What Happens Next (31 page)

How many dollars was that? Twenty-three or thirty-three? Fack.

I start counting over again when Kirsten and Paige walk in.

“Oooh, you’re rich!” Paige squeals, sliding into the seat across from me.

“Yeah, not really. It’s all ones,” I say, trying not to lose count. Kirsten scoots in next to Paige.

“We’re going to Edgewater to tan and scope out hot guys,” Kirsten says. “Wanna come?”

I seriously can’t roll my eyes hard enough.

“News flash—Sid Murphy doesn’t tan, she broils. Besides, it’s Corey’s birthday and I’m headed to the bakery after this. I need to cash out, though, and I can’t count for shit.”

One, two, three, four…

“Here, let me do it,” Paige says. I hand the stack over to her and start cleaning up the table. I grab the coffee cups and newspaper and slide out of the booth.

And that’s when I see it.

That’s when everything in the world comes flying apart.

I set down the coffee cups and look closely at the newspaper in my hand, and before my brain can even register what I’m looking at, my heart and gut remember. My stomach clenches and a disconnected floatiness overcomes me as the picture and words buzz into focus.

Man Sought in Connection with Multiple Rapes.

And it’s him. The face, the eyes—it’s him.

I don’t know if the blood is draining down into my legs or pushing up into my face. All I know is that it’s not in the places it’s supposed to be. My knees buckle and I slump back into the booth, completely disoriented, the newspaper rattling in my hand.

“Who?” Kirsten says, but I only half hear her question.

“What?” I say. My thoughts are dazed, muddled, and I can’t stop looking at the picture. It’s like I’m hypnotized by those eyes all over again.

“You said, ‘It’s him,’ ” Kirsten says more clearly.

I snap out of myself. I drop the paper onto the table, totally flustered.

“I did? I mean, no, um…” and I can’t think of what to say.

“Hey, you okay? You look like you’re about to pass out,” Kirsten says, leaning over to touch my arm. Paige has stopped counting and is looking at me, her eyes like saucers.

“Who’s
him
?” she says, putting the money down and picking up the newspaper. She looks at the face and then at me.

“You know this guy?” she says.

My insides twist.

“Um…” I say, and my shaking fingers reach toward my uneven lock all by themselves.

I look around The Diner, searching for something, for I don’t know what, while that familiar voice rings inside my ears.

You’ll be needing the lying now, Sid. You know, the lie you keep stored in that lump in your throat, that burning hot lump you like to pretend isn’t there, the one that’s been lodged in your neck for the better part of a year. The Fairy Tale Lie… it’s right there… just push it up and out of your mouth. Say something like: “What? No, I don’t know him. It looked like Corey’s landscape buddy for a second. Welp, gotta run!” And then get out of here…. Get. Out.

But that’s not what happens. The lie is not what comes out of my mouth.

What comes out of my mouth is a choked sob. I try not to cry, but my chin is quivering so hard, and my jaws ache from trying to hold it in. I’ve gone seven months and four days without telling anyone. I can do this, I can keep it in, I can keep—

“It’s the guy I met,” I blurt, coughing a little on my tears, “the guy from the ski trip,” and my throat is on fire, my vocal cords are scorching, like I’m trying to swallow that fiery lump.

Paige looks closer at the picture. Kirsten leans in, too.

They don’t get it at first. But then things start clicking in their heads as they keep reading, and their eyes get bigger and bigger.

They get it now.

“Oh, my god,” Kirsten says. And she starts getting loud, “Oh, Sid… oh, god…” and I can see where she’s looking. Her finger rests under the picture, right by the huge, boldfaced caption that lists his real name:
TOM HAMILTON
. And his alias:
DAX WINDSOR
.

Seeing his real name after all this time makes me cry out, and I cover my mouth with both hands. I’m going to scream. I can hear and feel the scream trying to get out. I keep my mouth covered and my eyes shut tight, stifling the scream inside me. I can’t breathe. My lungs are burning. I try to think of something nice—Corey’s face, his kiss—I remember that first night with him and try to breathe.

