In Harmony(67)

“No…”

“Like before,” she said, nipping at my neck and then slumping against my shoulder. “This is how I can do it. Probably the only way I can do it now.”

A shadow of a thought slid down my spine like a cold sliver.

“What do you mean? Do what?”

“You know what,” she said. “Do I have to spell it out?”

“Yeah, you do, Willow. What are you saying?”

“What am I saying?” she wondered. “I’m saying it, aren’t I? I’m telling the story. Why? Because I like you, Isaac. So much and it’s so fucking sad, isn’t it? I want to be a normal girl who likes a boy and that can never ever, ever happen. Not for me.”

“Why not?” I asked, my mouth whispering the words while my muscles tensed to brace myself for the answer.

“Because once upon a time…” Willow’s head lolled and her bleary eyes were heavy with alcohol and shadows. “I had a party. There was dancing. We danced like sex and I felt sexy. And grown up. And he wanted me. He was older and hot and popular and he was paying attention to me. His name was Xavier.”

She hooked a finger up her sleeve and pulled it back to reveal a swarm of little black X’s covering every inch of her pale skin.

“X marks the spot,” she said. “They’re on my arm right now but I can put them everywhere.” Her voice quavered. “He touched me everywhere.”

She pulled the sleeve down and slumped against the wall while my entire being stared at her, vibrating with terrified anticipation. What she had yet to tell me.

Willow took a sip of her beer and then contemplated the bottle. “I drank beer that night. Out of a cup. I didn’t drink much but I guess I didn’t need to. Xavier put something in it…”

“Jesus…”

“I don’t know what he used. Everything turned murky. My memories broke apart and shattered. Now I only remember the night in bits and pieces.” She glanced up at me, half-remembered, fragmented pain filling her eyes. “I remember everyone had gone home and he stayed to help me clean up. He was being so nice. Thoughtful. Let me get you something to drink, he said.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “Then I remember being upstairs. In the bedroom.”

I held my breath. My heart crashed against my chest, over and over.

“They say you’re supposed to tell the truth,” she said, opening her eyes. “But what if you know it happened but you don’t remember how? I remembered the dancing. I wore a short skirt. I drank. And I went with him upstairs without a fight.”

“Goddamn. Willow…”

“I didn’t say yes,” she said, her watery eyes holding mine desperately. “But I can’t remember saying no. Not with my voice. I had no voice. But inside…” She shook her head. “Inside, I was screaming it.”

The words hung in the air, terrible and unwavering. I swallowed hard, a jagged lump of pain and rage and helplessness. I fought for words. Something to say or do that would make this untrue. I wanted to wake her up from this nightmare. Grab her and take her far away. Get in my truck and start driving.

I want it to never have fucking happened…

The helplessness was a vice around my goddamn neck. I wondered how Willow endured it. Day after day. All day. All night. How was she still standing here? Drunk and wracked by pain, sure, but she was here.

She shrugged and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “That’s it, isn’t it? I didn’t say yes, but I can’t remember saying no. Not out loud…”

“What happened after?” I said through gritted teeth.

Tell me the fucker’s in jail right now. Getting his shit beat in every day of his life.

Willow shrugged again, a terrible, hopeless gesture.

“The next morning happened. I had a headache that felt like my brain was trying to break out of my skull. I burned my torn underwear. I scrubbed the blood out of the sheets. I took a scalding shower that lasted forty-five minutes. I tried to erase all the evidence and make like it never happened.”

“You didn’t tell anyone,” I said.

“Tell someone…” She shook her head. “Impossible. Tell the police that Xavier Wilkinson, the son of a multi-billion dollar company’s CEO drugged and…and…raped me?” A choked sob paralyzed her for a second over that word, and she swallowed it down. “My dad would lose his job. They’d send an army of lawyers after us. We’d be broke. Not to mention I’d have to explain what I was wearing and what I was doing. How much I drank and who saw me dancing with him, bumping and grinding in front of everyone like I wanted it.”

“But—”

“No, there’s more,” she said. “We’d been flirting all summer. I’d met him at a Fourth of July party in the Hamptons. We started texting. And the texts turned…more. They went too far and until I…” She tried to meet my eye and couldn’t. “I sent him a picture. Of me. Topless. He asked me to and I did. Now he has it. He still has it. He’ll show everyone if he hasn’t already and I…I…”

She bent suddenly and vomited the night’s alcohol all over the cement. I hurried to her and held her hair back while she heaved. Knowing the violent purge had more to do with her story than the liquor she’d drunk.