Going Under

by S. Walden

  ***

  Parker was stupid. Why would he keep a record of all the league’s previous games? Certainly not to remind himself of all his past wins. He didn’t have many, after all. Cal did, though. I assumed most of his wins came by force. I already knew he was bad news, and I thought Tim was as well. My brief encounter with Tara in the hallway a few weeks back suggested his violent behavior, but I had to be sure.

  I cleared Hunter. Melissa seemed fine, and for a week, I tracked another girl at school who had supposedly given it up to Hunter two years ago. She appeared happy. She was heavily involved in sports at school and had a group of close friends she hung out with. She smiled a lot, and I just knew in my heart she was okay. I crossed Hunter off the list.

  Parker was an asshole to me, but I had a hard time finding out if he was a monster like Cal. There was only one girl he’d slept with in all four years’ worth of records, according to the scores. And she no longer attended Charity Run. I did a Google search for Jessica Canterly, but came up empty-handed. I realized Parker would probably be my hardest target.

  Mike was a non-issue at the moment. He started the league a year ago and never scored above a blow job. I tracked a few of the girls who bestowed that lovely gift on him and decided they were fine. None of them seemed depressed or broken. A few were complete bitches, however, and it was hard for me to feel sorry for them for their ignorance. Aaron was new, and Game 1 of this year was his first. I had no idea if he was simply in it for innocent fun—if there was even such a thing—or if he had other motivations. All I could do was wait to find out.

  I was doing more research using Beth’s old yearbooks when I came across the picture. I gasped. It was the girl from the bathroom—the one sobbing uncontrollably. She was the one I was sure nodded when I asked her if something bad had happened to her. She had been a player in Game 4 of last year. The game right before the current one. She was on Tim’s team and was classified as a virgin, scoring the ultimate points for having sex with him.

  I wasn’t really searching for her, but by divine providence, we ran into each other again. And again in a bathroom, though this one wasn’t on the senior hall. I slipped into a bathroom on the junior hall before leaving school Tuesday, and there she was, hovering over the sink, reapplying her lip gloss. She froze when she saw me.

  “Oh, hey,” I said.

  “Hi,” she replied, unsure.

  “How’s it going?”

  “Fine, I guess.” She turned on the water to wash her hands.

  I assumed she’d try to escape as quickly as possible, but she hung around. It almost seemed as though she was silently inviting me to ask her questions. I took a shot.

  “It’s just that after that day a few months ago . . .”

  She wiped her hands and threw away her paper towel.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  I nodded and smiled.

  “I was just having a bad day,” she said.

  “I totally understand that. It’s bad enough being in high school, right? Then on top of that you’ve gotta worry about fitting in, getting good grades.” I paused for the briefest second before adding, “Boys.”

  She tensed. I saw it.

  “Boys,” she snickered.

  “For real,” I said, trying to encourage her. “Why are they so lame?”

  “Don’t ask me. I don’t understand them at all,” she replied. She swung her book bag over her shoulder. “They’re awful.”

  “The worst is when they’re mean,” I said. “I slammed my head on my desk at the beginning of the year—the first day of school, actually—and they laughed at me. Like we’re back in second grade. What the hell?”

  She shrugged. “Well, at least when they were mean in elementary school, it usually meant they liked you.”

  “True.”

  “Now it just means they’re assholes.”

  I laughed. She laughed, too.

  “I’m Brooke, by the way,” I said.

  “Oh, I know,” she replied. “I’m Amelia.”

  “Wait, how do you know my name?”

  “You’re the girl who fainted in the hallway.”

  Super. People knew me as the fainter.

  “And you kind of have a reputation for not being very friendly,” Amelia admitted.

  “What?”

  “Well, I just heard that you don’t have any friends here. Girlfriends, that is. That you don’t really like girls.”

  I was pissed. I worked my ass off every day to appear friendly to the bitches who strolled the senior hallway like they owned the place. They were the ones who gave me major attitude. What the fuck?

