“I can’t,” I whispered. “Please, Terry. You just don’t understand.”
“You’re right. I don’t. And you’re gonna tell me,” he replied.
I ripped my arm out of his grasp and searched my purse for my car keys.
“You’re not going anywhere, Wright.” Terry moved in front of the car door, barring my escape.
“He’ll keep doing it,” I said, mostly to myself. My body felt strange.
“Who? Cal?”
I screamed, “He’ll keep doing it! He’ll keep getting away with it! He’s a monster!” I looked at Terry, eyes wild and unfocused. I thought he didn’t hear me or didn’t register what I was saying, so I screamed again. “He’ll keep doing it! He’ll keep getting away with it! He’s a monster!”
I felt the panic explode in the base of my chest. Usually there’s a build-up. Usually I know it’s coming. I have a bit of a warning. But not this time. I couldn’t breathe. I kept hearing myself yelling, repeating the lines over and over but never taking a breath between them. I was running out of oxygen. I was running out of time. I had to keep saying it. Someone needed to understand, to believe me.
“He’s a monster!” I gasped, feeling my knees buckle, my eyes roll up into my head. White nothingness as I dropped to the pavement like a stone.
I awoke on an unfamiliar couch. It smelled of rich leather, and in my peripheral vision, I saw the flickering of candlelight, warm and comforting. Wherever I was, I liked it.
Someone walked up to me and removed a cloth from my head. I squinted and recognized the face, but I couldn’t yet put a name to him.
“You scared the shit out of me,” he said.
“Huh?”
“You fainted, Wright.”
Wright. Someone calls me that. Who calls me by my last name? It was on the tip of my tongue.
“I did?”
He sighed deeply, and then I felt the couch sink next to my stomach. He must have sat down.
“Does that ever happen to you?” he asked.
“Sometimes,” I replied.
Terry! That’s who it was!
“Terry, why did I faint?” I asked.
There was a brief pause.
“Well, I think because I discovered something you didn’t want me to,” he said. He looked down at me and furrowed his eyebrows. “You said something you didn’t mean to.”
And then I remembered. My slip-up. How could I be so careless?
“Brooke, please tell me I misheard. Please tell me I’m crazy or something. Anything, because I’m freakin’ out over here,” Terry said.
I breathed deeply and thought about creating an elaborate lie. And then I remembered I was lousy at lying.
“I thought it was the only way,” I said. “He’s done it to other girls, Terry. I know he has. I know one of them. I mean, she wouldn’t come right out and say it, but the signs are all over her. He’ll keep doing it. I know he will, and no one will stop him. None of these girls will come forward. They’re all scared or unsure or something. She’s scared of him, Terry. This girl I know.”
“Are you hearing yourself?” Terry asked.
“I’m not crazy,” I snapped.
“I didn’t mean to imply that. But Brooke, what more can you do but expose these guys? You can’t make the girls come forward. You can’t make them press charges.”
“Exactly!” I said. “I can’t make them press charges. But I can. Or at least I thought I could.”
“Jesus Christ, Brooke. Are you hearing what you’re saying? You’ll let this guy screw you to what? Get justice for a bunch of girls you don’t even know?”
“I do know them!” I shot back. “They’re Beth! All of them!”
Terry said nothing. He placed his hand on my forearm, and I didn’t pull away.
“I blew my chances anyway, so you don’t need to worry.”
I sat up slowly, the pounding in my head increasing then subsiding once I sat still, fully upright.
“What are you talking about?” Terry asked.
“I’ve been trying to get Cal to like me. I figured I could get him to want me and then use me. But I messed everything up. I’m sure he won’t ever talk to me again. Whatever. At least I can try to keep these girls safe during the next game.”
“How did you mess things up?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I replied.
“Why are you doing all of this?” Terry asked.
I huffed. “I told you. For my friend, Beth.”
Terry stared at me, and I shifted uncomfortably.
“You think you’re responsible,” he said.
“I don’t think it. I know it. She told me about her rape. I should have done something. I should have made her tell her parents. I should have been a better friend. I should have gone to that party with her.”