You Think You're So Great

I’d finally gotten to go home a few hours later and I sat on my bed, wondering what was going to happen. I didn’t want a lawyer, I didn’t want to go to court. But everyone was expecting me to and I guess I’d like to see Brayden Schenn get what he deserved, he thinks he’s so great and he’s not. I thought that maybe being taken to court for this may show him that. So after mentally arguing with myself for hours I decided this was for the best. I was snapped out of thought when there was a knock on my bedroom door. “Come in,” I said. My mom opened the door, walked over to the bed and sat down, then she started to speak. “We got you a lawyer, we’re meeting with him tomorrow. He’s going to be working with us and the prosecuting attorney.” She said.

I was shocked; this was all happening too fast, way too fast. I didn’t like it. “What will I have to do tomorrow?” I asked my mom hoping she’d know the answer so I wouldn’t freak out as much. “Well, he’ll have a psychologist speak to you and we’ll discuss how we’ll go about presenting your case.” She paused, “And that’s all I really know right now, we’ll have to find out more tomorrow.” I nodded and she leaned over and wrapped her arms around me. “We’ll get through this okay?” she tried comforting me but I’d had just about enough. I didn’t want to do any of this. “I don’t wanna do this.” I blurted out suddenly. “What?” she asked, shocked. I was shocked too but decided to just say it. “I don’t want to go to court, I don’t want to press charges, I don’t want to do anything.” I said, trying with everything not to cry. “Why not?” she titled her head to the side quizzically. “I-I’m scared.” I said pathetically. She looked at me for a moment. “Are you telling the truth?” she asked her face now serious. I looked at her “What?” I almost choked out the response. “Are you telling the truth, did anything really happen to you?” My eyes widened, “What do you mean?”… “Did Brayden Schenn do anything you didn’t give him permission to do? Because I don’t think he did now.” She looked angry. “Why do you think I’d lie about this?” I asked defensively. “I believed you until you said you didn’t want to do anything about it, why would you not want him in jail if he really did attack you twice?” she paused, not wanting an answer yet and she continued to speak, “I think you just want attention from your dad and I, so you decide to frame our city’s hockey star. Why would he do that to you?” My jaw dropped, I couldn’t believe this. I was fuming. “Just, go away.” I demanded and pointed at the door. “When you decide to believe me you can talk to me again.” She shook her head and exited out my door.

I plopped face first onto my bed and cried, really cried, the first time I had really cried since all this began. Funny to think just a couple weeks ago, I’d dreamt of Brayden Schenn speaking to me and now I hated him more than anything. My own mother doesn’t believe me about this now, did she ever really though? I mean, it’s Brayden Schenn, I can see why she wouldn’t but no… wait, I’m her daughter she should believe me. I sighed loudly, my mind was racing with thoughts and I sat up again.

“Mom?” I’d gone downstairs to see if my mom was still up. “Yes?” she said. “Are we, um, still going to see that lawyer tomorrow?” I asked tentatively. “I thought you didn’t want to?” she asked in an aggravated tone. “Well, I do. I wasn’t lying about anything and if this is what I have to do to prove that to you, I’ll do it.” I told her. “Okay.” She said and turned back to what she was doing, I decided that was good enough and headed up to my room to go to bed. I laid down in my bed and grabbed my iPod. I switched it to one of my favorite songs and stared at the ceiling for awhile until I finally fell asleep.

My eyes shot open when I heard someone knocking hard on my door. “We’re leaving in 15 minutes Emily, get up,” it was my mom, I looked over at the clock, it was 7:00am. I heard my mom head down the hallway to her room, and I got up. I was having second thoughts about this now. I picked up a shirt and smelled it; it smelled clean enough so I slid it on. I did the same with a pair of jeans I picked up. I headed downstairs to eat something but scrapped the idea because I was too nervous to eat, so I sat in the kitchen waiting for my mom to come down stairs.

