Naked 2 : BAD (6 page)

***

It felt like years had passed, by the time Caelyn pulled her car up to the curb in front of Jayson’s apartment again. Every second spent in close proximity to him was like standing next to an open sewer and taking deep breaths of toxic, rotten filth.

Her head was pounding, she felt weak and shaky, and sweaty. But there was some relief, too, because the worst was over.

“You’ve been quiet ever since we left the police station,” he said, as they eased to a stop.

“I’m tired,” she said. It was as honest as she could be. “But I’m glad we did that.”

“Me too,” he said. He turned to her. “Caelyn, I…I hope you’re as happy as I am that we’re giving each other another chance.”

She swallowed, looking at him but unable to meet his dead, blank eyes. “The thing is, Jayson, I do need some time. I know you don’t understand, and I don’t expect you too—

but I’m going to need to take some time to myself.”

His expression clouded over. “I don’t get it. How much time?”

“I’m not sure. Right now, I’m staying at my parents’ house and just trying to calm down. They’re not too happy with me…”

“But you want to see me again, right?”

She nodded, barely. “I’ll call you.”

He reached out and grabbed her hand, and she could once more feel the threat behind his physical strength and the way he tried to control her body. “Promise me, Caelyn,” he said, his voice lowering.

“I…I promise.”

Anything to be rid of him. Another moment and she really would scream.

“Okay,” he said, withdrawing his hand. “I’m going to hold you to that.”

And then he got out of the car and walked to his apartment building without looking back.

Caelyn immediately sped off, practically crashing into a car passing by as she left.

Tears were coming and she had started to shake violently.

It had been an incredible strain to hold everything back throughout the entire trip.

The pressure of returning to the place where she’d been assaulted and violated, and being so close to the man who’d done it all to her—and then actually pretending that he hadn’t raped her. It was sickening.

The police station had been just as bad. The officer had been skeptical when she’d told him that she wanted to drop the charges. He wanted answers, and she didn’t intend on giving him any. She simply continued to state that she didn’t want to pursue the matter, and eventually he had her fill out the required paperwork and told her she’d be receiving something in the mail from them in the next few weeks.

When she’d asked him if that would be the end of the case, the officer had informed her that the state could still decide to press charges against Jayson on its own, but that in cases like hers where so much depended on her testimony, it was unlikely that would happen.

Even though she’d wanted to drop the charges, taking back her truthful statements against Jayson was awful, and it just felt wrong on so many levels. Jayson deserved to be punished for what he’d done to her, and here she was, trying to actually help him get away with it.

In a way, she was most disgusted with herself.

As for Elijah, from what little Jayson had told her after they’d left the police station, it seemed unlikely that Elijah would be brought to trial for beating up Jayson. The police seemed to think that the state of Florida wouldn’t be very interested in going forward with that case on their own, either.

So far, her plan seemed to have worked.

But then why did she feel so sick and defeated?

Caelyn didn’t know. All she knew was that she had to pull over to the side of the road for a few minutes before her shaking subsided. Then she got back on the road again and drove towards home.

She didn’t bother checking her phone or calling home because she knew it was going to be bad and she wanted to delay the repercussions as long as she could.

It was going to be very hard emotionally to deal with her family after what she’d just been through. She felt like a half-drowned rodent. Her hair was wet and limp, her forehead slick with sweat, her palms clammy, her face pale. Glancing at herself in the rearview mirror, she saw someone almost unrecognizable.

Wow, maybe Deena was right after all. You look like a crazy person.

And now Deena would get her chance to tell her just how crazy she looked, because she was turning onto her street. As she approached the driveway, she saw all the lights on and the front door was open.

Her stomach tightened and churned and she felt sick all over again.

“Oh God,” she whispered to herself.

Getting Jayson to agree to drop the charges and going to the police station was just the beginning of it, Caelyn realized. Now she would have to face down her whole family and deal with their anger and accusations.

It was almost too much to bear after everything else she’d been through so far.

