First Instinct

by Suzie O'Connell

  “No!” Beth cried. “Please no! I can’t. It’ll just make it worse.””

  “Was it a student?”

  “Jeff….”

  “Well, if it was, we can have him removed from campus.”

  “I just want to leave it alone and forget it happened.” Her voice cracked. “If I ever can.”

  Concern washed over the guard’s face, but he didn’t press the matter. “Where are you going to stay tonight?”

  “With Nick.”

  “I’ll be sure to swing by his room periodically on my rounds.”

  “Thank you,” Nick said.

  After Beth gathered some clean clothes and her shower caddy, Nick and Jeff righted the door. The security guard promised to talk to maintenance first thing in the morning about it. Beth started toward the showers, but Nick reminded her that his suite had its own bathroom. Perhaps it was silly, but that sounded much better than having to shower in one of the three stalls on her floor. Right now, that large, high-ceilinged room was too open, too exposed.

  They headed down the hall to the staircase closest to Main Hall and tiredly climbed the stairs up to Nick’s suite at the top. As soon as they were inside, he locked the door. She set the box with the second morning after pill and his shirt—which she’d held on to since the nurse had handed it to her—on his mini-fridge and tried not to think about anything but how good it would feel to be clean again. Nick turned on the light in the bathroom for her, told her he was going to sit on the couch while she showered, and pulled the door closed. She reached to lock it… then recalled what had happened the last time a locked door had stood between her and Nick and snatched her hand back.

  She ran the water as hot as she could stand and scrubbed her skin nearly raw, trying her best to ignore the sight of the bruises that dappled her arms and legs and the angry red friction burns around her wrists. After she’d cleaned herself thoroughly and washed her long hair, she stood under the steaming waterfall for nearly half an hour, grateful for the limitless hot water of the dorms.

  When she finally left the bathroom dressed in a different pair of pajama pants and her tank top with Nick’s flannel hanging open—she didn’t think he’d mind if she borrowed it a bit longer—Nick had changed out of his clothes into a pair of pajama pants and was reclining on his couch with his head resting on the back and his eyes closed. A plain gray T-shirt and his sling were draped over one knee, and he held an ice pack to his shoulder. The bruising was worse now, and she shuddered.

  He glanced up, and she caught sight of the cut on his cheek. He must have been clipped by Trey’s ring from their high school football state championship. It wasn’t bad enough to bandage and probably wouldn’t scar, but she was angered by how it and the bruise forming beneath it marred his beautiful, beloved face.

  Nick balanced the ice pack on his shoulder, then patted the couch cushion beside him and asked gently, “How are you doing?”

  “I’m okay for the moment,” she answered. She sat next to him and curled up to his left side when he lifted his arm out of the way. Twining her fingers with his and trying to ignore the rough feel of the cuts on his knuckles, she tucked his arm around her and sighed, feeling truly safe for the first time since Trey’s playful kissing had turned violent.

  As if he sensed her thoughts slipping into dangerous territory, he said, “Talk to me, Beth.”

  “I’m sore. Still half terrified. Guilty for dragging you though this. But I feel a little better now that I’m clean.”

  “You didn’t drag me through anything.”

  She trailed her fingers over the sling. “You’ll be out for at least half the season because of me.”

  “No, not because of you. Even if I hadn’t dislocated my shoulder, I don’t think I could play anymore.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t play on the same team with Trey after what he did.”

  Long after she should have cried herself dry, more tears threatened. She wanted to tell him how much it meant that he cared so much for her that he had thrown himself against a solid wood door to save her and that she didn’t know what would have happened to her had he not come to her rescue. There were so many things she wanted to say, but she couldn’t speak around the lump in her throat, and even if she could, the words refuse to cooperate. So she said simply, “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me,” he replied quietly. “I should have gotten there sooner. I’m so sorry.”

