I wait and lose all sense of time. It’s probably only minutes, but it distorts into hours. The event keeps flashing before me. The heavy body on top of me, the smell of sweat, the laughter. My helplessness.A Silent Girl in Trouble. I feel sick. Would Chester actually have let his friends do that to me?
I press my hands over my mouth and only now notice that tears are running down my face.
Since I’m suddenly freezing, I slip into jeans and a sweater, even though everything inside me is screaming for a shower.
And as I’m freeing my hair from the collar, I see Jack and John running across the back. Naked. Shortly after, River and Tom show up.
I cautiously open the front door, peek through the tiny crack, and see John and Jack getting into their car and driving away.
I feel nothing, neither triumph nor relief. I’m probably too full of adrenaline.
Trembling, I grip the doorknob when River suddenly appears in front of the door. He pushes it open so hard that I stagger back.
Bang!The door smacks shut. He looks at me grimly. His upper lip is swollen, and his cheekbone gleams with blood. “Seriously, Tucks?” he asks flatly. “Not even then?”
I know immediately what he means. He means my inability to scream.
My hands are still shaking. Everything is shaking. River wipes his face. “Not even then?” he shouts at me so suddenly and unexpectedly I flinch.
New tears well up in my eyes, and I shake my head several times.
Not even then!
I take out a sheet of paper and the pencil.Why are you...
I don’t get any further because River snatches both from my hands, tears the paper to shreds, and breaks the pencil as if it were uncooked macaroni. “Not even then!” he yells at me. The next moment, he overturns the table and wooden chairs. The same red vase as in the other room shatters on the floor, its shards splintering blood-red in all directions.
I back into a corner, sink onto the tiles, and press my fists to my mouth. This is too much.
Stop it!
Eyes blinded by rage, River grabs a chair and slams it against the wall so hard the wood splinters. One leg breaks off and flies onto the bed. He then sweeps the lamp off the bedside table.
Tears roll down my cheeks, my jaw throbs, and I place a hand on the painful area.
“You’re not serious, right?” he shouts, giving me a bitter look.
I can hardly breathe anymore.
Enraged, he picks up the pad, tears out the last pages, and shreds them. Pieces of paper fly through the air like confetti.
At this moment, he reminds me of my dad. It’s the same anger, the same rejection, the same resignation.
“You’re lucky I glanced out the window when I went to the bathroom!” He snorts now, rubbing his hands together to release a few scraps of paper. “Why did you just let yourself be dragged away like that? Why didn’t you scream?”
He might as well have punched me in the stomach.
He points at me with his index finger. “There are guys like this all over the world. How are you going to be safe anywhere?” He paces the room, then braces himself against the wall with both hands and lets his chin fall on his chest. “Was it like that at your school, too?” he finally asks without looking at me. “Did they do that to you?” He still radiates anger like heat.
Full of fear, I stare at the white scraps of paper on the floor. They blur before my eyes.
Did they do that to you?
I start to cry again. I cry and cry and can hardly breathe. I hear more sounds of destruction, but I’m no longer watching. I wrap my arms around myself, rocking back and forth, but I can’t do anything to stop the tremors. Nothing for the fear. My hands go numb, tingling like they’re in icy water.Breathe. All is well. Breathe.
Suddenly, it’s quiet.
I blink and see River throw the bloody T-shirt onto the mess on the floor and pull a fresh black one over his head. Somehow, he senses my gaze because he suddenly looks at me and stops moving. There’s rolled-up tissue paper in his right nostril, and his hair is disheveled.
