The Broken Sister (Sister #6) (25 page)

“Oh, Kylie. Why do you say things like that?”

A laugh popped out of her mouth. “You sound like him now. He’s always about the positive in me. I’m more into the negative.”

“He’s right.”

“Don’t tell Ally that. She still won’t talk to me.”

“I know. She’ll come around. She just needs to cool off. You two were right, it was just hard on her to hear.”

Kylie’s stomach tightened in revulsion every time she thought about how her sister wasn’t taking her calls. It had never happened before between them. She’d let her dad and boyfriend come between them and it didn’t make Kylie proud to have done so.

****

“Where the fuck have you been, bro?” Tommy started talking before Tristan had even opened his office door.

“Right here as always,” he said, his tone dry as he sat on the edge of his desk, watching his brother pace the small office. This time there was no smiles. He hadn’t seen Tommy in months and now he didn’t want to.

“Yeah. You do have freaky-good work ethic. I’ve missed you. Did you hear…” And off Tommy went in a friendly session of brotherly catch-up.

Denial. It was working big in his life right now. He knew there was shit going to come down the pike. He was prepared for it to blow almost any day he awoke. Yesterday’s surprise visit by his girlfriend had him nearly hyperventilating. His secretary’s smug glee at the announcement had been obvious. Kylie walking down the hall of Tamasy Industries, not so cool. All he could picture was his grandfather walking out of any of the doors. Who knew where the old coot was. He would recognize her. He’d made it his business to know her. And what if Tommy—but… no one had seen her. Once he realized that, he tried to calm down and act natural. Not freak her out more than he already had. Her natural insecurities had heightened and it hadn’t made him feel good to be the cause of that. But it was like watching a little innocent baby lamb walk into the lion’s den to witness Kylie walking down this hallway. And worse still? He was the one who had lured her there.

He shook his head. Of course there was the rape charges she’d stated about his brother. A statement she’d never said to anyone else. That he was now convinced of. She hadn’t even breathed of it to him. No matter how many times he said the name Tamasy. Was he taunting her with it? Maybe. Waiting. Seeing if she reacted. But she didn’t react more than a subtle, quiet flinch. There was no huge moment she flipped out being exposed to it.

The thing was, he still didn’t know what he thought. He had fallen in love with the girl who could ruin his brother and his family. Yet, there was nothing about Kylie to suggest she’d ever make up something like this. He didn’t believe she would. But then… he didn’t fucking know. He had no explanation for what he was doing or for how long it had gone on. Because she was such a respectful person, and didn’t push the boundaries he’d clearly defined, and because she trusted him, he was getting away with not overlapping his family with her. There had been numerous times and ways he should have gotten caught in his lies. But she didn’t snoop. She didn’t pry. She didn’t glance over his paperwork she’d delivered that had his name and signature all over it as Tristan Tamasy, which was what he’d assumed she’d come there to confront him over. Instead… she’d been sweetly bringing him forgotten paperwork and was curious after all these months where he worked. He knew how much of her guts it had taken her to show up like this.

And now his brother. He could barely be around Tommy right now. How? He was betraying Tommy and then, when he saw Tommy, he wondered if he wasn’t betraying Kylie. But he clung to the belief she was just mistaken. It hadn’t been intentional drugs, but too much alcohol. It had to be. It was the only explanation that made sense about the two people he now knew and loved. He just didn’t know how to approach it yet with Kylie.

But then, where did all this fit Tommy?

But Tommy wasn’t a rapist. It was an ugly thing to even consider. Tristan tried to focus in as his brother was rambling on about his school and social life and football being done, and graduation getting scary-close. He sounded like what he was; a normal, nervous-to-move-on college senior.

There was a lull in the conversation. “Hey, that stuff with those two girls… you don’t think any of that will follow me, do you? Grandfather took care of that stupid Cadence and said everything was all good, I didn’t need to worry anymore. And that you’d taken care of Kylie. Is that true?”

Tristan’s heart stalled. No! Nothing was true. Except… except what Kylie said. But his throat felt tight, constricted of air. “She’s not any of your concern.”

