RICHARD (A BAD BOY ROMANCE) (12 page)

“I’m… I’m okay, Jess,” she
said, her words mumbled and slurred. If I didn’t know any better, I would have
said that Becky was drunk off of her ass. That explanation would have been more
than enough for her behavior, except for the complete lack of smell that came
with drinking
that
much alcohol.

“You’re not, sweetie,” I
said, peering into her eyes to try and get a better look. They weren’t
bloodshot, but as I gently tilted her head up to catch a better light from the
lamp, I could see how glassy her eyes had become.

“She’s acting like she’s on
something,” one of the girls said. “What’re her eyes like?”

“Glassy,” I replied,
frowning. Becky wasn’t the kind of girl to ever go out and do anything so
reckless as take drugs. “And she’s almost acting like she’s drunk.”

“I don’t want to freak you
out, or anything,” the girl said, her brow furrowed in concern, “but I think that
your friend might have been
roofied
.”

“What? Are you sure?” I
asked, my eyes going wide.

“No,” she said her hands up
in an almost defensive gesture. “You’d have to get a drug test for that. But
something like this happened to a friend of mine, and when she came to, they
found out that she’d been assaulted.”

“Jesus,” I said, running my
fingers through my hair nervously. “What do we do?”

“I’ll get campus PD on the
phone and tell them what happened,” she said, pulling out her cellphone, “just
stay with her and make sure that she doesn’t try to get up. They’re going to
want to ask her some questions.”

“Right.” I nodded, turning
my attention back to Becky. “Everything’s going to be okay,” I whispered to
her, hoping to God I wasn’t making a liar out of myself.

A loud buzzing made me
jump, my gaze drawn down to the phone I’d set down on the stairs right beside
Becky, watching it for a moment as it whirred and then stopped moving.

Who
the hell is texting me at almost four in the morning
? I wondered, picking the
phone up and unlocking it with a swipe of my finger.

The only alert I had was
from an unknown number, a paperclip icon beside the number notifying me that
I’d also gotten an attachment to go along with it.

The second the message
opened I felt my breath leave my body without warning, my mouth falling open as
I saw right on my phone a picture of me kneeling on the floor in front of my stepbrother,
my mouth wrapped around his cock. I swallowed hard around the lump in my throat
as I looked around, as though whoever had sent the picture would be standing
close by, waving at me and twirling their mustache.

Another buzz heralded a
second message.

“You’ve been a very bad
girl.”

_
FOURTEEN
_

Dick

Jessica told me what had
happened with Becky minutes after campus police had arrived—thankfully leaving
out the picture of the two of us in her witness statement. But the fact still
remained that someone had those pictures of us out there, someone who was more
than willing to use them in order to terrorize the both of us.

When the campus cops had
arrived, they questioned Becky only for a few minutes, then left, proving the
limited amount of compassion UCLA’s finest had for its students. From Jessica’s
telling you’d almost think the cops themselves had been drunk or worse,
laughing too much at their own jokes at Becky’s expense before leaving with
barely a statement from the victim herself.

Becky herself had been
keeping quiet over the last few days, barely even leaving the dorm to go to
class, instead having Jessica collect as much coursework as she could for her
from the classes they shared. Naturally Jess was worried, and I didn’t blame
her in the slightest. Since the incident, Becky had barely spoken to her save a
few words about the classwork she needed.

This was apparently where I
came in.

Jessica was convinced that
I’d be able to get Becky out of her shell somehow and maybe find out more about
what happened, though I couldn’t imagine why she’d want to talk to me in the
first place. I had every respect for Becky, but that didn’t mean she and I
actually
liked
one another. She’d
played the part of the protective best friend well over the years I’d known
both her and Jess, but that meant protecting my stepsister from
me
on more than one occasion.

“You’re sure this is
actually going to help?” I asked as Jessica led me up the stairs to their dorm.

“No, I’m not sure,” she
said, glaring down at me from the landing, “but this is the best I’ve got right
now. I thought maybe she’d be willing to tell someone she didn’t know very
well. And you and Becky hardly known one another at all. It’s hard telling
things you’re ashamed of to people you’re close to, you’re afraid of what
they’re going to think. But strangers? They get to hear your whole life story
and then disappear into the world, never to be seen again.”

“But I’m not a stranger,” I
said. “Becky knows me.”