  “I shouldn’t have said that,” Amelia said. Apparently my anger was written all over my face.

  “No, it’s fine. It’s true I like to keep to myself,” I said. I was getting unfocused. I wanted the conversation back on Amelia and why she thought boys were assholes.

  “Maybe they’re just jealous,” Amelia offered. “Maybe they think you’re going to steal their men since you’re really pretty.” She smiled shyly.

  I laughed. “Hardly. But thanks for the compliment. I have no intentions of dating any of the losers at this school, though I have to admit that this Tim guy in my class is kind of cute.”

  I silently cheered for myself. That last line came out of nowhere, and it was perfect.

  Amelia’s demeanor changed in a flash. She didn’t look scared. She looked pissed off.

  “Did I say something wrong?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Are you talking about Tim Shelton?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Word of advice. Stay away.”

  She moved to the bathroom door.

  “Wait! Why?” I asked.

  “He’s one of the assholes,” she said, and opened the door.

  I ran up behind her and slapped my hand to the door, slamming it closed again.

  “Tell me why,” I said.

  “Huh?” Amelia fidgeted with her book bag, moving it from shoulder to shoulder, unable to find a comfortable way to hold it. “I’ve gotta go,” she said.

  “Amelia, I . . . I really need you to tell me why Tim’s an asshole,” I said gently.

  “I’ve gotta go,” she repeated.

  “Please,” I begged. “I won’t tell a soul.”

  “Get out of my way.”

  “Did he make you do something you didn’t want to?”

  Amelia backed away from the door like a scared rabbit.

  “What have you heard?” she whispered. “Are they starting up that rumor again?”

  “What rumor?”

  “Don’t play dumb!” she screamed. “That rumor about me. It’s not true! I didn’t want to do it! I told him ‘no’!”

  She dropped her book bag and wrapped her arms around her stomach.

  “I don’t know about any rumor, Amelia,” I said.

  “Yeah right! Everyone was talking about it at the end of the summer, right before school started.”

  “I’m new here. I didn’t hear any rumor,” I said. I walked towards her, and she flinched. “It’s okay. I’m one of the good people.”

  I saw tears forming in her eyes, and then they spilled over, plopping on her white, eyelet blouse. It was instinct. I wrapped her in my arms before thinking. It didn’t feel strange at all, holding someone I barely knew because in a way, I did know her. She was Beth. Like I told Terry. They were all Beth.

  “I think he drugged me or something,” she cried into my shoulder. “People were saying I got topless at this party. In front of everyone, and that he was egging me on. I don’t really remember. I mean, I think I do, but I’m not sure. I remember a bed. I remember bleeding the next day, but I wasn’t supposed to start my period. It didn’t feel like my period, and it only lasted a day.”

  I felt sick. I swallowed hard, forcing down the urge to vomit.

  “Did you . . . did you tell your parents?” I asked.

  Amelia pulled away. She wiped
her face and shook her head.

  “I wasn’t sure what happened. I should have told them, but I wasn’t sure,” she said, and then added more quietly, “I was ashamed.”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong,” I said.

  She nodded like she wanted to believe me but didn’t have the heart to.

  “I mean it, Amelia. You did nothing wrong. He took advantage of you. Like you said, he’s the asshole.”

  She looked up suddenly, her face full of concern.

  “You can’t tell anyone,” she said. “Promise me.”

  I sighed. “It’s not my business to tell.”

  “Good.”

  “But I wish you’d tell your parents, Amelia.”

  “What can be done about it now, Brooke? It’s been months. It’s not like I went to the hospital afterwards. There’s nothing to prove he did anything,” she said.

  “There’s your word,” I offered.

  “Yeah,” she snickered. “That’s good for just about nothing.”

  Fifteen

  “Beth? I thought we could go to the mall today,” I said, lingering in her bedroom doorway. She lay on her bed facing the window.

  “What for?” she asked, disinterested.