“It scared me. You know, calm before a storm or something. I’ve been careful. Like you said. I keep quiet. I only party with girls I know.” But then here was Tommy muttering about nerves and being scared. How anyone could think Tommy—good, fun, easygoing Tommy—was a rapist? None of this situation made the least bit of sense to Tristan. But Kylie just didn’t lie. He didn’t know what else it could be but a tragic, misfortunate misunderstanding…

“You seeing someone?”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know. No one’s seen or heard from you in months.”

“And let me guess, Mom and Dad noticed?”

“No,” Tommy conceded, with a sharp laugh. They shared a look. Tristan’s heart squeezed. See.
They were brothers
. They shared an understanding of what it was like to grow up a Tamasy. They watched Tara leave, and their parents’ silent, cold war of a marriage. They got what it was like to grow up in the shadow of their grandfather’s image and pressure. Tommy was his little brother. He just didn’t know how this situation could even be.

“No one you’d want to know,” he mumbled.

“Why? She all old and successful? Dull and boring?”

Everything but those things. “Look, I hate to cut this short but I have some things to get done right now.”

Tommy stood. “Sure. Look you wanna grab a beer or something this week?”

Tristan nodded. “Yeah. Sure. That would be great.”

“Cool. Talk to ya later.”

“Sure.”

He stared after his little brother, a pit deepening in his stomach.

ALLY DIDN’T RESPOND TO her calls. She was ignoring Kylie, which was unprecedented for them. Ally was the caretaker, the one who kept them in contact. She called Kylie, she stopped by to see what was going on. She was the one who made plans and brought Kylie along. They’d go to concerts or dinner or shopping, all at Ally’s instigation. Having her mad at Kylie was enough to have Kylie’s stomach cramping in worse and worse nerves. It sounded easy to others to embrace what she needed to do. She understood she hadn’t really done anything wrong, but that didn’t ease the discomfort of it. Ally thought she’d done something wrong. Worse, Ally thought Kylie was hurting her and picking someone who didn’t deserve it over her. Ally also thought she was picking her boyfriend over her.

But it also got Kylie thinking about so many things. Things she had ignored and pretended didn’t happen; but all of it had happened. She curled up one night and checked the website. There wasn’t much more to Cadence’s claims. Other claims had been added, but no new comments to Cadence’s. It was like a social media post that didn’t get enough traffic: it had died its natural death. Only this was the story of a girl’s rape. It was the story Kylie couldn’t tell. But lived. She’d lived this. And like everything she lived, she pretended she didn’t. She tried to stuff it inside her. Smother it. Kill it.

And look how far that strategy had gotten her in her life.

The thing was, just like her feelings over her dad, they didn’t die, it all just grew bigger and stronger like some noxious climbing vine that you cut off to kill, and instead grew three shoots in its place. Like the vine twisting her back. The tattoo was a metaphor only she understood completely. It was a dead vine that wrapped all around her soul, suffocating her. Yet on the outside she appeared fine and normal, there was something dark and black smothering her soul, cutting off her breath and heartbeat.

When she got Ally’s voicemail for the twentieth time or so she got up and jammed her feet into her boots and stuck her leather coat on. She jammed a gray hat over her hair, grabbed her keys, and darted down the stairs and onto the dark street. It was nine forty-five. It wasn’t rainy, just cold. She quickly started down the sidewalk.

She had made it her business to find out which dorm building and room number Cadence was in. It was across from the one Kylie had shared with Olivia last year, until Olivia had transferred out. She only waited a moment, lingering around the outside to follow a group of laughing, talking, flirting freshman into the dorm. She ditched them and headed to the third floor, room 12. The dorm door was open. She played with the hem of her gray shirt that hung to her mid-thighs. Nerves made her stomach feel jittery. But she’d come this far. She glanced in and there was a girl sitting on her bed, notebook computer on her lap. Kylie took in a breath for courage and knocked on the open door.

The girl glanced up. She was brunette, girl-next-door kind of pretty. Pleasing to look at. The girl was dressed casual but without any kind of edge or style. She would be amazing in court as a rape-victim, Kylie thought right off. She looked innocent, sweet, and had a fresh off the farm to the big city kind of feel to her look, and open expressions. Not like Kylie.

“Hey.” Kylie had to control rolling her eyes at her own lame greeting.

“Hi,” the girl said, her voice rolling over it in obvious doubt over who Kylie was.

“Um, you’re Cadence?”

“Yes.”

“Can I talk to you?”

“Who are you?” She shut her laptop and scooted to the edge of her single bed. She gave Kylie her full attention now.

