“No.” The reply was succinct.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“Why are you scratching at this?” She was upset, her brow furrowed and her mouth pressed in a thin, tight line.
“Because I want to know you,” I said.
“What do you think is going to happen if you know the truth? You going to punch everyone at Central who says one bad word about me?”
I’d like to, I thought, but that wasn’t the right answer. I struggled for a better one. “You aren’t going to give me a chance if I don’t know it all.”
She knew I was right, but the question was whether she wanted to give me a chance. I was asking her to do more than reveal a painful memory. I was essentially asking her for something more than a random one-night hookup. I wanted her to trust me. I wanted her to be more than just a lab partner, more than just another warm body between the sheets. I wanted to matter to her. These were foreign desires to me, but sometimes my gut was entirely right. Trusting in my instincts had saved my life more than once in Afghanistan.
As the silence hung in the car, my breath seemed to stall in my chest. I feared any movement might startle her into bolting from the car. The quiet became oppressive, and I was afraid it would topple down like a boulder of snow and suffocate us. Maybe the weight of it was too much for AM as well, because she took a deep breath and began to talk.
“I don’t remember much about the night. I was invited to the Delta Sig rush party by one of the Thetas. I was thinking of rushing with them. I drank. A lot. I remember taking some guy home with me to my dorm room. I told him it was my first time. We had sex. I don’t really remember it. The next morning I was sore. He was gone. There was a tiny bit of blood on the sheets. It wasn’t what I’d thought it would be.
“I was so drunk, I didn’t know who he was. Only that he was on the lacrosse team. I don’t understand why I don’t remember him. Maybe I just intentionally blocked it out.”
I tried to regulate my breathing, promising myself I would beat the shit out of someone or something later. Getting angry now was only going to scare her.
“I just figured nothing would come of it. It was a drunken party event, and I chalked it up to college. You know?”
She was crying now. I don’t think she noticed, but there were tears leaking out of the sides of her eyes, running down her face. The silent but tangible proof of her pain made my heart clench.
“Yeah, I’ve done my share of stupid things while drunk.” My voice was hoarse and raspy. She didn’t notice, wrapped up in the torment of her memories. And I’d led her down this path. I couldn’t tell her to stop now, that it was too painful to listen to.
“Right.” She absently swiped at her tears, dashing them away as if they were nothing more than a pesky mosquito that had landed on her cheek.
“A month or so later, I was walking home alone from a Greek Street party. Ellie had wanted to stay longer, and I was tired. I told her another girl on our floor was going to walk me home. I didn’t think, you know, that anything could happen. I got near the Health Center. It’s dark there. Clay was coming from the opposite direction with a couple other guys. He stopped me and the other guys went on.
“I didn’t know him very well. He backed me up to the brick wall of the Health Center. I can still feel it. The brick was rough against my fingers.” She clenched and unclenched her hands. I had to touch her, to pretend like I was providing some kind of comfort. I placed my hand gently over hers, and she collapsed into me.
I breathed a huge sigh of relief, unhooked her seatbelt and tossed it aside, and dragged her over the console and onto my lap. Releasing my seat so it moved as far back as possible, I tucked her face against my chest and wrapped my arms around her. I wished I could enfold her entirely into me and absorb her pain.
“He backed me up,” she repeated, as if she could barely believe it had happened. “I’m not sure how he even knew who I was. We didn’t have classes together. I don’t think I’d even ever met him before. But he said he’d heard I was loose. He stuck his hand on my leg. I had shorts on. He pushed his hand up.
“I pushed it down. He asked me what was wrong. His breath was sour, yeasty, as if he hadn’t brushed his teeth that day and tried to wash away the stink with a dozen beers. He tried to kiss me, and I turned my face. He laughed at me and said he didn’t know why I was pretending, because his buddy had told him that I was loose. I wasn’t a virgin, he said, because I was too loose.”
Her face burrowed harder against my chest, and her legs curled up. It was like she was trying to crawl inside me. As I rubbed her back, I cursed the sense of helplessness that rode over me.