Pulling into the parking lot behind Word, I finally check my phone, and see not only messages from my friends at Roland’s—all wondering what happened—but from Mollie as well.
Mollie: You look good on camera, lady. You might as well get a job in TV now, since you can’t escape it.
Me: God. You watched?
Mollie: You bet your ass.
Me: I just rolled my eyes at you.
Mollie: And I just rolled mine at you. Why didn’t you tell me you were in the WORSHIP band?
Me: That was like a 3 second clip.
Mollie: Who are you, and what have you done with my best friend?
I don’t know…
I don’t know anything.
Ignoring Mollie for a moment, I check my other messages. Jonah’s sent three. I’m sorry. Where are you? Your dad won’t tell me where you are. I mentally give Roland ten imaginary “Awesome Points” for respecting my space.
Me: I’m fine. This isn’t just about you. It’s mostly not. I’m overwhelmed and need a second to breathe.
Jonah: We have to be able to talk things out with each other.
I pause, my thumb hovering over the screen. He’s right. We do. But I don’t know if I’m ready for a we with him if he can’t be honest with his parents about dating me, and if our fledgling relationship will be followed as closely as our first date was.
Me: We will. But you also have to respect when I need a second. You know my quick tongue. I need to chill it before I say things I don’t mean.
Jonah: Fair enough. Please text me when you’re back home.
Me: I will.
Of course, there’s one from Matt. But just one. To the point.
Matt: What was that about?
Me: You heard Jonah. He can’t even tell his parents about me.
Matt: Nice try. Text me when you want to tell me what’s really going on.
I crinkle my nose at his text, heartened and annoyed that he knows me as well as he does. But, what am I supposed to say to him? Tell him that, in reality, his sudden turn around for the better makes me uncomfortable? What kind of person doesn’t want their friend to get well? And that, in thinking that, I’ve convinced myself that maybe I’m not the believer I’d hoped. That maybe I want to go back to the Buddhist temple and see what they’re so calm about all the time.
Instead, I breathe.
I set my phone to silent and slide it into my back pocket.
Only when I’ve entered Word do I realize I’m in a more disheveled state than usual. I was just sitting at home and watching TV, after all. I’m not unkempt by societal standards, but I certainly wouldn’t be wearing this outfit around campus: dark-washed bootleg jeans—not too tight, though—and a fitted black T-shirt with white dandelions on it made to look like the wind is blowing the little puffy seeds off the shirt.
I quickly tie my hair up into a ponytail. That’s fancy talk for my hair looks like crap and I don’t want anyone to know. I mean for it to look like this. Walking into the coffee shop, I couldn’t be more grateful for the absence of TV’s. Of course, there are plenty of students clearly watching the show via some pirated TV website, because I’m greeted with a few smiles and knowing glances. Luckily, for now, people seem to have the social grace to leave me alone.
“You’re a star!” Chelsea exclaims with sarcasm when I reach the counter.
“You’re a jerk,” I mumble back.
She puts on a dramatic pout. “That’s not very Christian of you, you know.”
I know she’s teasing, but it’s hard for me to stomach at the moment. Luckily, she senses my not-in-the mood aura. If auras are a thing.
“Usual?” she asks.
I nod and wait awkwardly at the end of the counter, scouting the place for the most secluded seat available. Then I spot Caitlyn, member of The Resistance. There’s a seat by her, deep in the front corner, which might not seem secluded, but it’s well away from the door, and not near any window. After thanking Chelsea for my drink, I make my way to the girl I’ve only spoken to a few times, and all of the conversations we have engaged in have centered around Dean Baker and how we can take down his oppressive, secret empire.
The main problem is we have barely enough information to make much of a case against him. Caitlyn’s sister was raped, that much I know. And, Caitlyn says Dean Baker was more interested in a cover-up and moving on than he was in actually helping her or bringing justice to the man who raped her. That’s an impressive accusation to make without evidence.
