“Yes. Tomorrow night, movie with Mom. Saturday with Kate.”
“How come you’ll see a movie with your mom but not me?”
Michael’s clarinet warm-up seeped through the wall between our rooms. I shifted my position on the pillow and stretched my legs over the edge of the bed to swing myself up.
“Mom’s already heard all my stories. I don’t have that much to say to her. Especially since you got all prickly about me telling her about you.”
I laughed. “Well, Ani, there is a limit.”
“So you say. Anyway, Mom knows everything about me. But I still have lots of things to say to you.”
“Yeah. Like what?”
She laughed a little. “I don’t know. Don’t put me on the spot like that. I’ll probably think of something as soon as we hang up.”
“Okay. I gotta do some homework anyway. But call me this weekend.”
“Of course, Bumble. You know you are invited to the party on Saturday.”
Raver party? Pass. “Yeah, I don’t think so. You all can go ahead and have your girl time.”
“Ha. We will.”
“But if it sucks, you can call me. Or you know . . .”
“Aww, you’re gonna miss me, baby? Don’t worry, I’ll call. Actually, I’ll do even better. I’ll plan something for the two of us on Sunday.”
Family commitment. Mom’s voice bled into my brain, but it was overshadowed by the promise of a full Ani day.
“It’ll be fun. And different,” Ani teased.
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll have to juggle some things, but I can probably swing that. You better make it worth my while, though. I’m talking a real plan. That involves food and doesn’t involve me handing over the keys to my Jeep so you can practice driving.”
“A real plan. I’m on it. I’ll let you know details when I have them ironed out. Now hang up.”
I barked out a laugh. “What if I don’t want to?”
“Michael’s playing. Go listen to him. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Good night.”
“Good night, Bumble, I love you.”
Before I could say anything, she clicked off. I love you. Of course she’d say it on the phone like it was no big deal. And of course she wouldn’t ask for it back. That was how Ani rolled. But my stomach flipped over and I felt like I had to pee in the good way that happens when something incredible has occurred. I love you. She’d said it first. I flipped open my phone and quickly texted her.
I love you too.
I stared at my phone and less than a minute later her response pinged.
I know.
8
I’d checked my phone at least three dozen times before finally seeing Ani’s number pop up.
“What the fuck? Where have you been? Why didn’t you text me when you got to Kate’s last night?”
I didn’t want to sound like an asshole, but she was three hours late for lunch and I was starting to feel like a chump sitting around waiting for my girlfriend. I’d blown my family off and was missing extra time in the pool because Ani wanted to have a picnic. Her big plan. Plus, her mom had called and asked where she was, and I had to lie and say I was on my way to pick her up at Kate’s house.
“It’s not Ani.”
“Kate?”
“Yeah, look, you’ve got to come to county hospital.”
“What? What’s happened? Where’s Ani?”
“She’s here. But listen, she didn’t want me to call you. Or her mom. And they said they couldn’t contact anyone without her permission. But you need to come.”
I scrambled around my room, searching for my keys. “I’m on my way. What the hell happened?” I couldn’t swallow. My mouth had gone completely dry.
“I’m not really sure. I mean, I was at that party with her last night. There were lots of guys there. I didn’t think she was drinking that much, but then she started acting sort of crazy. Her words were a little slurred and she kept leaning on people. Mostly the guys. She sounded like she was really drunk, but I swear, I was pretty sober and she didn’t seem like she had more than two or three drinks.”
I closed my eyes and shook my head. Ani was at the hospital? This wasn’t happening. My hands were shaking so badly I could barely get the key in the ignition of my Jeep.
“Does she have alcohol poisoning or something?” I asked, but my voice sounded like it came from someone else.
“No. It’s not like that. Just come, Ben. She needs you even if she isn’t saying it.”
