After the Moment (19 page)

"The Gulf war," he said, needlessly.

She knew, and her look told him he was in danger of being a jerk. A condescending jerk.

"So this woman had two broken arms," Maia said, "some of her friends were dead, her plane was on fire, and an Iraqi tried to rape her."

Anywhere but here,
Leigh thought.
I would do anything to be anywhere but here.

"In the interview, she said that with everything that had gone wrong, being sexually violated was way down there on the list of what mattered."

And that was what Maia wanted. For her voluntary social engagement to be low down on her list of things gone wrong. A list that started with Josh's going to prison, or maybe with Ned Morland's postcards.

Hard to tell, even though he wanted to know. God, more than anything, he wanted to hold every detail of her life until his access to her was complete. The way he wanted her had nothing—and yet everything—to do with sex.

"That night is over," Maia said, pausing, as if saying the words would make it true. "Eventually it'll be behind me," she said, "like a whole list of other things that are also bad, but over."

Leigh, thinking of Millie and her father, didn't think that bad things were ever over. It was more that you got used to them. Slowly, bit by bit, until they weren't bad things anymore but things you didn't need to think about.

"Everyone at school knows," Maia said. "But no one knows for sure that I know they know."

They smiled stiffly at each other, not sure it was okay to find laughable all the layers of who knew what when.

"As long as I can pretend it didn't happen," she said, "then I can stay here."

For a minute, he couldn't speak. That she was even thinking of leaving—school, Calvert Park, or him, it doesn't matter which—produced a pain inside his body that was not unlike the stress fracture's: dull, sharp, throbbing, insistent, and angry.

Ever since August, she told Leigh, Josh had been suggesting that Maia think of leaving Calvert Park. Or, more particularly, of leaving Esme, whose new marriage to Charles was already in trouble.

"You never told me that," Leigh said, wondering if he would ever feel as if he knew her.

"There was nothing to tell," Maia said. "Charles thought he was marrying a beautiful woman who loved him, and instead she's just a beautiful woman."

"Where would you go if you left?" he asked.

"Boarding school," Maia said.

"But you hated boarding school."

It would be a different one than before, Maia told him. An all-girls one called Closson Hall that was in Connecticut. Josh's sister, Abigail Pierce, lived a few towns over, and Maia would be able to spend weekends with her. And holidays.

"Abigail's really nice," Maia said. "She's always liked me. She's a doctor."

"Oh. Well, being a doctor's good," Leigh said, no longer thinking, but hating the woman for making a move away from Calvert Park attractive to Maia. "It's a good job."

"I didn't want to go," she said.

She had been against the idea when Josh first mentioned that he and Abigail knew several people on Closson Hall's board of trustees.

"Because I would miss you," Maia said. "But I could see Josh's point."

"That you should go," Leigh said, his soaring elation over her saying that she would miss him abruptly crashing.

"Yeah, but now I can't leave," she said. "Now I have to prove to them and to myself that I can tough it out."

If Maia was going to prove that she could tough it out, Leigh thought she should drag Oliver and Kevin to court, but he also wanted, as she said, for it all to be over. Behind them.

She should go back to being the Maia Morland he knew.

Maia's decision brought her a kind of grim peace and, if nothing else, clarity. For Leigh, her refusal to make Oliver and Kevin pay unleashed a blur of uncertainty and doubt—more than the usual amount he'd been lugging. Although she said she was relying on him to help her put it all behind her, Leigh believed there was more he should do than just ignore the reality of what had happened.

The Internet, which had been useless in helping to gauge Maia's chances in court, was full of suggestions about how rape victims could heal. Love, time, support, understanding, sleep, getting a pet or starting a hobby, exercise, time, meditation, volunteer work, therapy, time, art therapy, or swimming with dolphins.

The dolphins sounded a bit impractical. Maia had a hobby, although gardening was pretty much over for the year. Leigh felt like he was getting nowhere on the love, support, and understanding front, but having a pet—what recoverynow.org called an undemanding source of affection—made a lot of sense.

He talked to Charles Rhoem to make sure that a dog would be allowed, and then drove Millie to the county pound.