  “Well, there’s a sale going on at The Limited,” I replied. I walked over to the bed and tentatively sat down.

  “No thanks,” Beth said.

  “It’s Friday afternoon,” I said. “What do you feel like doing?”

  “Lying here.”

  “Oh.”

  We were silent for several minutes.

  “You don’t have to stay, Brooke. Go hang out with Gretchen or something.”

  I took off my shoes and lay down beside her.

  “I don’t want to hang out with Gretchen. I want to stay here with you.”

  Beth rolled over and looked at me.

  “I think Finn is getting frustrated with me,” she said. “I don’t want him to be physical with me, and he’s getting all restless about it.”

  I tensed, unsure what to say. It was weird hearing Beth talk about Finn and their physical relationship. I knew they had sex. I knew they were probably still having sex even though he and I were. Did I have no self-respect?

  “I feel lost, Brooke. I don’t know what to do,” Beth said.

  I took her hand.

  “You don’t have to do anything, Beth. You can just lie here. That’s okay.”

  “You’ll stay here with me?”

  “Of course.”

  “But don’t you want to do something fun tonight? Go to a party or something?” Beth asked.

  “Nope. I want to hang out with you.”

  “I’m not very much fun right now,” she admitted.

  “That’s okay,” I replied.

  We lay in silence for a time. I started counting the dots on her ceiling.

  “How do I get better, Brooke?”

  I wanted to tell her to talk to her parents, to talk to a doctor. I wanted to tell her to press charges. I wanted to tell her to be brave. But I didn’t.

  “It’ll just take time.”

  “How much time?”

  “I don’t know, Beth.”

  There was another moment of silence. I stared at Beth’s ceiling wondering how to make my friend come back to me, wondering where to find the strength to stop sleeping with Finn.

  “Look what I’m wearing,” Beth said, pulling the tarnished half heart out of the front of her shirt.

  I rolled over to face her.

  “I thought it went with my outfit today,” she said.

  I giggled.

  “We should start wearing them again, don’t you think?” Beth asked.

  I nodded. “We definitely should.”

  Beth grinned. “Do you think we’ll be best friends forever?”

  I grinned, remembering Beth’s answer to this question when we were eight years old. “Sure. Why not?”

  She laughed, remembering it, too. “Exactly. Why not?”

  “You’re going to kill me, Beth,” I breathed into the blackness of my bedroom.

  I paced the length of the room wearing fresh pajamas because I soaked my other ones with sweat. I was so sick and tired of waking up every other night drenched with sweat. My face felt tight from the dried tracks left by tears. I rubbed my cheeks roughly trying to erase the tightness, but all I managed to do was make my face hurt more.

  “I’m doing the best that I can,” I said.

  Do better.

  I whirled around and stared into the opposite corner of my room.

  “Who’s there?” I whispered, feeling the jolt in my chest, the aching in my fingers.

  Nothing.

  “Beth?”

  He raped me.

  I wanted to run for the bedroom door, but I was certain she’d block my escape. Should I call for my dad? I was scared out of my mind.

  He raped me, Brooke. What are you doing about it?

  “I . . . I’m working on it. I know about this league, Beth. I know about some others.”

  I don’t care about the others. Why haven’t you gotten Cal?

  “Are you hearing yourself?” I cried. “Do you hear what you’re asking me to do?!”

  It was your plan, Brooke. I didn’t come up with it. But now that I’ve had time to think about it, I rather like it.

  I stood dumbfounded, staring at the ghost.

  I mean, don’t you deserve it? You slept with my boyfriend. You lied to me. You’re a despicable human being. Don’t you deserve to be treated like shit?!

  “No! I don’t deserve it! I don’t!” I yelled into the corner of the room.

  Yes you do. Yes you do. Yes you do. Yes you do . . .

  “Shut up!”

  Yes you do. Yes you do. Yes you do . . .

  “DADDY!” I screamed. “DADDY!”

