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Okay, that was good.
Another noise down the hall caught her attention. It sounded like someone crying.
Hannah moved down the long hallway toward her parents’ bedroom door which was shut.
“Get away from me! Don’t touch me!” A girl’s shriek followed by a wail so miserable that Hannah burst in through the door without knocking.
The scene revealed itself in pieces. A skinny girl, naked in the fetal position on her parents’ bed. Blood on the sheets, a lot of it. Her brother standing naked over the girl, arms akimbo.
He jumped, rushed to cover himself with a pillow, when Hannah walked in.
“What the fuck, Mickey,” she said.“What the fuck?”
“Do you notknock?” yelled Mickey.
“He—he—he raped me,” the girl managed to push out between sobs.
Mickey looked at Hannah wild, desperate, lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender. The pillow dropped and she averted her eyes. “No, no, no. She wanted it. She came on tome.”
Then Cricket was there, screaming at Mickey. The girl vomited on the carpet, retching and sobbing. And Hannah felt the world spin—the house, her parents, this girl in their bed, her brother. And thenshewas shrieking.
Shutupshutupshutup!
Mickey and Cricket fell silent, stared at Hannah with mouths gaping.
The girl in the bed—Libby. It was Libby from school. A senior like Mickey who smoked back by the dumpsters with the hipsters. She was part of the artist/theater kids clique with asymmetrical hair tinged pink, dressed in black all the time. She always looked so cool, so put together to Hannah. She was a girl with a thing—like she knew what she wanted to do, wanted to be. Her art was always in the student shows; Hannah heard she was going to the Cooper Union in New York City, a famous art school.
Now she looked as slim and helpless as a child. Shewasa child.
Hannah went to her. Cricket and Mickey started arguing more quietly, voices angry.We broke up, Cricket. I don’t owe you anything.
They took it out into the hallway.
“He raped me,” Libby whispered to Hannah. “I was a virgin.”
That explained the blood—but so much? “I have my period,” she said when Hannah helped her to sit. “I told him no, over and over. He was so—strong.”
She was very, very drunk, slurring her words, her gaze unfocused, eyes swollen shut from crying.
“I’m going to take you home, okay?” said Hannah, pushing her hair back.
“He hurt me. He just took what he wanted. It was like I wasn’t even there.”
The girl was so disconsolate, sobbing, words coming jagged.
“I’m—so sorry,” said Hannah. “It’s okay now. You’re okay.”
Mickey. Was he capable of raping a girl? Hurting her? Deep in her heart, she knew the answer. He’d done other bad things, dark things. Even Cricket had said that he was cruel sometimes, nasty, hurtful when he didn’t get his own way, that he was sexually aggressive. That was the phrase she used.
“I want to call the police,” said Libby.
There was a moment—a breath, where she almost said,Okay, of course. Let’s do that.
But it passed, and she couldn’t bring herself to support that. Mickey was her brother. Things were bad enough. The house was trashed. Maybe the police had already been called. Their house was set apart from the other houses, not on top of each other like they were in subdivisions. They were on a full three acres, but maybe one of the neighbors had heard the music or seen all the cars. Their closest neighbors, the Newmans, knew that Sophia and Leo were away.
We trust you guys. We know you’ll take of the house and each other, her father had said.
Of course, Dad. Don’t worry, had been her honest answer.
