I grab bottles for both of us from a mini-fridge behind the bar, and she takes a long swig as I resume my stool.
“Okay. I’m ready to tell you my story now,” she says, shaking out her hands. “I can’t feel my face or toes.”
I laugh. “You don’t have to tell me this story, you know.”
“I know, but I want to.” She takes another long swig of her beer. Laces her fingers together on top of the bar. And exhales. “In high school, I wrote for the school newspaper the first three years. And I absolutely loved it. At the end of my third year, Mr. Gates, the teacher who supervised the paper, selectedmeto be editor-in-chief for the next year, over this total brainiac guy who’d also wanted the position. I was so freaking excited and proud to be selected, I could barely keep it together. I’d worked my ass off for three years, unlike the brainiac guy. He was way smarter than me, but he’d just phoned it in.”
“Hustle beats talent, when talent doesn’t hustle,” I say. I grab her hand. “Although you’ve got both talent and hustle, so never mind.”
She squeezes my hand. “Thank you.” She pauses. “As it turned out, some of the kids at the newspaper—particularly, this group of mean girls—didn’t think I deserved the editor position. So, they started a rumor that Mr. Gates had only selected me because he wanted to sleep with me.”
“Oh, Georgie. Those girls were bitches.”
She looks down at her beer, and it’s immediately clear those mean girls aren’t, collectively, her Stephanie Moreland, like I was just thinking. No, apparently, there’s more to this story. I wait, my pulse thumping.
“I just tried to ignore the rumors and gossip and put my head down and work harder than anyone else, you know? I was so embarrassed they’d say that. I just wanted to work extra hard to prove them all wrong about me. To show them Ihaddeserved the promotion.” She looks up from her hands. “And then, one day, in the middle of my senior year, when I was working after school in the newspaper room, all by myself... Mr. Gates came in... and he...” She takes a shallow breath. “He cornered me, and he... pinned my arms behind my back, and he... he kissed me.”
I’m flooded with rage. Disgust. A fierce urge to protect. I need to fix this. Protect Georgie.Kill that motherfucker.
Georgina wells up. “He said all this crazy stuff about me teasing him and flirting with him. He said I wore sexy clothes to turn him on. But I swear I didn’t!”
I get up and hug her and she collapses into me. “Of course, you didn’t. No matter what you wore, no matter what you did or said, ever, he had no right to touch you. Georgie, he was a fucking monster and you did absolutely nothing wrong.”
“I was so shocked and scared... So ashamed.”
“Ashamed? You had nothing to be ashamed about. He assaulted you.”
“Yeah, but those girls were right about me the whole time. He picked me over the brainiac only because he wanted to sleep with me!”
“Oh, sweetheart.”
“You want to hear the craziest part? That’s what I was thinking when he did it. ‘Those mean girls were right.’”
“Did you report him?”
“No. I knew nobody would ever believe me. Plus, I was embarrassed. The same as you with those illegal recordings. “
“You had nothing to be embarrassed about. Heassaultedyou, Georgie. You should have reported him.”
“You don’t understand. Mr. Gates also coached football, and the team had won two championships in four years. Everybody loved Mr. Gates. If I thought those mean girls were on my ass before, I couldn’t even imagine what would happen to me if I told anyone about what Mr. Gates did. Plus, there was no way I wanted those girls to find out they’d been right. It was the most humiliating, embarrassing, horrifying thing I could imagine.”
I’m losing my fucking mind. A hair’s breadth away from jumping in one of my cars and driving in a blind rage to the Valley to find this Mr. Gates and wrap my bare hands around his throat and squeeze the fucking life out of him.
“I quit the paper the very next day,” she says flatly. “I knew I couldn’t tell anyone what he’d done. And I didn’t want to be in the same room with him, ever again. Thank God, I’d already gotten into UCLA, and my second-semester grades didn’t matter. Because the entire rest of the school year, I couldn’t concentrate. I was always on edge. If I saw Mr. Gates across campus, I ran the other direction and hid in a bathroom. At first, my father thought my grades plummeted because I was having boy problems. Then, he figured it was because I’d gotten into college and had senioritis. But the truth was, I was a wreck the entire rest of the school year because of Mr. Gates and this horrible secret I was keeping.”
“You poor, poor baby.” I wipe her tears. “I’m so sorry this happened to you.” I stroke her cheek. “You’ve never told anyone any of this before?”
She shakes her head. “Not even Alessandra. You’re the only person I’ve ever told.”
I pull her to me and hold her tight. My heart is thundering. Aching. Breaking. Bleeding. My blood is boiling. I’m out of my head. “Does Gates still work at the school?”
“Yes. But please don’t try to get me to report him. I just can’t do it, Reed. No one would ever believe me. You need to trust me on this. He’sa god at that school.” She breaks free from our embrace and wipes her eyes. “It’s okay. I’ve moved on. Honestly, getting this internship has worked wonders for me. Getting to work for CeeCee. A kickass woman. Knowing, for afact, she offered me this internship based on my talent and nothing else... because she loved my writing, and my personality, not because she wanted to get into my pants. Having that kind of validation has meant everything to me and my confidence and helped me move on so much. But Mr. Gates is part of the reason why I’ve been so adamant about not wanting your artists to know about us while I’m working on the special issue. I just want everyone I’m interviewing to respect me. I don’t want them thinking I got assigned to the special issue, specifically, because you requested me for personal reasons.”
Oh, fuck.
I feel physically sick.
On the outside, I might be stroking Georgina’s back calmly, kissing her cheek, holding her close... but, on the inside, I’m freaking the fuck out.