I drove so recklessly on the way there, I knew I was going to get at least two of those red-light photo-enforcement tickets. Everything seemed loud and bright as I slammed my way into the ER, where Kate sat wringing her hands around a bottle of water. County. The hospital of crappy service, long wait times, and the incessant smell of sickness. Why had Ani gone there?
“Start at the beginning,” I said as calmly as I could. “Where’s Ani now?”
“They’re prepping her for a surgical procedure.”
“What?” I shouted, and the nurse from the triage desk glared at me.
“Okay, just sit down and listen,” Kate said, tugging me into the pea-green plastic chair next to her. “You knew I went with Ani to that party, right?”
I nodded. The party Ani invited me to, but I passed on. It was at some random house west of the city with a bunch of those raver freaks, and I hated house music.
“Well, like I said, I thought she only had maybe two drinks, but then she started acting all nuts, like table dancing in the kitchen and being superclingy to everyone.”
“Table dancing? What? She was table dancing?”
“Shh . . . just listen. I’m not going to be able to do this if you interrupt.”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat and nodded.
“Anyways, I asked if she was okay, and she pointed to this group of guys and told me she was going to get with them. I told her we should call you, but then this guy sort of pushed me away and then she was kissing him.”
“What? She was table dancing and kissing another guy? Why didn’t you call me?” My head was spinning. Too much. Too fast. I couldn’t digest everything Kate was saying.
Kate looked at her hands clutched tightly around the water bottle. An ambulance sounded in the distance. “I thought maybe you two had a fight and Ani was rebounding. That she just didn’t want to talk to me about it. Like she was letting off steam or something.”
“She said girls’ night,” I choked out.
“Yeah. She was staying over at my house, but it was a party. And you were invited. Why didn’t you come?”
I shook my head but couldn’t speak. Kate’s words ripped through me like a machete. My eyes focused on a thin old woman across the room, her yellow skin shaking as she hacked into a handkerchief.
“I kept telling her I’d take her home, but she said she was fine,” Kate continued. “That she knew what she was doing. I didn’t really know what to do, but she told me to back the hell out of her life.”
“Did you know the guy? The one she was kissing?” I asked.
“No, he was with a big group, and they were at the party before we even got there. I didn’t recognize any of them, but there were a lot of people we didn’t know.”
“Did she leave with that guy?” I asked weakly. I was tripped up on the idea of Ani kissing someone else. There was more to all this, but I couldn’t work through what Kate was describing. It wasn’t my Ani.
“No, she went upstairs. But with a bunch of them, you know?” Kate’s voice shook. “Some girls went with them too. I thought maybe they were going to play spin the bottle or something. I didn’t notice, but I guess some of them came back down later.”
I shut my eyes. Please, God, don’t let this be real. Don’t let this be what it seems. Something inside me snappe
d and I turned on Kate. Venom ran through me.
“Why didn’t you go with her upstairs? Don’t you girls have some sort of buddy system at parties? What kind of shitty friend lets a drunk girl disappear with a bunch of guys?”
“Fuck you. She told me to stay out of her business and she wasn’t drinking that much. How was I supposed to know? She was with a bunch of guys. I didn’t know what was going to happen.”
“What did happen, Kate? Why’s she going into surgery?”
Kate’s fingers started to peel off the wrapper of the water bottle. Her nails scraped at the glue. I put my hand over hers. She looked up at me through tears. She tried to take a deep breath but choked. She wiped her face and shifted closer to me.
“I found her about an hour and a half later. She was passed out. I tried to wake her up, but she was really out of it and said she didn’t feel good. I got someone to help me carry her to the car. I took her home and put her to bed. When she woke up this morning, she told me she thought she’d been raped.”
Everything froze. No sound. No smell. No feeling in my body. Just a moment of blackness before a shattering crack, and my world reconfiguring itself.
“Jesus, where the hell were you when that was happening?” I screamed, and jumped up. I thought I might be sick.
“Where the hell were you?” she screamed back at me, and her eyes flooded with more tears.
