Page 53 of Rough Hard Fierce (Chicago Underground 1-3)
“Come on,” he said. His eyes turned stormy. “Do you want me to stay here? You think I deserve this?”
“What? No. Of course not.”
“Are you sure?” he said in a singsong voice. “I might deserve it. Maybe I should tell you what he did, and then you can decide.”
Selfishly I didn’t want to know. It was easier to pretend his dad was an ass. The ordinary kind. I didn’t want to see the remembered pain in the eyes of the boy I loved, not when I’d be helpless against it.
“Stop it,” I said. “Just stop.”
“Maybe I should show you,” he went on. There was a strange glint in his eye, and I couldn’t tell if he was teasing me or was angry with me. Maybe both. “Then you would have all the facts. What do you say?”
“Please stop. I’m sorry.”
That only made him angrier. “You’re sorry,” he spat. “I don’t want your fucking sorries.”
He crawled over me on the sofa, and I shrank back into the thin cushions until the springs pushed into my back. I was afraid of him, afraid he’d yell at me, or afraid he’d say something mean. So when he tilted my head up and pinched my chin hard, I was more surprised than anything.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked, pushing his hand away. But he still crouched over me.
“First, he was drunk.” Andrew glanced at the empty bottle of alcohol. “Done that. Then he started yelling, you know, that I’d never be anything but a loser, that sort of thing.”
A funny feeling tickled my nose. “Oh, Andrew. Fuck him.”
“Yes,” he said. “That’s pretty much what happened.”
And he smiled. Something had happened. The man-boy hovering above me wasn’t Andrew, my friend, the person I loved and trusted. He’d been replaced by an echo of his father, sick and sadistic.
It wasn’t exactly the same, he said. Because I was a girl, it would hurt less. That’s what he told me anyway, but with my wrists in his hand and my body forced open, it hurt a whole hell of a lot. And then it was over, but the pain never stopped.
Chapter Three
My heart thudded, in that moment long past but never forgotten, and here in the present. Colin pulled me closer. I wouldn’t have thought I’d like to be touched right then, but it calmed me.
“I said no, but he didn’t listen. It…happened anyway.”
“He raped you,” Colin said in a flat tone.
&n
bsp; “No,” I said. “It wasn’t like that. We were friends.”
Colin just looked at me.
Tears blurred his image. “We were best friends. I…loved him.”
Colin’s arm tightened around me.
“Why didn’t he stop?” I whispered. It wasn’t a rhetorical question. I’d been searching for that answer, desperate to understand, ever since it’d happened. Maybe Colin would know.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
I understood why Andrew got so angry when I’d asked that. I didn’t want to hear that. It wasn’t an answer to the question. What did “I’m sorry” really mean, anyway? I’m sorry this happened to you, but I’m glad it wasn’t me. I’m sorry you’re broken, but life goes on. It wasn’t anything good or anything helpful; it was just pity. Fucking pity.
I took a deep breath. “After that, he drove me home. I just sat there. I didn’t know what to say. I should have screamed or cried or something, but I couldn’t. Why couldn’t I cry then, but I can’t stop crying now? He was my friend, but I hate him. So much. You don’t understand how much I hate him.”
“I think I do,” Colin said. He was squeezing me almost to the point where I couldn’t breathe. I doubted he even realized it, but I wanted more. There’s a certain magic to being held. No one could hurt me there.
“I heard he left town right after that. I didn’t see him again.” Not until a week ago, when he showed up at my apartment.
