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“Willa Manning.” Ollie looks surprised. “Thisis interesting.”
His tone stops my heart. He knows why I’m here, obviously. And suddenly, this floor seems dangerously desolate. I strain to hear sound elsewhere in the station, but the air is airlessly, porously still.
I try to push around Ollie, but he shoots out his elbows, blocking the door. “How’d you get up here?”
He’s at least a head taller than I am—so tall, in fact, I can see uphis nostrils. His chest is solid and leaden, and brute strength seems to crackle from within. But I can’t be afraid of him. Not now.
I meet his gaze. “I was looking for something.”
He nods. “And did you find it?”
“Maybe.”As soon as I test that DNA on the coffee cup, you’re dead.
“So how much did you read? Is my research correct?”
I frown.Research?What does he mean? I notice Ollie’s gaze drifting over to the pile of folders on his desk. On the very top, probably now marred with my fingerprints, is the file with my name on it.
I blink, trying to understand.Research.Research... aboutme? And then it hits me. Oh my God. Oh myGod.
I’m so stunned, I can’t quite believe it at first. I step backward. My vision tunnels. There’s absolutely no way Ollie could have a file on me aboutthat.
Ollie’s knuckles make a loud crack on the doorjamb. He knows, and he knows thatIknow. And then he says, “Did you know I grew up here, Willa? Well, not in Blue Hill proper—I’m not from that side of the tracks—but on the outskirts. But I hung out with Blue Hill kids my whole life, partied with guys at Aldrich. I went to a lot of frat parties, in fact.”
It feels as though the blood has drained from my body. I wheel around, needing to escape from what I’m afraid he’s going to say next. I look for a window.
“Now hold on a second,” he says, lightly touching my wrist. “Let me finish. First off, if you think I’mthatguy, you’re wrong. I wouldn’t do that to a woman.But I was at that same party. I only found out about what they did afterward—it’s not like they did it to the girls out in the open.”
It feels like I’ve swallowed razor blades. This can’t be happening.Please tell me this isn’t happening.“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I try to say, though the words sound garbled, nonsensical.
Ollie ignores me. “But the morning after, I saw this guysmooth-talking a couple of skittish girls as they left. Him being like,It’s all good, nothing bad happened.One of them was you.”
I quiver. My mouth opens and closes soundlessly, like a fish.
“And then I asked the dude what it was all about. He laughed, told me everything, though he couched it as ‘they were asking for it, they loved it, it was a good time.’” He shakes his head, disgusted. “I guess he wasn’t afraidI’dsay anything—his dad was, like, the CEO of some billion-dollar company, and my dad was working part-time security.”
The humiliation rakes through me like a trail of slime. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I insist again. “You have me confused with someone else.”
But Ollie snorts like I’ve told a joke. “Nah, I remember you from that party. Those dudes were such idiots—didn’t even realize you were the new president’s daughter. But I did.”
“I don’t...” I whisper, closing my eyes. But I can’t deny it anymore. Not when it’s so clear he knows. It is horrifying, but he knows. The memories pound me, wet and hot, not just flickers anymore but with true, hard edges.
God, it was long ago. I certainly wasn’t the type of girl who went to frat parties—because, Jesus, frat parties were for idiots. But this girl I knew from the punk club, Andrea, said it might be “ironically fun.” And so I’d thought,What the hell?
Ironically fun.I dressed up like a girl going to a frat party, buying a tight red dress from Goodwill, applying sparkly eye shadow goopily all over my lids, sliding on platform heels, and practicing my dumb-girl laugh. This would be a performance piece, I figured. I’d be an undercover reporter. When I crossed the threshold into the house, I must have passed the skank test, because the frat guys—brothers? I didn’t fucking know—looked at me approvingly. Someone handed me a beer, and I chugged it.
For a while, itwasfun. I drank beers. Guys came up to me andsaid they liked my dress, my shoes, my tits, my ass—totally unapologetically, like they thought they were being chivalrous and loving. It was all so despicable, but strangely intriguing—I felt like I’d gone undercover into a strange new land.
But then the room tilted. I was drunk so suddenly, in a sickening whoosh. I laughed loudly, found myself taking part in one conversation and then abruptly I was elsewhere, talking to someone else. Eventually I found myself with someone cute. He was tall with a face like a heartthrob on a reality dating show. Not my kind of guy, but then, I wasn’t really in my right mind.
I rose to my tiptoes, scanning the crowd for Andrea, but I couldn’t find her. I should have left then, but the guy I was talking to placed a hand on my arm like he owned me.No. You can’t leave yet.I almost slapped him—I certainly wanted to. But my limbs felt unsteady, and my aim was off. I felt weak. Scared, even. I’d never been scared of anything in my life.
What happened next was a toxic, confused blur: that same guy taking me by the hand, kissing me. I kissed him back at first, but then I had enough. Except the guy didn’t take no for an answer. We were in a dark hallway. The music was far away, a distant bass line. He backed me into a dark room even though I kept slurring that I wanted to go home.
My butt on the mattress. My shoes falling off with athunk. I tried to fight because I’m a fucking fighter and this didnothappen to people like me—liberated women, strong women, women who didn’t take any shit.
And then. The feeling of being split open. Wanting to scream, maybe actually screaming, but the sound being swallowed up by laughter and music and indifference.
Later, I woke up in a twin bed with dark sheets in a room I’d never seen before. I was wearing the short, trampy red dress from the thrift store, though the skirt had been hiked over my naked butt. It was like someone had used me up and then tossed me away.
