Heartstopper

by Lauren Landish

  Thankfully, Greg's speech went on for just another few minutes before he wrapped it up, and the two hundred dollar per plate dinner started. I glanced at the ornate grandfather clock against the wall near where we were sitting, stifling a curse that certainly would have earned another rebuke from Brittany. Once the lights rose, I turned to Daddy, pointedly ignoring her. "Daddy, I understand that this is something you wanted to do, but would you mind if I go?"

  "Go where, honey?" Daddy asked, reaching for his knife. Two hundred dollars was a lot of money for a steak dinner, and inwardly, I was thinking that for the price of just one of the three plates Daddy had paid for, he and I could have had a lot more fun doing something else. "Dinner just started, and if you go now, you'll miss dessert. It's supposed to be the famous bourbon vanilla pudding. Since you're over twenty-one now, I don't think it'd be too bad if you had some."

  I looked down at my steak, which despite the price tag looked like something I could have gotten at Outback, and tried not to push it away. It's not that I have anything against a good steak. In fact, I'll eat just about any meat you put in front of me, but that night, I didn't want to even touch it. What I wanted to do was get out of that club.

  Daddy's marriage to Brittany had certainly solved some problems for him, and I gave him credit. He didn't let it change who he was at the core. But there were still issues that I didn't like. First of all, it made Daddy even more desperate to be accepted in this upper class of Atlanta society, and as anyone who's been to high school in the past generation can tell you, the worst way to be accepted was to act desperate for acceptance. The society types begrudged Daddy a seat at their table, partly because of Brittany's connections but also because of his money. He'd built so many houses and owned enough housing subdivisions that he could have ignored them, but he didn't, probably because of his roots in the working class. He wanted to show them up and at the same time force them to accept him after they'd ignored him for so long.

  But, the biggest problem I had with Daddy's marriage to Brittany was that it made his overprotective streak even more stifling. When Mom and my sister, Connie, had been killed, Daddy and I only had each other. For eight years, Daddy protected and cared for me, and I was the only girl in his life. I was all he needed, and he was all I needed. We took care of each other, like the times I'd make Kraft mac & cheese with cubed ham on the nights that he had to be at the job site late. He'd come home to a warm meal, and I'd already fed myself and cleaned up everything but his bowl, and if I was awake, I'd be either doing my homework or watching a bit of TV like a good girl should.

  When Brittany came along, though, Daddy had gone from merely making sure I didn't get hurt, to letting Brittany set all sorts of rules about where I could go, what places were good enough for me, and worst of all, which people I could and could not see. She wanted me to carry on the society connections that she had given Daddy access to, including making sure I met up with the right kind of boys. Most of them were snobbish losers, and more than a few I felt even I could kick their asses. It was the biggest source of conflict within my family, and now that I was nearly twenty-three, I was sick of it.

  "Daddy, one of the girls from my European history class invited me to an art exhibition, and I told her I’d go. I didn't know at the time about tonight. But if I leave now, I can meet up with her in time for the opening event," I said, trying not to put a hint of whine into my voice. I was a senior at Georgia Tech, for God's sake!

  "I don't know, honey," Daddy said, looking at me worriedly. "Who is it?"

  "The artist? I'm not really sure. I think it's someone from Germany," I said, blatantly avoiding the question since I already knew the reaction. I'd known Brittany long enough to practically read her mind on this subject.

  "I think what Patrick wants to know is, which friend are we talking about?" Brittany asked. I didn't really like Brittany, but I didn't hate her either. She thought she was doing the right thing for me, even if she did treat it more as a duty than as a relationship. I could respect that, even if I didn't like it. I’d promised myself when I was younger that when or if I had a little girl, I would be more emotionally involved in her life than Brittany was in mine. "Is it Arianna?"

  "No," I grumbled, not lying. I was raised better than that, and even if I was upset with Brittany or didn't like what she sometimes said, I wasn't going to lie, especially in front of Daddy.

