31

Time dragged.

The week that had passed since the bonfire felt like a month. Kyle had come by to check on her twice—bearing flowers and sheet music. She’d played guitar awhile, even pulled out her Peru journal. Her notes about Psalm 40 tugged at her heart. She’d written that getting away from Blake felt like getting out of the slimy pit. Peru had been new, firm ground. A solid place to stand.

And oh, for a new song. Even now, she toyed with an idea—that whole transition.

About how, without Christ, she’d been too weak to climb out on her own.

But here she was, out and scrambling for shelter. What good did it do to get out of the muck and mire only to keep hiding?

At least her fingers had developed calluses from playing guitar in her sanctuary.

Kasia plopped into A.J.’s overstuffed chair. “Think Zan’s in Charleston already?” He’d dropped her off after class, made sure she had what she needed, and turned her over to Jayce.

“I’d think so, by now.” A.J. had almost finished her book. They’d agreed to enjoy a quiet evening of reading.

Kasia rubbed the pads of her left fingertips. Should it bother her that even they were beginning to numb? “You know why he had to go home? All he told me was that he had a court date.” He’d seemed way too burdened for a speeding ticket though.

“Jayce said it had something to do with his sister.”

She hoped it wasn’t something tragic. Every time he talked about Bailey, worry creased his face and hunched his shoulders. Maybe one day he’d open up about her. Let Kasia pray for him.

She stared at the wall inches from her face, let her vision blur and focus and blur again. It didn’t help the intensifying headache.

But she needed to feel something.

She’d gone numb.

“A.J.? Why don’t you ever talk about what happened before you moved down here?”

A.J. set her book aside. “You’re blunt tonight.”

“Sorry. Guess the rock Blake threw knocked off my verbal filter.”

“Yeah, maybe.” A.J.’s voice held compassion.

Kasia didn’t know what to do with it. She decided to keep frustrating her eyes.

“You remember I mentioned my dad’s loaded, right? So picture those Manhattan social circles. That show Revenge was my life—prep school, ritzy parties, the high life. Church wasn’t on the radar.”

Kasia glanced over.

“I’d had a thing for my brother’s best friend, Stefan, for years, but he never paid me any attention. The summer I turned sixteen, my parents let me go to Paris. I spent the summer with some family friends, and…I guess I grew up a little. In the ways that Stefan noticed anyway.”

Kasia shifted and faced A.J.

“My parents threw a welcome-home bash before school started, and everyone was there. Finally, Stefan danced with me and ignored the rest of the crowd. He actually apologized for never noticing how beautiful I was before.” She blew her bangs out of her face. “It was a load of crap.”

“Been there,” Kasia muttered.

“Sorry.”

Kasia could tell she meant it.

“Luke, my brother, was nervous that I was in over my head with Stefan. I totally ripped into him and told him to mind his own business.” She mocked her sixteen-year-old self. “‘Honestly, Lucian, do I tell you what to do with the girls you go out with?’” She smiled sadly. “He stopped bugging me about it.”

“Do you wish he’d stayed on you about it? Now?” Sometimes Kasia wished a friend would’ve grabbed her by the shoulders and asked what she was thinking. But no one ever did. She’d never had those kinds of friends.

“Luke kept an eye out for me. And yeah, I’m glad. Stefan was charming around our classmates—but alone? Different story. Sure, we messed around. Did all kinds of stuff that I really liked at the time, but I always drew the line before sex. I guess he thought he could convince me. I was so enamored, I made excuses for him every time he pushed me about it. Sometimes…I even liked how he pushed.”

Kasia chewed her lip. Sometimes the wrong thing feels good.

“So this one afternoon, I went over to his house to study, and he’d gotten this porn flick. He literally made me sit and watch it. Told me to take good notes.” She wore an expression of disgust, but her eyes were sad.

“I went home and—of course—didn’t talk to anyone about it.”

Kasia swallowed.

“I just showered for an hour or two and told myself I wouldn’t mind doing some of that stuff someday…as long as Stefan loved me.”