"You don't want to let Maia pick out her own dog?" Millie asked.

"I think the pound will depress her," Leigh said, forgetting that his sister had plenty of reason to be depressed as well.

But Millie was excited to be included in his plans and full of purpose. She and Leigh never directly discussed what had happened to Maia (an agreement of silence that stayed in place for years), but they were united in wanting to reverse any and all damage. At the pound, a clean but miserable place full of barking, and pleading eyes, Millie picked out a dog.

He was as big as a Saint Bernard but as sweet and docile as a cocker spaniel; he looked as if a collie had run off with a giant black Lab. While Millie petted at and whispered to the huge animal, Leigh did the paperwork, asking about shots and neutering.

With the help of some dry food, he coaxed the dog into his car, and then the three of them drove off to Maia's house.

"Oh, my God," Maia said as the dog shot out of the car and bounded up the porch. "Oh, my God. He's as big as a pony."

"He's for you," Millie said. "To keep you company and to guard your dreams."

To keep you company and to guard your dreams
was a line from the recoverynow.org Web page, making Leigh aware he was not the only one doing research on how to get over a rape.

"Oh, my God," Maia said one more time, burying her face into the dog's massive neck.

"What are you going to call him?" Millie asked, almost hopping up and down in excitement.

"I think considering that you guys gave him to me," Maia said, "Dexter Clayton would fit best."

Leigh thought Millie was going to burst out of her skin with pride at this reference to her romance novel. He was glad for her, but the mention of his romantic alter ego pained him in ways he couldn't name but could feel all too sharply.

"We can call him D.C. for short," Millie said. "People will think it's for the city, but we'll know."

"Or we could call him Dex," Maia said.

Leigh swallowed, aware of a growing tightness in his chest. He thought of the first day of school, back when Franklin still called him
the duke's dark son
and Maia
the American heiress.
He simply could not bear the impossible gap between then and now. Lately, his skin hurt all the time and he was forever blinking, the way you do when something's in your eyes, or the sun's too hot.

"What do you think?" Maia asked Leigh. "D.C. or Dex?"

He could still build his universe on Maia, who continued to smile when she saw him, and whose smell he inhaled whenever she was close enough to touch. But other people had crawled inside this world, and there was no denying that he couldn't look at his beloved without also seeing Oliver Lexham and Kevin Staines.

"D.C. seems good," Leigh said, telling himself he saw agreement, not disappointment in her eyes.

The best he could do for her was this dog, who barked when Maia called his new name. It was a high, yappy bark, totally unexpected from such a large animal, and it made them laugh.

But even that tiny success was threatened when Esme discovered her cat hiding under the bed and quaking in terror. Esme and Charles had a huge fight, with Maia's mother wanting to get rid of the dog.

"Charles thinks that the cat will get used to D.C. and should be forced to suck it up for a few days," Maia said. "So of course Mom is livid with him."

Leigh had already guessed that Esme was never thrilled when her husband took too active an interest in Maia's well-being. In fact, the growing evidence (fixing her lunch and driving her to the shrink) that Charles Rhoem was doing just that had been one of the reasons Josh wanted Maia to pack her bags for Closson Hall. Josh, who had witnessed Esme's wrath over his own affection for Maia, thought sparing her a second round of it was a good idea.

"Do you want us to keep the dog for you?" Leigh asked, wondering how upset Janet and Clayton (not to mention Bubbles) would be if D.C. were to suddenly appear in the house.

"No," Maia said. "I want my mother
and
her cat to suck it up."