  His voice sounded strange, so she glanced at his face. Tears brimmed in his blue eyes, and she couldn’t recall ever seeing him looking so sad or agonized. The pain that bothered him most, she knew, was not the injury to his shoulder. “No… don’t say that. You came.”

  He tightened his arm around her for a moment, then got up to put the ice pack back in the freezer of his little fridge. He picked up his T-shirt and started to shimmy awkwardly into it, but she stopped him, unable to watch him grimace.

  “I don’t want you to be uncomfortable,” he said.

  “I’m fine with you, Nick. You’d never hurt me.” Miraculously, her face lifted in a faint smile. A glimmer of her usual sense of humor blossomed amidst the dark numbness. “It’s not like we haven’t seen each other naked at least a hundred times in our lives.”

  “Yeah, but that was when we were little kids.”

  “Nothing’s changed. You’re still the same Nick I grew up with, the same Nick who has been my best friend all my life.” Sobering again, she murmured, “And after everything else tonight, it’s killing me to see you in pain.”

  “It’s not as bad now. Besides, the T-shirt will keep the strap of the sling from rubbing.”

  “Fine then, but let me help.”

  Assisting him gave her something else to focus on, and by the time they’d gotten his shirt on and his arm secured once again in the sling, she thought she might actually be able to sleep. They snuggled together on the couch, and Nick pulled a blanket over them. Weariness settled over her, and she closed her eyes. The warmth of his body and the steady rhythm of his breathing quickly lulled her into oblivion.

  I’m safe, she thought just before sleep claimed her. Safe with Nick.

  Four

  Just before dawn and only minutes after he’d finally dozed off, Nick was jerked awake when Beth thrashed and let out an ear-piercing shriek. For a moment, he was disoriented, but he didn’t have time to gather his bearings before her elbow collided with his injured shoulder, and he gasped as pain shot through it. In a snap, he realized they were on his couch in his dorm suite. Memories followed understanding in a parade of sickening images, and he remembered why she was snuggled up with him and why his arm was in a sling. When she twitched again, he pushed her upright and sat up.

  “Beth,” he murmured before she could hit him again. “Wake up. Come on, sweetie. It’s just a bad dream.”

  “Don’t touch me!” she screeched, still asleep. “Please stop, Trey!”

  “Beth!”

  Her eyes popped open, and she stared at him with terror inscribed on her face. She glanced frantically around the room, then returned her gaze to him, slowly calming as she realized she wasn’t currently being assaulted. Her expression smoothed, but confusion soon pinched her brows together. “Nick?”

  “Yes, it’s me.”

  “I’m not in my room.”

  “No, you’re in mine.”

  “Trey’s gone…?”

  “It was just a bad dream.”

  She closed her eyes and leaned against him. Moments later, hot tears soaked into his T-shirt, and he pulled her closer.

  “Shh,” he whispered. “Trey’s not going to hurt you again. I won’t let him.”

  “But he did hurt me, didn’t he. I didn’t dream that.”

  “No, I’m sorry, you didn’t.”

  Beth cried silently for a time, but then her tears dried up, and Nick realized she’d fallen asleep again. He closed his eyes and waited for sleep to relieve the bitter ache of guilt and hatred, but it eluded hi
m. What happened next? And how was he going to explain this to Michelle? Omission wasn’t an option; she was sure to ask why his cheek and knuckles were cut and bruised and why his arm was in a sling, and he wouldn’t lie to her. How could he make her understand that Beth needed him right now—and that he needed to be there for her—without being able to tell her why?

  He tipped his head back and pinched his eyes closed.

  What a screwed up mess. And convincing his girlfriend to trust him was the least of it.

  The weight of this terrible secret pressed down on him, growing heavier by the second, making it hard to breathe. Somehow, he had to find a way to keep it from crushing him.

