CHAPTER 18
By the time our designated driver dropped us back at the dorm, Erin and I had quartered and beer ponged our way to a night of spinning walls at best and toilet-hugging at worst. Neither of us spoke above a whisper until after 3:00 pm Sunday afternoon. There was a scheduled sorority meeting four hours later, and Erin cursed the lineage of whoever put that on the calendar the day after the Brotherhood Bash.
“We won’t get a damned thing decided—and at least half of us will kill the first person to bang that gavel.” We were still conversing at half-volume.
I watched her wind a purple scarf around her neck and pull on matching gloves while waiting for my laptop to boot up. “At least your misery will have company.”
“Yay.” She pulled a purple cap over her wild red hair and shrugged into her coat. “See you in a couple of miserable hours.”
Lucas had already sent Monday’s worksheet. Still no personal note.
I understood why he couldn’t see me, and maybe why whatever we had been doing was over. But I didn’t understand why our emails had to stop, too. I missed them, and wondered what he’d do if I emailed him back. I wanted to tell him about last night and Buck, about saying no and feeling scared to death and tough at the same time.
One week of class remained, followed by a week of finals, and then the semester would be over. I had no idea if it would make any difference to him.
I did the least brain-pounding homework I could do—labeling a constellation chart due tomorrow in astronomy lab—and hung the clean laundry that had been sitting in a basket at the foot of my bed for three days… or four… maybe five. I’d missed my bass practice times all weekend in addition to the ensemble rehearsal, so I would be scrambling to complete additional hours of practice during the week.
By the time Erin returned, I was seriously considering just going to bed and sleeping off the lingering remains of my hangover. Yawning, I turned toward the door, “I was thinking about crashing early—”
Erin wasn’t alone. Under her arm was Mindi, my quarters partner from the previous night. At first, I thought she was just way more hungover than me; then, I noticed Erin’s grim expression, and I took in Mindi’s red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes. She didn’t just feel like shit from too much alcohol. She’d been crying. A lot. I swung my legs off the side of the bed.
“Erin?”
“J, we have a problem.” The door shut behind them and Erin tugged Mindi to sit on her bed. “Last night, after you and I left, Mindi danced with Buck.” Mindi flinched and closed her eyes, and tears started streaming down her face.
My heart began to race. I imagined everything Erin could say next, and none of it was good. I hadn’t prayed in a long time, but I found myself begging. Please God let it not have gone further than what happened to me. Please. Please.
“He talked her into going to his room.” At this, Mindi’s hands flew up to cover her face and she crumpled face-first into Erin’s shoulder like a child. “Shh, shh,” Erin crooned, fitting both arms around her. We stared at each other over Mindi’s head, and I knew there’d been no Lucas for her.
“J, we have to tell. We have to tell this time.”
“No one will believe me!” Mindi rasped. She was hoarse, and I imagined her doing what I’d done—begging him to stop. I imagined her crying all night, and half the day, and I was more pissed than I’d ever been, and scared. “I’m not…” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “I wasn’t a virgin.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Erin said firmly.
I gulped at the knot in my throat and it slid down, but not without a fight. “They’ll believe you. He tried to—he tried with me, a month ago.”
Mindi gasped, her blotchy face and wide eyes turning to me. “He raped you, too?”
I shook my head as chills spiked up in a wave from my neck to my ankles. “Someone stopped him. I got lucky.” I had no idea how lucky until this moment. I thought I knew, but I didn’t.
“Oh.” Her voice warbled softly, and she hadn’t quit crying. “Will that count?”
Erin coaxed Mindi to lie down, flapping a blanket over her. “It’ll count.” She sat next to Mindi and held her hand. “Will Lucas corroborate your story, J? I mean, I’m guessing, with what we know about him, that he will.”
Lucas had been irate that I’d not let him call the police that night. It hadn’t occurred to me that by not reporting what had happened, I let Buck think he was untouchable. That he’d do it again. I’d assumed that what Lucas had done to Buck was deterrent enough. Not that it had prevented him from what he did in the stairwell… or his implied threats during the party, right in front of Kennedy.
I nodded. “He will.”
Erin took a shaky breath and looked down at Mindi. “We need to call the police or go to the hospital or something, right? I have no idea what to do first.”
