Page 115 of The Striker
Sweat beads on my forehead, my palms clammy and slick. I feel dizzy, disoriented, as if the ground beneath me could give way at any moment.
Mr. Ayala closes the door behind us and my eyes snap to it. “Open,” I snap. Taking a breath, I try again. “Sorry,” I mutter. “But can we leave the door open?”
He scrutinizes me before cracking the door a fraction of an inch. Then he moves to the opposite side of the room, leaving a clear path for me to leave should I want to.
“Is this better?” he asks.
I nod. “Yes. Thank you.”
He leans against my dad’s desk, bracing himself on the edge. “I can’t adequately protect you if I don’t know the full story, so I need you to be honest with me. Can you do that?”
I’m not sure I have much of a choice, so I nod.
“Can you give me the short version of what Officer Koch was alluding to in there?”
“Austin, Parker, and Gregory raped me at a frat party last summer.”
He blinks. I’ve taken him by surprise.
“And you disclosed this information to …”
“PacNorth’s Administration,” I tell him. “I reported it in the Title Nine office.”
He nods. “And what came of it?”
Bitterness coats the back of my throat. “Nothing. They didn’t believe me.”
“And the police?”
I shake my head. “I didn’t go to them,” I tell him. “If the school didn’t believe me, I assumed no one else would.”
“Are your parents aware?”
I shake my head again. “No. I—” I swallow past the lump in my throat. “I don’t want them to know. It would break my mom.”
A flicker of sympathy softens the lines of his face. “You’re aware this information is bound to come out? There’s no way to keep this information secret given the recent assault against you. The police are looking for a motive and won’t stop digging until they have one. Austin’s defense will also use this information if they feel it can help their case. There’s no keeping it quiet now. Do you understand?”
A stone sinks to the pit of my stomach. I think I knew that already, but a part of me had hoped …
“Yeah,” I mutter. “I understand.”
“I’m going to need you to go back out there and tell Officer Koch about the first assault, in detail. Along with any other altercations that have occurred between then and what transpired yesterday. Can you do that?”
“Do I have a choice?” I mutter.
“Unfortunately, no,” he says. “Not if we intend for the charges to stick. I can request a few hours. At most, maybe a day. But you’ll need to make a statement, and it’s likely that you’ll be interviewed more than once by multiple officers.”
Swallowing hard, I nod. “Is there any way to do that without my parents around?”
“There is,” he says. “But in times like these, it’s often best to have a support system at your side. Your parents love you very much?—”
“I know,” I tell him. “It’s just …” I chew on my bottom lip. “They’ve been through so much already. I don’t want to cause them any more pain.”
“Let them be there for you,” he suggests. “It would cause more pain to be pushed away than to know everything that’s happened. And forgive me for overstepping, but …” he tugs at his tie and purses his lips, almost like he’s struggling to find the right words to say, “I’ve been by your father’s side for several years now. I know him pretty well and consider him a true friend.”
I wait for him to continue.
“Your father was distraught when he learned you tried to kill yourself.”