The short, overweight triage nurse came over to us and told us to lower our voices or take our conversation outside. I sat back down next to Kate and put my head in my hands.
I was shaking so badly the chair squeaked. “Why’s she going into surgery?” It hurt my stomach to ask.
“Well, it’s not exactly surgery. They’re not in an operating room or anything. They called it a procedure. They’re just giving her a local anesthetic to numb her.”
“Why, Kate?” What the hell else was she afraid to tell me?
Her hands twisted again on the bottle. “Earlier, the doctor was doing this rape kit. They have to do it to collect evidence. Ani wanted me to stay in the room with her. There was a rape counselor in there too. But when they tried to take samples or whatever, Ani started screaming so loud. Like some kind of wounded animal. She kept yelling that it hurt, it hurt. I thought at first it was because she had this little tear on the outside they needed to stitch up. But then the doctor said he felt something inside of her. He couldn’t get it out. So they did an ultrasound to see what it was.”
I couldn’t breathe. Each new word Kate spoke was like a fist to my gut, hammering into me again and again. I looked at her, afraid to ask.
“It was a lighter, Ben. Whoever did it left a lighter inside of her.”
I shook my head too long and the room got blurry. Lighter. Lighter Lighter. The word skipped through my mind. I covered my ears and willed myself to move. I slammed out the door and buckled to the ground. My fingers scraped the sidewalk. I buried my head in my knees and tears dampened my jeans. My insides cracked and I curled into a ball to hold myself together. Seconds passed, then minutes. Finally I looked at the cold, white sky and prayed to a God I wasn’t sure I believed in to heal the girl I loved.
9
I paced outside of the ER for the next hour. Two ambulances came through and a homeless guy with a cigarette dangling from his mouth shuffled out, asking if I had a light. I wanted to scream. He had no idea what his question did to the ball of hate inside me.
I stared too long at the electric glass door leading back to Ani, hoping any minute she might walk out. Would she even be able to walk? Someone had put a fucking lighter inside of her. The image burrowed in my brain. Had they tried to light it? I swallowed the bile in the back of my throat.
I wanted to kill someone. I’d never felt like that in my life before, but my fists clenched and unclenched, ready to beat the hell out of anyone I could get my hands on. Ani had been raped. And maybe was too drunk to remember. Was it more than one guy? My nails bit into my palms and I glared at the door.
Kate walked out. She looked like shit. I probably did too.
“They got it out. She’s okay. I guess the damage wasn’t too bad. She had to get a few stitches. But it’s out.”
I took a deep breath and leaned forward with my hands on my knees. After a minute, I looked up at Kate.
“Can I see her?”
“I told her you were here. She’s worried about what you’ll think of her. She’s afraid to see you.”
I slumped onto the ground. Kate came up behind me and put a hand on my shoulder.
“Beez, she doesn’t remember much and she’s blaming herself,” Kate said. “The rape counselor is trying to help her, but you know how Ani can be.”
“That’s why I have to see her. Please, Kate.”
Kate looked at me and shook her head. “I’ll do my best. I can’t promise anything. And the counselor told her she doesn’t have to see you if she doesn’t want to.”
“Please.” I couldn’t leave without seeing her. I couldn’t breathe completely until I knew she was okay.
Kate stood up and walked back into the ER. I didn’t move. Ani was afraid to see me. Me. I stood frozen for a full minute, cool wind scraping my cheeks. Finally I sat on the curb like a kicked dog. I flipped my phone open to call my mom, but shut it again. Ani didn’t even want her own mom involved with this, how could I tell mine?
Ten minutes later the doors slid open behind me.
“Okay, come on. She’ll see you,” Kate said.
I got up quickly and shook myself. I tried to relax my fists. The crumbling parts of me were being held together only by my determination to help Ani. I shut my eyes and focused on my goal. I followed Kate into the pale, dingy pink walls of the ER labyrinth. My shoes squeaked as I walked past doctors and nurses. The thin old woman from earlier sat in a wheelchair now, coughing constantly.
