Page 77 of Tell Me I'm Enough

I walk over to the open door and grab a guy I know, telling him to help me. We each take one end of his body, dragging him out of the room and tossing him onto a couch. Then I tell the guy who helped me to call him an ambulance, ‘cause he’s gonna need it.

It feels like the rest of that night goes by in a blur. Bash eventually comes out of the room looking pained. Once he tells me what actually happened, it all starts to connect.

He walked in on the guy trying to rape Lydia. If he hadn’t walked in when he did…it would have been too late.

Bash doesn’t talk much about his sister, but he’s opened up to me and Erik since getting sober…about what actually happened to her, about his childhood best friend raping her, which led to her eventually killing herself.

I don’t have a sister, but I have my brothers…and if anyone hurt them the way his sister was hurt…if they ever got to a place mentally where they didn’t want to be here and took their own life…it would drive me to much darker places than any I’ve already visited.

“Come on,” he tells me. “I’ll drive you back to the Sig house.”

I nod. “Okay, let me check on Simone before we leave. I’ll meet you outside.”

I go to walk back to the room they’re still in, pushing through people, getting annoyed by all the drunk kids in my way.Mybuzz is long gone, and I just want to get to her.

Simone is walking out of the room alone when I make it to the hallway.

“Hey,” I say.

She looks up, sees me, and then runs into my arms.

“Hey,” I say again softly, wrapping my arms around her, “it’s okay. She’s okay.”

I feel her tears before I see them. “I hate people so much,” she says angrily.

“Me too,” I tell her.

“Why do so many people want to hurt her? What the fuck did she ever do? Why—”

I pull her back to look at me. “I—I really don’t know why evil people exist…and I don’t have all the answers to why somepeople get the shittier cards in life. But what Idoknow…is that she couldn’t be luckier to have you as a friend by her side.”

She wipes her tears and tries to straighten back up. “Not lucky enough if I can’t even protect her when we’re at the same damn party.”

I shake my head. “Don’t do that, Simone. This isn’t on you; this is on that fucking predator who tried to hurt her.”

“And he wouldn’t have been able to if I wasn’t so wrapped up in myself and stayed with her.”

I pull her back into me. “Stop,” I tell her. “All that matters is that she’s okay now, and she has you and Lani. None of this is your fault.”

She pulls back, wiping new tears, and points down the hall. “I need to go find our ride and get her back to the dorm.”

She starts walking, and I grab her arm lightly. “Give me your phone.”

She looks up at me, confused. “Why?”

“I’m putting my number in it,” I tell her. “I want you to text me if you need anything.”

She slowly pulls her phone out and hands it to me. I put my number in and save it, then hand it back.

“I’m serious,” I tell her. “If you need me—”

“Thank you…” she says, cutting me off, “for being the friend looking out forme.”

“Anytime, pretty girl.”

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Simone