“Allison, what’s wrong?”
I don’t know what to tell her. I cling on to a glimmer of hope that maybe he hasn’t sent them to everyone. Rachel’s voice on the other end begs me to tell her what’s going on.
“Rach, I can’t really talk right now. Where did you see them?”
“They’re all over, sweetie. Facebook, email.”
Oh god, I want to die from shame.
“I’ll call you back,” I say, gripping onto the phone like it’s the only thing holding me together.
“I’m worried about you,” Rachel says.
“I promise I’ll call you back.” I disconnect the call and sit gazing at my phone in a daze. I know my mom is looking at me, waiting for me to say something, but I can’t seem to process the words or the responses. Is now the time to lie? Should I try to protect her and hope that no one tells her? Should I wait for a better moment to confess the truth?
“Sweetie, what’s going on?” my mom asks, placing her hand on my knee and giving it a reassuring squeeze. I’m sure she can feel my leg trembling. My chest feels tight and I can’t seem to catch my breath. There’s no burying my head in the sand anymore. Any glimmer of hope that I was holding onto has faded to nothing.
With the call ended, messages flash on my screen now. I flick through them, dozens of them, catching a few words from each text. I cringe at some of the comments. Things like ‘whore’ and ‘slut’ and ‘I want some of that’ make my skin crawl. All the vile suggestions come from numbers I don’t recognize. And there are a few messages from people I know, guys I know, concerned about me.
There are a few concerned messages from girls I know too. The shock and horror in those messages and the vow to be there for me if I need them make me feel little better. But not much.
I still haven’t looked up at my mother. I can feel her unease pouring into me and I resist the urge to look up because I don’t know what I’m going to say.
“Allyson please tell me what’s going on. Whatever it is, I can help you.”
Her support cracks the last of my fragile resolve to hold it together. I sag in defeat and suck in a breath, half sobbing. “I can’t tell you, mom.”
“You can tell me anything, you know that. Whatever it is. How can I help you if you don’t tell me?”
I take hold of her hand, gripping so tightly I know I’m probably hurting her but she squeezes back and uses her other hand to stroke my hair. It’s been so long since she did that, but it feels so good to be taken back to how things were when I was a child; a time when problems were simple and could be soothed away by some reassuring words and a hug.
I can’t look her in the eye when I tell her, so I keep them closed. Through the whole terrible story, she keeps hold of my hand and strokes my hair. I think about how much it must be hurting her to see me like this. I know her mind will be thinking through the long-term implications because that’s what moms do.
When I’ve finished she says, “Show me the photos.”
I shake my head because describing them in sparse detail is one thing, but actually displaying them for her is another.
“Show me,” she says again, this time more firmly. “How can I help you if I don’t know what exactly what we’re dealing with?”
Tears roll down my cheeks as I fumble with the password on my phone. I tab through the worst, settling on one that’s bad but the least explicit. When I hand it to her, she doesn’t react. I watch and marvel as she takes one very deep breath and exhales. She sits up straighter. I can feel the anger seething inside her. She rests my phone on her knee and digs around in her purse. For a second, I think she’s searching for a packet of tissues but then she pulls out her phone.
Panic slices through me when I realize who she’s going to call, but it’s too late to turn back now. I can’t untell her. She can’t unsee the picture.
I sit and wait as she talks to Jeff, her voice getting increasingly loud. Her gaze darts around the shop when people start looking at her. I nudge her to tell her to lower her voice. She whispers as she continues filling Jeff in on the same story I just told her.
I can’t listen to it over again so I reach out and take my phone, then stand up and pace. My phone buzzes again startling me. Almost afraid to look at the screen, I peek at it, relief and dread warring with each other when I see Cory’s name flash on the screen. I think about not answering, but that will just make things worse.
I swipe to answer and breathe a soft ‘hello’ into the phone.
I don’t know what I’m expecting him to say. ‘I’m sorry for walking out without saying goodbye’, or ‘I’m sorry for doing all the things we did’. I don’t expect for him to know already, but he does.
“Allyson, I know this is hard for you but you need to come into the station.” Cory’s voice is tight and cold, the same voice he used when he was questioning me by the side of the road. He’s back to using cop voice on me and that makes me sad. I guess it shouldn’t. We had sex, that was all. Amazing, mind-blowing sex admittedly. Why then do I feel so much loss?
Sadness aside, I know he’s right. Now that the cat’s out of the bag, I have no other choice but the prospect of facing him and Jeff, the prospect of my mom finding out all the gory details is just too horrific to bear.
“I know I should,” I say, still clinging to the remotest possibility that all of this will just be a horrible dream that I’m moments from waking from. “I’ll think about it,” I say.
At the police station, I sit in a chair facing Detective Jameson and I try not to fidget. I keep my gaze down on my hand, which my mom is squeezing reassuringly. Every so often she nods at what the detective is saying. I’m in such a daze that I can barely take in what is happening around me.
I’m in a police interview room.
I’m just a normal girl, generally law abiding except for the recent speeding incident. I don’t know how I’ve ended up here.
