“Maybe . . .” Mason said, but he didn’t look convinced.
“I wouldn’t hurt her!” I said, coming to a sudden stop. I gave my partner an imploring look. “You know me. I’ve loved her my whole life. All I want . . . all I’ve ever wanted . . . is to be with her. To make her happy.”
“I get that,” Mason said, “but you know as well as I do that people do some crazy shit when they’ve been drinking. How many drunk drivers have we taken to the hospital after they’ve killed someone with their car? Most of them don’t remember the accident. All of them say they didn’t mean to do anything wrong, but the fact that they were fucked up doesn’t absolve them of responsibility for what they did.”
“Are you saying that you think I raped her? That I could do something like that?” The pressure that had been building in my body since the moment I left Amber’s house, increasing since the officer pulled me over and gave me a ticket, amped up and felt like it might burst open the valves of my heart.
“I think under the right set of circumstances,” Mason said, carefully, his eyes not leaving mine, “pretty much anyone is capable of horrific behavior.”
I was silent, unmoving, bracing myself with my fingertips pressed against the spine of the couch, staring at him. I let what he’d said sink in as best I could, still trying to fight off the worst-case scenario as possibly being true. This had to be a misunderstanding. Maybe Amber and I both just needed to recover from our nasty hangovers, and then try to talk again. Even during the most difficult times in our lives, we’d always been able to sort out our differences. I told myself that that would happen again. Amber and I would talk and the truth would find its way to the surface, and everything—and everyone—would be just fine. I had to tell myself these things, because the alternative, a world without Amber in it, a world where I’d committed an unthinkable sin, was one I didn’t want to be a part of.
Amber
“I’m going to kill him,” my dad said, after I finished telling my parents what happened with Tyler at the party. “I’m going to tear him apart.” He stood up and paced in my room, his hands clenched into tight fists at his sides. I’d never heard his voice sound like that before, flooded with enough contempt and disgust that I believed he meant to follow through on his threats.
“Daddy, no,” I said, sniffling and wiping my eyes with the edge of my sleeve. I hadn’t called him “daddy” since I was eight.
He stopped pacing, staring at me with tears in his blue eyes. “Baby girl,” he said. His voice cracked, and he didn’t go on, looking like he was struggling to hold himself together.
“I can’t believe it,” my mom said, tears running down her cheeks. “I just can’t. How could he do something like this?”
“It wasn’t just him,” I said, leaning back against my headboard. My eyes were practically swollen shut from all the crying I’d done in the last fourteen hours. I’d never felt so tired or drained in my life. All I wanted to do was go back to sleep. All I needed was oblivion. “I was drunk, too. I shouldn’t have danced with him the way I did. I shouldn’t have—”
“Stop that!” my mom said, cutting me off. “None of this is your fault. Do you hear me, Amber? None of it. I don’t care if you were drinking or not.” Her voice rose as she spoke, becoming more tense and shrill as she went on. “You told him to stop. You told him you didn’t want to do it. Right?” I nodded, numbly, and she bobbed her head, too. “Then what he did to you he did without your permission. He raped you, honey. That’s what it was, pure and simple.” Her shoulders began to shake and she pressed a curled fist against her mouth. “I can’t believe it,” she said again. “How could he?”
“I’m going to find him,” my dad said, turning toward the door, but my mother leapt up and grabbed him by the arm.
“Tom, don’t,” she said. “We have to take Amber to the hospital. We have to call the police. They’ll handle it.”
“No!” I said, shaking my head. “I just want to stay here! Please, don’t make me go.” My bottom lip trembled as I pictured having to lie back on a hospital bed, my legs spread, enduring a doctor’s poking and prodding between my legs. I couldn’t bear it. There was no way. “I already took a shower. They wouldn’t find anything.” Except the bruises, I thought. Except the way that he used his body like a knife inside me and made me bleed.
“But you have to report what happened,” my mom said. “He needs to be held accountable for what he did!”
“And how would I prove it?” I said. “Everyone at the party saw the way I was dancing with him. I made out with him, too. No one’s going to believe me . . . that I told him to stop. It’ll be my word against his.”
“The police can get him to confess,” my dad said. “That’s their job. You just have to tell them what happened, like you told us, and they’ll take it from there.”
“I don’t want to talk to the police!” I said, spittle flying from my mouth. “I won’t! Please, leave it alone. I just want to be left alone!” I started crying again, and I wondered how it was possible for my body to produce this many tears, if I’d ever be able to stop. I kept seeing the look on Tyler’s face when he’d walked into my room, the confusion and concern, and it didn’t make sense. Did he not remember what happened? Did he black out? Would he blame his actions last night on alcohol? Would he proclaim his innocence because of an inability to recall what he did?
My parents were silent for a moment, frozen where they stood, looking at each other, then back to me. “I just need to sleep,” I said, trying to calm down. “Let me sleep and we can talk about it later. Right now I can’t think about anything. I can’t make any decisions. My head’s a fucking mess.” I never swore in front of my mother—crass language was one of her pet peeves—but my energy levels were so depleted, I couldn’t stop myself. I didn’t care what she thought.
“Okay,” my dad said, but I could tell it pained him to agree with my request. He took a couple of steps over and cupped my head with his hand, leaning down to kiss me on the forehead. “I’m so sorry this happened to you, sweetheart. Your mom and I are here for you, okay? We’ll support you, no matter what.”