The Broken Sister (Sister #6) (5 page)

“No. Of course not.”

“And she hasn’t approached anyone about money? Or suing or accusations?” He directed his questions to Tommy.

“No. Just that posting on the website.” Tommy shrugged. Tristan noticed him hunch forward. It felt like there was something Tommy wasn’t disclosing to them.

“So you’re saying this girl hasn’t actually approached us? No accusations? No lawyers? Just some chatter on a website with no legal basis.” Tristan summarized.

“Innuendo is enough to lead to trouble. It doesn’t take much for accusations to lead to people looking for evidence. We will not sit on this, like anyone can say things like this about one of us,” Ellis added from his end of the table with sharp sarcasm. Ellis smacked his hand on the table. “It is incomprehensible that this can just be done. That our name can be ruined like this.” He whipped his glare to Tristan. “Find her and neutralize her, now.” The pulse at Ellis’s temple throbbed.

“Yes, sir.” Somehow this had become Tristan’s problem and sin, when Tommy was the one who started the mess. It had always been that way. As his older brother, Tristan cleaned up the mess that Tommy inevitably made of his life. He got up and Tommy followed him.

“I can’t believe this shit, man. Try to have a good time. These bitches want it, and then get it, and when I don’t fall over them in marriage they claim I raped them. Can’t handle a rejection shouldn’t mean my life gets raped. Right?”

Tristan shoved the door shut. “Maybe don’t go around sounding like that where anyone can hear you? Doesn’t help our cause much. You come off as an egotistical prick. We might need you sympathetic, the victim of a system that doesn’t require proof of wrongdoing. Just cool it, okay, Tommy? Give me a chance to make this go away.”

“Do you think you can? It needs to go away now, bro. I got enough to deal with this year without some ho trying to ruin me.”

Tristan shook his head. How the hell was this all his problem? He resented being pulled away from legit work that required his brain and education and analytical skills to go take care of some gossip propaganda that in all honesty made him feel sketchy. Even if Tommy didn’t deserve it, Tommy was abrasive in his crude opinions about women he dated or slept with. He had gotten even more entitled the last two years at Peterson. Between being the golden boy, a football star, and fraternity president, he was puffed up on adulation and being the big man on campus and enjoying every moment and perk of it. There was no humility in him. Lots of entitlement however. He was a blowhard, but harmless. Still, talk like that could be taken wrong.

“I’m going to try, just stay out of trouble for a few days, okay? I can’t do anything if you keep adding fuel to the fire that is threatening to start. Do you get me?”

Tommy scoffed. “Fine. But that’s really fucking lame, I have to adjust my life.”

Tristan sent his brother out and finished up the reports for his grandfather. It was close to eight o’clock before he got out of the office and left. He grabbed some takeout on the way home and settled in with his laptop to explore the website and start figuring out how to neutralize some college girl posting gossip about his brother.

“DID YOU HEAR?” MEREDITH said before Kylie could even say hello into her cell phone.

“Hear what?”

“There’s been an accusation made at Tommy Tamasy on the Rape Matters website! The entire campus is a buzz with it. Apparently, it was posted last Thursday but didn’t go viral until today.”

Kylie’s stomach soured immediately. She fell onto her bed and curled into a ball. She was in her bedroom, safe and alone at her mom’s house. No one knew about her. No one knew about Tommy. He could not hurt her… yet it all congealed in her stomach like rancid meat. He was a known and popular student. She was nothing. This was half of why she could never report anything. Who would believe her over him? He was Tommy Tamasy. Even two years ago he was the “it” person. Now? He was second to no one at school. Everyone knew who he was. Girls ogled him. Guys emulated him. If he blessed you with his attention you were touching the damn sun of Peterson College.

But someone else had been hurt by him! Kylie suddenly jumped to her feet as the realization stabbed her right in the head. She wasn’t alone. She wasn’t the only one. There was someone else who might understand. She frantically grabbed her computer and started loading the website. She’d heard of it, but had never been on it. What right did she have? Hers wasn’t exactly rape, like the traditional sense of the injustice. There was no memory of a guy attacking her from behind while she screamed “no!” and he didn’t listen.

She started scrolling through the web site until she found it. She didn’t hear what Meredith was saying. Meredith busily squealed and dissected the implications and whether it was true. Kylie finally just hung up with a “call ya later.” She stared then at the screen.

The girl’s name was Cadence Sommelier. She was a freshman. Her story read so similar to Kylie’s own. She was at a party… drinking… Tommy and her… and waking up naked in his room and no recollection of how she got there. But there was evidence of sex on her. Sex she didn’t consent to.

Kylie’s pulse started to skitter around weirdly. Someone else knew! Someone else might know what it was like to wake up in Tommy’s room and be so confused how she got there… so sure her body had sex, but her mind was blank. A piece of white paper. A wiped clean blackboard. There was nothing there.

