Page 26 of Every Step She Takes
“What? No. Don’t put words in my mouth, Isabella.”
“You said you were disoriented and confused after he gave you that champagne.”
I pull back, coffee cup cradled in my hands. “I said I wastipsyafter two glasses of champagne. You remember how I was after less than one glass, right here in this hotel room. Clearly, two was more than I could handle. That’s not an excuse.”
“If you were losing time, that means you blacked out.”
“Have I considered the possibility thatsomeoneputsomethinginto the champagne? Yes, I have, but there’s no way of proving that now. It really might have just been champagne.”
“Which Colt literally dumped down your throat.”
“I–” I rub my face frantically, my gut screaming for me not to go there, not to remember that part. Chin up and accept blame.
“The point,” I say slowly, “is that Colt kissed me, and I kissed him back. I was tipsy, and I was flattered, and I was an eighteen year-old virgin with Colt Gordon kissing me in a hot tub. He didn’t need to force me.”
“He–”
“Thepoint,” I say again, more emphatically, “is that I stopped once I realized that what I was doing was wrong – horribly wrong – and a betrayal of your trust. That’s when we discovered we’d been photographed. You have my version. Get Colt’s. Believe me, I haven’t spoken to him since that day. His will match mine.”
“Except for where heforcedhimself on you after drugging you. If it happened the way you say, Lucy–”
“No.”
“There was coercion there beyond Colt using his charisma and his fame, which I already knew was a factor. If he did what you say–”
“No,” I say, sharper, gut twisting with anxiety. “You won’t do that.”
She looks at me in genuine confusion.
I continue, “I said that my mother wouldn’t let me use that silly virginity proof. But when I first told her the story, she was furious with Colt. She wanted to call the police. Report him. Insist on an investigation. I was the one who talked her out of that. Begged her not to. Broke down in tears when she tried.”
“If it happened–”
“And that is exactly why I didn’t. Those words.Ifit happened the way you say, Lucy.Ifhe did what you say. I had a friend in high school who went to a frat party pretending she was eighteen. Wore a miniskirt. Drank a beer. Smoked a joint. Wanted to have some fun and party with cute college boys. She passed out. Woke up to a guy on top of her with his friends egging him on. She reported it. A year later, she killed herself. Do you know what she told me? That everyone – from the cops to the lawyers to her own parents – couldn’t talk about it without sayingif.Ifyou really were passed out.Ifthe guy didn’t know you were unconscious.Ifit happened the way you said. Even people who were trying to be supportive still saidif, just like you’re doing. So I choose to excise that part of what happened to me. I will not say I was drugged. I will not say Colt used coercion. I will not say it was anything other than a drunk teenage girl letting her hormones run away with her and making an inexcusable mistake. That is where we will leave this. Insist on more, and I leave. Sayifone more time, and I leave.”
She looks at me. Stares, as she did when I first told the story, and I squirm under that stare and then hate myself for squirming. I want to be stronger. Not tougher, not harder, just stronger. Why is that so difficult?
Because it’s Isabella, and every look, every gesture, every nuance feels like a needle pricking an open wound.
“What?” I say finally, more peevish than I intend. I try to cover it with, “Can we just leave this and–”
“I’m sorry,” she says, “for what you went through. I’m truly sorry, Lucy.”
Now I squirm for real. “I don’t need you to be sorry, Isabella. I don’twantyou to be.”
“I still am. I thought I’d had this great revelation. With what’s happened in Hollywood, Weinstein and the rest, I’ve had friends come forward, and I never doubted them for a second. I have my own stories. MeToo has been like a splash of ice water, waking me up and making me look back at what I endured and how we just accepted that’s the way things were. The casting-couch jokes that weren’t jokes at all. The casual misogyny that wasn’t casual at all. We never stopped to askwhyis it like this? Why do we accept this behavior? Why is itourjob to overcome it? In the midst of all that, a friend told me a story about something that happened when she was a teenager, a one-night stand with a producer. Afterward, his wife came aftermy friend. I was outraged on her behalf. How dare this older woman blameherfor her husband’s actions. And then I realized I’d done the same to you.”
I say nothing, just sit with my hands folded on my lap, my voice gone.
“I was so proud of myself,” she continues, “for realizing I’d done wrong and resolving to fix it. To treat you to an all-expenses-paid trip so I can ask your forgiveness. How generous of me. Yet you come here, and you tell me your story, laying no blame, and when I see blame – squarely on Colt’s shoulders – I still question. I don’t mean to. I believe you. But I cannot help wording it in a way that implies doubt.”
“He’s still your husband,” I say quietly.
She sits back. “In name only. We stayed together for the kids. A partnership rather than a marriage. I intended to leave once Jamie turned eighteen… but he’s had some troubles, so I waited. He’s better now, and I moved out last fall. That doesn’t mean I spent fourteen years sharing my home with a man I despised. I love Colt. Always will. I still talk to him every day. We’re friends. I won’t make excuses for him. Or I’ll try not to. He’s flawed.” A wry smile. “We all are. But do I believe him capable of exerting pressure on an eighteen-year-old girl he wants? Yes. Whether he’d have gone further once it was clear you didn’t want that…”
“I don’t think he would have,” I say. “Men are accustomed to girls protesting. They’re raised to think they have to talk us into sex.”
Her lip curls in a sardonic smile. “We want it. We just don’t realize it, so they need to show us.”