Kylie first stepped inside and shut and locked the dorm room door. “My name is Kylie McKinley, but you might remember me as Kland5568.” Cadence’s back went rigid and her head whipped up. Her eyes were wide with recognition to meet Kylie’s. Kylie nodded. “I see you recognize me.”

“
You
?”

“Yes, me. I commented on your claims on Rape Matters.”

“You did it anonymously. You said, ‘good luck,’ as if wishing me well in my fight to win a soccer game or study for a test, not a face-off with one of the most popular boys at school about rape charges. It was him against me. He’s a senior, I’m nobody, and no one believed me. And you…”

Kylie’s stomach cramped at Cadence’s pleas and her accusations. She remembered how she felt being a freshman up against Tommy and his friends. His popularity, his support. With her reputation and her supposed compliance that night. It would all make her look like she was making it up. It was partly why she had never told a soul. The other part? She was a coward. A weak, wimpy victim who didn’t know how to begin to even start to fight for justice, for what was right. Kylie wanted to step back, spin around, and run far away. Cadence’s courage made her braver than Kylie already.

But all she’d ever done was run and here she was, still running. It had gotten her nowhere. She was like a rat on a spinning wheel. She never changed or grew or got better because she was chasing nothing and everything still chased her. Kylie nodded her head, keeping her voice even she tried to speak with some degree of confidence. “Yes. I did it anonymously. I wished you luck for doing what I believed I could never, ever do.”

“That was a shitty thing to do. Like throwing a crumb towards me and luring me in and then strangling me for my efforts.”

“Yes, it was a bit like that.”

“Then what are you doing here now?”

“I want to do better. I want to be better. I’ve never known how to. I don’t know how to talk about it. I know this happened to me, but I don’t remember anything about it. I never knew how to take ownership of being a rape victim when I don’t remember
being
raped. I don’t remember any violence or pain or feeling any of it. Yet I woke up there, in his filthy room, feeling filthy. I’m not sure the feeling has ever left me.”

Cadence sat back down on the edge of her bed as Kylie spoke. She kept her voice, even and low and soothing. Cadence’s eyes filled with tears. “You really had this happen to you too, didn’t you?”

“Yes. Did you think I was lying?”

“It occurred to me maybe it was someone he knew trying to draw me out. But it’s been too long now. Most people have forgotten it or moved on. I get a few sneers or nasty names thrown my way, but the out and out disdain and harassment has mostly passed.”

Kylie stared at the girl. Cadence had just voiced Kylie’s worst fear. The fear that made her inert, weak, and silent. “Was it really like that? People blamed you? Harassed you? Bullied you? Didn’t anyone believe you? Any other girls?”

“There was a few. I mean, it wasn’t like I felt fear of my safety or anything, or like I had to leave. But there was blowback from what I did. I think I knew there would be. I just couldn’t let him get away with it scot-free. With my family’s support I talked to the police, they interviewed Tommy, which he denied after the fact, but there was no evidence to proceed with any kind of prosecution. It was as if it didn’t happen to me. As if what I went through didn’t matter, when it did. And it does matter what he did. He shouldn’t be able to do this and get away with it. And I was thinking if it happened to me like this, there should be others…”

“And there was, but I didn’t give you any way to find me.”

“No, you were anonymous.”

“I haven’t told anyone. Not even my mom or sister. Not a soul. Just that website comment.” Kylie nearly fell on the unmade bed behind her and curled up without asking if it was okay. Her stomach was hollowed out and her legs were shaking. She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I was such a coward. I’ve always been. I’ve never known how to confront things, even the bad things done to me. I have people in my life who would help me and believe me and I never told them. Not a thing. I just tried to carry on like nothing happened and all the while it ate my insides like acid eating your esophagus.”

Cadence sucked in a breath. “That sounds harder than what I’ve done to deal with it. All alone? It seems like too much to bear. How did you do it alone?”

“Honestly?” Kylie lifted her gaze to the girl. She licked her lips. God, it was odd to discuss this openly and without a bunch of preamble. This girl just got it. “Not very well. It about broke me. I kind of decided, well fuck it. If that could happen in a crowded house in front of dozens of people, then where can’t it happen? I became reckless, stupid actually. I’m not sure what I was trying to prove.”