“The hospital?” Mindi was afraid, and I couldn’t blame her.
“They’ll probably need to do… an exam, or something.” Erin gentled her voice, but at the word exam, Mindi’s eyes widened and filled with tears again.
Her knuckles blanched, gripping the blanket. “I don’t want an exam! I don’t want to go to the hospital!”
How could I blame her, when reporting would bring more pain and humiliation?
“We’ll go with you. You can do this.” Erin turned to me. “What should we do first?”
I shook my head, thinking of the campus police. Some, like Don, would probably do well with this situation. Some might not. We could go straight to the hospital, but I wasn’t sure what the steps were. I picked up my phone and dialed.
“Hello?” Lucas’s voice was wary, and I realized I’d never called him before.
“I need you.” It had been over a week since we’d communicated outside of the worksheets he’d sent, and the self-defense class yesterday morning.
“Where are you?”
“In my room.” I expected him to ask what I wanted. He didn’t.
“Be there in ten minutes.”
I closed my eyes. “Thank you.”
He hung up, and I put the phone down, and we waited.
***
Lucas squatted on his heels just below Mindi’s eye level. “If you don’t report it, he’s going to do it again. To someone else.” His voice hummed through me, barely audible from across the room. “Your friends will stay with you.”
Erin sat on the bed, holding her hand. I barely knew this girl, but thanks to Buck, we were now allies, associated in a way no one ever wants to be linked.
“Will you be there?” Her voice was a whisper.
“If you want,” he answered.
She nodded, and I tamped down a trace of jealousy. There was nothing to envy in this situation.
***
The television in the ER waiting room was set at an earsplitting volume that was no help to my aching head. I wanted to turn it off, or down, but an elderly man was planted in a chair ten feet from it, arms crossed over his chest, staring up at the sitcom repeat. If that noise was distracting him from his reason for being here, who was I to take that diversion away?
Lucas sat next to me, his bent knee angled toward me, brushing my thigh. His hand was so close to mine I could have reached my pinky finger out to stroke his. I didn’t.
“Got something against that show?”
His silly question broke my scowl. “No, but I think I could hear it from across the street.” He was wearing that ghost smile, and I wanted to melt into it.
“Hmm,” he said, staring at the boot on his knee. “Are you a little hung-over, too?” When Erin and Mindi filled him in on the details of last night, he’d quickly figured out that I’d gone with Erin to the Greek event.
“Maybe, a little.” I wondered if he would think I’d senselessly put myself in danger by attending a party where Buck would obviously be present. His reprimand the night we met—real responsible—still stung, mostly because it was true.
“So did he talk to you? Last night?” He was still staring at his boot.
“Yeah. He asked me to dance.”
A muscle worked in his jaw, and his eyes were cold when he raised them to mine.
“I said no.” I heard the defensiveness in my tone.
He took a deep breath and turned more fully toward me, his voice low and menacing. “Jacqueline, it’s taking everything I’ve got right now to sit here and wait for law-abiding justice to take care of this, instead of hunting him down myself and beating the f*cking shit out of him. I’m not blaming you—or her. Neither of you asked for what he did—there’s no such thing as asking for it. That’s a f*cking lie argued by psychopaths and dumbasses. Okay?”
I nodded, breathless at his declaration.
His eyes narrowed. “Did he accept your no?” What I heard at the end of his sentence: this time?
I nodded again. “Kennedy was with me. He noticed how weird I acted with Buck, so I told him what happened. I didn’t say anything about you, or the fight. I just told him I got away.”
A small crease appeared between his brows. “How’d he take it?”
I remembered Kennedy’s uncharacteristic cursing outburst. “He was angrier than I’ve ever seen him. He took Buck outside and talked to him, told him to stay away from me… which probably made Buck feel weak, and that’s why…” That’s why he raped Mindi.
“What did I just say? This is not your fault.”
I nodded, staring into my lap, tears stinging my eyes. I wanted to believe it wasn’t my fault, but Mindi was hurt after Kennedy had chewed him out. For me. It felt like my fault. I knew better, but I couldn’t help connecting the dots.
Lucas’s fingers brushed under my chin and turned my face to his. “Not. Your. Fault.”
