Giving It Up (23 page)

He touched me for an eternity, or maybe just a few minutes, before he stopped. I didn’t know why he stopped. In that objective sort of detachment, my mind wondered at it. What made a bad man stop when he could go further? Was it just that this left no marks, no bruises, or fluids or anything else, and so made it easy to get away with?

He muttered into my ear, “I know about the little Murphy family dinner. Get me what I need, and you’ll be free.”

Then he was away from me, though my eyes were strangely fuzzy. The slam of the door and boot steps down the stairs signaled his retreat, if I could call it that. More like a victory dance, I thought. Tires squealed from the front of the house as he drove away.

I slid to the ground.

What a lie. I’d never be free.

I would have lost it completely, right then. It was close, hovering right there on the precipice. Even in my breakdown I was practical. Even broken and insane with my private grief, I loved Bailey. So I crawled across the floor to the phone on the side table.

I heard Shelly’s voice. “Hello?”

“Can you come?” I heard myself ask in a hoarse voice.

“Allie? What’s wrong? Allie! Okay, I’m coming over,” and then a
click
. It was good to have a friend.

A shout and rattle of the baby gate told me Bailey was up. I was a mother first. No rest for the wicked. I dragged myself up the stairs, brought her down, and plopped her in front of the television. I figured impending mental collapse was as good of an excuse as any for bad parenting.

I curled up on the couch, watching the dancing letters. Sanity slid away like a balloon lost at a carnival. I felt its loss with relief.

“Allie? What happened?” Shelly’s voice, garbled and distant. She was still above the surface, but I was down, down, down. Thank God she was here, I thought, someone to watch over Bailey. Because down here it was black.

The doctors and nurses left, leaving only the two cops on either side of my hospital bed. The woman cop shifted on her feet, very pregnant.

“Go on down,” the man told her. “I’ll wrap up and meet you there.”

She bit her lip, deliberating. She probably didn’t want to appear weak, like she wasn’t holding her weight against a man. Then again, she looked very uncomfortable. That appeared to win out, because she nodded and said, “I’ll see you in the cafeteria.”

“You’ll be okay,” she said, squeezing my hand. “It wasn’t your fault.” Practiced words, probably recited to all the rape victims, but they warmed me. Maybe there was hope.

After she left the room, the man took off his jacket and draped it across the foot of the bed. He questioned me, scribbling my answers on a notepad.

Yes, I knew my assailant. We’d been friends.

No, I hadn’t had sex with him before. Not with anyone.

Yes, I told him no. I’m sure he heard me.

The cop had just been a person-shaped blob to me in that room full of people. But he’d come closer to the bed, and only then did I notice his eyes were green. Green eyes, so rare. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen them before in real life. At least not ones so brilliant, so bright. The green eyes were narrowed.

“Reporting a rape is an important matter, Ms. Winters.”

I said nothing. He shifted closer to the bed.

“I can see that you’re upset,” he said. “But false accusations of rape have serious implications.”

I sucked in a breath. False accusations?

He pushed aside the flimsy paper that clothed me, exposing my breasts. “I wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea about you.”

No, I’d been wrong. There wasn’t any hope.

He pulled out a condom, speaking calmly while he put it on. “I wouldn’t want anyone to think you’re a slut.”

She’d been wrong too, the other cop. I wouldn’t be okay.

“Look at me,” he said. I refused, but his hand firmly turned my head toward him.

He pulled my face closer, until I looked him right in the eye. I shut my eyes.

“Nobody likes a tease,” he said. “But don’t worry. I can get you through this.”

I wanted to die. I prayed that I would, that second, but no one heard me. No one cared.

It was my fault. It had to be, or why else would this be happening? It didn’t make sense. Make it stop.

And I thought, then, in the absence of any fucking clue of what to do, I would do as I was told. I’d said no before, and it hadn’t worked. It had only made him angry. With my eyes tightly shut, I opened my mouth to protest, to scream, but nothing came out.

“That’s right,” he whispered. “I can help you.”

