Coach Novak barks orders, voice a whipcrack. He and Rowan herd the rest of the team toward the locker room. The tunnel empties until it’s just Jess, Joy, Liz—where did Liz even come from? Did Jessica call her?—all of them forming a ring around me.
It feels like a dream. My knees want to buckle, but I can’t move. My brain is on rewind, dragging me backward.
I should’ve seen it sooner. I chose that college not knowing Max Miller was on the same campus. He was the shadow that wouldn’t shake. When we were kids, he’d stare and vanish the second Leo or Nate showed up. But they weren’t there to make him blink anymore. He’d pop up at the library, the coffee shop, on the walk between classes. Heasked me out more than once, entitled smirk locked in. I turned him down every time.
And then he stopped.
Back then, I told myself he’d finally gotten the message. I was relieved that there were no more sudden appearances, no more hovering near the stacks or the cafeteria line. I didn’t connect it to the party. I was too wrecked to add it up.
Seven years later, I do. He didn’t stop because he learned respect. He stopped because he’d already taken what he decided he was owed. I just couldn’t remember it.
The bile rises in my throat. My chest tightens.
Jess squeezes my hand. “You’re safe. We’ve got you.”
Safe. The word feels foreign, but I cling to it anyway.
That night, I don’t even try to sleep.
I lie on top of the covers in my room, staring at the ceiling while the city hums outside the window. My body feels wrung out, every muscle trembling, but my mind won’t quit.
The tunnel keeps replaying. Max’s face. Nate’s fists. The phones. My own voice tearing free. “You raped me.”
Liz came in twice to check on me. “You’re not alone,” she said. She left tea by the bed that went cold before I touched it.
None of it reached me. Not really.
What does is the decision pressing at the edges of my skull. Filing a report with the police.
I don’t even know if it makes sense after all this time. Maybe the statute of limitations has run out. Maybe they’ll say it’s too old, too blurry. And God, what proof do I even have? I was unconscious, drugged. My memory is jagged pieces, not a full picture.
But the ones I do have are brutal and clear. His face inches from mine. The smirk I knew too well. The hot reekof beer on his breath. My body leaden, useless, while his weight pressed me down. His voice a low whisper I couldn’t answer because my throat wouldn’t work.
It’s enough. Enough to know. Enough to name him.
Max Miller.
Saying it is acid on my tongue.
Going to the police won’t undo any of it. Won’t give me back what he stole. Won’t make the years of silence and shame disappear. Justice—if it even comes—will never measure up to the damage done.
But still. It would be my choice this time. My voice. My record.
I close my eyes and whisper into the dark, rough and certain, “Tomorrow.”
39
PAINTING IN THE MARGINS (EDEN)
Morning comes heavy. I don’t sleep, but somehow the night ends.
By eight, the doorbell’s buzzing. Jess, Rowan, Joy, they’re all here, coats open, coffee cups in hand, a paper bag of scones. They don’t ask permission, they come in, spread out across our kitchen.
Joy presses a latte into my hand. Rowan’s scrolling, checking her phone. Jess leans against the counter, eyes steady on me, not pushing.
Finally, I say it. “I want to go to the police.”
The words land. They nod. No one argues or doubts.