This didn't seem like the wisest course of action, but Leigh was beyond trying to guess, evaluate, or judge her actions. He felt his connection to Maia slipping away under the weight of all he didn't know, and he had no idea of how to get a firmer grip on it.

~~~

The days passed, as days will, until Thanksgiving was no longer just a holiday in the distance but here, only one day away. Millie and Janet made pumpkin cupcakes, and Millie brought a dozen into school to share with people. That Wednesday always had a holiday air to it, what with classes usually ending an hour or so early in order for people to get a start on their travels or their cooking.

At lunch, Leigh watched as his sister neatly arranged her offerings on a heavy flowered plate, wiping away smudges of icing. Franklin ate his cupcake in two bites, but Leigh cut up both his and Maia's, knowing it was easier for her to swallow small pieces.

From the corner of his eye he saw Jonathan Kimber sit down between Diana Jane and Kevin Staines. Millie waved to Preston Gavenlock, who came over with his lunch tray, scooting into a chair next to Franklin.

"Hey, kid," he said to Millie. "Are these all for me?"

"One each," Franklin informed him.

"Preston gets two," Millie said. "For being exceptional."

Kevin's old girlfriend, Beth Goldman, walked by them and accepted a cupcake from Millie.

"I used all organic products," Millie said.

"I just did my whole history paper on sustainable farming," Beth said. "Organic is its own industry now."

Beth asked Franklin something that Leigh didn't hear because a comment of Franklin's from what seemed like ages ago was suddenly demanding attention. On the video Leigh hadn't seen but that Clayton, two lawyers, and Franklin had, Oliver was talking to someone behind the camera.

There had been someone else in the room. Someone filmed what happened to Maia—someone smart enough not to answer any questions. Someone sick enough to run a camera while a drunk girl and two drunk boys displayed what happens when everyone forgets the rules about drinking and sex.

It had to be Jonathan Kimber, Leigh thought. Although Maia had said they'd left his house. Plus, he had wanted to call a cab before Oliver offered to drive her home instead of Diana Jane. Leigh looked at Maia, who was picking up her last piece of cupcake.

"Who ran the camera?" he asked, keeping his voice low, hating himself for asking but needing to know. "Who was the third guy?"

"Are you kidding me?" she asked.

"Who was it?"

He knew that asking questions wasn't what Maia had in mind when she said she wanted to put it all behind her.

"Did you see him?" Leigh asked. "Do you remember who it was?"

"What difference does it make?"

He wasn't helping, he knew that, but he couldn't shut up, as he was unbelievably sick of not knowing. Not just not knowing what to do, or what was right, or how to behave, or where to apply for school, or how to live in the world. Maia was wrapped up in his hopes and meager plans for the future, although he wasn't sure how that had happened. Or why.

She would always be someone who made him want to know more. Guys not that different from Leigh had done something unspeakable to Maia. It was as if they had defaced a sculpture.

Leigh needed to know more about how they did it and why.

"Who was it?" he asked again.

"It doesn't matter," she said. "He's apologized like a thousand times."

"He apologized?"

Leigh's voice rang out, and more than half of the cafeteria grew silent—a lull that was immediately swallowed up by trays being moved and the resumption of lunchroom chatter.

Someone at the table stood up, finished lunch tray in hand, and Maia's eyes followed the shift and then snapped back to Leigh. She didn't even have to say his name, and in the time it took to think
Preston Gavenlock,
Leigh had jumped over the table and empty chair.

People talk about events slowing down in moments of duress, panic, or alarm, but really they speed up. There is no time to think, and all useful awareness vanishes, hovering outside of you, like an observer. That this was probably exactly how Maia had felt with Kevin on top of her was not a thought that reached Leigh until it was all over.

He and Preston hit the floor with a thud, and Preston wasted his advantage by rolling on top to speak instead of to hit. Leigh always knew that if in that moment Preston had apologized, things would have gone even worse for him. But what he chose to say—"I didn't touch her. I swear."—didn't improve his chances any. Leigh didn't even bother, with the guy practically on his chest, to attempt a punch.

Instead, he brought his knee into Preston's back, and then, as Preston fell forward, his face twisted, Leigh punched him. Hard. Punched him hard a lot—until they rolled too close to a table and Preston landed one on Leigh's face, and now the blood everywhere belonged to both of them.

The problem with fighting outside of a boxing ring is that it's hard, messy, and terrifying. Leigh didn't think—he simply tried what he could. There was no room for anything but movement and two thoughts, which alternated like knives through his mind:
I'm going to die
and
Kill him!
Everything else was irrelevant.