“But you’re not friends,” Jess
said as we reached her floor. “And sometimes that’s what makes the whole
difference.”

“If you say so.”

Becky looked like she’d
just gotten out of the shower when we arrived to the unlit dorm. Her hair was
soaking wet and her skin looked almost pink from scrubbing it under the hot
water. Despite all that, she somehow still managed to look like she’d been
through hell and back.

Her eyes were underlined by
dark circles from what I could only assume was a lack of sleep and her eyes
themselves were bloodshot and puffy from crying. I felt instant sympathy for her,
though I knew I’d never be able to even come close to truly understanding just
how violated she must feel—how alone.

“Hey, Becky,” Jessica said,
her voice soft, making every effort to sound comforting. “Richard’s here. He
wanted to come by and see if you were okay.”

At first she didn’t say a
word, only glancing at me from the corner of her puffy red eyes as she sat on
her bed, swaddled up in a pink bathrobe. I took note of her for a moment,
watching the way she sat and how she did her best to seem small, as though
trying to avoid the notice of any predators that might just be stalking nearby.
Her hands, hidden partially inside of her robe, were scrubbed pink just like
the rest of her, and what little I could see of her fingernail told me that
she’d been biting them down to the quick. She wasn’t doing well at all, and if
she didn’t find a way to talk about it—even if it wasn’t to me—then she was
going to have a complete breakdown before the end of the semester.

“Hi, Richard,” she said in
a hoarse whisper.

“Hey, Becks,” I said,
sitting opposite her on Jessica’s bed.

“I hate it when you call me
that,” she muttered, though somewhere I could see a faint tinge of warmth
returning to her face, if only for a brief moment. It was comforting to know
that somewhere in there the old Becky was still alive… if only barely.

“I know,” I said, offering
a sympathetic smile.

The warmth faded almost as
soon as it had arrived, replaced instead with an angry glare. The change had
been so sudden that I was almost taken aback. Becky wrapped her arms around
herself, pulling her robe in tight as though to defend herself from—what? Me? I
felt a little hurt at the idea that she’d even consider something like that
from me, but I had to check my feelings at the door—she was in pain, and when
people are in pain they have a habit of lashing out at the ones that try to
help.

“You checked on me. Can you
go now?” she asked, turning her gaze away down toward her bed spread. “I just
want to be left alone.”

“I know it’s not really
much of a comfort,” I said, “but I’m sorry for what happened.”

“You’re right, that’s not
comforting,” she said, drawing her knees up to her chest, pulling her blankets
up around her. “I really don’t want to talk right now.”

“I know,” I said, leaning
forward slightly, “and I understand that. But sooner or later you’re going to
need to talk. You’re safe here with me and Jess. We’re not going to judge you.”

Becky glanced up at me
again, her frown still as steady as ever as she swallowed. I knew that she
wasn’t angry at Jess or me, but I also knew that she wanted control of her
life—something she had felt like she lost after waking up drugged and taken
advantage of. I didn’t even know how much of the rape she actually remembered,
but hopefully it was enough to figure out who might have done this.

“I was at a party,” she
said, swallowing again to try and remove some of the hoarseness from her voice.
“I was with Greg.”

“Who’s Greg?” I asked.

“He’s my boyfriend…
was
my boyfriend,” she corrected. “He
and I had gone to a party at one of the fraternities together. Greg’s not a big
partier, but he wanted to go that night for some reason—it felt a little weird
that he’d actually
want
to hang
around a bunch of drunk frat boys, but he was really determined to go.”

“Which fraternity?” I
asked. It was almost impossible to keep track of all the frats that were having
a party on any given night—it was easier to find which ones
weren’t
partying, honestly.

“A__, I think. I didn’t
really pay attention… there were so many people there,” Becky said, hugging her
knees close to her chest. “We went inside and hung out for a while, but I
didn’t really feel like drinking. Greg did, though. He looked so nervous about
being there that I thought it was just his social anxiety kicking in. I thought
the drinking would make him calm down a little bit.”

“What else did you do while
you were there?” I asked, leaning back on Jessica’s bed as I listened to her
recount that night. The fact that this Greg guy had dragged Becky to the party
had me suspicious that he might have just been in on the entire thing. I made a
note to find whoever this guy was and give him a piece of my mind.