I tried to open my eyes, but they were weighted shut. No, they were already open; it was just dark in here. It hadn’t been dark when I’d last been awake. What time was it?

I rustled in the linens. Bed. I was in bed. And it was night.

Fuck it all to hell.

That meant Colin would have come home. What had Shelly told him?

I had to think of some sort of excuse, something Colin would believe. I sure as hell wasn’t telling him the truth, not about what happened today, and not where it had taken my mind.
Wouldn’t believe me anyway…

Don’t think about it.
It was too late.

My mouth felt thick, my head too large, and my limbs sluggish. It was all the pain of a hangover but without the bliss of forgetfulness. No, I remembered every fucking detail from earlier today. Even things that hadn’t registered in that strange moment of disconnect came to me now. The smell of the cop’s aftershave, the rasp of the hair on the back of his hands, the harshness of his breaths.
Make it stop.

I had to even my breathing. If I was going to play this off as a stomach bug or something, then I shouldn’t be in the middle of a panic attack. That was it, rational thoughts.
Keep breathing.

Ever the coward, I wondered how long I could stay here. I heard faint clinking in the kitchen—someone was cooking dinner. That was good. Someone had Bailey. Someone was in control of the situation. How long could I lie here before that someone came to find me? It was a very nice cocoon, Colin’s bedroom.

Staring into the darkness, I heard soft thumps up the steps. Then whispers outside the door. Without moving I tried to make them out.

“…still sleeping…”

“…shouldn’t wake…rest.”

“…been four hours…”

The door creaked, and a band of yellow light fell across the bed. I shut my eyes. The floor creaked as someone walked toward the bed. I steadied my breathing. The floor creaked again as someone walked out. Then a soft
click
as the door shut.

I opened my eyes again to the dark. I couldn’t sleep. I wouldn’t. It would just invite the nightmare back. That was the one that came to me—not what happened with Jacob. And even then it was a rare thing. Usually only after seeing a cop. Sometimes even seeing a cop car would trigger me.

There’d been a neat row of cop cars when I’d gone to the police station to withdraw my complaint the next week. I’d worried myself into vomiting, thinking I’d have to see him there. But I hadn’t. It had all been very formal, very bureaucratic. There were forms to fill out, and a statement to sign. It had been a misunderstanding, that night with Jacob. I’d been drunk and hadn’t really said no, and so it wasn’t really rape, after all. The cops there, in uniform instead of in a suit like
he
had been, looked at me blankly. They did not judge me when I was a rape victim, and they did not judge me when I was a false accuser, recanting her statement. They just didn’t care.

But it was in those days that I’d formed my crazy ideas. Even then I knew they were crazy. All men couldn’t be bad. My dad wasn’t bad, even if he was gone a lot. Besides that, there had to be plenty of examples of good guys if I’d cared to look. But I hadn’t wanted to look, not at all.

I’d made the decision then never to have sex with a guy. More than that, I wouldn’t even put myself in a situation where I’d be
near
a guy.

Then I’d found out I was pregnant. Holy fuck.

I’d thought about trying to reach Jacob. His dad was a fucker of the worst sort, but he might have Jacob’s phone number or a way to reach him. In the end I didn’t do anything.

My dad probably guessed who the father was. Jacob had been my best friend, and then he was gone and I was pregnant. It was an age-old story, right? But he never said anything. He just gave me some cash and told me he’d send what he could.

After I’d had Bailey, it had taken a few months to heal, physically at least. Only after that had I come up with the idea of date nights. I’d thought it ingenious. Now I knew I’d been an idiot.

I’d hurt myself on those date nights, over and over again.

It hadn’t been about those guys, not really. They’d been props, whips used for self-flagellation. I thought maybe Shelly’s deals were flays of her own whip and that was troubling, but we’d agreed not to interfere. After they’d let her into the hospital room with me and I’d dry heaved for an hour, she’d apologized to me in whispered tones for making me do this. She hadn’t protested when I’d gone into the police station to withdraw my statement. She hadn’t guessed what had happened, I thought, not then nor ever, but she saw what it did to me. She didn’t understand why, but she didn’t want me to be hurt.