“I know what you were trying to prove: he doesn’t win. He won’t decide how you should behave. I think it’s why I posted on the website.”

“I’m not sure I ever found the words to articulate it,” Kylie said, staring down at the unfamiliar striped bedspread she sat on. “I used to be timid and afraid. After it, I lost all sense of self-preservation. I went to parties and out in the dark of night. I became less afraid and more reckless, which just doesn’t seem right. Shouldn’t I have been even more afraid? Wouldn’t a real rape victim avoid sex? I just… I never could figure out why I felt so erratic.”

Cadence’s head turned halfway to the side as her eyebrows furrowed. “Are you for real?”

Kylie smiled a sad, self-deprecating smile. “So for real.”

“God, Kylie, there is no rape victim guidelines. They are everywhere in all walks of life and circumstances. Just because you had sex after doesn’t change that it was done to you. Do you really believe that?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I have this boyfriend now… He’s not like the guys I used to date. He’s nice to me. Sex with him is more about connection than…”

“Proving that asshole Tommy doesn’t determine your life.”

Kylie hung her head. “I liked to have sex before and after it happened. It wasn’t all about him. That’s what confuses me. I don’t know how you found the strength to stay at school after all that was done to you, when I couldn’t find the strength to speak.”

“I had a lot of support. I have my parents, grandparents, and even aunt and uncles and some cousins. They all believed me. They wanted me to leave here. I almost did, and then I decided screw that. I didn’t do anything wrong. He doesn’t get to stay here and force me to leave. It’s been hard on my family. But they are where I find the strength to stay.”

“I have that kind of family, contrary to what I’m sure you’re thinking. I was afraid to tell them. I mean, I was there, at the parties. I was sleeping with his friends. Not friend, but in the plural friends. I would have slept with Tommy that very night if he asked me. I was hoping to. How do I claim rape? Being that kind of girl, there for that very reason, tell me, how dare I claim rape?”

“Because you didn’t tell him it was okay, Kylie,” Cadence said softly. “He didn’t give you the chance to consent. And that’s just wrong, no matter who you are.

“I doubted it all so completely but then I saw your story, and I know it didn’t make me run forward all brave and ready to take this on, but something released in me. It was like you validated what happened to me. I could maybe try to start believing it and sorting it out. Maybe your story made me believe in myself. I take a long time to process stuff and react. Sometimes, usually, actually I don’t react how I should. I want to though. I just don’t know what to do, Cadence. This… this scares me.”

“What are you scared of?”

“Everything. Yet, nothing specific.”

“I have no physical proof.” Cadence shrugged her shoulders with a sad lift of her mouth.

“I don’t either.” Kylie stared down at her interlocked fingers. “I went to the student health services and got screened for STDs and got the morning after pill so I didn’t get pregnant, but I never said it was rape. I wasn’t all bruised up. After all as far as I know I laid there, willingly complying. So there is no proof of what happened to me. Sad part is, I can’t even bear witness to it.”

Cadence stared into her eyes. “I hear the doubt still, in your voice. If someone held you down and shoved a pill into your mouth and their penis into your vagina while you were awake, would you know that was rape?”

“Jesus. Of course I would.”

“Then there you go. That’s what was done to you. Except you were strung out unconscious. Not even aware, so it’s even worse than doing so when aware in my book.”

“How do… I mean, how are you so strong?”

“It doesn’t make me a better or more worthy victim. Get that, Kylie. I didn’t get the guts to get help until days too late. I have no physical proof. No rape kit. No pictures or samples. Nothing but my word. And the word of the dozens at the party who claim I willingly went upstairs.”

“As did I. We can’t win.”

“But we can try. We can be heard. We can try to not let him just walk away from this.”

“I want to. I just, you have to understand, I don’t know if I can do this. If I can have others knowing. If I can stay strong.”

“You’re not just coming to commiserate with me?”

Kylie’s gaze shot to Cadence’s. There was a measured, careful quality to Cadence’s tone. “I don’t know. I would like to think, no, I’m not just here to commiserate. But I don’t know exactly what I’m here for. But I have to tell you talking about it, with someone who gets it, is…”

“Yeah, it is,” Cadence agreed, her smile sad.

“What do we do now?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you need to tell your family. Maybe we could go after him. Get him expelled from school or something. The very least is he should have to leave, not us.”