to go out? What ifs and woulda, coulda, shouldas didn’t help you in life. You had to deal with what was thrown at you. You didn’t have any other choice.
“You said anything to your mom?” Kish asked me.
Kish had only met my mom once, but she loved her. She didn’t talk much about her own parents but I got the impression that while they’d giver her lots of stuff, that hadn’t included a lot of love. I had been lucky that way. I’d never questioned, not even once, how much my mom loved me. The only problem I had was that sometimes it crossed from love to being over-protective.
“I don’t know if I will. I mean what good would it do?” I said. “Drew told me that I wouldn’t be named so unless I actually told her then she’d never find out.”
“They’re definitely going to arrest him then?” Kish asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
I told her about the pretext call. When I’d finished, she said, “Oh my God, Laura, you’re so brave. I could never have done that. No way.”
She grabbed me for a hug. I could still hear the sneer in Bentley’s voice. “Look at who I am. Then look at who you are. I could have had any girl in that club. No one’s going to believe you.” The thing that scared me was that he was probably right. Even if Drew did arrest him, why would a jury take my word over his? You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to know that the rich got away with stuff just because of their money. They played by different rules than the rest of us.
Did I really want to go through with a trial, assuming that it would even get that far. The answer was I didn’t. I wasn’t brave like that. Kish was wrong.
But I kept coming back to the same question. What if he did it again? How would I feel knowing that another girl was going to have to go through what I had? Even if I couldn't stop Bentley, I could at least slow him up. If it went to trial and he was found not guilty then at least girls would know what a slime ball he was.
That was when it hit me. It was so obvious. A jury might not believe me, but what if there other girls like me out there who hadn’t come forward, or hadn’t remembered as much as I had, or were just too scared?
But even if there were, how would I find them? It wasn’t as if I could post an ad on Facebook? Ever been raped by this guy?
Something else occurred to me. Maybe I wouldn’t have to.
Twenty-Two
Becky, the lady I’d seen at the Crisis Centre, agreed to see me that afternoon. We’d had an appointment scheduled for later in the week, but I’d told that I’d like to see her before. She agreed straight away.
Kish drove me into town to see here. She was still worried about my decision not to tell my mom. Kish saw it as an issue of trust. What would my mom think if she found it from someone else, first?
I saw it as an issue of protecting someone I loved. Life was weird like that. We grow up having our parents protecting us from the world. But at some point there’s a switch, and we’re the ones shielding them from it. I guessed that most people faced that as their parents got old. I was just having to face that transition a little earlier than most.
“You want me to come in with you?” Kish asked as we pulled up outside.
I shook my head. “Thanks, but it’s okay.”
“Okay,” said Kish. “Well I’m going to go do some retail therapy. I’ll swing back in an hour and pick you up.”
I smiled. Even though retail therapy was a dumb joke, and it would have been easy for me to take it the wrong way, it was the first time since I’d told Kish about the rape that I’d seen the slightest glimmer of old Kish. I wasn’t going to spoil it. I had come to cherish the tiniest normal moments. I welcomed anything that was an echo of my life before.
I walked inside the Centre. I only had to wait a few minutes before Becky appeared.
“Come on through,” she said.
I followed her into her office. She motioned for me to sit down.
“How have you been, Laura?”
I told her. But I didn’t tell her everything. I didn’t tell her about Drew, or at least about the moment we’d had. I only talked about the interview, and, of course, about the pretext call. She didn’t say it in so many words, but I got the impression that she was unhappy that Drew had asked me to call Bentley without speaking to her first. I didn’t want to dwell on it, so I moved on to what John had said.
Becky sighed. “Different people are going to react in different ways, Laura. The most important thing is that you don’t forget that this wasn’t your fault. It’s no woman’s fault. No one asks for this to happen to them.”
I remembered something in the papers recently where the head of campus police at a college in the South had got in a lot of trouble for suggesting that if coeds didn’t want to be raped they should dress more conservatively and not get drunk at parties. What had surprised me wasn’t that he had said it. What surprised me was how many people, including women, had agreed with him. There was part of me that had thought like that too, part of me that believed if a girl went out and showed a lot of flesh, and got drunk then she was inviting trouble.
I didn’t think like that anymore. The
reality was too raw, the pain too great, for me to believe that a person deserved this. No one deserved it. The guilt was all on the perpetrator.
We talked a little more. I was glad I’d come to see her. There were lots of things I didn’t have to explain to Becky. She understood in a way that John, or Kishani couldn’t.
My hour was almost up. I panicked a little as I realized that I only had five minutes left. “Can I ask you something?” I said. “Have you had anyone else turn up who, y’know, has run into Bentley? Only Drew, I mean Detective Brody, said that he didn’t think this was the first time he’d done this.”
I watched as Becky’s jaw tightened. “I can’t talk about other victims and what they might have said.” She stopped and seemed to study me for a moment. “Did Detective Brody tell you to ask me?”
I had stumbled into dangerous territory. She must have noticed me calling him Drew, and now she thought he had put me up to probing her for information.
“No, he didn’t.” I couldn’t tell if she believed me or not. She seemed skeptical.
“I just thought that if more than one person came forward that there might be more chance of a jury believing me. Or maybe he’d take a plea and I wouldn’t have to testify.”
“I understand,” Becky said softly. “And I’d help if I could. But confidentiality is important. Whatever you or anyone else decides to share when you’re here has to stay private.”
I knew by the way she said it that there had been others.
Outside, in the blazing sunshine, I called Kish, and told her that I’d meet her later.
“You okay?” Kish asked.
“Yes, I’m fine. I just have a couple of things I need to do,” I lied.
I had one thing I had to do. I had to see Drew.
Twenty-Three
“Detective Brody’s not working today. Can someone else help you?” the lady behind the desk asked me.
I was standing at the reception desk inside the lobby of the main police building on East Figueroa. “I don’t think so.”
