No one talks much on the way to the station. Grace asks Cheyenne if she wants to call her parents, but she says she doesn’t want to involve them until after she tells the cops her story. Grace probably thinks this is crazy, but Rosina gets it. Cheyenne doesn’t want her parents’ fear to get in the way of her courage.
Erin’s in the front with Grace. Rosina keeps peeking at Cheyenne out of the corner of her eye. She doesn’t want her to know she’s looking. Cheyenne is so still, so emotionless. They’re driving through farmland, the land flat and empty until it reaches the mountain foothills so many miles in the distance. The sky has cleared and the light of the late afternoon sun warms Cheyenne’s skin with an orange glow. Rosina wonders if she had met Cheyenne before what happened, would she notice now that something is different. She wonders if you can see rape on someone’s face.
“Does anyone want to listen to some music?” Grace says.
“Nothing you have,” Rosina says. “No offense.” Grace has the world’s worst taste in music. She’s almost seventeen and still listens to boy bands.
“Does Fir City even have its own police station?” Erin says.
“No,” Cheyenne says with a flat voice. “We have to go to the county sheriff. There’s a station down the road a couple of miles.”
They drive in silence. Grace’s hands are at a perfect ten and two on the steering wheel. Erin is straight backed, looking out the window, probably thinking about how this all used to be underwater, how there are shells and fish fossils under all this grass and cow shit.
“I’m not going to break down, you know,” Cheyenne says suddenly. “I’m not like that other girl. I heard about how she went crazy and had to leave school and everything. I heard about how she lost it. I’m not going to be like that. I’m not going to let them ruin my life.”
“Lucy didn’t let them ruin her life,” Rosina says. “They just did. It’s not something she chose.” It comes out sounding a lot meaner than Rosina intended.
“I know,” Cheyenne says. “But I’m going to be strong. I’m not even going to cry anymore about it. I’m done. Those assholes can’t have any more of me.”
She is looking out the window. She is clenching her jaw so tight Rosina can see the muscles moving down her neck.
“I really appreciate you guys coming out here and helping me do this,” Cheyenne says. “Don’t get me wrong. But I don’t think you can really have an opinion about how I’m supposed to feel right now. I mean, have any of you ever been raped?”
Erin’s head snaps forward. “My research about how to best talk to a rape victim states that those trying to help should not share their own experiences because it takes the focus from the victim and belittles her experience.”
“That’s bullshit,” Cheyenne says. “This rape victim wants to know.”
“I’ve never been raped,” Grace says very quietly. Her knuckles are white on the steering wheel.
“Me neither,” Rosina says.
Erin is silent. Rosina feels like she’s been ejected from the car, like she’s falling, like the air is being sucked out of her and she’s trapped in a vacuum with nothing to inhale.
“Erin,” Cheyenne says. “You have?”
Erin folds her arms over her chest. “I never cried about it either,” Erin says. “I’ve spent the past three years not crying about it. In retrospect, I’m not sure that was the best approach.”
“Oh, Erin,” Grace says. Rosina can hear the tears already in her voice.
“Sometimes the not crying hurts worse than the crying,” Erin says.
“What happened?” Grace says. Rosina knows her face is already drenched even though she can’t see it from the backseat. Grace cries enough for all of them.
“You’re not supposed to pressure the victim for details,” Erin says. “And you’re definitely not supposed to get more emotional than her.”
“I can’t help it!” Grace is full-on sobbing now. Rosina is grateful for Grace’s display of emotion. It takes attention away from her; no one sees her face twitching, her lips tightening into a thin line.
“Are you okay, Grace?” Cheyenne says. “Do you need to pull over?”
“Oh, Lord,” Grace sniffles. “You’re asking me how I am? I’m fine. How are you?”
“I don’t want to talk about me right now,” Cheyenne says. “I’m going to have to do a lot of that in a few minutes.”
“I don’t want to talk about me, either,” Erin says.
“I’m sorry,” Grace says. “I’m just so sorry.”
Grace manages to pull herself together over the next couple of miles. “We’re almost there,” she says as a cluster of buildings becomes visible in the distance. “Are you ready, Cheyenne?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
The Fir County sheriff’s office is in a town even smaller than Fir City. Only a handful of buildings make up the main street area. Grace pulls into the almost-empty gravel parking lot. She turns off the car. Nobody moves.
“This is really happening,” Cheyenne says. “I’m really doing this. Shit, you guys. I’m scared.”
“You should be scared,” Erin says, turning around to face Cheyenne. “This is going to be really hard.”
“Um, Erin?” Grace says.
“You didn’t let me finish,” Erin says. “What I was going to say was this is going to be really hard, but nothing will ever be as hard as that night. You already survived that. You can survive anything now.”
Someone besides Rosina might be full of love for her friend right now, might want to wrap her arms around Erin and never let go. But Rosina doesn’t do things like that. Instead, she looks out the window and rubs her nose, which is a little wet, but of course it’s not from tears.
“Okay,” Cheyenne says. “Let’s do this.”
The inside of the sheriff’s station is almost identical to the Prescott police station—the same beige walls, the same handful of mostly empty desks behind a long counter in the front. “Hello, ladies,” says the deputy behind the counter. “How can I help you?”
“Um,” Cheyenne says. “Is there a female cop I can talk to?”
His face softens. “I’m sorry,” he says, and he might actually mean it. “Unfortunately, we don’t have any gals here right now.” He pauses, smiles warmly. “How about you talk to the sheriff?” he says. “He’s in his office right now. I promise, he’s a real nice guy. Has twin daughters almost your age. They’re twelve now, I think. He loves those girls more than life itself.”
It is Erin who Cheyenne looks to now. Some kind of wordless message passes between them. Erin nods. Cheyenne takes a deep breath.
“Okay,” Cheyenne says. “I’d like to talk to the sheriff.”
“We’ll stay here until you’re done,” Grace says.
“You don’t have to do that,” Cheyenne says.
“Yes, we do,” says Rosina.
Erin, Grace, and Rosina sit for what seems like several hours but is only about forty-five minutes. In that time Erin finishes her homework, Rosina avoids several phone calls from her mother, and Grace spends most of the time in the bathroom to, Rosina suspects, spare the rest of them from her emotional meltdown.