Kasia’s stomach turned. Before Blake, she’d believed sex was supposed to be beautiful. But the real thing always felt like she was in some sick movie.

“I had planned to go to a football game with Luke that night, but I didn’t feel up to it. He went without me and came home an hour later with a broken nose. Apparently, Stefan had been rolling around under the bleachers with some skank from the other school. Luke beat the snot out of him—tried to protect my honor.

“I was grateful…till he demanded I break up with Stefan. I should’ve, totally. I know. But I was jealous that Stefan had wanted somebody else. I thought I could change his mind. Be whatever he wanted, you know?”

Kasia smoothed a long curl between her fingers. She knew.

“I was so blind. Psychotic, the things we do when we’re messed up in the head, isn’t it?”

A.J. looked right into her. Kasia massaged her temples.

“Does your head hurt again?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“I can tell. Give me two minutes to finish, and I’ll get you some medicine. Yeah?”

Kasia nodded. She half regretted asking about it all. A little too close to home.

“That weekend, there was this big party. My parents forbade it, so I lied. Said I was going over to my friend Charlotte’s. I don’t remember much, except I found Stefan at the party and acted like an idiot. He went to get us drinks, and…I woke up in the hospital several hours later.”

How awful. Kasia thrummed her finger across the nubby upholstery.

“Apparently, Luke—the meddler—had called Charlotte’s and found out I wasn’t there. He raced to the party and searched every room until he found me.” A.J. drew in a shaky breath and dropped her gaze. “I was out cold on somebody’s bed…with my shirt torn and my pants cut off. And there were bruises on my neck and shoulder too.”

Kasia gasped. “I can’t even imagine.”

“People probably still talk about my brother going ballistic that night, much to my parents’ dismay. Seriously, more than half the people ditched the joint before he even got up the stairs. So I heard. Stefan had put some Rohypnol in my drink and done whatever he wanted with me. By the time Luke got there, Stefan was gone, but…he left no doubt about his identity.”

A.J. uncurled herself from the couch and brought Kasia two pain relievers and some water. “Needless to say, we pressed charges, and he spent a night in jail before his daddy bailed him out. His high-society parents kept it as quiet as possible. At least they made him plead guilty though. He was charged with first- and second-degree rape, three counts of aggravated assault, assault on a minor, and first- and second-degree sex offense, and sentenced to ten years in a state penitentiary with possible parole after three years. Which I heard he got.”

She rattled off that list of charges as if they’d been old friends for years.

“For a long time I was a shell. In denial about all of it. My parents put me in therapy, and I got to deal with it a little. Basically, I decided not to let him hurt me anymore. I had a life to live, and I was going to live it. I didn’t make it a secret though. I talked about it—sort of became the school spokesperson for date-rape awareness.”

“I bet your parents were proud after all that.”

A.J. closed her mouth and eyed her watch. “Sheesh! I didn’t realize we’d talked so late. We’d better hit the hay, yeah?” She stretched and grabbed her book.

Kasia reeled at the abrupt ending.

A minute later, A.J. stood beside her door, switched off the lamp. “Night, Kosh.”

But Kasia felt as if she needed to know, and the darkness made it easier to ask. “A.J.? What happened with your parents?”

The silence was loud for a heartbeat. “My socialite parents didn’t want to be known as the family of Date-Rape Girl. They told me to quit talking about it or they’d ship me off to school.”

Silence. A.J. drummed her fingers on the doorframe.

“After everything I’d already been through, all the progress I’d made, they were ashamed of me anyway. Someone drugged me and raped me, and I was a blemish on their reputation.”

How awful. “And they wouldn’t listen when you talked to them about it?”

“Didn’t try. I left. Tracked down the black sheep of the family and took off to join him.”

A.J. walked into her room and shut the door.

Kasia sat still in the blackness, with only the streetlights slicing through the blinds.

She couldn’t believe what A.J. had been through. The world was so sick and broken.

As she let her gaze trace the stripes of light, she felt it again. Something was out there, at the edges of her memory. Why couldn’t she just remember it and have it done?