  "Who is it, Abby?" He asked, slicing through his steak. He dipped it in his little cup of sauce, chewing happily. Ever since his cardiac incident a few years prior, he'd been warned by his doctor to limit his red meat intake, and while he did his best, he relished opportunities like this to cut loose a little bit.

  "Shawnie," I answered. Before Brittany could object, I started in on my defense. “She's really doing well, and her grades are good. We both graduate this year, and she's looking at going to grad school far away. So this may be one of the last chances the two of us have to do a social event together. Besides, the exhibition is near the bus stop, and I know that I can . . .”

  "No," Brittany said, cutting me off. "Not with that girl. And certainly not after sunset. Do you know what sort of places girls like that go to?"

  For the first time, my feelings drifted from annoyance toward anger. Brittany had never given Shawnie a chance for quite a few reasons. First of all, Shawnie was from the wrong part of the country, an out-of-state girl from the Sand Hill section of South Carolina. She'd grown up not just blue collar, but no collar at all, raised by her grandmother in Section Eight housing after her mother had abandoned her and her father went to jail. Second of all, Shawnie was independent, and fiercely so. She'd earned a full ride scholarship to Georgia Tech and was majoring in aeronautical engineering. It was only because she still had to take some core classes that we'd met at all, first by chance in a freshman English class, where we'd clicked despite the differences in our backgrounds, and then this year by design in European history, a core course that we'd both put off for far too long.

  "Brittany, Shawnie's a good girl," I repeated, doing my best to keep calm. At least being angry took the whine out of my voice. "She's never been in trouble, and she's as smart as can be. A lot smarter than some of the people in this room, in my opinion. Besides, this exhibition is at The High. It's a high-class sort of event, it's close to campus, and it's going to be attended by a lot of the influential people."

  "I'm sure Shawnie is a fine girl," Daddy said, trying to prevent a public argument between his wife and his daughter, "but your mother is right, honey. It's already after dark, and The High is in Midtown, where a lot of unsavory types go. Georgia Tech is a great school, and I'm proud that you're going there, but you have to admit that Midtown gets a little rowdy after dark. I'm sure that Shawnie wouldn't try to get you in trouble, but trouble could just find you in that part of town. I'm sorry, but the answer's no. Maybe next time."

  "I'm twenty-two years old," I said, trying not to raise my voice. "I have to grow and get out on my own sometime. And I'll be with a friend. It's not like I'm saying I want to go to a frat party at Morehouse or something," I added, looking pointedly at Brittany. "Not that I couldn't be safe there as well."

  "My answer's no, Abigail," Daddy said, setting his fork down and looking at me evenly. "Now sit down, and I don't want to hear about this anymore. You can go with your friend to this exhibition over the weekend or something. During the day."

  Daddy never used my full name unless he was putting his foot down, and I could count on one hand the number of times he'd had to use that tone with me over the past year. Most of the time, I was Honey or Sweetie or Abby. When he called me Abigail, however, I knew not to try and change his mind anymore. He was decided. In normal instances, I would have just picked up my knife and fork and started eating my steak, trying to not gnaw at it in frustration.

  This time, something was different. Perhaps it was that I was a senior. Maybe it was because I knew that my best friend had invited me, knowing that this could be the last time t
he two of us really had one of the social events she liked to call "opening our eyes to new possibilities." Hell, maybe it was Greg DeKalb's speech, which was so much the antithesis of what I personally believed that I couldn't stand it. In the end, I didn't know what came over me, but suddenly, I was on my feet, my purse in my hand. "No, not this time, Daddy. Shawnie's a good friend, and I’m going. Don't worry, I'll be home by eleven."

  I stormed away from the table, hoping that Brittany's society training and Daddy's desire to fit in with the one percent crowd would keep them from coming after me. After all, regardless of how angry I was at them, I didn't want to hurt either of them. Still, I was going, and it would take someone physically restraining me to stop me. I may not stand up to Daddy often, but I’d inherited his stubborn streak along with his ears. In fact, he was just about the only person who could make me back down.