The cocoon grew stifling. Suddenly I wanted to see people, these people who cared about me, God knew why. I still didn’t know what excuse I would make, but surely I could think of something. I wanted to leech their comfort, their normalcy.

I descended the stairs, feeling an odd remoteness. There should be pictures here, I thought, as I trailed my finger along the blank stairway wall. At the bottom I found Shelly and Bailey on the couch in the living room, playing a game of cards. I paused there in the corner, watching.

I knew from experience how Bailey played. We would deal the cards, in whatever number and setup we wanted, and Bailey would grab for the face cards—the kings, queens and jacks—and collect them. I always figured it was a pretty decent strategy for a toddler.

She’d probably grow up a card shark and best us all. I could only hope as much. Maybe it wasn’t the doctor or president that other moms hoped for, but it was all about power in the end. The money, the respect, and not having to take shit from no one. That power came in different forms in my world, but no less potent.

A soft clang from the kitchen caught my attention. Colin. I floated past Shelly and Bailey—not sure if they greeted me or not—and leaned against the kitchen door. Colin looked up from the oven, lines of worry on his face. I felt a pang of guilt at that, like someone watching herself be mourned.

He straightened and came to me. “How are you feeling?”

It startled me out of my trance, that he could speak to me. Not dead yet after all.

I had no fake story prepared, no blithe comeback to deliver. In fact, as I opened my mouth to offer one of those practiced platitudes—
It’s okay, I’m fine
—I found I couldn’t speak at all.

“Hey.” He pulled me against him in a tight embrace. “Everything will be okay. You’ll be fine.”

And damn me, even knowing it was a mirage, I believed him.

The doorbell rang like a gong in a cavern.

I shifted on my feet in front of the wide door. Colin stood like a pillar beside me, holding the cobbler. Bailey waved her hand futilely for the doorbell, trying to press it again. Muffled footsteps approached, and then the large carved door swung open, spraying light onto the front step.

“Won’t you come in?” It was the same guy as before, wearing the same stuffy suit. I wondered if he got days off. What was the pay like for door answering these days?

He led us down a hallway, past the closed double doors of the study I’d seen before, and into a very large room. A dark, curved leather sectional took up more square footage than my entire old apartment. Low lighting and groups of candles were—what was the word?—
ambient
. Soft music played in the background, something on the piano. I did a double take. No, there wasn’t music playing, like from a CD. There was a piano player in the corner. Fuck.

I could see Rose and Shelly seated at a bar at the other side of the room. I trailed behind Colin as we crossed over an inky black floor. Surely it was tile, though I couldn’t see the cracks.

“Hi, Allie.” Rose smiled and stood, her slinky black dress sliding into place. “I’m so glad you came. Colin. And who’s this little one?”

“This is Bailey,” I said, looking at her. She promptly shoved her face into my hair, dampening my freshly straightened hair.

“Aw, that’s okay,” Rose said. “Why don’t you come sit here? What would you like to drink?”

“Thanks,” I said, scooting onto the bar chair with a clinging Bailey. “Just water.”

As Rose accepted the cobbler from Colin, I nudged Shelly with my foot.

“I like your hair,” Shelly said with a smile. More of a smirk, really. She knew how long it took me to straighten it. She also knew I only did it because I so wanted to make a good impression.

“Bite me,” I muttered but without heat.

“Don’t worry,” she said softly. “I softened him up for you.”

I threw her a look. I had no desire to hear the details of
that
.

She put up her hands. “Just trying to help.”

Yeah, yeah, everyone wanted to help. I might just keel over and die from all the goddamn help. I didn’t really mean it, though. I wasn’t mad at Shelly, just nervous as hell. Before we’d left, Colin had told me again that it would be okay, that whatever his brother thought of me didn’t matter. I knew he meant to be reassuring, but that just freaked me out even more. Thinking about them talking about me, about Philip cataloging all my faults for Colin, made me sweat. It wasn’t like it would be hard for Philip to think of ways to put me down.