I follow her apprehensively out to the deck, where she’s set two glasses of iced tea next to the lounge chairs. “Have a seat.” She waits until I’m comfortable. “There’s no easy way to broach this,” she says, “so I’ll just come right out with it. Matt explained about the fight at Trenton Montgomery’s house.”
I stare at the deck railing. “What did he say?”
“That the Tipton boy was assaulting you.”
I flinch. Sometimes I forget Mrs. R. is a lawyer, not just a professor. But I kind of like how she refuses to use Carson’s name, like he doesn’t deserve it. “I guess,” I say quietly. “He … we, um, we’ve … you know. Hooked up. Before.”
“Had sex?” Mrs. R. pulls no punches. “Heavy petting?” she asks when I shake my head.
I’m not sure what heavy petting entails, but this isn’t the time to point out she’s old. “The first time he … made me do some stuff,” I say, closing my eyes.
It doesn’t hide her quiet intake of breath. “Did he rape you, Raychel?” Her voice is steady, but she can’t mask the feeling behind it.
“No.” I make myself look at her so she’ll know it’s true. Birds chirp a mismatched soundtrack above our scene. “It was just … oral.” I barely get the last word out, but she hears it.
“You didn’t agree to it?”
“He didn’t exactly ask.”
“So you didn’t say yes.” When I shrug, she says, “Raychel, listen to me.” As if I have a choice. “What he did was wrong. Penetration of any kind without consent is rape, and it is wrong.”
I study the polka-dot pattern on the chair cushion. “But I didn’t really say no, either. At least the first time.”
“But you didn’t say yes. You didn’t give your consent.”
I blink back sudden tears. “But I said yes to … stuff before that.” My chin quivers.
“Inviting someone into your living room doesn’t give them permission to go through your underwear drawer.”
I laugh involuntarily and drop my forehead into my hands. “I just … I don’t know,” I say. “Carson said a bunch of nice stuff and I wanted to believe him. I wanted to think someone…” A few tears escape but I make myself go on. “That someone … actually liked me, you know?”
She puts her hand on my arm. “I want you to listen, and really hear what I say,” she says, pulling back to hold my hand. “You made some bad decisions. Everyone does. But that doesn’t give him the right.” Her face is just like Andrew and Matt’s when she’s angry—all twitchy and full of fire. “No one has the right to touch you without your consent. I don’t care if you parade down the street naked and stand three inches from his face—no one touches you unless you say so. And even if they’ve had your permission, they stop when you say stop. That’s your right. Not his. Yours.”
I nod tentatively, trying the idea on for size. It doesn’t quite fit, but maybe I can stretch it into shape.
MATT
I don’t know what Mom said to Raychel, but when we play a few rounds of pool in the afternoon, she seems calmer than she has in days. She goes home to have dinner with her mom, but Sunday, she invites me over to watch football and do homework. The duplex is spotless again and everything feels as normal as it possibly can, except that I haven’t manned up and told Raychel the truth about how I feel.
So naturally, I decide to do it in the least manly way possible.
When I get home, I retrieve an empty photo album from my desk and flip it open. It’s a cheesy gift, and she will either love or hate it, but I’m hoping for the former. I mean, it’s just pictures in plastic sleeves and white sticker labels, none of that scrapbooking crap.
I’m surprised by how many pictures there are of us together though. Hiking trips and random parties and choir performances and ridiculous-ass junior prom, hamming it up in formal clothes at Brenda’s Bigger Burger. The Nuge at the Mulberry, pulling Bree and Raychel up to dance beside him. Us with Andrew, piled on the couch the day after Thanksgiving. All three of us with Spencer and Asha in a university skybox, courtesy of the football coach, who’s one of my dad’s patients. All the girls lined up at the bottom of Twin Falls. All the guys lined up at the top of McNair Mountain. All of us blurry at Eagle Point because Nathan’s phone fell off its makeshift rock tripod.
I sort them out, deciding to put them in chronological order. The last page will be blank. I’ve debated leaving a letter there, or a giant question mark, or … something. I’m not sure how to say, “By the way, I’m in love with you and always have been, but no pressure if you don’t feel the same way.”
I try not to consider what happens if she doesn’t. And I really try not to consider what happens if she does, because once I let the fantasies start, they won’t turn off. I feel bad about some of them: Raychel at the lake in her bikini, untying it when I sunscreen her back instead of just pulling the straps aside; Raychel on my bed, but lying back beneath me instead of sitting with a pillow on her lap; Raychel leaning in to kiss me on the mouth instead of the cheek like she always does.
But mostly they’re benign. Just me and her, doing the same stuff we always do, and all of it meaning a little more.
*
Mom gave me some tips on helping Raychel recover, so I don’t take it personally when she lapses into quiet spells or seems sad. I keep an eye out for Carson, but he stays away, probably because Keri Sturgis has been talking some mad trash about him at school. Raychel’s not the only one taking the brunt of this gossip cycle, now that Keri’s got other people whispering that maybe what happened wasn’t mutual.
I thought Andrew would ask me for the truth, but he’s barely been around. When I do see him, his eyes are so bloodshot I’m surprised they work at all. He sleeps most of the time he’s home, and I heard my parents discussing whether or not to take away his car. Raychel said she’d talk to him, but she hasn’t. Not that I’m in a hurry for them to become best buddies again. I know it’s selfish, but I was starting to get really worried that their friendship might become something more. And now that I have her to myself, I’m not looking forward to sharing again.
I’m not going to wuss out on talking to her, though. Tomorrow’s a teacher work day so I think I’m going to give her the photo album over the three-day weekend. But first I have to get through today’s blood drive. When I pick her up, Raychel’s having one of her quiet mornings, so I blather a little about college applications and how my dad wants me to do early admission at Duke. “It’s due November 1,” I say, “which is ridiculous. And even regular admission is due by mid-December if I want an alumni interview.”
“Huh,” she says. “That’s early.”
“Have you started yet?” I ask. “Regular admission is January 1 at most of the good schools.”
She looks up. “I thought I told you—we’re using my money for rent now.”
I know she doesn’t want to hear this, but I have to ask. “Isn’t there any way to contact your dad? I mean, there has to—”
“I wouldn’t take his money even if he had some,” she says.
She should sue him and take it all, but I can tell it’s not a good time to press. “I still think you’ll get scholarships.”