  As upset as I was, I didn't cry. I was proud of that fact, at least, as I left the club and walked down the street. Despite being called a fraternal club, the club didn't have much fraternity to it at all, and in fact, the nearest university was over two miles away, quite a feat in a city with over thirty campuses in the area. In another place, or if it had been founded later, it might have just been called a club or a society, but since it had been founded when that sort of term mattered, fraternal club it was, and fraternal club it remained, along with a separate women's auxiliary that did teas and raised funds for charities and sharpened the knives they stuck in each other's back when the other wasn't looking.

  Why these people didn't just ditch the club for membership at a country club where they could at least do some drinking or horseback riding or something to go along with their schmoozing, I never understood. Then again, most of them already belonged to at least one country club, so I guess it was a moot point. I'm in school to get my degree in biology and hopefully become a research nutritionist, not psychology.

  I didn't cry, but that didn't mean I was thinking clearly about what I was doing. Walking south, I thought I was headed for the nearest MARTA rail station, but I somehow got turned around, totally missing it. Looking around, I had no idea where I was, except that I was in an area I'd never seen before. "Great, just great," I said, muttering to myself. "Now what?"

  I reached into my purse, cursing when I remembered that I'd brought my tiny purse to the country club, the one that I never carried my smartphone in. It was the most socially acceptable of my handbags, which ranged from that up to the ubiquitous college student backpack that I preferred most of the time. I admit, I'm a bit of a tech geek, and the idea of playing with a six-and-a-half-inch screen just was too much fun to pass up. Unfortunately for me, my purse that had been deemed acceptable for the country club was much smaller, and I just never carried my phone in it.

  So instead of being able to call Shawnie or a cab or even check where the hell I was with my phone's GPS app, I was standing around in a dress, four-inch-high heels, and a purse that contained my driver's license, my GT student ID, a Rawlings Construction credit card that I was authorized to use, and thirty-eight dollars in cash. No change, of course, since ladies do not jingle.

  Sighing, I looked around and could see the Midtown skyline to my right. "Well, you haven't been doing all those spin classes for nothing," I said to myself, turning and walking that way. "You can make it a couple of miles, even if you are in those sexy yet sensible high heels that you just had to wear because you were hoping against the odds to meet a cute guy tonight. Although the cutest guy you've seen so far tonight is Jason Lindbergh. Ugh."

  I'll admit, I have a bad habit of talking to myself when flustered, and had in fact been warned by teachers in school as I babbled answers to my tests out loud during tough finals. I'd even had to re-take my organic chemistry final in my professor's office because she said I gave half of the first section of the test away as I talked. I couldn't seem to stop it, though, and I knew that if I ever got what I wanted in life—a research lab of my own—my assistants would most likely have to wear earplugs most of the time. Maybe I'd equip them with little buzzers that I could use when I wanted their attention, although that seemed a little Pavlovian to me.

  About a mile into my walk, I was more lost than ever, still not sure at all where I was, or even all that certain if I was headed in the right direction. Midtown is one of the most identifiable parts of Atlanta, but that doesn't mean the massively decentralized city doesn't have areas that make you wonder who the hell laid out the map. My ankles were starting to ache a little too, not being used to high heels. Like I said earlier, I'm a bit of a tomboy, and if that means that I go around campus at GT wearing some New Balance running shoes instead of high heels like a lot of the Southern Belles do, too bad. I still somehow seemed to attract my fair share of attention from guys, even though I wasn't all that interested in any recently. Or, to put it more precisely, I hadn't found any that were all that interesting.

  In fact, it had been a while since I'd had a real date. My reputation had gotten around campus, and the fact that my father was Patrick Rawlings didn't help. I'll admit that Daddy was a bit overprotective, but he loves me, and I love him. He just had a bad habit of intimidating any of the potential boyfriends I brought home. At six foot two and still a solid two hundred and ten pounds, even in his late forties, with a work-weathered face and hands that were just as comfortable swinging a hammer as they were typing on a laptop or playing Barbie with his daughter, he scared a lot of guys off.

