Nate, April 20, 2015: One day before the birds fell
She came to Nate’s classroom on a day she hadn’t been in school. She looked like hell, her hair pulled low against the nape of her neck. He couldn’t lie, he looked out the window nervously when he saw her in the doorway. The parking lot was empty, it was too late in the day, almost six. Alecia would be waiting for him.
He remembered her kiss. He didn’t want to do that again.
She looked like she was falling apart. Her sweatshirt, the words Oanoke Paper emblazoned across her chest, the silkscreen flaking off, and he thought of the mica they used to collect in the stream behind his parents’ house. The black rock, dark as coal, peeling apart in paper-thin sheets, as light as air in his palm. Her jeans had dirt on the knees, like she’d been kneeling on them.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. No.” She scanned the doorway, hitching her backpack up on her shoulder. “I’m fine. I just . . . I just can’t stay here anymore. I need help. I have some money . . . not a lot.”
“What’s the matter, what are you talking about? You’re talking crazy.” Nate stood, motioned to the office chair behind his desk, more comfortable than the plastic back chair he usually gave students. She sat and looked up at him. “You have to graduate, Lucia, you’ll regret it your whole life. You are weeks away. Nothing can be that bad.”
She looked at him like he was crazy. “Yes it can. A lot of things can be that bad, you just don’t know about them.” She pushed her thumb into the fabric of his armrest, making a divot. “What do you know about things being bad? Your perfect wife? Your son?”
“My son is autistic,” he said, and regretted it. It didn’t have the effect he’d hoped. Her face crumbled and her chin puckered like she was going to cry. “I’m sorry, I’m trying to find the right thing to say. What’s the matter, Lucia, just tell me.”
“The thing is, no one will care. I’m not looking for a pity party, it’s a fact.” She sat up straight, her shoulders back, strung tight like a violin string. Like she might snap.
“Well, I care,” Nate said, but then remembered the kiss, the way her fingertips brushed against his skin, his visceral reaction, and it sent his heart racing. Careful, here. He heard Bridget’s voice, her admonishment in his head.
She stood up, crossed the room, and stood at the window, her arms across her waist, rocking from side to side, slightly, gently. Something told him to let her be. The sun was setting, the sky streaked with orange and pink, a deep red at the horizon like a warning, tucked behind the billowing Pocono Mountains.
Finally, after minutes, what seemed like hours, she spoke. “I might have been raped.”
He was not prepared for that.
“Might have been?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. I can’t remember it all. I didn’t want it. And . . .” She wouldn’t look at him; her hair escaped the ponytail and fell over her eyes. She pushed her palm into the bowl of her belly, low between her hip bones. “I hurt. All over.” She shook her head. “Should I go to the police? No one will believe me. Will you come with me?”
“What happened? When?”
“I went to a party at Josh’s. I drank something red, but it tasted like nothing. Like sugar. It’s possible . . .” Her breathing was ragged, the twilight on her face. “It’s possible there was something in it. But, I don’t know. Maybe not. Just booze.” She wouldn’t look at him, just stared out the window, her face in profile. “Then it was my fault, maybe.”
“Was it Josh?”
She shook her head. “It’s a serious accusation. Could ruin lives. Right?”
Nate nodded, then remembered she wasn’t looking at him. “Yes.”
“A life more than mine. I could ruin another someone’s life. But then again, so could he. If he did it again.” She shrugged.
“What about your life?” Nate asked.
She let out a laugh, or what sounded like a laugh. “That’s not worth all that much.” He clucked with his tongue, his hand out to touch her shoulder, and she held up her hand. “No pity, just the truth.”
“I can take you to the police. I know a cop,” Nate said. “Just tell me what happened.”
“It was Andrew. And maybe Porter. He was there, but I don’t know if he . . .” Her voice was a whisper; he barely heard her.
His Andrew. He thought of Marnie Evans, her face pinked and gleaming, watching Andrew whip pitches across the plate.
She pulled out her phone, the shitty, slow cheap phone with the cracked screen. She hit play, her fingers flying across the screen like she’d done it a million times. He realized yes, she’d done it a million times.
She moved the slider to the end, the last three minutes, and pressed play, handing it to him. Put her fist between her teeth and waited, watching him with those water-blue eyes.
When it was done, he blinked, the room and the world both a tiny bit darker.
“Are you sure?” he said.
Then, “Were you drunk?” he said. And the worst one, “But you said yes,” he said.