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I think that if I’d been scrubbing blood and brain matter from the front of my body in the bath last night, I’d feel a lot better right now. I don’t think I’d mind the smell of bleach in the hallway if that were the reason why.
I could have pulled the trigger.
That’s what I’m thinking when I raise the weapon and stare down the barrel. There’s a thrill to it—my heart hammers for another reason entirely, and maybe that’s why I open my mouth and close it around the cold, hard metal.
Just to see how I’d feel about it. Not because I want to pull the trigger.
“MEL, STOP!”
My eyes go wide, and I freeze as Lisa lunges toward me. She knocks the weapon from my hands, and it flies from my grip, discharging when it hits the floor. I squeeze my eyes shut, and we both scream. When I open them, I realize I’m lying flat on my back on the bed, and my friend is on top of me in an attempt to shield me from the bullet with her own body, and I begin to sob.
She pulls back, examining me for a moment, her eyes wide with shock and fear, then stands and walks to the other side of the room where she’d chucked the gun. She picks it up and, with hands visibly shaking from adrenaline, opens it and empties the chamber, sending the remaining bullets rolling across the bedroom floor.
“What are you….” she starts, pausing to take several heaving breaths while holding her hand over her heart. When she turns to me again, her face is red, and tears run down her cheeks. “What is wrong with you?” she screams through her own sobs. “Why would you do something like that? Why would you do that to me?”
“I’m sorry!” I yell back. “I’m sorry—I wasn’t going to do it, I promise. I was just—”
She runs back to my side, throws her arms around me, and we both cry. A few minutes go by like this until she pulls back again and looks at me—really looks at me—at my face, into my eyes.
“Mel, what happened to you? Heather didn’t do that…what happened to your face?”
“I don’t want to tell you.”
She waits for a better answer, incredulous, then something in her face changes. She rushes to my phone and begins dialing.
“Who are you calling?” I ask.
“Ty?” she says when he answers.
“No!” I shout. “No, Lisa. Don’t tell him!”
“You need to come over here,” she says. “There’s something wrong with Mel.”
She hangs up and just stares at me. I drop my head into my hands. How am I going to explain this to him? What am I supposed to tell him?
I’m guessing I’ve got five minutes to figure it out.
“I can’t see him right now, Lisa. I’m not—I’m not ready. You have to tell him you made a mistake—you have to make him go.”
“Why? Did he do that to you?”
“What? No!”
“Then you better give me a good goddamn reason in the next three minutes,” she says.
I swallow hard. “It was that guy…from the café. That rich guy my mom has been seeing…”
“He hit you?”
I shake my head; my lower lip starts to quiver. “He…raped me.”
“What?” She almost whispers the question. Her hand covers her mouth, and her own eyes fill with tears again, too. “Oh, Mel…”
Saying the word aloud is terrifying. But that’s what happened—that’s what happened to me. In my own home, just feet away from my own room. I was raped.
We’re interrupted by the sound of the front door closing downstairs. “Lisa…” I plead.
“I’ll be right back,” she says.
