One of the tears escaped and dropped over her cheek. She wiped it away quickly with the hand I wasn't holding.
“It was stupid. I know it was, but he and Alex—the guy who was throwing the party—they took me to one of the bedrooms and gave me something. They told me it was ecstasy and that it would make me feel really good. It did, too. I remember it all, but it's kind of fuzzy. I know I agreed to it…to what they wanted to do…but…”
I closed my eyes for a second because I had a pretty good idea of what was coming, and the dread that was beginning to rumble around inside of me was numbing. I didn't want to hear this. I didn't want to know she had been with someone else, but I had asked for it. I wanted to believe what my father had believed, that she was innocent…
…and potentially mine.
I pushed my hormonal thoughts away.
“I think they planned it,” she whispered. “I think they planned the whole thing. They took pictures of each of them…with me. I remember agreeing to all of it, but I wasn't in my right mind, you know? And then the next Monday…at school…”
She grabbed her hand away from mine and covered her face before she blurted out the rest. I knew everything that was coming as soon as she mentioned the drug—Frankie was into that shit. I still didn't want to hear that I was right.
She blurted it out anyway.
“I let them both fuck me, take pictures of it, and then the pictures were all over the school. I went from pretty happy with a boyfriend, a starting position on the soccer team, and a fairly active social life to nothing in the matter of a day. Dennis dumped me, the pictures got back to my Mom—which is a whole other story—and every time I walked into school, I had to pull copies of them off my locker. Every guy on the team—and most of the rest of the school—started asking me out then. Every one of them stating very clearly that they were looking for someone to fuck, and they knew I was obviously willing to do anything with anyone. I won't even get into what the girls did.”
Nicole wiped off her face with her hands and dropped them back in her lap.
“During the summer, I didn't make the club team I'd been playing on for years. The rumors had gotten that far. I pretty much stopped playing altogether, and I definitely didn't have any kind of social life anymore. My friends had always been guys for the most part, and none of them wanted to have anything to do with me if I wasn't going to put out for them, too.”
“So, I left and came here,” she said after a moment, “vowing to never date again, at least not until high school is over. I thought I could start out again here…fresh. I guess that was stupid.”
When Nicole finished her story, I didn't know what to do. I wanted to comfort her like she had done for me, but I really didn't know how. All I could think about was how she was in the same situation now, which was why she left Minneapolis.
I didn't want her to leave.
What I really wanted to do was to fix it. I wanted to fix it all. I wanted to find both of these guys and rip their fucking heads off for starters. Then I wanted to beat the shit out of anyone who passed those pictures around. I wanted to destroy every copy in existence and tell her everything was okay now—that I would take care of it for her. I wanted to take care of her.
I had a lot of influence in our home state because of my dad, but that didn't really extend past our area. If it had happened here, I could have fixed it, but there was nothing I could do for her now.
“Going to school tomorrow is going to suck,” she said quietly. “I thought I left all this shit behind me.”
Wait a minute. Maybe there was something I could do…
“What if…” I sat up a little straighter, trying to form the right words in my mind before I said them. “What if I could take care of that?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what if I could keep it from happening again?” I asked. “What if I could make sure no one said shit to you, and no one bothered you at all?”
“How would you do that?” she asked warily.
“What if…” I took a deep breath. “What if you were…my girlfriend?”
“I told you, Thomas—I'm not dating anyone. Maybe ever again. I might become a nun.”
I knew she was joking…at least I hoped she was.
“I understand that,” I said, trying to reassure her, “but no one else needs to know that, do they? If they all think you're mine, the guys will leave you alone. No one will think you're a…a…”
“A slut?”
“Um…yeah,” I stammered. “No one will think of you that way if you're just with me, right?”
“They already think I slept with you,” she said.
“I know…but it wouldn't matter so much if we were together, right?” The more I thought about it, the more the idea appealed to me. “No one would dare bother you. No one is going to touch you if you're mine.”