“Breathe, Sid. In. Out. In. Out…. I mean, a bride needs her legs

if she’s gonna walk down the aisle…. You have the most

amazing laugh…. It’s like this light coming out of

you. I could be in a crowd of thousands

and know right where to find you….

I have wanted to do

that for so, so

long….”

The thick air streams in through my nose; it goes in and I open my eyes and look at Kirsten and Paige, my mouth still covered, squeezing, squeezing my scream. I plead to them with my eyes to say something that will erase all of this. They don’t.

I take another big breath through my nose and let a long shudder pass through me. Then I stop squeezing my mouth with my hands and roll my knuckles up and rest them against my lips in case the scream comes back. I rest my elbows on the table and breathe. I’m breathing, I’m breathing, and I think the worst might be over.

“Have you told anyone else?” Kirsten asks. “Your mom? Corey?”

I shake my head and close my eyes again. The tears roll down and splash onto the backs of my fingers and knuckles. I fold my arms over one another and put my head in them to cry for a minute. Paige comes over and kneels down on the floor next to me and rubs my shoulder. Kirsten reaches over and grabs hold of my hand. My two best friends try to comfort me, telling me over and over how sorry they are and how it’s going to be okay. I listen to them while I cry and shake. And you know what’s funny? I cry as quiet as I can, so that I won’t cause a scene. I’m actually thinking about this little waitressing job that I love. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I am thinking about this lovely little diner.

After a few minutes, I calm down and look up. My face was on fire inside my arms and the cool air hits it and feels good. I wipe my fingers over my cheeks and eyes. I sit back and blow my hair out of my face. Some of it is stuck to my cheek from the tears. I pick it away. I think I can go on now. I grab a napkin from the dispenser on the table. I wipe my eyes and blow my nose.

“How old is he?” I say. Because I’ve always wondered this.

You’re scaring me…. Are you an escaped convict?… Not that I know of…. I’m only sixteen…. But I’ll be seventeen in July…. But it’s just a couple of years… that’s nothing…. But the bar? I mean, if you’re only nineteen…. Almost nineteen…. Never heard of a fake ID?…

Kirsten picks up the paper again and scans the page. She looks at me, hesitating for a second.

“Twenty-seven,” she says, her eyes tearing up.

I laugh. Can you believe that? I actually laugh. It’s a short bark of a laugh, but it’s there. I wipe my eyes. God, I hate myself. I really hate myself.

“Come on,” I say, getting up. “Not here.”

We walk outside to the back alley, where Kirsten’s parked, and sit against the clownmobile. And I do it. I tell them. I tell my friends the awful truth about that night, about that horrible thing that happened to me last winter, about the rape I can’t remember, and at the same time, can’t forget.

I say good-bye, the girls hug me, and then I head over to the bakery. Before I go inside, I sit in Corey’s truck for twenty minutes, watching the water pour from the gutter on the florist shop next door. They have it rigged up so that rainwater runs into a barrel. For the flowers, I’m guessing. I watch the water pouring in and I think.

In movies and on TV, girls who get raped usually end up in shadowy interrogation rooms, or in courthouses filled with police officers and lawyers. There’s all this talk about “evidence” and “testimony,” about “he-said-she-said” and “Why didn’t you report it sooner?”

I touch my uneven lock and wonder if they’ll find it in his home. He cut it for a reason. A souvenir. Now it’ll probably wind up sealed in a plastic evidence bag in some police station. Telling Kirsten and Paige was hard—one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. But telling Corey and my mom is going to be much harder. I don’t know how I’m going to do it without falling apart.

