Status: Cautiously Active
Rape Girl
Him
My hands are shaking, like really shaking, shaking so hard it is all I can focus on, I quickly shove them under my legs and try to lessen the shake that cripples them. I try, I actually try, to focus on the words coming from the boy’s mouth next to me because I know he doesn’t have to be doing this, teaching me trig, but he is and that’s a good friend. I think Flynn might the last truly good person left in this world, without a hateful or selfish bone in his body, I think he is the last of the best we will ever have.
I press my feet against the edge of the table and lean back in my chair and listen as he talks about my math homework like it is the simplest thing in the world, which it isn’t. But maybe to him it is, maybe it is the only non-complicated thing left in his life after the shit storm that hit. I don’t want to think about it sitting right next to him because that somehow feels like a betrayal and the last thing Flynn needs on top of everything else is his best friend doubting him, not that I do, doubt him that is, I totally believe him. I think everyone in a five mile radius has heard, and I think that everyone in a five mile radius has made up their minds about it too, I think, like me; they have all chosen the easy route that keeps their carefully constructed world intact.
I am beyond desperate for a cigarette but I quit yesterday and even though I know I won’t last I don’t want to give up this easily, it’s barely been a full day, I can wait a little longer. But I am starting to feel nauseas and despite sitting on my hands they are still shaking and it makes me feel uncomfortable like I’m out of control or something. I finger the pack of cancer sticks in my pocket and imagine drawing one out and sucking on the sweet nicotine, but I can’t do that, not here in the library with Mrs Webster watching me with her eagle eyes and shhing me every time I so much as cough.
“Are you even listening?” Flynn asks knocking on my head three times to punctuate his point, I get it I don’t need him tapping my forehead. I swat his hand away and shake the cobwebs from my mind trying to remember what the last thing he said was, but my heads empty and I realise I have tuned him out… again.
“I’m sorry” I being falling into a familiar spiel because lately it seems I am always stuck in my head, stuck on forever repeating thoughts and doubts and worries. I feel bad like an awful friend but I don’t bother voicing this because I know Flynn will just reassure me I’m not and that’s the last thing I want to hear at the moment. “Can we take a break? I think my brain is fried”
“It’s all that pot you smoke”
“I’ll thank you to know I am officially three weeks sober” which isn’t a total lie if you don’t count last weekend which I don’t, it was more a contact high than an actual high.
“Very impressive” Flynn says with a smile that tells me he means his words, and he can’t be the monster she says because no one this nice could do something that awful… could they? No they couldn’t, there is just no way he is what she claims. Claims being the key word because that all her words are, unsubstantiated claims plain and simple. I know for a fact there is no truth to them because I know him and I know there is no way, no way in hell he could do the things she says he did.
I take my cigarettes from my pocket and play with the opening glancing up as the door slams to a shut, I glance up just in time to see Reed McIntyre standing in the doorway of the library scanning the rows of tables for a place to sit. Her eyes fall on me and I see her visibly stop, stop breathing and stop thinking, it catches me off guard and I watch her, a frown settling into my features because she seems scared, I notice how her knees tremble.
“Dude” I say elbowing Flynn in the ribs so he can see Reed standing there, we both stare at her and slowly, painstakingly slowly she turns her eyes from me to Flynn and I can see all the air leave her body as if she has been winded. I glance away for a second to stare at Flynn to gauge his reaction but his face is a mask of emotions. I turn my head back to Reed but she is gone, I can practically feel the atmosphere in the library soften now that she isn’t here, it’s like we all take a collective sigh of relief.
In my sigh of relief two young girls walk up to the table pushing their chest out with fake bravado, Flynn beside loses the mask on his face and transforms his glum expression to one of adulation, like he can’t believe these girls are wasting their time on us.
“We just wanted to say that we don’t believe a word she is saying, we totally believe you” One of the girls says in her high pitched voice I frown at her because she doesn’t even know Flynn how can she be so sure it’s true?
“Thanks girls, I need all the support I can get” Flynn coos oozing charm and sex appeal, it amazing watching him in action with these stupid girls, he really is gifted with woman, or girls in this case. The girls are echoing the same thoughts and opinions that everyone we know and everyone we don’t have since the cops arrested Flynn on charges of rape.
I swallow a lump in my throat at the thought of Reed and Flynn together, the thought of my best friend and that girl I liked – past tense – getting it on makes me feel more nauseas than my lack of cigarettes. And that’s what they did right? I think of the vicious lie told by a desperate girl trying to reassure herself she didn’t fuck up, which she did. The sex that Reed and Flynn shared with totally a mistake was also totally consensual, Reed is just reacting to the fact she was dumped the next day. At least that’s what Flynn told me, and I believe him, a 100%... but still a thought nags in the back of my mind to cry rape over being dumped, seems a little extreme.