Further, and I haven’t said this out loud to anyone, I’m more than a little convinced that the dean was somehow involved in the pictures taken outside of The Pink Pony. But that’s purely speculation and paranoia. I just let the thought doggy-paddle around in my head while I search for the life preserver of evidence.
“Kennedy!” Caitlyn half-gasps, sounding startled when I reach her booth.
“Mind if I sit?”
She gestures to the seat across from her. “Not at all. I figured you’d be hanging with Jonah.” She gives a wink and I roll my eyes.
“Matt and Jonah and all them are at my dad’s right now, actually. I just… had to get out of there. It was kind of… too much… or something. And I had this existential crisis in the middle of it all. It was the ultimate panic attack.”
She nods slowly, almost knowingly. “I promised my sister I wouldn’t watch. She’s pissed enough that I go here, but doesn’t want me supporting anything that brings attention to the school.”
I take a sip of the steaming latte and contemplate my next words. Careful. “Caitlyn,” I start. “Why do you go here? If things were so bad with your sister. Why come?”
Without hesitation, she answers, “Because then I’d have to tell my parents what happened.”
“They don’t know?!” I gasp, setting down my mug and causing Caitlyn to look around as if scouting for ears on our conversation.
She shakes her head. “Of course not. Would you believe if your daughter told you one of the most well-liked and powerful men at your alma-mater raped her?”
Did she…
“Wait. What did you just say?” My ears are ringing as all the blood in my body feels like it rushes to my head.
Caitlyn’s eyes grow wide. She catches her mistake mid-thought.
“Dean Baker raped her?” My whisper is strained, unbelieving of the words. Breathing is hard—harder than it should be for sitting and drinking coffee.
“I… I…” she closes her laptop and slides out of the booth, slow as if trying to avoid being.
“No!” I command, grabbing her wrist and pulling her back down. “No. Why didn’t you say anything? This is a …” Adverbs and adjectives collectively fail me.
Across from me, I watch Caitlyn slowly unravel. Her wide eyes fill with what looks like two year’s worth of tears. “Because,” she whispers, “it gets even worse.”
“Tell me,” I beg as if she has any reason to trust me. She doesn’t know me. I’m public. My dad’s a pastor and I’m a mediocre Christian at best.
Reaching across the table, I set my other hand on hers. “Caitlyn, please. You have to tell me. I can help. We can figure this out.”
“There’s nothing to figure out.” She swipes at her tears in vain. They’re not stopping despite the resolve in her voice. “We can’t tell.”
I shake my head. “No. No. That’s the lie he told your sister. One that continues to rape her to this day. People don’t start out that extreme. If it happened to your sister, I can promise you it’s happened to others. A man like him? All the years he’s been here? It’s almost a guarantee.”
This must be what shock feels like. My mind and body are unable to process the information all at once. All I really know for sure is Dean Baker is a bad man who has literally ruined someone’s life.
Something breaks in her face. A shield of some sort that finally lets me see her for who she is. Not some bitter sister of the victim of a horrible crime. An actual broken person. By something
much deeper. Much, much worse, as her words promised me.
Caitlyn gets out of her seat and slides in next to me, tightening the space between our words to each other. “He got her pregnant.”
My mouth waters, full of bile as I search for a place to throw up. But, she’s not done.
“He… he made her get an abortion,” she squeaks out before collapsing her head onto my shoulder.
I wrap my arms around her. Tight, as if to squeeze away all the pain, the memories. For both her and her sister. “That bastard.” My teeth grind together so hard I’m afraid they might break. “It’s okay,” I try to comfort her. “We’ll figure this out.”
She pulls back. “How? No one will believe us. Courtney doesn’t want anyone to know.”
“She’s afraid. Still,” I assess, thinking back on the many, many victim-impact statements I’ve heard over the years at various women’s rights rallies I’ve attended with my mom.
Rape doesn’t happen just once. Even if it only happened one time. One woman I recall from an event last year said that you don’t get over something like that. You move through it, and it becomes part of who you are.