I need more time. You’d think seven months and four days would be enough time, right? Enough time to work up the nerve to just open my mouth and tell them. But it’s not. For me, it’s not. For seven months and four days I’ve rolled imaginary telling fantasies around in my head, but I can never seem to make it happen. And if I’d been alone when I found that newspaper, trust me, I probably wouldn’t have told Kirsten and Paige. I probably wouldn’t have said a word to anyone ever. I would have suffered through it in silence and carried on with living just like I’ve been doing. And even though my best friends know now, I still can’t muster the strength to tell my mom. And that’s not even mentioning Corey. Jesus. How do you tell a boyfriend you’ve never even been to second base with something like that?
Oh, yeah, by the way, I was drugged and raped last winter.
Then he gets to think about it every time he touches you.

But I know that at some point, sooner rather than later, I’m going to have to tell them. I know this. And I will. But right now, right at this moment, I’m just not ready. It’s too raw, and I can just
feel
this angry monster inside me, growling and throwing itself against my numb insides. The anger is shrieking to be let out, and what I want—no—what I
need
is to go somewhere right now where I can be alone and just bawl and scream and wreck myself from the inside out. I think if I do that then I will be able to pick myself up and tell my mom and Corey without disintegrating into a pile of bone and ash.

And I know where I want to go. I know where I can do that. But just as I go to get out of the truck, Corey comes walking out the back service door, and I miss my chance to take off.

“Hey, there,” he says, climbing in. Then he takes a good look at me. “Sid, look at you. You’re all wet and shivering.”

It must have started raining as I was walking from The Diner to the bakery. I didn’t even realize I was wet until now. Corey pulls off his coat and puts it over me like a blanket. He kisses my cheek and I don’t say anything. I just sit and watch the water pouring into the barrel. The rain’s slowing down, but it’s still pouring from the gutter.

“Sid?” he says.

I don’t answer him right away. I can hear him, but I can’t speak.

“Sid. Hello? Anyone home?”

He starts up the truck and flips the heat on, adjusting the vent toward me. He reaches out and brushes my hair away from my cheek; he is looking at the side of my face, waiting for my answer.

“Do you love me?” I say quietly, still staring at the water.

He pauses. I turn to look at him. His eyes are soft and big and the corners of his mouth turn upward into a shy grin.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do. I was going to tell you. It’s just, I’ve never said it to anyone, so I was… I kept…”

“I love you, too,” I say, turning back to the water. But the way it comes out is like this emotionless fact, like I’m not even saying it to him directly but more to myself. I catch myself and try to say it with more meaning. I turn and look at him so he knows that I mean it.

“I do. I love you,” I say.

His eyes go worried.

“Sid, what’s the matter?” he says. “You look like you’ve been crying. Something’s wrong. What is it?”

And his face is so kind and trusting. He has no idea what’s coming. I try and picture what his face will look like when he is looking at me for the first time after knowing. But I don’t know what it will do. I’m afraid to know that.

“Sid. Talk to me. What’s going on?”

I lean in and put my head on his chest because I don’t want him to see me trying not to cry. And now I need to get out of this conversation. His present. His birthday. God, how cheap and shitty.

I clear my throat.

“I’m just PMSing again,” I say. “I don’t know how you put up with me. I really don’t. Let’s open your birthday present.”

I pat his chest and sit up. I start to reach into the back, to get the guitar that’s sitting on the floor. It’s used, but still, it’s a nice instrument. He’ll forget all about this conversation once he sees the guitar. But he blocks me before I can reach it.

“Wait. The present can wait,” he says, looking at me, studying me.

I knew it. Here we go again. I reach back again to get the guitar.

“But you’re really going to like it,” I say.

“Sid. No.”

He’s frustrated with me now.

“The present can wait. We’re not done talking. Why do you always do that? Try to distract me? We’ve been through this how many times? I know what you’re doing. But what I don’t know is why you do it. Talk to me, Sid.
Please
.”

I sit in the seat and look at him. I look at him looking at me, studying my emotions the way he always does, and something in me snaps. The anger that I’ve carried, the tight ball of pure hatred that I’ve carried around in my heart and mind and guts and in every single pore of my body for seven months and four days—anger not caused by Corey, that could never,
ever
be caused by Corey—misplaces itself. It ricochets and heads straight for him.