Ani was in a room at the end of the hall. Kate stood with her hand on the handle and searched my face. I inhaled and held my breath. Finally I nodded and she swung the door open.
I walked in and found Ani in a white-and-blue hospital gown, curled up sideways on the bed. She looked at me and her eyes filled with tears. I opened my mouth, but then shut it. I couldn’t move.
“What are you doing here, Bumble?” Her voice cracked.
I did my best to half smile and stepped slowly forward. I reached the edge of her bed and pushed her hair behind her ear. I almost never saw her hair down and loose. I’d expected some bruises on her face or something, but she looked like the same Ani.
“I came for you. Baby, what happened?”
A strange woman wearing a Georgetown sweatshirt and jeans stepped forward and put her hand on Ani’s shoulder. She pursed her lips and squinted at me.
“Ani’s been through this with the police already.”
Ani touched the woman’s hand and adjusted her position in the bed so she was sitting up more. She winced and I pulled back slightly.
“It’s okay, Beth. I don’t mind,” she said to the woman.
The counselor didn’t even glance at me. She kept her gaze zeroed on Ani. “It’s your right to have privacy.”
Ani nodded. “I know. But Ben’s safe. He can know everything.” Her eyes shifted to me. “Beth’s the counselor. She’s been here the whole time.”
“Why didn’t you call me?” I asked. Ani focused on her hands twisting around the thin sheet covering her. God, I was such an asshole. “Forget I said that. Don’t worry about it. I just want to help.”
Ani lifted her eyes and tried to smile. It was pathetic and nothing like the beautiful smile she normally greeted me with. The room grew uncomfortably quiet. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other and tried to figure out what to say.
“I don’t remember very much,” Ani finally said.
“You were pretty wasted, huh?”
The counselor
, Beth, stepped in front of me with her mouth in a small frown. Her hands pressed together in front of her almost like she was going to pray. “Can I speak with you outside for a moment?”
Outside? What the hell was this woman’s problem? I stepped forward and squeezed Ani’s too-cold hand before following Beth out the door. She turned on me the moment we were out of Ani’s earshot.
“Listen, I know that this is a really difficult time for you, but accusing Ani of drinking too much and asking her to rehash everything that happened is not helpful,” she said through pinched lips. “We need to try to empower her, not blame her for her choices.”
“What?” I said. She sounded like she was reading from a book. What did that even mean?
“You probably don’t even realize it, and I understand you’re in shock, but you made a victim-blaming statement and I think you need to be careful of what you say to Ani right now,” she said more slowly, like English wasn’t my first language.
“I’m not blaming her.”
“Pointing out her alcohol consumption implies she was somehow at fault for what happened. Like she asked to be raped because she was drinking at a party. I’m sure that’s not what you were trying to say, but you just need to be aware that your words mean a lot to her right now.”
I kicked the wall. I kicked it again. So many emotions were pouring through me and I couldn’t stand this woman telling me I didn’t know how to talk to my girlfriend.
“Jesus, lady, of course I wasn’t saying she asked for it. All I asked was if she was wasted. That’s my girlfriend in there, who just got out of some sort of surgery because a douche bag left a lighter in her after she’d made out with him. I’m doing the best I can here.”
She took a step back. “Excuse me?”
“I am doing the best I can,” I repeated in the same infuriating way she talked to me.
Her face softened and I thought I might start shaking I was so overwhelmed with everything. She took a step forward but didn’t touch me.
“Ben, right?” she asked so quietly I barely heard her. I gave a tiny nod. “I’m sorry. This is a difficult time for everyone. Friends and family members often are grieving as much as victims are. I’m not trying to negate your feelings. But if you want to help Ani right now, you need to be open and supportive. I know how painful this must be for you, but we need to make this completely about helping Ani.”
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