Caitlyn nods. “He said she’s never to say anything or he’ll—”
“He’ll what?” I snap? “What could he possibly—he’s lying. He’s playing on her naïveté and yours. This isn’t okay. This isn’t normal, and it has to stop. If he did it to your sister, he’s done it to others.”
She scrunches her eyebrows. “How do you know?”
“Because,” I sigh. “Serial killers never start with a human. It’s usually bugs, small animals, or other deviant behavior. Dean Baker didn’t start by raping girls and making them get abortions, followed by holding them eternally emotionally hostage. I’d bet my life on it that he’s done this before and is still doing it now, on some level.”
“You would?”
My teeth press into each other. “My life, Caitlyn. My life.” I take a deep breath. “Who else knows about this? Jonah? Matt?”
She shakes her head. “Neither. They know what you know… knew. You’re the only one now. Besides Courtney.”
“What is she like now? Courtney. What does she do? Did she finish school?”
Caitlyn pulls her laptop across the table, opening it to face us where she left off: Facebook. She types her sister’s name into the search bar.
“She tries,” Caitlyn says, apologetically.
I focus my attention on the page and stare at the almost-pretty blond girl staring back at me through her profile picture. Almost. If her eyes weren’t dead. It’s so obvious to me I almost have to look down. I try again, to see Courtney as others see her. Those who don’t know. Yes, she’s pretty. Lost-looking with fair skin and blond hair in stark contrast with her sister’s dark brown. Is there a visual descriptive for someone who looks like they need an eternity’s-worth of hugs? Courtney defines it.
“She finished college back home and is slowly working her way through her master’s degree so she can teach. She wants to teach little kids,” Caitlyn says with sweet pride in her voice.
“Does she, or has she, done any volunteer work or anything for domestic violence or rape victims?”
“No,” Caitlyn answers quickly. “She just pretends it didn’t happen.”
Same story. Different woman. It happens too often.
“How’s that working for her?” I ask in honesty, wondering if I’ll ever be able to find someone for whom “forgetting” actually works.
Caitlyn clicks through some of Courtney’s pictures, going back to an album that took place when she first arrived at CU, before she ever met Dean Baker. The light in Courtney’s eyes reminds me of the doe-eyed, bright look I saw the first day I came to campus and met Eden and Bridgette for the first time. Hopeful, excited, loving. The girl staring at me from the past has rosy cheeks, manicured nails, and looks to be held together by far more than forgetting her past. One focused on her future. One who had a future in mind that didn’t include fate doled out by an evil man promising to have her best interests at heart.
“How’d she meet the dean?” I ask. “I mean, everyone knows him, but did she work for him? Volunteer? I need you to know, Caitlyn, that rape isn’t about love or sex. It’s about power. He took advantage of your sister in the worst way possible. I’m just trying to figure out how premeditated his attack was.”
Caitlyn shrugs. “She volunteered in student affairs almost from the beginning. She was captain of the cheerleading team for our high school and was involved in way too many activities. It was never too many for her, though. She thrives—thrived—in organizing, planning… everything. And, you know the activities office is under the Dean of Students, by a few rungs anyway. I think she was around him from time to time, but I do remember her talking about him more as her last semester here wore on. That they had been planning dinners at restaurants downtown. Even just pizza, or whatever. She felt like she was going to get promoted to a position of significant responsibility by the end of the year.”
It sounds like Caitlyn is giving a eulogy, the way her grey words swirl around us. Choking. And, in a way, she is.
“Anyway,” she continues after a breath, “one day she just stopped talking about him. And about anything to do with school activities all together. Within weeks, it seemed, she was home on the couch recovering from a mental breakdown.”
“No red flags for your parents there?”
Her face grows grim. “The school threw out all kinds of explanations. Over-worked, stressed, needs more prayer, saying she’d been partying and had demerits and it all became too much.”
“Had she? Been partying?”