The room is small, the walls close and with every new question, I feel that they are closer. Things weren’t supposed to turn out like this. I always thought of my private life and my life goals to be two separate things, but now I find them intrinsically linked. The dreams I had flash before my eyes and I have to I bite my lip to stop myself from sobbing.
Rachel, who is standing behind me, squeezes my shoulder for support. I touch her hand in thanks and suck in a deep breath. Half of me is grateful to have the support of people who love me but their concern just makes me feel even more mortified, even more of a letdown.
I sneak a peek at Cory. His face is blank and expressionless, his cop face. As I watch, his eyes narrow in concentration as he listens to the detective talk about revenge porn and the new legislation. This isn’t just a college prank gone too far. This will have serious repercussions, not only for me but for Drew too.
“Please continue with your account, Allyson,” Detective Jameson says.
He’s finished explaining the last point so I pause for a moment to gather my thoughts. I tell them the whole story about Drew, how controlling he was after we had been together for a few months, breaking up with him, and the threats after that. As I talk about the night at the party and what Drew had threatened, I can’t help but look up at Cory. I expect his mouth to be set in a serious line and his eyes to reflect nothing of what he is thinking. What I see is very different. His eyes blaze with barely contained fury and a muscle in his jaw twitches. I look away from his face, feeling so ashamed of what he knows about me and about what we did, and see his hands are balled into fists at his sides.
The anger is practically radiating from him. I hope he’s angry at Drew and what he’s done, and not at me. I know I lied to him, but he must be able to see why.
The detective writes down everything I say. “When did the harassing phone calls start?”
“Shortly after I broke up with him,” I say.
“What’s his full name, address, phone number?” Cory asks, sounding as though he’s speaking through gritted teeth.
&n
bsp; “We’ll get to that in a moment, Officer Carlisle. Let Allyson tell her story,” the detective says.
I squirm in my chair under Cory’s angry gaze.
“Do you have any of the pictures?” Cory asks.
The detective glares at him and doesn’t respond this time. He knows that our parents are engaged so obviously he understands why Cory might be overstepping his position to try and ascertain what has happened.
I nod and search through my phone to find the pictures. I blush when I see the first one and hesitate for a moment. Once I hand the phone over, that’s it, everything will be out of my control. Although mom and Rachel have seen them, Cory hasn’t. It’s his disapproval that I seem to fear the most, especially since we had sex. How will he feel to see me doing similar things with Drew that I did with him? Will he understand why I lied?
I hand the phone to the detective who swipes through the photos, his face remaining neutral. Not even a spark of emotion filters through and I’m grateful for his professionalism.
Cory moves to stand behind the detective, his eyes taking in every picture that flashes on the screen. He looks up at me, his eyes dark, then flicks back to the screen. I think that I see disgust in his expression. I know that everyone has a past and that there was no way Cory thought I was a virgin, but to be faced with pictures like the ones he is looking at, he must think so terribly of me.
Slut.
That’s how I feel.
Dirty.
My skin feels itchy; underneath my clothes, around my wrists, and between my legs. I have a sudden urge to clean my teeth, to try and scrub away the taste of Drew that comes rushing into my mouth.
Unable to take any more scrutiny I stand and begin to cry. Huge sobs wrack my body as I stumble toward the door, my only thought to get out of that room so I can hide away and pretend that none of this is happening. At least in the ladies’ room Cory can’t look at me and see what I really am.
Before I can reach the door my mom stands and pulls me into a hug. Her arms tighten around me and I settle against her shoulder, hugging her in return. Rachel stands beside my mom putting her arms around both of us. I know I must be ruining mom’s blouse. She dressed up for our big shopping day and she’s ended up in a grubby police interview room, clinging on to her even filthier daughter.
“I know this is hard for you,” the detective says from behind me. “We’ll need to keep these pictures as evidence. And any others we encounter during our investigation.”
“Okay,” I say. The idea of the pictures remaining at the station mortifies me but I understand why it has to be this way.
“We need to put together a statement, then you can go home while we carry out our investigation.”
I nod and sit back down. It seems to take forever for the detective to note down everything I’ve said. When he’s finally done I pick up my purse. It had fallen from my lap when I stood and was in a heap on the floor.
“I can drive them home,” Cory offers.
I look over at him and for a fraction of a second see genuine concern in his eyes. I remember how it felt to be cocooned in the safety of his arms, to be totally at his mercy and yet feel utterly safe in my submission. Maybe I’m crazy for feeling that there’s something between us that’s more than just the residual connection that gets left behind after sex.
As much as I want to be close to him, to soak up his strength and take comfort in his self-assurance, I’m so worried that I’m imagining everything. I can’t handle disapproval or rejection right now. My nerves and my heart are raw.
“I have my car,” Rachel says. “I can take Allyson back to her dorm.”
And that’s all it takes for me to decide what happens next.
13
CORY
I’m so mad right now I could snap Allyson’s ex’s neck and feel absolutely no remorse. Fuck that guy for hurting her. Fuck that guy for taking her trust and abusing it.
Fuck him for scaring her and for thinking he could use those photos to get her to carry on their relationship.