The girls walk away with a giggle and a swish of their hips and I can’t help but stare after them remembering Reed and her bizarre reaction to seeing Flynn, it was like she was afraid, worse than afraid, terrified even and if nothing happened that why is she so scared? I shake away the stupid thought because nothing happened, she is lying.
Reed McIntyre was not raped.
I press my feet against the edge of the table and lean back in my chair and listen as he talks about my math homework like it is the simplest thing in the world, which it isn’t. But maybe to him it is, maybe it is the only non-complicated thing left in his life after the shit storm that hit. I don’t want to think about it sitting right next to him because that somehow feels like a betrayal and the last thing Flynn needs on top of everything else is his best friend doubting him, not that I do, doubt him that is, I totally believe him. I think everyone in a five mile radius has heard, and I think that everyone in a five mile radius has made up their minds about it too, I think, like me; they have all chosen the easy route that keeps their carefully constructed world intact.
I am beyond desperate for a cigarette but I quit yesterday and even though I know I won’t last I don’t want to give up this easily, it’s barely been a full day, I can wait a little longer. But I am starting to feel nauseas and despite sitting on my hands they are still shaking and it makes me feel uncomfortable like I’m out of control or something. I finger the pack of cancer sticks in my pocket and imagine drawing one out and sucking on the sweet nicotine, but I can’t do that, not here in the library with Mrs Webster watching me with her eagle eyes and shhing me every time I so much as cough.
“Are you even listening?” Flynn asks knocking on my head three times to punctuate his point, I get it I don’t need him tapping my forehead. I swat his hand away and shake the cobwebs from my mind trying to remember what the last thing he said was, but my heads empty and I realise I have tuned him out… again.
“I’m sorry” I being falling into a familiar spiel because lately it seems I am always stuck in my head, stuck on forever repeating thoughts and doubts and worries. I feel bad like an awful friend but I don’t bother voicing this because I know Flynn will just reassure me I’m not and that’s the last thing I want to hear at the moment. “Can we take a break? I think my brain is fried”
“It’s all that pot you smoke”
“I’ll thank you to know I am officially three weeks sober” which isn’t a total lie if you don’t count last weekend which I don’t, it was more a contact high than an actual high.
“Very impressive” Flynn says with a smile that tells me he means his words, and he can’t be the monster she says because no one this nice could do something that awful… could they? No they couldn’t, there is just no way he is what she claims. Claims being the key word because that all her words are, unsubstantiated claims plain and simple. I know for a fact there is no truth to them because I know him and I know there is no way, no way in hell he could do the things she says he did.
I take my cigarettes from my pocket and play with the opening glancing up as the door slams to a shut, I glance up just in time to see Reed McIntyre standing in the doorway of the library scanning the rows of tables for a place to sit. Her eyes fall on me and I see her visibly stop, stop breathing and stop thinking, it catches me off guard and I watch her, a frown settling into my features because she seems scared, I notice how her knees tremble.
“Dude” I say elbowing Flynn in the ribs so he can see Reed standing there, we both stare at her and slowly, painstakingly slowly she turns her eyes from me to Flynn and I can see all the air leave her body as if she has been winded. I glance away for a second to stare at Flynn to gauge his reaction but his face is a mask of emotions. I turn my head back to Reed but she is gone, I can practically feel the atmosphere in the library soften now that she isn’t here, it’s like we all take a collective sigh of relief.
In my sigh of relief two young girls walk up to the table pushing their chest out with fake bravado, Flynn beside loses the mask on his face and transforms his glum expression to one of adulation, like he can’t believe these girls are wasting their time on us.
“We just wanted to say that we don’t believe a word she is saying, we totally believe you” One of the girls says in her high pitched voice I frown at her because she doesn’t even know Flynn how can she be so sure it’s true?
“Thanks girls, I need all the support I can get” Flynn coos oozing charm and sex appeal, it amazing watching him in action with these stupid girls, he really is gifted with woman, or girls in this case. The girls are echoing the same thoughts and opinions that everyone we know and everyone we don’t have since the cops arrested Flynn on charges of rape.
I swallow a lump in my throat at the thought of Reed and Flynn together, the thought of my best friend and that girl I liked – past tense – getting it on makes me feel more nauseas than my lack of cigarettes. And that’s what they did right? I think of the vicious lie told by a desperate girl trying to reassure herself she didn’t fuck up, which she did. The sex that Reed and Flynn shared with totally a mistake was also totally consensual, Reed is just reacting to the fact she was dumped the next day. At least that’s what Flynn told me, and I believe him, a 100%... but still a thought nags in the back of my mind to cry rape over being dumped, seems a little extreme.
The girls walk away with a giggle and a swish of their hips and I can’t help but stare after them remembering Reed and her bizarre reaction to seeing Flynn, it was like she was afraid, worse than afraid, terrified even and if nothing happened that why is she so scared? I shake away the stupid thought because nothing happened, she is lying.
Reed McIntyre was not raped.