“Then let me be clear: Jordan Bockus had sex with me while I was passed out on his bed. I did not consent to that. It was rape.”
Dean Hunt does not respond. He picks up his yellow pad, glances at his notes. “Do you remember walking down the stairs when you were leaving Taylor House?”
“I don’t remember much about that walk back.”
“You said you climbed the stairs to his room when you arrived. So do you remember walking down the stairs when you left?”
“Well, I must have.”
“But do you remember it?”
“Why are you asking me this?”
“Please just answer the question.”
“What’s the problem?” Jenny sounds shrill.
“Please answer the question,” he repeats.
“You don’t believe me. You think I’m lying,” she snaps. “You think I led him on and actually wanted to have sex with him! Why else are you asking me these ridiculous questions?”
Dean Hunt lays his pen and notebook carefully on his desk. He sits up straight in his chair. For the first time he looks disapproving, his lips pressed tightly together. Like she’s crossed some line with him.
“I do not think you are lying to me. I think you absolutely believe every word you have said here this afternoon. Your testimony is consistent with what you wrote in your complaint. But you’re right: there’s a problem. My job is to determine the facts. And the fact is Jordan Bockus has a first--floor single in Taylor House. There is only one bed in his room, and you don’t climb stairs to reach it. I’m not sure where you were that night, but I’m concerned it’s not where you think.”
Jenny’s hands grip the arms of the chairs. Her chest heaves with rapid breaths. “So . . . what? You’re saying I’m crazy?”
Dean Hunt raises his eyebrows. “No. But by your own account, you were highly intoxicated. Jenny, after you entered your statement, I walked the route you detailed. I walked from your dorm to Conundrum. I looked for the trash cans. I wandered outside. I also went to Taylor. A public safety officer accompanied me into Jordan’s room. Here’s what I found: not one single picture of a dog. I made some inquiries. The Bockuses don’t have any pets.”
Jenny stares at him, a stunned expression on her face.
“So if you’re not lying and not crazy,” he says, “the logical next question is: where’s Oscar?”
. . .
“I need to go.”
Tall Boy, his face reappearing. He doesn’t hear. Jenny barely hears herself. He’s so tall, thin. Like a tree. She considers saying that to him. Crazy. It would be funny if she didn’t feel so sick. Like she wants to cry. Tamra. So mean.
The walls around her rotate. She grabs his arm. It stops her fall.
“I need to go!” she shouts. It comes out “oh,” but he realizes. Sees. She feels herself moving, pushed, propelled, and hears the music fade and light brighten and air cool. A wall. She leans against it. A wave cuts her through the middle. Bucks her.
“Where are your friends?” she hears.
Tamra. Bitch. She wants to cry.
“Can you make it upstairs?”
Floating, flying, climbing. Another buck. In her gut.
She sits. In a chair, at a desk. This lamp is not hers. And this picture, not hers.
“What a cute dog,” she hears herself say. The dog makes her want to cry. She wants to hold the dog—big, furry, gold dog—wrap herself around him.
“That’s Oscar.”
Oscar.
“Stay here. I’ll be back.”
The room, when the door closes, rings. Her ears ring. Oscar. She reaches across the desk and with one finger strokes the glass over the dog’s face.
Then her stomach bucks hard, insistent, and her hand flies to her mouth.
. . .
28
Richard
Richard can usually count on the Taylor common room to be deserted at one in the afternoon. It’s a good place to knock out some work.
Today, Exley hunts him down there.
“Knock knock,” Richard hears. He’s in an alcove off the main room, his textbook and papers spread out on a long table. He looks up to see Exley saunter in, backpack slung over one shoulder, jacket unzipped.
Exley pushes back the chair at the head of the table with one foot and lowers himself into it. The pack hits the floor with a thud.
“Can I help you?” Richard asks, fake--politely. He hates the guy’s eyes. They register no emotion, ever. Roaring over beer pong, laughing at someone’s joke, dancing with a girl—the eyes are the same, even if the mouth smiles or shouts.
Here’s one thing they do convey: intent. Richard imagines that if you zoomed in on a lion’s eyes as he stalked his prey, they would look like Exley’s.
“I hear you and Bockus aren’t speaking,” Exley says.
“That would be true,” Richard says.
“Mind telling me why?”
“Yeah, I do. Ask him yourself.”
Exley’s brow furrows. “Why the hostility, Richard?” he asks quietly.
“No hostility, Exley. I’m just done talking about it.”
“That so? I hear you had no problem talking about it with Jenny’s roommate.”