I think about what might have happened to Allyson that night of the party if we hadn’t been called to disperse the crowds. Drew had been dragging her up the stairs when I stopped him. Another five minutes and things might have been very different.
My fists are balled at my sides as I stride down the hallway toward the men’s room. I need to get my head together.
Allyson looked so damn broken when she left the station with her mom and her friend; hunched shoulders and puffy eyes. No one has the right to do that to a person. To steal their self-esteem. To bring them to their knees.
I think about what we did together last night and shudder. I’d pushed myself on her, at the restaurant and in her dorm, stealing kisses that I can’t be sure now she was totally on board with giving.
Now I know that I was right about her running from something the night I caught her speeding. She was trying to get away from that sociopath and there was I fantasizing about fucking her roughly by the side of the road.
I shudder again, remembering how I’d held her hair and made her suck my cock. Did she want to do that for me or was I too forceful? She seemed to get off on everything we did. I felt her come and there was no way she could fake that. Her pupils were dilated and her body showed all the signs of arousal that I would have expected. I gave her a safe word and she never used it.
The trouble is, with everything that she was going through, I’m not sure she was truly in her right mind for making any kind of sensible decisions. My heart sinks when I realize I was probably just a convenient pair of arms, offering some kind of comfort while she was hurting.
I think about whether I should tell Detective Jameson that we had sex. If they go to take evidence from her room, they are going to find my DNA over everything. I don’t want to have to explain afterward. It’ll make me look untrustworthy.
Untrustworthy is not a good look for a cop, especially one with aspirations.
In the mirror, I look at my face that is shrouded with worry. I’ve got hours left on my shift so I’m not going to be able to check on Allyson for a while. I touch my cellphone that’s tucked into my belt, thinking about dialing her number to tell her I’m sorry. Would she want to hear that, though? Isn’t that something that would make me feel better? She doesn’t need my apologies right now. She doesn’t need to be thinking about what we did when she’s got other much more pressing things to on her mind.
I wash my hands and splash water on my face, running my wet fingers through my hair and trying to make myself look less frazzled.
In the hallway, Simons is passing by.
“There you are,” he says. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
“I was just freshening up.”
“Look, I heard about Allyson.”
I know my face must reveal such a mixture of emotions and he doesn’t say anything more.
“Yeah,” I say and start towards the office.
“You know if you need anything…”
“I know man, thanks.”
“What’s gonna happen next?”
I shrug my shoulders because I have no idea. I’m not gonna be a part of this investigation. I’m too close to the victim. What I do know is that I’m going to make sure that whoever does run the case is going to hunt that fucker down.
And if they don’t find him, I will, and when I do, he’s going to wish he was never born.
14
ALLYSON
Rachel pulls her car into a spot in the parking lot by my dorm and we walk the path to the building. I can feel people staring at me as we make our way through the sparse crowd. Normally I would think I was just overreacting or being paranoid. But today, after all those text messages, I know they’re looking right at me.
I pull my sweater tighter around my body, wanting to hide as much of myself as I can, but I know it’s useless. From this day onwards, I’m not going to know who has seen those pictures. I won’t know for sure if the cute guy that’s
trying to pick me up at the bar has seen my mouth around someone else’s cock or seen my legs spread, held apart by cuffs around my ankles, secured to the corners of Drew’s bed. I’m not going to know if his interest is genuine and of the moment or because of what he thinks he’ll be able to do to me now that he’s seen the photos.
I can hear the whispers as we pass and I wish the pavement would open up and swallow me whole. The whispers get louder as we walk. The path leading to my dorm seems longer than usual.
I can’t bear that all these people have seen the pictures or at least heard about them, described in detail. How many computers are now storing images of my shame? How many cell phones had them saved so they can show even more people? I run toward the doors to the building and Rachel sprints to keep up with me.
I don’t stop running until we reach my room. My hands shake as I open the door and enter the small space. I pace the floor, tears streaming down my face. I dash them away but they won’t stop falling.
I reach into my purse for my phone, my usual distraction if something is bothering me, but of course, it’s not there. It’s at the station, where everyone can look at the pictures and read the text messages from strange guys who would love a piece of my ass. Not knowing what’s going on somehow makes it worse. I should feel better letting the police handle it but I hate not knowing how things are progressing. Will they find Drew? Will he sorry? Will he confess?
I can’t deal with this. The thought of continuing with my course flies out the window. How can I be a teacher now? There is no way I can face my professors. What if the pictures have somehow reached them too? Drew said he would share them with everyone. Even if I did finish, who would want me to teach their children with those pictures floating around the internet?
An image of my mom flashes in my head. Smiling, sympathetic, encouraging. How can I face her and Jeff after this? I know she’ll think less of me. I’m her little girl and I’ve messed up so badly.
Then the look on Cory’s face comes back to me and I crumple to the floor, sobs racking my body. I cry into my hand, trying to catch my breath but suddenly unable to breathe. Nobody is ever going to want to have a relationship with me again.
ARRESTED: A Stepbrother Cop Romance Page 10
