A Harmless Little Game (Harmless #1)

 

“Drink,” Silas insists, shoving a glass of water at me. I look around, blinking, as if I’ve just teleported here. The world disappeared for a few seconds, like it was on pause. I look outside and can see through the glass windows of the bar that Drew and Mandy are having words. Mandy’s having more words than Drew, and he’s pretty much ignoring her.

 

Is he actually on his phone while she yells at him?

 

Jane takes in the scene and snorts. “Drew never was Mandy’s favorite person in the world.”

 

“I think Mandy is Mandy’s favorite person in the world. Always was.”

 

“It’s funny,” Jane says thoughtfully. “I always admired her. Thought she was so put together and pretty. And then after...you know...”

 

“My attack.”

 

“The attack—after the attack, she got up in front of all those cameras and played it up for the audience. Told the world you’d been drunk and high and reached for John, Blaine and Stellan. She said she was speaking out to save the reputation of fine men.”

 

I’m sick to my stomach again. No amount of water Silas can bring me will help.

 

“She said that?” I ask, looking at her again. She looks like a monster.

 

She is a monster.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“You were there, Jane.” I look at her across the table. “You know the truth. I had one or two drinks. No drugs. I never, ever asked for any of that to happen to me.”

 

“I know!” She seems genuinely scandalized that I might think she thought otherwise. “And I told the police the same thing, when they came to our house.”

 

“The police came to your house?”

 

She nods. “They interviewed as many people as they could find from the party. The only ones who spoke up, though, were Tara, Mandy and Jenna. And me.”

 

“There were twenty or thirty people there!”

 

“I know. Didn’t matter. The loudmouths won. Mandy got her ten minutes of fame on CNN and MSNBC as the friend of the girl who asked for it.”

 

Gut punch.

 

“Oh, hell, Lindsay, I didn’t mean it. That’s just...that’s how you were portrayed.”

 

“The ER did a rape kit?”

 

She nods.

 

“And they didn’t analyze it or give me an exam to...”

 

“Once Mandy started saying you’d been drunk and high and it was consensual, all the law enforcement stuff halted. Just...went dead.”

 

“Daddy,” I whisper.

 

Drew walks in through the front door and looks cool as a cucumber. Appearances are deceiving, though. I know he must be agitated after that incident with Mandy.

 

My legs start to itch, like there are nerve impulses in them begging to be released. I want to jump up and grab Mandy and beg her to tell me why she would lie like that. All my friends knew I would never, ever ask those guys to...be with three men at the same time like...sleep with them with Drew right there.

 

And the beating. The torture. Being defiled in every hole I possessed. It took weeks for my mouth not to taste like blood and spooge. To swallow without the metallic slime of a man’s semen at the back of my throat. My lips had cracked open and the corners had been ripped and bleeding. Every time I moved my mouth, the wound had reopened.

 

At least, that’s what I remember through the haze of drugs and surgeries and more drugs.

 

So, yeah. I want to run out there and ask her a thousand ugly questions about a million ugly truths amidst the giant, big fat lie she and Tara and Jenna told the world.

 

Instead, I jump up and bolt for the bathroom, where I throw up until Jane comes in and calls out my name.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 19

 

 

 

 

 

“Lindsay?”

 

I say nothing.

 

“You okay?”

 

I say more nothing.

 

“Stupid question,” Jane mutters to herself. “Sorry.”

 

“S’ok.” A hand appears under the bathroom stall door. It’s holding a small plastic cup with ice chips in it.

 

“Here,” Jane says. “I was pretty sure you were throwing up.”

 

I take the cup. “Yeah.”

 

“Drew’s really worried about you.”

 

I snort.

 

“He is,” she says again, as if we’re arguing.

 

“About time. Too bad he wasn’t so worried four years ago.”

 

The door makes a slight rattling sound. “What does that mean?” Jane asks.

 

I say nothing. Suddenly, she inhales sharply.

 

“Oh, my God, Lindsay. He was the fourth guy?”

 

“Oh, please,” I snap. My mouth tastes like fermented cotton and my head throbs with pain. “Like you didn’t know?”

 

“Mandy and Jenna and Tara spread these vicious rumors, but no one believed them!” I can’t tell whether she’s lying or not. I need to believe her, so I do.

 

“You mean, people believed their rumors about me, but they couldn’t believe their rumors about Drew?”

 

Her turn to go silent.