But then, she thought of Elijah—the way he’d been so calm as they’d led him off in handcuffs, knowing what was in store for him. If he could face the prospect of months and months in a tiny prison cell, then she could face her angry parents.

Getting out of the car, Caelyn geared herself up for the blowout of all blowouts.

She could already imagine the screaming match she’d end up in with her mother, and Deena would probably join in to pile on. Caelyn’s father might try and play referee as he sometimes did, or maybe he’d finally even be fed up enough to gang up on her as well.

Her stomach was churning with anxiety as she pulled open the front door and walked inside the house, ready to be berated and attacked.

But strangely, it didn’t happen.

She saw her mother and father sitting at the kitchen table. Her father was eating peanut butter and crackers and paging through a magazine. That gave her heart a little pang, because he’d been snacking on peanut butter and crackers forever, it seemed. He hardly even glanced up at her, just shoved another cracker in his mouth and chewed.

Her mother was on her iPad, probably playing Angry Birds or something. She looked drawn and tired. She looked at Caelyn and her expression didn’t even register any emotion—no anger, no concern, nothing.

“Hey,” Caelyn said, slowly coming forward. She felt like she had stepped into some weird hidden camera show. Her parents were supposed to be pissed off, yelling and screaming and demanding answers. And where was Deena? Deena should have been standing there, gloating, as she watched her older sister get reamed out.

But none of that was happening, and Caelyn was thrown.

“Put Deena’s keys on the counter,” her mother said, looking back at her iPad once more.

Caelyn did as she was told. “Sorry I took her car. The thing is—“

“We don’t have any interest in having this discussion with you right now,” her mother interrupted.

Caelyn stared at her. “Why? What’s going on?”

Her father began spreading peanut butter over a cracker, slowly, like a robot.

“Nothing’s going on, Caelyn,” her mother said, her voice tired and faint. “Now just go upstairs. We can talk tomorrow.”

“This is really weird. I don’t understand why you’re acting like this.”

Her mother didn’t bother responding, she just went back to her game. Caelyn could hear the little noises coming from the iPad as her mom’s hand swept back and forth across the touch screen.

She looked at both of her parents, and a feeling of unease overwhelmed her. It would have been better if there had been screaming and yelling, she realized. At least that would have felt real, and honest, and normal.

This silent treatment thing was anything but normal. She’d never seen her parents act that way, and it gave her a sense of dread, like there was something awful coming her way.

But there was nothing to be done about it, so Caelyn simply walked upstairs. She stopped outside Deena’s room and heard music playing faintly inside.

Deena was singing along to a Lady Gaga song.

Caelyn smiled, imagining her younger sister dancing around and pretending to perform for an audience, like Caelyn had seen Deena do when she was a little kid.

When Deena was eight or nine, she’d practically worshipped the ground Caelyn walked on. She’d been cute and eager to please. So much had changed since then, and Caelyn wanted nothing more then to be able to walk into Deena’s room and talk to her about everything that had happened recently.

Part of her honestly considered knocking on the door and saying she wanted to talk.

But things between them had gone much too sour, and besides, Caelyn had stolen Deena’s car. She didn’t think it would be very likely that Deena would suddenly decide she wanted to sit around and braid each other’s hair and talk about boys.

So Caelyn finally just went into her own room, closed the door and sat on her bed, feeling frighteningly alone—really alone—for the first time. In just a few days, she’d managed to screw up her school life, her romantic life, and now even her family didn’t seem to want much to do with her.

She wondered if this was how it started. Sometimes, she walked by a homeless person or saw someone wandering through a convenience store talking aloud to themselves, and she wondered what had brought them to that point.

You could assume that it was drugs, alcohol, mental illness caused by a genetic condition—but maybe it was just life. Maybe you really could screw things up so badly that everyone you cared about turned their backs on you and the whole thing crumbled like a sandcastle.

She didn’t want her parents to hate her.

