Girl Seduced (The Girl Interrupted Trilogy Book #1) (16 page)

“Jasmine, that’s not all they found.  I haven’t been completely honest with you, either.”

What else could there possibly be?  I sat in the small dingy room, looking at her and just waiting for her to start talking.  She couldn’t seem to get the words out.

“Sabrina, I love you.  You’re my best friend.  For heaven’s sake, there isn’t anything that you could say that would make me think any less of you…what happened?”

Sabrina smiled.  “It doesn’t matter.  I’m just worried for you.  I want to know that you are OK.  I understand that they are going to let you go out on probation and some outpatient counseling…”

“Really?  I thought I was going to have to go in somewhere…”

“Not according to Detective English.  Your dad has worked miracles.  You and I are going to get through this, you hear me?  I will never let you down again.”

“You didn’t let me down.  I let myself and everyone around me down.  Including Jonathan.  OH, God, Jonathan.  Sabrina, he proposed to me this morning.  In the hospital room.”

“Do what??  Like how?  Where is he?”

“Well, he proposed with a beautiful ring, down on one knee, saying all of the right things.  But I couldn’t accept it or discuss being his wife until I knew that he was aware of all that has happened.  When I told him about all of what had happened…the first attack, the meth use since then, all of it, he just stood
up and said that he still loved me but that he had some things to take care of and he left.  You haven’t heard from him or seen him, have you?”

Sabrina’s eyes were as big as sauce
rs.  “NO!  What things would have to take care of?  I wonder where he is?  Oh my gosh – you married!  This is so sudden – I mean, he’s been dodging your phone calls and hasn’t tried to call you at all – what did he say about that?”

“He said that he knew he was in love with me and that it scared him, but that he couldn’t stop thinking about us and that he finally knew that the only thing –the right – to do was to be with me.”  I shook my head back and forth.  “I love him, Sabrina.  I really do.  I mean with everything in me, everything that I am, I really love Jonathan and I know that we could be happy together.”

She smiled, glowing, as if it were her that had been proposed to.  “Sabrina, you deserve to be happy.  I’m sure that whatever Jonathan is doing, he will come back and ask you again to marry him and together, we will all work through this.  You seem fine – some counseling to help with the cravings that you’re still having, and your life will go back to normal.” 

Jasmine held out her good hand and grabbed Sabrina’s hand and squeezed it.  “Both of our lives will go back to normal – even better.  I would say that one day, when we do graduate from college, we will look back on this and have a ton of stories to tell our grandchildren one day…”

They both started laughing, knowing that these stories would never leave the walls of this police station or their dorm room.

Chapter Twenty Four

The judge was extremely lenient, like my father said he would be.  I don’t know how my dad pulled it off, but if I checked in with a substance abuse counselor once a month and there were no drugs in my system, went to counseling every two weeks, and didn’t break any laws for one year, I would have a misdemeanor on my record that would be sealed and never affect my college career or any future job opportunities.

Sabrina’s sentence was similar – she was found with a couple of drugs in the dorm that I didn’t know about, but also had to agree to go to counseling, and we had to do community service at a local nursing home twice a week, which I found to be almost a reward.

Kenny did go to jail. I felt really bad that I was the one that had put him there, but in reality with him out of the picture, I wasn’t tempted to buy any of the drug or use it because I didn’t know anyone else.  And the great thing was the counseling – not only did we discuss my drug abuse, but we were able to talk about the attack. 

Jonathan came to see me about a week later at the apartment.  He called first and asked if he could come over – he said that he had something to talk about.  I was praying that he was going to forgive me and we could go on together, and I willingly agreed to meet him wherever he wanted. 

The knock on the door set my heart pounding. I couldn’t wait to see his beautiful face.  I looked in the mirror once more and, besides a scar here or there, I hadn’t suffered too much in the way of permanent damage that was disfiguring or anything.  I opened the door and just stood there.  We both just stared at each other for a moment.  He had flowers.  My heart danced.

“Hi, Jonathan.”

He dropped the flowers and embraced me in a very long, passionate kiss and then an embrace.  When he stepped back, he was crying.  “Hello my Jasmine.”  He picked up the flowers off of the floor.  “These are for you.”

I knew that everything was alright, but he still looked troubled, unfinished, like he still needed to talk.  I wasn’t sure that I wanted to talk about anything that had to do with either night, but I was just so glad that Jonathan was there that I would have answered anything he asked me at that moment.