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“Hi Emily, I’m Mr. Thomas, I’ll be your lawyer and I’ll be working with the Prosecuting attorney, if you decide we’re going to try and get an indictment.” He stood up and shook me and my mother’s hands from across his desk. I mumbled a greeting and my mom elbowed me slightly and whispered that I needed to speak up. Mr. Thomas smiled at me and started to speak again, “I’m going to want to ask you some questions to see what kind of case we have here. I have all the information gathered from the hospital yesterday.” I looked at him and said, “Okay ask.”

“Alright, we need to get the dates and times recorded first thing.” He paused, “What day was the first attack on?” He asked, I thought for a moment, I hadn’t really paid attention to the date. “Um, I think it was December 20th, but I know I remember it was 12:43am. “ I held my hands in my lap nervously, I felt cornered. “Thank you, you also answered my next question, now moving on.” He said calmly. “Before he attacked you, where were you and what were you doing?” I gulped and began to speak again, “I was in Tequilas with my sister and I met Brayden there, we were drinking and dancing. I remember feeling really dizzy and then that’s when I blacked out and woke up in the motel,” He looked at me intently and wrote in the notebook he had lying on his desk. He looked up from it and spoke again, “When you woke up, what happened?” I thought about the events in my mind and they made me sick, I didn’t want to think about it. I swallowed hard, I thought I was going to be sick. “Are you okay?” he asked me and I jumped slightly. “Yeah… yeah.” I said and he urged me to answer the question. So I spoke, “When I woke up I was tied to the bed, my arms and legs were, I couldn’t move. All my clothes were off except my underwear and bra, that’s when I began to look around and figured out I was with Brayden.” He looked away from me to his notebook and scribbled some more stuff onto it. He looked back up at me, “This part may be difficult for you to tell, but in your own time, tell me what he did after that.” I looked down, at the floor then to the door. I wanted out of this. “When I figured out it was him, he came out of the bathroom and he told me I’d passed out in Tequilas. Then he got on top of me and took my clothes off,” I paused I’d never said it out loud before. “and raped me.” I wiped my eye with my sleeve to try not to cry. “Thank you, let’s take a break now.” I got up quickly and went to the bathroom where I threw up.

After about ten minutes had passed my mom waved me back into the office, I walked back in and sat in the chair I had earlier. “Alright, are you feeling okay now?” Mr. Thomas asked. “Yeah, I guess so.” I said. “Let’s finish these questions.” I nodded and he continued. “After the first attack, why didn’t you report it?” “I was scared.” I said simply. He nodded and continued. “How long after the first attack did the second attack happen?” I thought for a moment. “Just over a week, it was January 2nd.” He wrote in his notebook some more. “It was around 9am, I think.” I told him. “Why weren’t you in school?” he quickly asked. “I didn’t want to deal with those people so I skipped.” I said. “So what made you go to the hospital after the second attack?” I thought for a moment. “I called my sister and she said that I should, the second time he was harder on me, he hit me several times.” I said solemnly. He wrote some more.

He then spoke again “Thank you, now I think we have a case here but it’s going to be hard, because of who this is, the jury might think you’re lying. We can use the DNA recovered in the rape kit to prove he did have sex with you, but we’ll have to get a court order to take a DNA sample from him, the prosecution can handle that, but the jury will want us to prove it wasn’t consensual. If you want to try for an indictment, we can try to do that.” I looked over at my mom. She then spoke to him, “How good are our chances of getting him convicted?” the lawyer looked at her and at his notebook for a moment. “Since the first attack went unreported, I’d say we have a fifty-fifty chance.” My mom and I looked at each other then back at him. “Do whatever you need to, to get him behind bars.” My mom said. I nodded in agreement. Mr. Thomas stood up and shook our hands again. “Okay, we’ll try and put something to together, we’ll need to meet again in a few days, is that okay?” he said. “Yes, yes.” My mom said quickly. We got up out of our seats and headed out of the office. I was tired, I wanted to go home and sleep.