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.”
Chapter 14
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 mostly to herself 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 was completely beyond me. 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 looks 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.”
Becky glanced up at me again, her frown still as steady as ever as she swallowed. I knew that she wasn’t angry at Jess or me, but I also knew that she wanted control of her life—something she had felt like she lost after waking up drugged and taken advantage of. I didn’t even know how much of the rape she actually remembered, but hopefully it was enough to figure out who might have done this.
“I was at a party,” she said, swallowing again to try and remove some of the hoarseness from her voice. “I was with Greg.”
“Who’s Greg?” I asked.
“He’s my boyfriend… was my boyfriend,” she corrected. “He and I had gone to a party at one of the fraternities together. Greg’s not a big partier, but he wanted to go that night for some reason—it felt a little weird that he’d actually want to hang around a bunch of drunk frat boys, but he was really determined to go.”
“Which fraternity?” I asked. It was almost impossible to keep track of all the frats that were having a party on any given night—it was easier to find which ones weren’t partying, honestly.
“A__, I think. I didn’t really pay attention… there were so many people there,” Becky said, hugging her knees close to her chest. “We went inside and hung out for a while, but I didn’t rea
lly feel like drinking. Greg did, though. He looked so nervous about being there that I thought it was just his social anxiety kicking in. I thought the drinking would make him calm down a little bit.”
“What else did you do while you were there?” I asked, leaning back on Jessica’s bed as I listened to her recount that night. The fact that this Greg guy had dragged Becky to the party had me suspicious that he might have just been in on the entire thing. I made a note to find whoever this guy was and give him a piece of my mind.
“Mostly just sat and talked,” she said, her smile returning, if only slightly. “Greg and I started taking dumb pictures of one another after he calmed down. We were being so silly… And that’s when I start losing track of what happened.”
“But you weren’t drinking?” I asked.
“I had a Coke, sure,” she said, frowning, her brow furrowed in thought, “but I wasn’t like, drinking drinking. Y’know? I just started to feel really funny after we started taking pictures. I’ve gone over it over and over, and that is where things always start getting fuzzy.
“I remember Greg talking to someone, but it wasn’t to me,” she said, her eyes closed tight as though focusing on conjuring up the memory. “I… I think it was Michael.”
“Michael?” I ask, frowning. What the fuck was he doing there, and speaking to Becky’s boyfriend. “What’d he say?”
“I’m not sure about all of it,” she said, her frown deepening. “He asked about pictures—Michael did, I mean. I thought it was weird that he’d want pictures that Greg and I were taking… I think I said something, and Michael just laughed. Greg handed him something and then I felt someone grab my arm…”
Greg gave him pictures, I thought, my mind reeling as I realized the implications of what had happened at that party. That little shit must have been in the locker room with me and Jessica. Now Michael has them, and God knows what else.
I stayed quiet, letting Becky finish her story. She needed to get all of it out, to say it out loud and hear herself say the words. There might never be a time when she ever gets over what was done to her, but at least she could find a way to live with it.