All Broke Down (Rusk University 2)

“Stella?” I ask.

“She’s awake,” Dylan answers. “There’s a cop with her, too. And a paramedic. She . . .” She hesitates, then finishes, “She doesn’t remember what happened.”

“Carter?”

It’s the cop who answers this time.

“Mr. Carter is seeing a paramedic, the same as you.”

“Are you going to arrest him?”

The look the cop gives me makes me sick to my stomach. Or that could be the concussion.

“When both of you are cleared medically, we’ll get your statements and go from there.”

“He did it,” I say.

“Did you see him do it?”

“I saw him come out of the room.”

The cop just nods. “Okay then.” He nods at the paramedic and says to me, “Let this guy get you cleaned up and checked out, and we’ll talk about what you saw when he’s done.”

In all, it takes twenty minutes for the paramedic to clean me up. No stitches. Nothing broken. I have a mild concussion, but I decline the paramedic’s offer to take me to the hospital.

My statement for the police takes even less time, and when it’s over, I’m left with a sour taste in my mouth because no one mentions anything about arresting Carter. All I keep hearing is that Stella doesn’t remember, and Dylan and I didn’t see anything actually take place. I tell them what he said during our fight, about me not being able to prove anything, but they only nod and write it down. They don’t say he was wrong. The cops promise it’s all taken care of, but it doesn’t feel that way to me, not in the slightest.

Chapter 30

Silas

I sit on the bed and hunch over my knees after my morning run. I didn’t sleep well. Not last night or the night before. The bed dips, and I feel Dylan scoot up behind me and lay her cheek against my back. I’m sweaty, but she doesn’t seem to mind.

“You’re talking to Coach this morning?”

I nod.

“Everything is going to be fine, Silas.”

I shrug. Because I don’t know that.

All I know is Carter is still walking free. Stella’s talking about it all like it’s not a big deal, like she’s fine. And I got in another fight with a teammate, the same day my last suspension for fighting ended.

She scoots closer, situating her thighs on the outside of mine, and presses herself against my back.

“Whatever happens . . . you’re not in the wrong here.”

I sigh and scrub my hands over my face.

“It’s all just so f**ked-up. I thought he was a friend. He was in my house. Near you. I should have beat the shit out of him that night with the weed. I knew I should have.”

“If you’d fought him then, it’s entirely possible you and I might not have slept together that night. Besides, that would have been overreacting. This wasn’t.”

I reach for the arm she has wrapped around my stomach and lace our fingers together. “What if nothing happens to him? How could I ever play on the same team as him?”

“There are options,” she says. “We’ll find a way to fight it.”

“Not if the prosecutor doesn’t take the case.”

I’d spent all day yesterday researching the laws and past cases in Texas, and our chances don’t look good. Dallas said too many of the partygoers mentioned seeing Stella making out with random guys. That coupled with the fact she can’t remember anything, and they’re calling her an unreliable witness. She’s not the only one. I’m apparently unreliable, too. Everything Carter said in the fight is hearsay, and with my record and history, no one’s putting much stock in what I say.

“Even then,” Dylan answers. “We might not get anything done through the court system, but there are laws in place requiring universities to govern the safety of their students. Those have been used in the past to support victims of unprosecuted cases. Stella has options. And she has people who care about her enough to fight the uphill battle.”

Except she doesn’t even want to fight. I saw her yesterday, and she spent half the conversation trying to get me to talk about the next game, about how I felt about finally being able to play again.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that might not be the case. She just . . . it wasn’t anything she said or did, but something in her face told me that she needed to talk about that game. Needed to know that life would keep on going. She’s too much like me. She’d rather ignore it all, pretend it’s not there until the last possible moment.

And because I understand how she works, I let her do it. For now anyway. But I won’t let her be like me, won’t let it all build up around her until she’s trapped beneath it. She’ll have to talk to someone eventually. Dallas. Ryan. Me. Someone.

Dylan kisses my shoulder, pulling me back to the present, and adds, “You’ve got people on your side, too, you know. Your coach cares about you. He’s not going to write you off over something like this.”

I turn my head and kiss her, soaking up a little of her certainty, and then I hop in the shower to get ready to head over to the school.

“COME IN,” COACH’S voice calls through the closed door.

I open it slowly, and poke my head in.

“Silas. I’ve been expecting you. Come on in.”

Shit. Here goes nothing.

I close the door behind me and cross to his desk. I take a seat in the chair on the left because the one on the right is where I was sitting when I first got suspended, and I’m really hoping this time turns out differently.

“I’ve heard a lot about what happened this weekend. Why don’t you tell me your version.”

I do, leaving out everything about Dylan, about the fact that I was pretty damn sure I loved that girl when we stumbled into that room, and now I’m certain. I stick to the facts, and even though it could get me in trouble, I mention the brownie incident, too. I try to remain stoic as I recount everything for him, but my hands are shaking.

Stella is a good person and a good friend, and if what Dylan has told me is true, she’s been working for the last two weeks to get us back together. I should have noticed when I saw Dylan sitting at that table with my friends that Stella wasn’t there. Someone should have watched out for her. We all should have.

And now that what’s done is done, it shouldn’t be so damn hard to get someone to do something about it. Life has already been unfair enough. Stella shouldn’t have to live with that too.