The Last Housewife (10)

I could feel Laurel shaking by the brush of her hair against my shoulders.

“Yes… I mean, no,” I stammered. “We’re not going there.”

The girl frowned. “Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing.” I tugged Laurel out the door. The early September sun was still high and hot, so I squinted, shielding my eyes.

To my surprise, the pink-haired girl raced after us. “Wait,” she called, but Laurel and I kept going. I could feel Laurel’s nerves wrapping around me like a staticky blanket.

“Did something happen?”

I stilled, then turned. “Do you know something?”

She shook her head, but the way she looked at Laurel… It was recognition. “I’ve seen that look before. Did someone hurt you?”

My hackles rose. I expected Laurel to deny it, shut down this invasive stranger and run away, but instead she exhaled and said, “Andrew. He…wouldn’t stop.”

The girl’s reaction was instantaneous: her cheeks flamed, and her eyes flew wide. “That fucker… I know him.” She turned for the house. “I’ll kill him.”

“Wait,” Laurel pleaded. “Please. I don’t want to see him.”

“We’re going to the police,” I said in a low voice, eyes tracking to the house. We’d left, but we hadn’t made it far. I was painfully aware of who might overhear us.

The girl’s eyes searched me, then Laurel. There was a quality to her expressions, a rare kind of openness. “Can I come? I don’t have to go in with you. Just want to walk you there.”

It was the last thing I’d expected. I turned to Laurel.

“Okay,” she said softly, surprising me again.

So then it was the three of us, Dorothy and her menagerie, walking the yellow brick road. The pink-haired girl introduced herself as Clementine Jones, Clem for short. She did most of the talking, which was a favor. Laurel was bone-tired, still in shock. I could tell every time she re-woke to her body because she gave a little start. We walked and walked through neighborhoods, and all the while Clem rattled on, telling us about growing up in Wisconsin with a big family, being a soccer fanatic in high school and here at Whitney, where she played striker. She was telling us about her strange roommates, one of whom was obsessed with anime, when we arrived at the station.

“It’ll be okay,” I said to Laurel, when she froze. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“And I’ll be right out here.” Clem pointed to a bench.

“Come with me,” Laurel said. “I need you both to make me do it.”

Clem and I looked at each other.

“Of course,” she said.

I think that was the moment I decided to love her.

We waited our turn to talk to the woman behind the counter, who was gray-haired and old enough to be our grandmother. “Yes?” she asked without looking up.

“We’re… I’m here…” Laurel’s voice faltered. She looked down at her hands, her fingers twisting.

“Laurel was hurt by a boy named Andrew at a party,” Clem said, looking at the woman expectantly. “We have his address. We can take you there.”

“She was raped,” I clarified. The word reverberated in the lobby, but I pressed on. “We need to file a police report. Press charges. Whatever the protocol is.”

The older woman pushed a clipboard at Laurel, then pointed to the chairs. “Fill this out, then you’ll wait to speak with a detective.”

From the paperwork, I learned Laurel’s last name was Hargrove, that she was from South Bend, Indiana, and that she had only a mother left, like me. Then we waited. And waited.

Finally, the receptionist led us through the door into the heart of the station, a massive open room full of desks, and dropped us off at one with a placard that read Detective Adam Dorsey. Officers milled around, and for some reason, even though we were here for help, they put me on edge. I tracked their movements out of the corner of my eye as we waited. It was only the circumstances, I told myself.

Detective Dorsey rushed to us, obviously in a hurry, and perched on the edge of his desk. He leaned close to Laurel, eyeing her. She leaned back. Then Dorsey studied Clem and me, lingering on Clem’s pink hair. “So. You want to report a rape?”

His casual bluntness was startling. Clem adjusted in her seat. “Laurel was at a party—”

“I want to hear it from the girl,” the detective said. “Not her friends.”

It was an odd way to talk about Laurel, who was sitting right there, but she gathered her breath and told the detective every detail. He kept interrupting to ask terse questions: Had she thought Andrew was attractive, had she been interested in him? To which Laurel replied, red-faced, yes, but obviously only at first. Had Laurel intended to have sex with him, and if so, had she hinted at the possibility? To which Laurel grew even more red-faced and said no, she hadn’t been planning to have sex with him. Because she was a virgin, and a party wasn’t how she’d imagined her first time.

The detective breezed on from that, but I could tell Clem and I were thinking the same thing: If Laurel had kept her virginity until college, that meant she’d been precious about it. She’d probably planned on romance and maybe even love for her first time. Instead, she’d been raped. Yet another blow.