I nodded again, holding onto his words like they were redemption.
***
I parked in front of a neighbor’s house, snapping the truck door shut as quietly as possible and tiptoeing down the sparsely lit driveway toward the detached garage. It was late—hopefully late enough that no one would be peering out a window at a girl sneaking up to a guy’s apartment.
Lucas’s motorcycle was parked under the open steps. I stood at the bottom with my hand on the rail, heart hammering, and looked back at Dr. Heller’s house. I couldn’t see any movement within, though there were lights on inside. Taking a deep breath, I climbed the steps and knocked lightly.
There was a peephole in the door, so I was sure he’d seen me standing under the porch light by the puzzled expression on his face when he yanked the door open. An hour ago, he’d left me at the dorm with Erin and Mindi, and after he’d gone, I realized I hadn’t said what I wanted to say. And most of what I wanted to say included a need to see him while I said it.
“Jacqueline? Why—?” He cut himself off at the look on my face, pulling me inside and shutting the door behind me. “What’s wrong?” His hands gripped my elbows as I stared up at him. He was wearing drawstring pajama bottoms and a dark t-shirt, the sexy lines of his tattoos spilling from his sleeves to his wrists. He also wore thin, black-framed glasses that accentuated the blue in his eyes and his dark lashes.
I took a breath and blurted everything out before I was too chickenshit to say any of it. “I wanted to tell you that I just—I miss you. And maybe that sounds ridiculous—like we barely know each other, but between the emails and texts and… everything else, I felt like we did. Like we do. And I miss—I don’t know how else to say it—I miss both of you.”
He swallowed, closing his eyes and inhaling slowly. I knew he would be all rational and do-the-right-thing and he would push me away again, and I was determined not to give him that chance. But then his eyes flashed open and he said, “F*ck it,” pushing me against the door, slamming his forearms on either side of my head and kissing me more forcefully than I’d ever been kissed, so firmly that I could feel the ring at the edge of his mouth scoring into the surface of my lip.
He pressed his hard body against mine and I pressed back, grabbing handfuls of his t-shirt and fitting myself to him while his tongue stroked the interior of my mouth. When he drew back a fraction, I protested with an embarrassingly inarticulate sound and he chuckled softly, but he was just removing my coat and towing me to the sofa. Sitting, he dragged me astride his lap, cradling my head in one palm and crushing me closer with the other.
We parted, breathless, and he tossed his glasses on the side table and tore his t-shirt over his head, and then removed mine more gently. His warm hands spanned my sides and held me tighter as our lips moved together, his tongue making languid, sweeping passes across mine. I wound my arms around his neck, opening my mouth and taking him in. When he kissed the corner of my mouth and dipped his lips to the hollow at the base of my throat, my head fell back. I couldn’t stop the soft keening moan his light sucking kisses triggered.
“You have a freckle here,” he whispered, sweeping his tongue over a spot just under my jaw. “It drives me crazy every time you’re above me. I just want to do this…” The gentle draw of his mouth pushed me over the edge, and my knees tightened around his hips as I rocked against him.
Light eyes smoldering, he removed my bra, outlining concentric rings with his fingertips, touching me so softly that I grew dizzy wanting more. His hands cupped my breasts, thumbs brushing the undersides, and I leaned my face down to his and sucked his tongue into my mouth, sliding my hand down his taut abdomen and lower over the front of the soft flannel pants. I tugged on one of the strings.
“God, Jacqueline,” he gasped, straining against my hand while his arms snaked around me, fingers stealing into my hair at the nape as our mouths devoured each other. Breaking the kiss, he pressed his forehead to my shoulder and groaned, his teeth clenched. “Tell me to stop.”
Confused, I shook my head, though I had no idea if the action was fervent or imperceptible. His breath fanned over my breasts and I bent to his ear, my voice a murmur. “I don’t want you to stop.”
Wordlessly rolling us down and onto our sides, he unzipped my jeans and slipped his hand between the insubstantial fabric of my underwear and my skin, his fingers searching for and finding the place he sought as he kissed me. I gasped his name into his mouth, my fingers digging into his bicep, and his voice was a low growl in my ear. “Jacqueline. Say stop.”