He didn’t ask questions.  Instead, he began to talk.  “I have something to tell you.  I had to make sure first, but I know without a doubt now and I need you to tell me what to do about it.”

I started getting nervous – did he have another girlfriend?  Was she accidentally pregnant?  Had his parents heard about me and banished me from his life?  What was his revelation?

“Jonathan, whatever it is, you can tell me.  What is it?  Whatever it is, we’ll get through it together.  I mean, if we can get through what I’ve just been through…”

“That’s just it.  You never actually got closure to that attack because no one was arrested.  They weren’t sure who it was and they couldn’t arrest anyone.”  He stood up and faced me square in the face.

“Jasmine, I know who the guys were in that room that night.”

I got dizzy for a moment and felt like I was going to pass out.  How could he possibly know who they were? 

“How?  I mean, how would you…”

He started talking about a group of his friends in pre-law who had been bragging for several months about having “popped the cherry” on a freshman newbie geek girl who they drugged and then “nailed” at a Christmas party.  They bragged about how great she was, how she loved it, wanted more, screamed for more, grabbed for every person that got near her, and how the orgy went on for almost six hours.  They had bragged to everyone on campus about it, but they never said a name.  And, they never said anything about holding her down or breaking her arm.  They made it sound like a totally, awesome sexual orgy that was unlike anything they had every experienced, right at Christmas and that they would never forget.  They all bragged incessantly and laughed at the fact that they didn’t even know her name, but had seen her around campus.  A couple of them had even said that they had asked her out, but that she wouldn’t go out with them because ‘she had a boyfriend’.  They would laugh behind her back, wondering if her boyfriend knew what kind of a slut she really was.

I was in shock.  Shock isn’t the word.  I was utterly humiliated and I simply wanted to die.  I couldn’t believe that the man of my dreams, the man I wanted to marry, had been listening to this for at least six months and knew who they were.

“Jonathan, if you knew who they were, why didn’t you mention it?”

“Because you never told me about it.  I didn’t put it together until you told me about it the morning of your release from the hospital.  Then, it all added up.”

I still couldn’t believe my ears, but I felt sad, embarrassed, and then I started very, very mad. 

“I want to know who they are.  The police have DNA samples, Jonathan. I can finally get my exoneration, but not without your help.”

He looked so ashamed that I could see he wanted to just get up and run. I began to feel a sickly, churning feeling in the pit of my stomach. 

“Of course I’ll tell you who they are.
I’ll tell you everything I know.” 

He was shaking, and just couldn’t seem to get the words out of his mouth.

“ Two of them are my roommates.”  He still didn’t look at me.

“Your what?  Your roommates?  You mean, you knew that this happened and…”

“NO.  I NEVER knew that they had done this to you.  We room, but we don’t exactly hang out, you know?”

I was trembling, but the words were spilling out quicker than I could think.

“No, I don’t know.  Two of your college roommates were part of this gang rape that almost killed me?  Who were the rest of the people?  What are their names?”  The questions started pouring out of me.

“Jasmine, I’m going to the police.”  He stopped and took my hand.  I was sobbing and I couldn’t breathe.

“I love you, Jasmine, and I can’t begin to tell you what I’m thinking right now.  I wanted to kill them both – right there – I had to walk out and I just started screaming.  I came straight here.  I need you to tell me that…I don’t know what I need you to tell me…”

I stopped crying and all emotion drained from me in a split millisecond.

“Jonathan, go to the police.  Tell them what you know.  These monsters need to be stopped – to pay for what they did and have probably done before and since.”

I looked forward straight at the wall, like a focus point. 

“You know that this changes everything – for me, for you, for us…”

He stepped back and grabbed his head – “Why?  I was honest with you..I’m going to turn them in..”

Slowly and in a soft voice, time stood still for a moment and I looked at him.  I smiled, a smile of desolation.

“Nothing will ever be the same.  From this moment on, you know the faces and the hands that desecrated my very being.  Part of me is gone forever.  No matter what we do from this point on, it can’t ever be changed.  I am not Jasmine Stanton anymore.  I’m just a girl who got gang-raped at college.  It was my fault.  They didn’t do this – I did it to myself.  I am a
girl sabotaged.”