She shrugs. “Just as much as everyone else, I think. Once in a while. Experimenting.”
Clearly I need to learn more about this CU experimenting scene. Not because I’m bitter that no one’s invited me anywhere, but because I don’t doubt there are faculty—Dean Baker included—who use this information to manipulate students. The system is set up for that perfectly. Demerits, privileges, everything. I’m willing to bet most of my friends would do just about anything to avoid their parents finding out about demerits and violations due to risky and reckless behavior.
“I’ve got to go to the bathroom,” Caitlyn says, wearily. “Watch my computer?”
I nod. “Do you mind if I keep looking through Courtney’s pictures? Maybe look through old statuses?”
“Whatever. I’ve been doing that for more than a year. Maybe you’ll find something I haven’t been able to see.”
“It’ll be okay,” I assure her as she slides out of the booth. “I don’t know how or when. But it will be.”
Looking fatigued as if just in battle, Caitlyn offers a weak smile before shuffling to the bathrooms in the back.
Taking a deep breath, I refocus my attention on Courtney’s page. I scroll through some recent pictures, which show no sign of partying, drinking, or anything. There aren’t any with her and friends either, though. So, I go back. To the person she was. Is—deep down.
Friends, awards, pep rallies for the football team—for which she was a cheerleader—all paint a picture of a young, all-American girl who had everything going for her. All the while, a predator was watching, and I need to be able to talk to her to figure out what happened. How it happened.
Maybe you don’t.
Maybe it’s enough that I know what happened. What he did. There’s no way I can bring this to my mom right now. Not yet anyway. She’s just gearing up for the biggest career move of her life, and if I know one thing about her—she’d drop everything to come help me fight this. And I love that about her. And I’ll use that if and when I need to. But, maybe for now it’s just enough that I know.
What he did.
***
I was able to hold Roland off on talking through what happened tonight when I got home. I promised we’d talk in the morning over donuts and coffee. It was too much to see him, almost. How much do pastors know about the depth of the hurt in
their churches? I don’t even know if Courtney went to New Life, but I know that she can’t be the only one, and there has to be people hurting just as bad under my dad’s leadership week after week. I wanted to hug and kiss him when I walked through the door, but I was afraid that I’d lose my mind and spill everything about what Caitlyn told me.
He can’t be involved because I’m not sure what it is Dean Baker has on him—or thinks he has on him—that makes him hate my dad so much. And, until I have enough evidence to blast that guy out of the water, I need to keep collateral damage to a minimum.
Sliding into bed, I text Jonah, as I promised I would.
Me: I’m sorry about tonight. Thank you for giving me space.
Jonah: No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have acted weird about my parents. They’re super critical of anyone I date, and I wanted to see if you and I were going somewhere before I brought it up to them.
I grin, remembering his soft lips against mine. The aroma of French food lingering between us.
Me: Do you see us going somewhere?
I hold my breath, watching the three dots as he types back.
Jonah: If you’ll have me.
If you’ll have me…
I’d die right here of romantic overload if that wouldn’t leave him hanging.
Me: Are you asking me to be your girlfriend, Jonah Cross?
Jonah: I’d never do that over a text message. Lunch tomorrow?
I kick off my covers, welcoming the cool air across my back and cheeks.
Me: Tomorrow.
Interrupting my flirty text is a text from Caitlyn. A group text, actually, to me, Jonah, and Matt.
Caitlyn: Can we meet at noon tomorrow at Word? It’s important.
Me: Yeah. See you then.
Jonah: Of course.
Matt: You got it.
Jonah texts me in our private conversation.
Jonah: Wonder what’s up.
Me: Yeah. Seems urgent. We’ll meet her then do lunch?
I try to keep all knowledge about Caitlyn’s potential motives out of my words.
Jonah: I’d love it. See you then. Sweet Dreams.
Me: Stop making me blush.
Jonah: I’ve never seen you blush in person.
The Broken Ones (Jesus Freaks #3) Page 22