  With a football game away in Helena against Carroll College Saturday afternoon and the big Labor Day fair and rodeo under way in Devyn, they hadn’t planned to go home to Northstar this weekend, but since he no longer had to worry about game, maybe they should go. He had hall patrol duty Friday night, but they could leave in the morning on Saturday. She needed her family. If she could tell them what had happened, she’d have a bigger support system than just him. She needed that, and it would also ease the burden on him some.

  Having a plan in place—even a near-sighted one—eased the tension aching in his neck.

  His eyes slid closed, and he was nearly asleep when Beth woke up again. This time, however, she wasn’t in the throes of a nightmare. She tilted her head up to look at him just as he yawned.

  “What time is it?” she asked.

  He glanced at the clock on the wall above his TV with bleary eyes. “Just after seven.”

  “Did you sleep at all?”

  “Not really.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “Keeping you awake.”

  “You didn’t. I just couldn’t sleep.” Absently, he stroked his hand over her hair, jerking his hand back when she flinched. “What’s wrong?”

  She shook her head and opened her mouth to say something, but all that came out was a wordless squeak as tears once again spilled from her eyes.

  “Jesus, Beth. What’d I do?”

  “You didn’t do anything. He wrapped my hair around his hand and yanked my head back just before he….” A shudder coursed through her body. “He called me his bitch.”

  Nick’s hand clenched into a fist. He should have hit Trey a hell of a lot harder than he had. And a few more times. With anger boiling through his veins, he had no hope of getting any sleep now. He sat with Beth until the tears stopped falling, then got up and grabbed his ice pack out of his freezer, grinding his teeth when he pressed it to his shoulder, and marveled at the damage Trey’s selfishness had wrought.

  “I need to take care of a few things this morning,” he said. “Will you be all right by yourself for an hour or two?”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t want to be alone right now. What if Trey…?”

  “He’s not going to bother you here. Lock the door behind me and don’t answer it for anyone.”

  “Do you really have to go?”

  “I need to talk to Neil and Dean Harris about your door and break the news to Coach Tanner.”

  “You’re really going to quit football?”

  “I can’t play for at least six weeks, anyhow, and I will not play on the same team as Trey. I’d be too tempted to break his neck. I also need to talk to our professors and get assignments and notes for today and tomorrow. Unless you tell me you want to go to class.”

  “No, I can’t.”

  “I need to take care of all that, then, don’t I?”

  Her eyes rounded. “Are you mad at me?”

  He stared at her. Suddenly, she looked so young and scared, not at all like the cheerful, imperturbable woman he knew. “Why would you think that?”

  “You’re angry.”

  “Yeah. I am. I have the overwhelming urge to find Trey and pick up where I left off last night… except that I could never hurt him bad enough.” Still holding the ice pack to his shoulder, he sat beside her on the couch again and leaned over to kiss the top of her head. “My shoulder is aching pretty bad right now, which is probably making me even more irritable. But I’m not angry at you. Never at you.”

  “I’m sorry I got you into this.”

  “Quit saying that. None of this is your fault.”

  “What if it is? What if I could have done something to prevent it or stopped him? What if something I did made him—”

  “Do not… ever… say that in my hearing again,” Nick snapped. “You did nothing to deserve that. Trey is a vicious piece of shit. He and he alone is to blame.”

  “Am I wrong for not wanting to report it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He took her hand and studied the friction burns the belt had left on her wrists, and his heart broke for her. She had such a beautiful spirit, and now her innocent delight in life had been cruelly damaged.

  He wanted Trey to rot in a prison cell for what he’d done. It wouldn’t be enough, but it was better than nothing, and if Beth didn’t report the rape, nothing was exactly what would happen to Trey. With fury seething, it was difficult to understand why she didn’t want to do it, but somewhere in a far corner of his mind where logic held on stubbornly against the rage, he understood that reporting the rape would pit her against Trey’s prominent and influential family. Her courage was badly shaken right now, and it would probably take a long time to rebuild it… and she’d need it to stand against the Holts and their cronies as they tried to make it look like she’d brought this on herself.