She’d always been the good kid, the responsible one, the girl who could be counted on to turn in her assignments on time. Now it all seemed to be changing so fast, and she didn’t know how to make it go back to the way it was.

Caelyn went to her computer and logged into her email, and got another pang in her chest when she saw a message from Cambridge College. It was just some generic email about making sure that student cars had their parking stickers prominently displayed to avoid being reported by campus police.

Yet somehow, that stupid little email brought a flood of emotion to the surface, and Caelyn once again had tears streaming down her cheeks.

“Stop being such a drama queen,” she whispered, wiping the tears away.

But it was hard. It seemed like years had passed since she’d been just a normal college student, no different than anybody else, looking forward to her classes, trying to make friends and maybe find a cute boy to date. Never had she imagined that everything could change so quickly, and now she felt like she was on the outside looking in.

Who could she talk to? Who might understand?

Impulsively, she got her cell phone and called her roommate, Alicia.

After two rings, Alicia picked up the line. “Wow, I didn’t expect to ever hear from you again.”

“Don’t be silly,” Caelyn replied, trying to force humor into her voice.

“Where are you?” Alicia said. “Florida?”

“No, I’m home at my parents’ house in Massachusetts.”

“That’s a shock. I didn’t think you’d ever come back.”

“Alicia!” Caelyn said. “You didn’t think I’d ever come back to Boston or call you?”

“I’m serious. I thought you’d moved to Siesta Key and were serving up margaritas and fajitas to the tourists. You seemed happy enough to get away from everyone and everything at Cambridge.”

“Not everyone.”

“Huh. Could’ve fooled me.” Alicia’s voice was bitter, not her usual friendly tone.

“Are you mad?”

“No, Caelyn,” she said, sounding exasperated. “I’m not mad, but I was studying.

Remember studying? Classes? Tests? Some of us still have them.”

Caelyn was taken aback. She hadn’t expected Alicia to be angry with her too. But it seemed like everybody was, so she supposed there was no reason to be shocked by it.

“I’m jealous of you,” Caelyn said.

“I don’t really have time for this right now.” Alicia sighed. “Are you coming back to school? Or are you just going to quit?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Well…call me when you figure it out, Caelyn.” Alicia sighed again. “You know, it really sucks not having you around. And it would’ve been nice if you could have warned me.”

“I wanted to.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

Caelyn thought about it, but couldn’t figure out anything she could tell her that would make sense of it all. “Listen, it’s complicated. I wish I could just give you a simple explanation.”

“Sure, it’s so complicated. I’m too dumb to understand. And yet, somehow I’m still in school and you’re not. Go figure.”

“Alicia—“

“I’ve got to go. I have work to do.”

Caelyn got off the phone feeling even worse than she had before. The comments Alicia had made, stung her badly. But Caelyn understood why her roommate had said those things. She was hurt because Caelyn had just left school without a word of explanation, and now Alicia felt like Caelyn didn’t care about her.

She got it. But it was still hard and painful to get the backlash when everything else seemed to be going wrong at the same time.

Caelyn got off the computer and curled up under her covers in bed. She was tired, but her mind was spinning too fast to let her sleep. She was depressed but jittery. It was one of the worst experiences she’d ever had—knowing she was truly alone, with nobody to talk to or trust.

She tried thinking of Elijah, because just the thought of him usually eased her mind, but even he seemed remote and distant now. Their last conversation had been a misunderstanding, and he had acted like he wasn’t going to bother her anymore.

What would happen to him now? Would they let him out of jail since Jayson had dropped the charges against him, or would they keep him locked up anyway? If he did get out, would she ever hear from him again?

Caelyn was sick of crying. She was all cried out. She was just empty. Emptied out of fear and anger and sadness and betrayal.

She had nothing left.

She was floating.

She was floating, and numb, and in a way, it was a relief.

***

There was a buzzing bee flying around her head. She heard it and began swatting at it, sitting up in bed, startled. Then, as she gained her bearings, Caelyn realized there was no bee—she’d been sleeping and gotten confused.