I force a small smile. “I think you should probably stay here…and maybe drink some water.”
Her face falls, and she looks confused for a moment. I don’t stick around for any response. I just get up and head out of the room, needing to get away for a second, needing a quiet room so I can be alone and breathe. I walk down a hallway in the house, and the first door I try is locked. When I walk a little further, I see what looks like another bedroom door and try it. It’s unlocked. I step inside, already halfway closing the door behind me, when I freeze at what I see.
There’s a guy hovering over a girl on the bed, and her dress is shoved up to her stomach as his hands grip both of her wrists above her head. I almost turn around and walk out, thinking it’s just two people hooking up and not a show I want to stick around for—when I hear quiet crying.
“Stop,” she whimpers.
It’s not a moan, not a playful protest. It’s a straight-upstop. Clear as day.
“Get out, man!” the guy barks, whipping his head around to glare at me.
But I can’t move. I just stand there, frozen.
I don’t know who the girl is. I can’t see her face. All I see is my sister. I hear Isabel begging him not to do it, begging him to stop. I hear the fear and the pain in her voice. I see my childhood best friend on top of her, smiling like he’s proud of what he’s taking. I hear the brokenness in her voice, the desperation she must have felt. I think about all the ways I failed her back then. How I didn’t even know that the guy I called my best friend and my brother would end up doing something so evil and disgusting to the only other person I loved. I think about how much access I unknowingly gave him. How often he would be in our home, spending the night, and even sometimes alone, waiting for me to get home.
I still don’t know when exactly he did it and how many times it happened to her. I just know I wasn’t there to stop it. I wasn’t there to save her. I didn’t notice what was going on. I let himkillher.
I snap back to the moment, and all I see is red. All I see is what I wish I could go back in time and do for Isabel.
The guy stands, zips his pants back up, and walks toward me likeI’mthe problem here. “What the hell is wrong with you, man—”
My fist connects with his face, and the crack of cartilage beneath skin feels therapeutic. No amount of talking could ever give me this kind of release. Ineedthis release. I hit him again, and again, and again, and again. Even when the amount of blood starts to make his face unrecognizable, Ican’tstop. I don’twantto stop.
I grab him by the collar, pulling him close to my face. “You get off on raping girls at parties?” I yell.
“She—she wanted it, man.”
I slam him back down onto the ground, hard enough that I hope I crack his skull. “What part told you she wanted it?” I ask. “Huh? Was it her tears she was crying, or her screaming at you to stop?”
I hit him again, and he moans in pain, but I keep swinging. For Isabel. For this girl. For every girl like them. For the guilt that lives inside of me.
I raise my fist again—
But someone stops me, grabbing me from behind and yelling something I can’t hear. I instinctively try to fight them off, telling them to get off me, but when I turn around, I see Mason, and the cloud of rage starts to fade. I let him pull me up, and then I look back down to where the guy is lying—no longer moving.
I don’t know if I killed him or not…and for a moment, I don’t even care if I did.
I finally look over to the girl. She’s pushed herself farther back onto the bed, frozen and scared from everything that just happened—then I recognize her. It’sher. From the sidewalk, from the library, from my thoughts every time I close my eyes lately.
I watch her stare at my hands, then up at my blood-soaked shirt, slowly making her way to my face and locking her eyes on mine. I’m still trying to catch my breath and calm down from the adrenaline, but I can’t look away from her. Obviously, I would have felt sorry foranygirl I saw on that bed. But knowing it washer?That partmakes me feel sick to my stomach, makes me feel evenmoreangry. I actually hope the guyisdead, knowing it was her.
Istilldon’t know this girl’s name, or anything about her…but Iknowher. In some weird way, Iknowher. There’s some strange pull that keeps putting her in my path, and it feels stronger each time I see her.
Her brows furrow in confusion, like she’s still trying to place where she knows me from. And we just stay like that, staring at each other until some guy and two girls rush into the room.
There’s a decent-sized crowd forming outside the door, but these three seemed to push their way through, obviously knowing the girl. I recognize the girl with pink hair, because…pink hair, duh. And the other girl looks like she’s probably the same one who was also walking with them that day, too…I mean, my attention was really only on one of the girls then, though, so I can’t be completely sure.
“What the fuck?” The guy says, looking around the room, taking it all in.
I see Mason grab one of the girls and look at her like he’s worried about her. I’ve known Mason for a while now, and I never see him concerned with a girl unless it was to get in their pants. I’ll have questions for that later.
She pulls her arm from his hold, and both girls rush over to her on the bed, and one of them scoops her into their arms. I have this odd feeling of wanting to comfort her like that. It’s confusing, the intensity of it. I don’t like feeling this protectiveness over someone else, this need to keep them safe from the world. It only sets you up to be crushed when you can’t stop the world from inevitably hurting them.
The girl holding her looks back over at Mason with this desperation in her face. “What happened?” she asks him.
I can see the genuine concern in her expression, this need to protect the girl she’s holding, like she’s been doing it for a long time. The thought pains me, making me circle back to the last interaction I had with her. The way I felt her pain without even knowing what caused it. Mason shakes his head, not really having an answer for her. He’s just as confused as they are. I stand there, still wrapping my head around everything myself while they try to figure it out.
“I don’t know…“ Mason tells her. “I was headed to the bathroom when I heard a commotion like someone was fighting. When I walked in here, Bash was beating the shit out of this kid, and I pulled him off.”
