Brielle nodded. “Anyway, she went outside for a while after she hung up with you. I thought she was going to go cry or something because she’d never let me see her cry. I knew she did about her parents and all kinds of stuff, but I never actually saw it. Anyway, she came back in a little later and her demeanor had changed. She said it was fine and she wanted to go for a drive. So we went.”
I watched Brielle walk around the room, telling this story, lost in her own memories. It was like she was narrating a book or something, not necessarily to me, but aloud to herself.
“We drove for a while and ended up in Apache Junction. Sam was pretty quiet during the drive, not singing to the radio and stuff like we normally did. We just drove around and eventually she pulled off the road and said she heard something wrong with the car. Like a flat tire or something.” She turned to look at me then, her eyes narrowed. “Now, keep in mind that we were in the middle of nowhere. There was no way I was getting out to look at it.”
“Sam gets out and gets back in and says we have a flat tire. Neither of us knew what to do, so Sam calls you.”
I buried my head in my hands again. “And I didn’t answer.”
“So she tries again and gets angry. She was really mad that you didn’t answer. She just kept saying how you were out having fun and we were stranded. Dad was in San Diego for work—remember how fast he got back? Anyway, we didn’t know who to call. We sat there for a minute and Sam kept trying you.”
“And I kept ignoring her.”
Brielle nodded. “Finally she just kind of cooled way down. Got really calm. She got back out of the car and made some calls. I heard her talking but I don’t know what she said. I wasn’t getting eaten by a coyote.”
“Why didn’t you call Mom?” I asked.
“Because I wasn’t supposed to be gone! And if I got caught, she was going to ground me for a year or something.”
“You idiot,” I groaned. “If you would just have kept your ass at home, this would all be different!”
“Screw you, Max Quinn! Listen to what I’m going to tell you!”
I sat back on the couch and waited impatiently for her to go on.
“So she gets back in with a little smirk and said she got someone to come and fix the tire. She said it was a guy she knew through her family and that he would be coming shortly. We waited awhile, like a long while, and I started to try to remember how far back the nearest gas station or house was that we passed. It was getting cold and I was over it. About the time I was getting my courage up just to walk or call Mom, a car pulled up and Sam got out.”
I sat up, the rise in Brielle’s voice getting my attention. I knew where this was going and I didn’t want to hear the details. “I can’t hear the play by play of what happened.”
“I’m not going where you think I’m going. Just hang on. So, Sam gets out and talks to these guys. Two of them come to my side and they kind of ignore me for a bit. They’re talking over the roof of the car to the other guy and Sam. And then, just like that, Sam is gone. I turned in my seat to see what’s going on and my door gets flung open. They grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the car and forced me against the side of the car.”
“Bri-”
“Wait, Max. So they do what they do to me,” she said, gulping, “and I can hear a lot of pounding in the car the guys pulled up in. I was really too worried about what was going on with me to figure out what was happening to Sam, but I remember seeing the guy . . . basically raping her.”
She blew out a breath. “I’m terrified, trying to fight these guys off and they are just taunting me. They start to get really aggressive you know, the taunts turning into explicit threats, when the guy in the car with Sam gets out. Sam gets out the other side—I see the door open but can’t really see her—and the guy looks over his shoulder. That’s when I see the headlights coming down the road. The guys jump in their car and take off before the other car reaches us.”
“I basically know all this,” I said, frustrated and angry and sick to my stomach.
“But what you don’t know is this—a few months after that happened, a girl I knew from school asked me about Sam. She asked if she had gotten back together with “Joe.” I didn’t know who Joe was. She said it was a guy that Sam had been messing with off and on, a kid Sam had met at a party with her. Joe Dumas. I said I’d never seen him or heard of him so she describes him and it’s an uncanny description of the guy that raped her. Mind you, I never got an exact description of the guy, but it was close enough to make me think.”
My mouth went dry, my mind going into overdrive. “What are you telling me?”
“I’m telling you I don’t think Sam was raped at all. I think she called that guy to come out there and I think she fucked him.”
I wanted to warn her to watch her language, but I couldn’t open my mouth.
“I think it was a game to get you to feel sorry for her. Because you’d think you let her down and you did feel that way. Or maybe it was her way to get attention. I’m not sure.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before now?” I shouted, standing up, my thoughts scattered through decades of time. I was livid. I was sick. I was shocked as hell.