Piece of Work

Friday came sooner than I wanted, since I wasn't looking forward to it at all. I hated how that worked; the more you didn't want something to happen, the faster it did.

It was strange, but I had a bad feeling in my gut about the party. Just...it was hard to explain. It was almost like a dreading sort of feeling. It wasn't just dread because I was going to have to be with Ben though, and there was a possibility that he was going to hit me.

It was something more, something bigger than that. I just knew that something was going to happen. Something bad.

On Friday, I got dressed pretty quickly and put on a little bit of makeup. Ben was a couple minutes late, but nothing too bad.

We chit-chatted on the way to the party, which was about ten minutes away. Like last time, Ben handed me a cup of beer, and I sipped on it. The feeling in my stomach was starting to get stronger, and it almost made me feel a little sick.

Out of the corner of my eye, when Ben was talking to one of the people who had been in his calculus class, I saw someone familiar.

"No fucking way..." I whispered, standing on my tip-toes to get a better look. Surely enough, Olivia was weaving her way through the party.

What the hell was she doing there?! She wasn't the party type at all. It was then that everything made sense. The feeling in my stomach wasn't about me at all. Olivia was going to do something stupid and get herself hurt. I had to put a stop to it.

"I'll be right back," I whispered in Ben's ear before planting a soft kiss on his cheek. I maneuvered my way through the people, occasionally bumping into people and getting cussed out, but I didn't pay them any attention. My only focus was Olivia. I was so worried that she was going to get hurt.

But then, when I was on the other side of the packed room, I realized that she wasn't there. There was no one there, actually. Just a couple making out against a wall.

This baffled me. Had I imagined her? I glanced down at the cup in my hand and wondered if maybe Ben had spiked it with something.

My hand went to my forehead. I didn't feel any different, other than the fact that I might have just had a hallucination.

After debating for a second, I decided that I must have mistaken. Maybe I saw a girl who looked like Olivia.

"Where'd you go?" Ben questioned when I got back to him. His friend was gone, and Ben looked a little angry.

"I thought I saw Olivia. I was just trying to make sure that she didn't get herself hurt."

"What have I told you about Olivia? You're too good for her. She's just a loser. She wouldn't even get invited to this party because she's such an outcast. No one likes her."

"I did," I whispered. The words stung me. I'd been friends with Olivia so long, it was almost like she was a small part of me. I was protective of her; I couldn't help it.

"What was that?"

"Nothing. Just sighing. You're right, absolutely right." Against my better judgment, I took another sip of the cup in my hand.

A poppy Katy Perry song started playing over the speakers, and Ben smiled. "I don't like her music, but Katy Perry is really hot."

"She is pretty," I agreed. It was strange, how freely Ben could talk about how hot or pretty other girls were, but I wasn't even allowed to talk to my best guy friend. I knew it wasn't fair.

After about an hour and a half, Ben grabbed my hand and kissed me quickly. "C'mon."

He started leading me up the stairs, and I knew what was coming. The thing was, I wasn't buzzing with alcohol this time. The mirage of Olivia had left me too worried that there was something weird in it.

So I knew, with my total sanity, that I didn't want to do anything. Ben snuck into a bedroom and shut the door behind him. He laid me on the bed and crawled on top of me, kissing me fiercely.

When he started to pull my shirt over my head, I pushed him off. "Sorry, but I just...I don't want to."

"You what?" He was absolutely shocked.

"I said I don't want to. I don't want to have sex with you." I got up and started to walk away, but he grabbed my wrist.

"So you'll fuck any guy that walks along, but not me?"

Ouch. "No, that's not true. I just...Ben, come on. I just don't want to, okay? Let's go back down to the party."

"You're not going anywhere. You think I brought you here to show you off to everyone here? Of course not. You're just an easy whore who everyone talks about."

"That's not true," I whispered. The sad thing was I didn't know what people said behind my back. It wasn't like it was true. I'd only slept with a couple of guys, and only when I was drunk. I didn't sleep with loads of guys. I wasn't like Nikki. She'd been around.

The thought of Nikki made me feel a pang in my stomach. She and Liza didn't even know what was happening, that I'd found a boyfriend. After that one party, they'd never heard from me again. Part of me wondered if they were worried. But most of me knew that they were probably too absorbed in their own lives to wonder what ever happened to me.

"Look at me when I talk to you!" Ben snapped. I'd been too busy thinking about Nikki and Liza that I hadn't even been aware that he was speaking at all.

"I'm sorry," I granted.

I guess he had a sense that I wasn't completely serious, and he shoved me against the wall.

"That's it," he declared in a rough voice. My stomach clenched and lurched. So this was what my foreboding was about? He was going to hurt me again? But that was nothing new.

I was wrong. He didn't just hurt me. When he came over again, he smashed his lips against mine before letting them wander down my throat.

"Stop," I begged, feeling his fingers play with the button on my jeans. I tried to push him away, but he just grabbed my arms and put them up over my head before leading me over to the bed, where he made me keep my position.

I started to squirm more, and I kept telling him to stop, please. He didn't. It was like he didn't hear me, or didn't want to acknowledge me.

All my efforts to get him off me proved fruitless. He just got what he wanted, and when he was done, he stood up, looking proud.

"I told you that you were easy," he snapped.

With that, he opened the door and left.

My pride was crushed as I gathered my clothes. I felt so violated and useless, like I no longer had a right to live.

Until I finished getting dressed and sat back against the wall, I hadn't felt my body quake with all the scarring that I'd had to deal with over the past couple of months. The rape had pushed me over the edge.

I hadn't meant it to end like this, curled up on the floor in this unfamiliar place, my back pressed against a rough and cold wall. The dark was encompassing me, no visible way out of this.

"Faye?" a soft voice whispered. "Are you okay?"

Looking up, I saw the person speaking to me, thanks to the fact that they'd left the door open and the light from the hallway was allowed inside the room. Her brown eyes were misty.

"No," I answered honestly. "No, I'm not." With that, I broke down and cried, burying my face in my hands.

She walked over to me and put her arms around me, whispering that I was going to be okay. I always knew that, in the end, Olivia would be the one to come through for me.