Flawed (Ethan Frost 4)

“That’s the best part. He can’t. They have proof from his cellphone records and social media activity, plus those of the kids he used to go to school with. A group of them spent a night raping an unconscious girl and posting about it on social media. Three of them went to jail for it, but Alex and a few others got away with it. Until now.”

I’m totally awake now, the sleepiness dissipating under the hundreds of questions bombarding my brain all at the same time. The biggest question, though—and in my mind the most important—is, “Why?”

Chloe pauses, as if she’s confused. Which somehow only makes me more suspicious. Suspicious of what, I’m not sure yet. But suspicious of something. “Why is this all coming out now? If the rape happened seven years ago and they convicted someone for it, you can’t tell me that some overzealous detective just suddenly decided to take another look at the case right in the middle of my sex video scandal.”

“No, of course I’m not saying that. The whole video thing has been a big deal in the media the last few days, made more so by the fact that it’s opening up a debate about how women are treated versus men in situations like this—which is why I wanted you to do the interview in the first place. In fact—”

“I know, I know. I already told you I would do the interview,” I remind her as I sit up in bed. But as I do, the sheet falls to my hips. My naked hips, and I remember again what Miles and I spent a large part of the night doing. I remember, too, the realization I had in the middle of it all. The realization that I had fallen, hard, for my best friend’s big brother. The realization that, despite everything, I love Miles Girard.

It’s a realization that should have me shaking in my boots in the cold light of day, and maybe it would if it wasn’t currently being overshadowed by another feeling, one I can’t quite put my finger on.

“So how’d the media get the story?” I ask again.

“I don’t know,” Chloe admits. “I guess someone at one of the big outlets got interested because of the story. They started to dig. Isn’t that how the press gets most of its big stories?”

“No. They get most of their stories because someone leaks those stories to them.” As I say it, the reason for my uneasiness coalesces in my stomach and has my hand clenching on the phone. “Did one outlet lead with it way before the others, or did it happen one right after the other?”

For long seconds there’s nothing but silence from the other end of the line and, instinctively, I know this isn’t about her being distracted by the baby. Chloe’s thinking, too, her big brain reaching the same conclusions that I just did. “CNN led with it, but within minutes everyone else had stories up. Internet-only sites, Tumblrs, hell, even local affiliates were getting in on the action.”

That’s what I was afraid of. The sick feeling in the pit of my stomach is growing. Still, I feel honor-bound to ask. “It wasn’t Ethan who did this, right?” I wouldn’t put it past him—Ethan’s the protective sort, the kind whose protection extends beyond his wife to her best friend, as seen by how he’s handled things for me since the sex video broke.

For the first time, Chloe sounds uneasy when she answers. “No. I know he had people digging into Alex’s past, but I don’t think they found anything yet.” She pauses as she figures out what I already have. “You should talk to him before you start freaking out about what he did or didn’t do,” she finally says softly.

“Ethan?”

She snorts. “We both know we’re not talking about my husband anymore.”

She’s right. We’re not. After listening to her voice platitudes for a couple more minutes—platitudes I can barely pay attention to when my mind is racing as fast as it is—I finally convince her to hang up.

After she does, I can’t move for long seconds. Instead I just sit in the bed, listening to the sounds around me. Beyond the open balcony door I can hear the hum of morning traffic filling up the quaint La Jolla streets. I can hear the ocean slamming against the rocks in its endless cycle. And far off, in the distance, I can hear the upbeat and electric strains of Marina and the Diamonds’ “Power and Control.” It’s too far away for me to do more than make out a couple of lyrics here and there, but I don’t have to. I’ve had four and a half years to learn the lyrics even if I’m only now coming to truly understand them.

We take and give a little more

Eternal game of tug and war.

The last half of the chorus runs through my head again and again, long after the song has ended and the music’s purveyor has moved on to other places. But absent doesn’t mean gone and I can’t help thinking about the message of the song, can’t help thinking about how much of my relationship with Miles really has been “tug and war.” And how, while it was kind of fun in the beginning—all those months when I wanted nothing more than to hate him—now it just feels sad. And wrong. And like we’re covering the same ground over and over and over.

It’s that thought that finally galvanizes me, that has me throwing back the covers and strolling, bare-ass naked, from Miles’s room to mine. Once there, I grab the robe from the closet but don’t bother to put it on as I catch sight of the tablet Miles got me sitting on my nightstand, where I left it yesterday.

I pick it up and open up my browser, planning on going to a couple of the big news sites to see what’s up. But I don’t even have to do that as a headline about Alex—and me—is sitting right there at the top of my browser, just asking to be clicked. ALEXANDER PARSONS, NOT YOUR AVERAGE CREEP. DID TORI REED DODGE A BULLET?

I click on the link and then skim through the article, my stomach getting sicker with each line I read. I slept with this man. I fucking slept with this man who is so much more than an opportunist, who is a rapist and a predator and a narcissist of the first order. This man who is the biggest fucking coward I’ve ever met in my life.

When I’m done reading the whole article, I can’t stop myself from Googling his name. Can’t stop myself from finding more—at CNN, at The Huffington Post, at The New York Times. Hundreds of news pieces are already up, with editorial pieces slowly creeping into the mix. Pieces that do more than report on what happened at that long-ago party. Pieces that call for Alexander’s head on a fucking platter.

I don’t know how I feel about any of this—about the fact that I slept with this monster, about the fact that I dodged a pretty damn big bullet when all this came out and took over the conversation, about the fact that all this renewed coverage has to be dragging up all the bad me

mories for the girl who was assaulted. The girl who is probably still just trying to move on with some semblance of her life.

Maybe she’s grateful that her rapist is finally facing some sort of accountability for what he did. Or maybe she’s just tired, maybe she just wants to move on and put this whole thing behind her. Something that this new coverage cycle will make impossible to do for a while.

With what Chloe went through last summer, with what she’s gone through since she was a freshman in high school, the idea that I am somehow responsible for this girl’s continued suffering hits me really fucking hard.

It’s not the only thing hitting me hard this morning, but it’s definitely one of the top three.

Dropping the tablet on the bed, I forgo the robe and take a quick shower instead. Then I deliberately ignore the clothes Miles got me, which are hanging neatly in my closet, and get dressed in the yoga pants and tank top that I was wearing when I showed up here.

Then I pick the tablet back up and make my way down to the kitchen. The smell of freshly brewed coffee is in the air, but Miles isn’t there. He’s not in the family room, either, or out on the patio that extends over the ocean. Which means there’s only one place he can be. His workshop.