  I heard my bedroom door ripped open and felt my father’s arms go around me. I opened my eyes, dazed and confused.

  “It was just a dream,” Dad said. “You’re okay, honey.” And he rocked me side to side while I cried into his chest.

  “I’m scared!” I wailed.

  “Don’t be scared. I’m right here,” Dad reassured me. He continued to rock me, stroking my hair and shushing me as my sobs became fewer and more infrequent.

  “Please don’t leave me,” I begged, clutching him.

  “I’m not going anywhere, Brooke,” Dad replied.

  I eased my desperate hold on him, and he looked down at my face.

  “Did you dream about Beth again?” he asked.

  I nodded reluctantly.

  Dad didn’t say anything. He just held me until I asked to leave the room and sleep somewhere else in the house. He walked me out, and I could feel an angry, unsatisfied Beth hovering in the corner of my bedroom.

  ***

  Dad eyed me cautiously over breakfast the next morning. I was pale; I could feel it. I think my dream within a dream drained half the life out of me. I was so terrified. I tried to steady my hand as I brought the cereal spoon to my mouth, but it was no use. I shook violently, and Dad, unable to bear the sight of me struggling to eat, plucked the utensil from my feeble grasp.

  “Dad, I’m not a baby,” I said. But I felt like one in that moment, and I wanted to cry all over again.

  “Who said anything about anyone being a baby?” he asked.

  He dipped the spoon in my Corn Flakes and brought it to my mouth. I acquiesced to being fed because I was hungry, and Dad was doing a much better job than I did.

  After I woke up screaming last night, Dad brought me downstairs. He made me tea and turned on a Christmas movie. It was the middle of November, but I think he chose Miracle on 34th Street because it was innocent and pleasant. And full of hope. And I think he thought it might lull me into a peaceful sleep, listening to the sweet voice of a young Natalie Wood scrutinizing Kris Kringle’s whiskers. I nuzzled my father and fell asleep against his chest, hearing the famous line at the end of the movie repeated over and over in my sub-consciousnes
s: “You’ve still got to believe!”

  “Brooke?” Dad asked after I took my last bite of cereal.

  “Hmm?”

  “I think you should talk to someone,” he said. “I thought about your old psychologist. I could set up an appointment. What do you think?”

  I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms over my chest.

  “It’s so self-indulgent, Dad,” I said after a moment. “And I still have panic attacks. What did all that talking really do for me?”

  “Well, while you were going, you were better,” Dad said. “Remember? The attacks subsided.”

  I sighed.

  “Will you think about it?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “And it’s never self-indulgent to do something that makes you happy and healthy,” he said.

  I smiled just to placate him. I wasn’t convinced.

  ***

  By Wednesday I felt like my old self. Still guilt-ridden but no longer shaking. No longer terrified to sleep in my bedroom. No longer convinced that Beth was an angry ghost who hated my guts. Something else was going on in my brain, and next week I planned to discover it with the help of my former psychologist, Dr. Merryweather. God, I hated her name. It made me feel like I couldn’t talk to her about any of my problems—like I had to be all sunshine and smiles in her office because she was happy. Or at least her name suggested it.

  “I want you to do something for me,” Dad said over dinner.

  “Oh yeah? What’s that?” I replied.

  “Thursday is Family Night at the Y,” Dad said. “I want us to go.”

  I laughed. “Are you freaking kidding me?”

  “No. I think it would help you to run around and lift some weights and work out some of this stuff going on with you,” Dad said.

  “Dad, you cannot be serious. Family Night? Can we say, ‘Lame’?”

  “Totally lame. And we’re going,” Dad said.

  I narrowed my eyes at him. Only then did I realize that Dad had been to the gym three times this past week. He bought a membership at the beginning of the school year for us, but he rarely went. I went on occasion, but I’m not really a gym girl. I prefer to take solitary walks or do a workout video in the comfort and privacy of my living room. Curtains drawn, of course.