  He sighed. “Yes, I think you should report it. Of course I do. But I understand why you don’t want to. In your position, I’m not sure I’d be able to, either.”

  They sat in silence until he was finished icing his shoulder. Then he got up, put the ice pack back in his freezer, and ducked into his room to change out of his pajama pants and into a pair of jeans. Trying to do that one-handed was difficult and frustrating, but he managed. He didn’t bother changing his T-shirt. That would require more energy and patience than he had at the moment. Sliding his feet into a pair of sandals, he stepped into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. Surprisingly, he actually had a small bottle of Tylenol and vaguely remembered that Michelle had bought it the other night when she’d had a headache. Small mercies. He tapped the suggested dose into his hand and walked back into the living room to grab his water bottle out of his fridge. He swallowed the pills and all the water, then turned to face Beth.

  “There are a couple breakfast burritos in the freezer, plenty to drink in the fridge, and other snacks in the cupboard on the side of the closet. Or you can wait until I get back, and I’ll take you out to breakfast.”

  She watched him with an uncharacteristic uncertainty, so he walked over and hugged her.

  “I’ll be back before you know it. Try to get some more sleep.”

  He left the suite, locked the behind him, and started for the head of maintenance’s office in the far wing of Mathews Hall. Luck was with him because Dean Harris was in Neil’s office, too.

  “Nick Hammond,” Rob Harris said, extending his hand in greeting. Nick shook it. “Just the young man I was hoping to see.”

  “Good morning, Rob, Neil.”

  “Doesn’t look like a good morning,” Neil remarked. “You look like hell, Nick.”

  “I’ve certainly been better.”

  “Jeff tells me Beth was attacked in her room last night,” the dean said. He inclined his head toward Nick’s right arm. “How bad?”

  “Partially dislocated my shoulder,” Nick replied. “Could’ve been worse.”

  “Can you give me a little more about what happened last night? Like how you got involved?”

  How much could he tell the dean without revealing that Beth had been raped? His temper flared again, but he subdued it. he’d tell as much as he could; there was no other choice. He described everything from leaving Beth in her room just after ten to knocking the door off its hinges.

/>   “Then what happened?”

  “That’s the part I can’t tell you.”

  “I think it’s safe to assume, judging by the cuts on your face and knuckles, that you intervened, which means you saw the attacker.”

  He nodded.

  “And no one else heard any of this?”

  “I don’t know if anyone was back in the dorms yet, but I would think someone should have been by then. It happened a little after eleven. After, we went to the hospital, and then—”

  “You went to the hospital? Why?”

  “Well, for one thing…” Nick gestured to his right arm. “…this.”

  “Was that all?”

  Nick shook his head but said nothing else.

  “I need to know more than that,” Rob said. “I need to make sure that the students on this campus are safe.”

  “I understand that, but I can’t push Beth to reveal what happened. She’s already been through enough.” Shifting his weight, Nick abruptly changed the subject before Dean Harris could further question him. “I’ll pay whatever fines for the door.”

  “That won’t be necessary. Given the circumstances, I’d say you didn’t have much choice.”

  “You believe me?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” The dean laid his hand on Nick’s uninjured shoulder and squeezed. “You’ve always been a stand-up kid, and I have no reason to doubt what you say is the absolute—if incomplete—truth. I’m glad you were there last night.”

  “Me, too.” Nick didn’t add that he wished he could have been there sooner. Instead, he politely excused himself. “I need to go break the news to Coach Tanner.”

  He left Neil’s office and headed toward the coach’s office on the opposite corner of the small campus. One benefit to attending such a small university that he had an entirely new appreciation for was that students were students and not numbers. For one, he knew Dean Harris well enough that Rob hadn’t questioned him too deeply and had taken him at his word. For another, on any other campus, he’d probably have to pay for the door regardless of the reason he’d damaged it.