A whisper, too gentle.
“Mara, please.”
Slowly, I lift my eyes to her. I have to. For whatever reason, she wants me to look at her and I can’t deny her that. I can’t deny her anything ever again. My gaze finds her face, the sting of tears instantaneous.
She’s my Hannah—?my best friend next to Charlie—?but she’s not. There are dark swaths of color under her eyes, and her cheeks sink in more than they should, throwing her already high cheekbones into too-sharp focus.
Even with all that, she’s still beautiful. She’s still her. I want to tell her that, but I’m not even sure what I mean. It’s not about how she looks, not really. It’s the way she looks at me. The way she holds Charlie’s hand. The way she invited me into her house in the first place.
Her red-rimmed eyes look a little wet and she lifts her free hand to wipe underneath them, her wrist wrapped in a beige bandage.
“God, I’m so sorry,” she says, continuing to swipe at tears. But they’re too fast for her, hurtling down her cheeks.
“What?” I ask, shocked into speaking. “Hannah, why?”
She shrugs. “Just . . . maybe if I . . .” Her eyes flutter closed and I don’t know what to say, if anything. Charlie just waits, patient, while Hannah squeezes the blood from Charlie’s hand.
Finally, Hannah takes a deep breath. “He was so drunk.”
Everything in me seizes up as I realize she’s about to tell me what happened. A burning cold spreads through my chest, half terrified of what’s about to come out of her mouth and half relieved I don’t have to ask.
“Everything was fine,” she says, glancing at me and then away. “I mean, you saw us. We got a drink and danced a little, but he just kept going back for more of that punch until I finally convinced him to go on a walk. We got to that overlook, and we’ve had this inside joke for a while now that it would be a funny place to have . . . to have . . .” She swallows and licks her lips. “To have sex. So we started making out, and next thing I know, we’re lying on a bench and it was about to happen and I freaked out. I was cold and uncomfortable and I kept imagining someone walking by. I told him to stop.”
Her eyes glaze over and I reach out a hand, placing it softly on her knee. She drags her eyes to mine.
“I told him to stop, Mara.”
My eyes well with tears, but I let them come. They feel right. So do the words in my head, so I let them come too. “I know you did.”
My belief seems to break her. It breaks me, too. To believe one person is to disbelieve another. Panic clouds my mind and suddenly I just want my mom, want to talk this through, get her to hear me, let her make me hear her. But then Hannah starts sobbing, dropping forward until her head is in my lap, and I know my belief belongs with her. I can’t think about the other side of this belief right now—?all that stark disbelief left in its wake.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she says, all in one ragged breath.
I cry with her, smoothing my hands through her hair.
“I’m sorry it was him,” she says. “I’m sorry it was Owen.”
God, she’s apologizing to me, because he’s my brother.
“Shhh,” I say, covering her with my body so I can hold her. Charlie leans over too, her hands sliding up my arms so all three of us are tangled up.
I’m not sure how long we stay like that, a little knot of friends and tears. Finally, we unravel our arms and legs and Charlie grabs a box of tissues from Hannah’s bedside table.
“Maybe if I’d said no louder,” Hannah says. “Or . . . I don’t know. Maybe if we hadn’t already had sex, or—”
“Stop,” Charlie says, her voice tense. “That puts the blame on you, Hannah, and that’s bullshit. Even if he was drunk. You said no, plain and simple.”
“But it’s not,” Hannah says almost dreamily, as if she’s talking to herself. “It’s not simple. I loved him. I trusted him. I never thought he would . . .” Her voice trails off and she shakes her head before going on. “Then, at the hospital, everything happened so fast once my parents got there. The hospital called the police without even asking me and then Mom wanted me to do a rape kit and I . . .” She swallows and looks down. “It was so awful. It was the worst thing I’ve ever experienced and it took hours. And then the state attorney was so . . . god, I don’t know. He was just so matter-of-fact. It was a nightmare, over and over again. And he kept asking my parents if I was sure it had actually happened. Why does no one ask me?”
“Honey,” Charlie says, wiping a tissue under Hannah’s eyes. “Your parents were just scared. And really pissed off.”
Hannah nods.
“Wait,” I say. “You don’t want to press charges?”
“I don’t know,” Hannah says. “It doesn’t matter, anyway—?my parents want to. I don’t know if I would’ve even told anyone if Charlie hadn’t found me. But it’s not up to my parents in the end. My dad says the state attorney decides if they think they have a case. So I don’t know. I don’t know what I want to happen. I just . . . I wish it hadn’t . . .” She heaves a shaky breath. “This is such a mess. People at school already hate me, don’t they?”
Charlie and I glance at each other, eyes touching and then darting away, but it’s enough to tell Hannah everything we’d never tell her with words.
