A Harmless Little Game (Harmless #1)(37)

We’re so focused on controlling what happened to me four years ago that we’re leaving out the most important part:

I didn’t do anything wrong.

I realize, as the room feels like we’re moving in slow motion, as if we’re all actors in a role-playing video game featuring political intrigue and sexual sadism and assault, that if I don’t say this—if I don’t at least say aloud this simple, obvious fact right now—then I’m complicit.

I am complicit in my own reputation destruction. By saying nothing, I imply that this is all true. That I invited those beasts to do unspeakable damage to me. That I wanted it. That it aroused me.

That my turncoat friends were right.

I didn’t do anything wrong.

Slowly, like I’m living inside someone else’s body, I stand and face the team of experts and relatives at the table who are assembled here to pick up the charred remains of my scandalous life, a burden they are dealing with. An obstacle to Daddy’s and Mom’s path to the White House.

There was a time when I thought I’d be better off dead. Stacia convinced me I was wrong. Buried beneath so many layers of pain, a piece of my pure self knew I was wrong, too. Right now, though, as all these faces stare at me like a crazy moon, full and bright, a little pinched and apprehensive about what I was about to say, I wish the world would swallow me whole.

The difference between wishing you were dead and wishing you weren’t here isn’t that drastic, but it is a difference. Still.

Drew gives me a look that says he knows what I’m about to say. I swear, it’s like we can read each other’s minds. Silas cocks one eyebrow, while the faces of the team designed to manage my failings remain impassive.

Except for Mom. She can’t help herself. Impatience oozes out of her like post-plastic surgery drainage.

“I didn’t,” I croak out, my throat closing on the words. I clear my throat, my pulse between my legs, like all the blood has retreated to the place in my body where the assault happened. Like it’s rallying for me, traveling where it once was needed most, to repair and recover.

Or maybe I just feel that vulnerable. Exposed. Shameful.

“I didn’t,” I try again, “do this.”

All the eyes slowly, discreetly, roll down. Pens become fascinating objects to scrutinize, like ancient artifacts found at a dig.

“I didn’t do this,” I say again, stronger. Drew’s eyelids shut and open slowly, like an owl, giving me support. His slight nod, chin to chest, says, You got this.

No. I don’t.

But I’m trying.

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I finally expel, my voice like glass being swept up with a whisk broom, dumped into a garbage can, the delicate vase mourned but soon forgotten.

“No, of course not,” Daddy says, his dulcet tones so programmed. “We know—”

“I didn’t do what Tara and those other bitches are saying. I never asked those guys to do that to me. I never asked for it. I never asked for it. I never asked for it.”

The chant begins and I can’t stop, thrusting my fists against the top of my thighs, the words on autopilot, as if saying them over and over will unravel the past four years and I can reclaim time.

This behavior alarms everyone. Everyone except Drew. I can see why they’re freaked out, Mom giving Daddy a grim look as if to say, I told you so.

I bite the inside of my cheek to make myself stop. I taste blood. I inhale, a ragged sound like all the glass shards are going into my lungs, and then I add:

“None of what you think happened that night is real other than what they did to my body.”

Marshall turns a furious shade of red. The women with him, who have now become The Red Queen and The White Queen in my mind, because of the color of their shoes, put their heads together and whisper, as if we can’t hear them.

Silas goes stone faced. Drew does the opposite, his eyes alight with emotion.

“Lindsay, we’ve done research into this delicate matter,” Daddy says, standing. Ah. Meeting over. Lindsay dismissed.

I march over to him as if possessed by someone I’m not quite sure exists, and grab his wrist. He flinches, shocked by the force of my grip. I want him to feel, damn it. Feel something. Surely, all my emotions are spilling over, like the Hoover Damn after an unprecedented rainstorm, a spillway of monumental proportions.

“Delicate?” I rasp. “You think it’s delicate to sit here and have me listen to you and your strategy team treat my gang rape like it was some college mistake on my part?”

At the words gang rape, I see Mom stand up and march over like a bull rushing a red flag.

“Don’t use those words,” she hisses.

Drew’s body elongates, as if he’s grown a few inches, his muscles rigid and ready. He’s priming himself to physically intervene.

My God. Has it come to this?

“It’s the truth,” I spit out. “I was gang raped.” I try to catch Marshall’s eye, but he won’t look at me. No one will look at me.

Except Drew.

“I wasn’t drunk. Not by choice, at least. I didn’t do any drugs. And those ‘friends’ who lied to all of you, and to the media, are a bunch of backstabbing *s who lied for some sick reason,” I declare. My chest still feels like a cement truck is parked on it, but the spots in my vision are starting to clear. I’m gaining strength from being free to speak my mind. Speak the truth.