I shook my head once, my palm sliding down to press against the evidence of what his body wanted from me. “Don’t stop,” I breathed, telling him that I wanted what he wanted, unconditionally. I kissed him back, sure in the knowledge that my actions and words were all the confirmation he needed to continue.
I was wrong. “Say stop, please. Please.” The last whispered word was a plea I couldn’t deny, even if I didn’t understand the reason for it.
“Stop,” I whispered, not meaning it, not wanting it, and he shuddered and removed his hand from me. Curling my hands between our chests, I didn’t move away, didn’t speak. I just lay in his arms for long minutes, until his breathing slowed, finally becoming deep and even.
Landon Lucas Maxfield was asleep on his sofa. With me.
***
I woke to the muffled sound of Francis yowling to be let inside. Disentangling myself from Lucas cautiously, I slid from the sofa and went to let him in, grabbing my bra and long-sleeved t-shirt and pulling them back on. A gust of chilly air entered with Lucas’s cat, and I shut the door as soon as he fully cleared the doorway. After wrapping his tail around my leg for the span of two seconds, he stalked off to the bedroom, and I supposed that was as thankful as he ever got.
I returned to the sofa, but I sank to the floor and examined Lucas instead of waking him or snuggling back into his embrace. With the planes of his face partially obscured by his dark hair, his full lips slightly parted and thick lashes combined in sleep, I could see the boy inside the man more clearly than I had before. I didn’t understand what happened earlier, why he made me stop him or why he held himself apart from everyone, from me, but I wanted to understand.
I guessed that the rose tattoo was a possible clue, given its placement over his heart. Most of the ink on his arms consisted of symbols and intricate motifs, and I wondered if any these were his own design. He shifted onto his back then, and I could finally read the words on his left side:
Love is not the absence of logic
but logic examined and recalculated
heated and curved to fit
inside the contours of the heart
I needed no more proof to know that somewhere in his possibly not-so-distant past, Lucas had loved someone, deeply. Someone he must have lost, because she didn’t appear to be around. And then I looked more closely at the tattoo banding the upturned wrist that lay near his face. Within the inky pattern, masquerading as normal pink skin within the design, was a thin but jagged scar. It ran from one side to the other—all the way across, contained by the black tattooed lines like hidden code.
His right wrist was circled with the same banded design, and watching his face for signs of wakefulness, I lifted it from his chest and gently turned it to check. It, too, was scarred from one side to the other—the scar hidden skillfully by the tattoo artist.
Stunned, I sat on the floor, watching him sleep. I had no idea if this was something I could ever bring up with him—if it was something he’d ever willingly tell me. Even having spent my fair share of days and nights miserable over the breakup with Kennedy, I was never depressed enough to consider suicide. I had no idea what it would take to get to that hopeless point. Not really.
It was late, and I needed to get back to my dorm. Our class—my class—began in only eight hours. On the kitchen counter, I found a discarded envelope and I scribbled a note letting him know I’d gone back to the dorm and would see him tomorrow.
“Wait.” Lucas’s voice stopped me with my hand on the doorknob. He sat up, slightly disoriented from sleep.
“I didn’t want to wake you, so I left a note.” I picked it up from the end table, folding it and shoving it into my pocket. I was so overfull of words to say and questions to ask that none would come out.
He rubbed his eyes and stood, stretching his neck to the side, extending his arms back, eyes closed. His biceps and pecs flexed from the movement, and I wanted to stop staring, but couldn’t until his eyes flashed open. “I’ll walk you out to your truck.”
He turned to grab his t-shirt and pull it back on, and I was able to ogle him shamelessly again. Across the top of his defined shoulders and back were more inked designs and scripted words, but the t-shirt covered them much too abruptly. He disappeared into his bedroom and came out wearing his hoodie and a very beat-up pair of Sperrys I’d never seen him wear. Boots were his standard footwear.
“Francis is on the bed? Unless he’s developed opposable thumbs, I guess you let him in.” Crossing the room to me, he smiled.
I nodded as he neared, and his smile ebbed. I knew he was thinking about what happened before we fell asleep wrapped up in each other, wondering what I thought about him pleading with me to say stop when I’d made it clear that I didn’t want to. If he only knew—my confusion over his strange rejection was nothing to the apprehension over what had caused the scars on his wrists.