  I was thinking too much and not really looking where I was going, but I saw Piedmont Park up ahead. Grinning, I picked up the pace despite the pain in my feet. I knew that if I made it to the park, finding The High was easy. I knew the running tracks and the sports facility layout pretty well and could easily get through the park and onto one of the major streets that would take me to The High. So I entered the park and looked for the running path, which could steer me directly to the right exit.

  Unfortunately, being so focused on getting through the park, I forgot the number one rule of living in a city after dark: always keep aware of your surroundings. To hell with Brittany's rules. She'd never been downtown after dark without a security escort in her entire life. I was halfway through the park, near a little cove of trees, when two guys approached me. Both of them looked like trouble.

  "Well, well, look what we've got here," one said. He was wearing Jordans and basketball gear, looking like he'd just come off the court or something, except for his bandana that was tied around his head, hiding his hair. "Hey, baby, you thinking you might need an escort through the park? It ain't safe after the sun goes down, you know."

  "No, thanks. I'm fine," I said, trying to play it cool. Don't show fear, don't show fear. They react to fear, I kept repeating to myself. "But have a good evening anyway."

  "Hey now, sweet thang," the other guy said, making me grimace at his horrible 'Dirty South' accent. "I don't think you have an option."

  "I would prefer not to have your company—no offense," I repeated. I turned around and walked away from them, trying not to run. At least, not until they came after me, but they were in regular shoes, while I was wearing unfamiliar high heels and a dress. They caught up with me before I could even scream properly, pushing me off the running path and into the grove of trees nearby. As I stumbled to the ground, my left ankle twisted, and I winced even as I hit the grass.

  "Get the fuck off me!" I grunted, trying not to let them get on top. One of them was trying to pin me, while the other was coming around and scanning the area to make sure we wouldn’t be interrupted. I tried to scream, but the one on top of me smacked me with his right hand, rocketing my head back and bouncing it off the turf. It wasn't all that hard, but it was hard enough to momentarily stun me.

  The next thing I knew, I felt his hands pushing my skirt up, and fear stabbed icily into my heart. I'd heard the statistics—most women my age have. Supposedly, one in four women my age doesn’t finish college without being sexually assaulted. I'd taken all the precautions, of course
: not accepting drinks from guys I didn't trust, always going buddy system to the few parties I'd attended, and stuff like that. Still, the thought that I could be one of those four never crossed my mind until that instant, and I tried to fight harder, even though I knew it was useless. The guy outweighed me by at least forty pounds and already had me pretty well pinned.

  In that moment, though, just when I thought I couldn't do anything but give a good showing for myself before I was certainly beaten, most likely raped, and then killed, another man came out of the darkness, surprising the one playing lookout. I couldn't see his face very clearly. He was wearing a light hood despite the spring warmth, but I could see that he was pretty tall, and while not huge, he wasn't skinny either. He shoved the lookout into a nearby tree headfirst, his head bouncing off the tree with a rather hollow thunking sound, where he collapsed to the ground without even a struggle.

  My near-rapist saw what happened to his companion and sprang up off me, his hands already up and swinging. He may have been skinny, but the guy was fast. He caught my unknown protector in the face with a decent punch that glanced off, following it with a kick while his back was turned. It sounded like he was wearing steel-toed boots, but the hooded man shrugged it off and kicked back with his foot, catching the guy squarely between the legs. He grabbed his very offended balls and dropped to his knees, his head thrown back and his throat making a sound something like the cross between a foghorn and a piccolo. My protector turned around and brought his right knee up in a hard arc, snapping the guy’s head back and flattening him out on the ground.

  The whole fight lasted fewer than ten seconds, during which I should have been scrambling to my feet and fleeing for my life. Instead, I found myself still lying on my back, my head reeling from the whole thing, stunned not only by my attackers but by the speed of the sudden turn of events. A strange, peaceful silence dropped over the whole area, and my savior stood looking down at the body under him. Turning to me, he held out his hand. "Do you need help getting to your feet? We should go and get you looked at."