Richard

“Becky, what happened?” I asked, kneeling down beside her on the front steps. “Did something happen to you while you were out?”

“I’m… I’m okay, Jess,” she said, her words mumbled and slurred. If I didn’t know any better, I would have said that Becky was drunk off of her ass. That explanation would have been more than enough for her behavior, except for the complete lack of smell that came with drinking that much alcohol.

“You’re not, sweetie,” I said, peering into her eyes to try and get a better look. They weren’t bloodshot, but as I gently tilted her head up to catch a better light from the lamp, I could see how glassy her eyes had become.

“She’s acting like she’s on something,” one of the girls said. “What’re her eyes like?”

“Glassy,” I replied, frowning. Becky wasn’t the kind of girl to ever go out and do anything so reckless as take drugs. “And she’s almost acting like she’s drunk.”

“I don’t want to freak you out, or anything,” the girl said, her brow furrowed in concern, “but I think that your friend might have been roofied.”

“What? Are you sure?” I asked, my eyes going wide.

“No,” she said her hands up in an almost defensive gesture. “You’d have to get a drug test for that. But something like this happened to a friend of mine, and when she came to, they found out that she’d been assaulted.”

“Jesus,” I said, running my fingers through my hair nervously. “What do we do?”

“I’ll get campus PD on the phone and tell them what happened,” she said, pulling out her cellphone, “just stay with her and make sure that she doesn’t try to get up. They’re going to want to ask her some questions.”

“Right.” I nodded, turning my attention back to Becky. “Everything’s going to be okay,” I whispered to her, hoping to God I wasn’t making a liar out of myself.

A loud buzzing made me jump, my gaze drawn down to the phone I’d set down on the stairs right beside Becky, watching it for a moment as it whirred and then stopped moving.

Who the hell is texting me at almost four in the morning? I wondered, picking the phone up and unlocking it with a swipe of my finger.

The only alert I had was from an unknown number, a paperclip icon beside the number notifying me that I’d also gotten an attachment to go along with it.

The second the message opened I felt my breath leave my body without warning, my mouth falling open as I saw right on my phone a picture of me kneeling on the floor in front of my stepbrother, my mouth wrapped around his cock. I swallowed hard around the lump in my throat as I looked around, as though whoever had sent the picture would be standing close by, waving at me and twirling their mustache.

Another buzz heralded a second message.

“You’ve been a very bad girl.”

_ FOURTEEN _

Dick

Jessica told me what had happened with Becky minutes after campus police had arrived—thankfully leaving out the picture of the two of us in her witness statement. But the fact still remained that someone had those pictures of us out there, someone who was more than willing to use them in order to terrorize the both of us.

When the campus cops had arrived, they questioned Becky only for a few minutes, then left, proving the limited amount of compassion UCLA’s finest had for its students. From Jessica’s telling you’d almost think the cops themselves had been drunk or worse, laughing too much at their own jokes at Becky’s expense before leaving with barely a statement from the victim herself.

Becky herself had been keeping quiet over the last few days, barely even leaving the dorm to go to class, instead having Jessica collect as much coursework as she could for her from the classes they shared. Naturally Jess was worried, and I didn’t blame her in the slightest. Since the incident, Becky had barely spoken to her save a few words about the classwork she needed.

This was apparently where I came in.

Jessica was convinced that I’d be able to get Becky out of her shell somehow and maybe find out more about what happened, though I couldn’t imagine why she’d want to talk to me in the first place. I had every respect for Becky, but that didn’t mean she and I actually liked one another. She’d played the part of the protective best friend well over the years I’d known both her and Jess, but that meant protecting my stepsister from me on more than one occasion.

“You’re sure this is actually going to help?” I asked as Jessica led me up the stairs to their dorm.

“No, I’m not sure,” she said, glaring down at me from the landing, “but this is the best I’ve got right now. I thought maybe she’d be willing to tell someone she didn’t know very well. And you and Becky hardly known one another at all. It’s hard telling things you’re ashamed of to people you’re close to, you’re afraid of what they’re going to think. But strangers? They get to hear your whole life story and then disappear into the world, never to be seen again.”

“But I’m not a stranger,” I said. “Becky knows me.”

“But you’re not friends,” Jess said as we reached her floor. “And sometimes that’s what makes the whole difference.”

“If you say so.”

Becky looked like she’d just gotten out of the shower when we arrived to the unlit dorm. Her hair was soaking wet and her skin looked almost pink from scrubbing it under the hot water. Despite all that, she somehow still managed to look like she’d been through hell and back.

Her eyes were underlined by dark circles from what I could only assume was a lack of sleep and her eyes themselves were bloodshot and puffy from crying. I felt instant sympathy for her, though I knew I’d never be able to even come close to truly understanding just how violated she must feel—how alone.

“Hey, Becky,” Jessica said, her voice soft, making every effort to sound comforting. “Richard’s here. He wanted to come by and see if you were okay.”

At first she didn’t say a word, only glancing at me from the corner of her puffy red eyes as she sat on her bed, swaddled up in a pink bathrobe. I took note of her for a moment, watching the way she sat and how she did her best to seem small, as though trying to avoid the notice of any predators that might just be stalking nearby. Her hands, hidden partially inside of her robe, were scrubbed pink just like the rest of her, and what little I could see of her fingernail told me that she’d been biting them down to the quick. She wasn’t doing well at all, and if she didn’t find a way to talk about it—even if it wasn’t to me—then she was going to have a complete breakdown before the end of the semester.

“Hi, Richard,” she said in a hoarse whisper.

“Hey, Becks,” I said, sitting opposite her on Jessica’s bed.

“I hate it when you call me that,” she muttered, though somewhere I could see a faint tinge of warmth returning to her face, if only for a brief moment. It was comforting to know that somewhere in there the old Becky was still alive… if only barely.

“I know,” I said, offering a sympathetic smile.

The warmth faded almost as soon as it had arrived, replaced instead with an angry glare. The change had been so sudden that I was almost taken aback. Becky wrapped her arms around herself, pulling her robe in tight as though to defend herself from—what? Me? I felt a little hurt at the idea that she’d even consider something like that from me, but I had to check my feelings at the door—she was in pain, and when people are in pain they have a habit of lashing out at the ones that try to help.

“You checked on me. Can you go now?” she asked, turning her gaze away down toward her bed spread. “I just want to be left alone.”

“I know it’s not really much of a comfort,” I said, “but I’m sorry for what happened.”

“You’re right, that’s not comforting,” she said, drawing her knees up to her chest, pulling her blankets up around her. “I really don’t want to talk right now.”

“I know,” I said, leaning forward slightly, “and I understand that. But sooner or later you’re going to need to talk. You’re safe here with me

and Jess. We’re not going to judge you.”