Consent.
She had not given coherent consent to anyone that night. Of that she was sure. The only thing Kylie knew about
that night
was that she had not agreed to have sex with anyone. So someone had it with her without her consent. Technically rape.

But deep in Kylie’s heart she knew, just knew, it wasn’t the same kind of rape as that of violent attacks. Or where the woman screamed “
No!
” Or where she struggled. Kylie knew her actions allowed her rapist the opportunity to get to her. By being a slut and drinking and being “easy,” she had made herself an accomplice to what Tommy did to her. She was part to blame. And thus, why she had kept it inside her, and all to herself for two years.

She grew warm and had to throw off her flannel shirt. She felt nervous, just reading this. Reliving this. Something percolated in her. Revenge. Hope. Justice. Understanding. All of it swirled in her. All the things she wanted. And had never contemplated having.

Until she clicked through the comments.

The words all popped out at her.
Cock tease. Slut. Bitch. Liar. Whore. Your fault.
So many listed why this episode was Cadence’s fault. Kylie hung her head as the words slammed into her brain and heart… and she knew she was all these things too. She was all of the above.
Cock-tease. Slut. Bitch. Liar. Whore.

If she hadn’t been at that party to have sex with the very person who drugged and raped her, then maybe she wouldn’t be part of it. Maybe then she could with a clear conscious scream “rape!” at the top of her lungs. But she had gone there with the intent to have sex. Either with Tommy if he’d asked, or any number of his friends, which would have been a fine substitute for her.

There was already over a hundred comments. Some, the minority, were in solidarity with Cadence. The rest? Ripping her to virtual shreds. Claiming Cadence was making it up. A liar looking for a payday. She wanted it. It was consensual. She put herself there. Many people who claim they were there that night and saw her drinking. Saw her flirting and kissing Tommy. Many who saw her go upstairs with him… willingly.

Willingly. Yes, Kylie knew about willingly putting herself at parties where she was so drunk from alcohol she’d put into her own body that she could barely stand. She remembered numerous times, maybe a couple of dozen, of doing such things. Even after whatever happened at Tommy’s. But the thing that separated all those instances from the night at Tommy’s was that no matter how drunk she got, she never woke up thinking something had happened but with no idea what or how or who. She would sometimes wake up with broken, stilted memories, but some memory of who and what had gone on.

But not that night. That night, something had been given to her.

But she’d made it all too easy for someone eventually do that to her.

Just as Cadence had. And look at what was said to her. Kylie sighed. The small burst of hope, of thinking maybe there would be some kind of justice, ended.

No one cared if a slut got raped.

She thought for a second and then under her anonymous email and tag she wrote in the comments,
He did it to me too, Cadence. I just never told anyone. Stay strong. Consent is supposed to be contingent on you being conscious. People will call you names, but you know what happened to you was real. You’re braver than me. I could never come forward. Good luck.

She stared at the blinking cursor for a good five minutes. Did she dare post this? Her breathing was increased and her eyes felt like they were swimming as dizziness overwhelmed her. Dare she? But then, why not? What could it hurt? It was anonymous and she would never be found. Besides, even if she was found out, this site didn’t have any real legal reach or meaning. It was just girls like her crying about what they couldn’t seem to find the guts to tell any authority figure. Then again... She sighed as her eyes scanned the comments. Wasn’t this a good illustration on why most girls didn’t report it? Who was there to listen?

She closed down her computer and pushed it away. Disgust ripped through her heart. She was such a pathetic coward who had never done a brave thing in her life. She couldn’t even get a date without being half drunk. How dare she look in the mirror ever again, she wondered. How could she possibly look in the mirror? She left an anonymous comment on someone else’s story and accusation and then she shut her electronics off, as if someone was going to jump through her computer and find her. Sweat rolled down her back and between her breasts. Add coward to her list of faults.

Kylie held her knees up to her chest and stared out of the window of her bedroom. Still home, she expected her mother to be home from work soon. After breaking down on Donny’s shoulder he had patted her head and cooed over her with concern for five minutes until she convinced him she’d just had a bad date and was just so glad to see him. That answer pleased Donny.

Staring out at the blustery, dry day she wondered then, with all this love around her, why did she feel so hollow inside? What was wrong with her she couldn’t appreciate it? What was wrong with her that she didn’t know she shouldn’t sleep around like she did? What made her so damn broken inside?

It wasn’t just the date-rape. It wasn’t just that she had someone violate her and yet had no firsthand knowledge of it. No, these feelings of aching numbness and hollowness had plagued her as long as she could remember. There had always been something so sad feeling about life. The guilt of that rippled through her though. What did she have to feel sad about? She was loved desperately by her mom and Donny and older sister Ally and younger sister Julia. She had a large and fulfilling network of relatives, and her best friend in the world was also her cousin, Olivia. There was so much in her life that was good. She didn’t doubt that love. They were good people, decent people, who raised her with tenderness, concern, care and wanting for nothing. She’d always had her physical needs met and tended to. But for so long, before coming to college even, things had not felt right inside her.