“Mostly just sat and
talked,” she said, her smile returning, if only slightly. “Greg and I started
taking dumb pictures of one another after he calmed down. We were being so
silly… And that’s when I start losing track of what happened.”

“But you weren’t drinking?”
I asked.

“I had a Coke, sure,” she
said, frowning, her brow furrowed in thought, “but I wasn’t like,
drinking
drinking.
Y’know
?
I just started to feel really funny after we started taking pictures. I’ve gone
over it over and over, and that is where things always start getting fuzzy.

“I remember Greg talking to
someone, but it wasn’t to me,” she said, her eyes closed tight as though
focusing on conjuring up the memory. “I… I think it was Michael.”

“Michael?” I ask, frowning.
What the fuck was he doing there, and speaking to Becky’s boyfriend. “What’d he
say
?”

“I’m not sure about all of
it,” she said, her frown deepening. “He asked about pictures—Michael did, I
mean. I thought it was weird that he’d want pictures that Greg and I were
taking… I think I said something, and Michael just laughed. Greg handed him
something and then I felt someone grab my arm…”

Greg
gave him pictures
,
I thought, my mind reeling as I realized the implications of what had happened
at that party.
That little shit must have
been in the locker room with me and Jessica. Now Michael has them, and God
knows what else
.

I stayed quiet, letting
Becky finish her story. She needed to get all of it out, to say it out loud and
hear herself say the words. There might never be a time when she ever gets over
what was done to her, but at least she could find a way to live with it.

“Michael looked at me and
just kept laughing,” she said, her voice laden with barely held back sobs. “I
couldn’t see Greg anymore, and I didn’t feel right… He’d left me there, alone
with those monsters. I felt all these hands on me, touching me, pulling me up
onto my feet. The world started spinning and they just sort of… dragged me
upstairs. They took me into a bedroom. There were so many of them...”

My fists clenched tight as
I imagined Michael’s smug face, remembering what he’d said after making it with
Becky at the party. I wasn’t going to let that piece of shit get away with
this.

“I don’t remember much
after that,” she said, her voice strained as she held back more sobs. She
glanced over at Jessica for a moment. “I just remember waking up outside of the
dorms with you over me with some of the other girls… I knew something was
wrong, but I didn’t understand until after those cops had gotten there.”

“You told the cops that
nothing happened,” Jessica said, swallowing as she too fought to keep her
emotions in check. “Why did you do that? We could have gotten them by now.”

“I didn’t
want
anyone to know, Jessica,” she said,
a new wave of tears escaping from the corners of her eyes. “I just wanted to be
left alone, to crawl into the shower and try and wash everything off of me—to
wash
them
off of me. If I told the
cops
then I’d have to keep telling this over and over again…
telling it once has been bad enough.”

“I’m sorry,” I said,
glancing over at Jessica for a moment before returning my gaze to Becky. “You
don’t need to tell us any more if it’s going to make you any more upset.”

“Thanks,” she muttered, her
head resting on the top of her knees. “I just… I want to be alone for now, you
two. Please. I appreciate you coming. I just don’t think I can handle being
around people right now.”

“Sure, Becky,” Jessica
said, motioning for me to follow as she made toward the door. “I’ll be back
later tonight, I guess.”

Becky kept silent as my stepsister
and I left the room, her head still resting on the top of her knees. I wasn’t
sure, but I thought I heard a new round of sobs beginning as we closed the door
and stood facing one another in the hallway.

“Michael has the pictures
of us,” I said, flexing my fingers slowly open and closed. I wanted to wrap
them around that smug bastard’s throat. It wasn’t enough that he was
blackmailing us, he needed to add rape to his list of crimes. “We need a plan.”

“Is going in and kicking
his ass not enough?” she asked, her voice tense. Those words coming out of her
mouth almost made me do a double take. Jessica was always a level headed
person,
in fact it was a trait in her that I admired. I was
always the hotheaded one in the family next to my father who would blow his top
at the slightest provocation. Hearing my stepsister advocating to beat the hell
out of someone gave me more than an idea of just how upset this had made her.
“I’m not going to let my best friend go through college without the person who
hurt her getting exactly what he deserves.”

“That plan always works for
me,” I said as I headed toward the stairs with her in tow. I wasn’t sure what
was going to happen, but I knew I wasn’t about to let Michael get away with
this—not for a second.