Perhaps so much of her dissatisfaction with high school stemmed from how she’d often been ridiculed. She was skinny to the point of it being displeasing to many. Disgusting to others. She’d suffered through the high school gym locker room with the rude names slung her way. Calling her anorexic as if it was some kind of disgusting thing she chose to be. The mean slurs used to puzzle her because, if she was anorexic, wouldn’t that just make her disease worse? If she had it? For many girls and even guys there was no choice in it. Still she had been looked at with disgust and exasperation. Her hip bones stuck out. Her stomach concaved inward. Her limbs all looked proportionately too long for her torso due to how skinny they were. Bones really.

She wasn’t anorexic. Or at least she didn’t think she was. She had trouble eating sometimes, but it wasn’t with any regularity. She flirted with it on and off, starting about when her father left them, taking off before he could be arrested for the money he embezzled from his work. Money that was supposed to cover the losses he’d sustained for himself and a handful of clients he was trying to illegally earn more money for. Years had gone by before he came back. By then the damage to her had been done.

Her mother had loved her. Held her. Cuddled with her and talked to her. In all due credit her mother had tried so hard to make up for what happened. For her father leaving. But her mom hadn’t been able to fill up the break that started inside Kylie.

It was just so… so disconcerting. She’d left for school one day a relatively happy, normal, well-adjusted elementary schooler… and then she came home one afternoon and things had been really odd in the house. Uncle Donny had met her bus and fed her dinner. Uncle Donny had never, ever done such a thing for them. He had never been their caretakers in the house. Not like that day. He claimed that Mom was sick. Their dad was away on business. He’d stayed the night… and had still been there the next morning. She remembered the sick tightening in her gut; she’d been sure her mom or dad was dying.

Then Mom had appeared. Mom didn’t look right. To this day Kylie could picture her mom that morning. Her hair had been matted and grossly ratted around her face. Her face had been ashen, almost sickly, and her eyes bloodshot red in grief. There had been no doubt then, that something big was happening. It wasn’t until that moment that Kylie even understood big things like that could happen. But it was happening.

Mom sat them down and calmly told them all about their father committing crimes and that he’d ran off. He’d avoided arrest and instead chose to abandon them.

It hadn’t really sunk in. Mom had said he left. He was gone. There was no more Dad in her life. But that wasn’t right. Her father… he wasn’t some deadbeat loser who didn’t love them. He’d been an integral part of her life her entire life until then. She didn’t even know at that age that daddies could do bad things like that. That they could abandon their families. There was a note. In his handwriting. Mom let them read it. She was pretty open and bold with them. Transparent with what was happening and what had gone on. Looking back, Kylie believed her mom had handled it better than most any other mother could have. Of that Kylie was confident.

But it still couldn’t erase the reality of what had happened to them… to Kylie.

Her dad was gone.

She had not seen him again. She had seen him every day of her life until September twenty-first ten years ago. Then he had disappeared for three years. Neither she nor her sister or mother ever got the full story from Micah, simply because they never spoke to him again. He only came back because he was caught and forced to face his arrest and conviction and prison time. After all that… it was almost more painful when he came back. He’d abandoned them and all for naught. He’d still ended up in prison, but added to that, Kylie had to live with the fact that her father could throw her out as easily as he’d throw out the trash. A father she cherished, respected, worshiped, and relied on. Ten years old, and she hadn’t known to ever doubt him.

She struggled the most often with the fact that she could not pinpoint the exact last moment she had seen him. It was at dinner the two nights before she found out he was gone. So September nineteenth was the last time she was with her dad. She remembered a family dinner. It was pizza, she thought. The kitchen was a mess. Mom knew at that point, but they hadn’t told her or Ally, and Kylie had sensed something was up. Mom claimed to be sick and that had been a sound enough explanation for her then. Did her dad kiss her goodnight? Or did she tell him it before she went upstairs? Did she go to her room and not see him before bed?

As hard as she tried to recreate the scene, the memory, she
could not
find the last time she saw her dad. She
could not
remember what the last words they spoke to each other were.

It had driven her nuts for ten years. She just wanted that last memory. That last word. That last hug. Had Micah gravelly said goodbye or goodnight to her? Had he held her extra-long? She didn’t know. She couldn’t
remember
.

It was a few years after Micah left that her mom married Donny. She hadn’t cared. He made her mom happy, and Mom had been so unhappy after Micah disappeared. It had been an awful time. The house had been this silent, mean pit of despair for her, Ally, and her mom. Ally was angry and resentful and took it out on Mom. She yelled and screamed and argued all the time. No matter what Mom said or did, or what Donny said or did, Ally wreaked havoc over the household. Kylie hated noise, anger, screaming, and conflict. It scared her. She often hid under the bed, or in her closet. It was dark and safe there. She needed the comfort. The quiet. She often had to hide from the anger or the oppressive silence of her once happy household.