(A/N: Guys, please skip the part in italics if you don't want to read violence/abuse/ rape, especially for younger readers... Remember: you have been warned!)

TESS

I find myself glancing at a picture of my mom on my phone.

She's sitting in the garden, under her apple tree, the pink blossoms bringing out the pink in her cheeks. I'm next to her chair, laughing at the joke my dad was cracking, my arms around her neck. She has a warm smile as she looks at me, her eyes soft.

It was taken a week before we knew that she had cancer.

I shake my head, as I ponder over to watch over Leah and Greg.

'They're fine', dismisses the voice in my head. 'You should worry about yourself'.

Were they? I didn't know yet.

For one thing, Leah was dating Adam.

Adam White.

My mom knew about him, somehow.

I find myself trembling as I think of the very day it all had happened.

*****

9 months back, a month after Tess's mother died.

My mom had died. I couldn't even give her a proper goodbye.

I look at the pink flower in my hand. It reminded me of the apple blossom in my mom's garden.

Faraway, in another universe, I hear cheers of the finished football game. I sigh and turn the flower over in my hand.

"You didn't watch the match?" asks a deep voice.
I immediately look up to see a guy looking at me.

"Um... I'm not interested", I say dully, hoping he'd leave me alone.

"You're Tess Heartwood right?" He asks, sitting down next to me.

He knew who I was?

"Yeah...You are?" I ask, feeling bad for not knowing him.

He gives me a cute boyish grin. "I'm Adam White."

We go on to talk for a few minutes, and I find out that he seems really sweet. It doesn't take him long to get to the fact that my mom had died a month ago.

I mean, he was charming and I couldn't stop myself from opening up to him.

"No Tess, you need to lighten up. What you need is a drink with me. Just one drink." He replies, his hand on my face.
"Your mom wants to see you happy. I can make that happen." He says confidently, putting an arm on my shoulder.

I put the flower in my pocket and finally nod, which makes him excited.

Two hours later, I'm heavily drunk. Adam was saying something about his dad and how he told him to never leave a drunk girl at the bar by herself.

"I'll take you home", He said. He wrapped his arms around me and put me into his car.
I don't remember agreeing to his offer, but I went along with him, Adam could do no wrong, could he?

Weariness washes through me when we reach his apartment. I fall straight into the couch, and Adam chuckles at me.

"Are you feeling better now?" He asks sweetly, collapsing on the couch.
I realise that he's drunk too.

"I think," I say giddily and laugh again.

"You think... Which means you aren't," He sighs softly.

I turn to give him a questioning look when his lips crash onto mine.

I kiss him back, the weeks of sadness and hopelessness transforming me into a reckless person I usually wasn't.

It was a drunken kiss, after all, it happened to people all the time.

One thing led to another, and next, I know in my drunken state that Adam's on top of me, unfastening his pants.

My eyes widen as I realise what he was doing.

"Adam... No- I don't want this." I start, but he shushes me.

"You'll love this T- Tess," He says, his speech slurring.

I open my mouth, but his hand clamps over.
I struggle to move it, but he's too strong, and I realise that I'm trapped.

"Don't want to wake the neighbours up," He says in a sing-song voice.

Did he even know what he was doing?

Would he do the same thing if he weren't drunk?

I try my best to push Adam away, moving against his strong grip, which barely allowed any movement.
I bite at his hand, try to kick him off and scream as loud as I could, before he did anything.

I wasn't that lucky.

I find tears running down the side of my face. I can't breathe, and I can't escape anymore.

Hopelessness hits me more than anything.
Adam is still talking and groping me, but I don't hear his words anymore.
I don't feel his touch anymore.
I am numb with pain, as he slowly rapes me, his body all over me.

I am beyond devastated as my eyes land on the pink flower crushed on the floor.

*****

The next day, Adam wakes me up cheerfully.

"I bet you loved it, Tess," He says oblivious to the look of shock I was giving him.
"Want another go?" He winks at me, which causes pure bile to rise to my mouth.

Once I'm done puking, I face Adam, who looks bewildered.

"I asked you to stop, but you didn't! You raped me, Adam!" I throw the words on to him.

Adam's jaw drops.

"You didn't say anything -"

"You didn't let me!"

I find tears running down my cheeks.
"And I was a virgin."

"It can't be rape, you kissed me back too. You wanted it," Adam complains.

"So you're saying that I want to be raped?"

"I'm saying that you need two hands to clap." He says seriously.

I stare at him, horrified.

"All girls want me, Tess. How could you not?" He asks me, and I hear the thinly veiled pride in his voice.

What in hell was wrong with him?

I raise my hand to slap him, but he grabs my palm and shakes his head at me.

"Stop blowing this out of proportion. Just accept that you had a nice time and move on-"

I slap him with my other hand, feel my ears ringing as I pull my hand away.

Adam hurls a mixture of curse words at me, but my ears are still ringing, blocking out all the sound.

I leave his apartment, not knowing what to make out of all that had happened.

*****
Adam hadn't raped me on purpose.

He was drunk, he was stupid, and his annoying ego didn't let him see beyond the fact that some girls didn't want to sleep with him.

However, did that excuse what he'd done?

At first, I blamed myself for not stopping him at the kiss. That I had done something to provoke him.

Only later did I realise that rape was rape and that Adam needed to be punished.

I approached the student helpline committee, and they barely helped by counselling Adam for a month.
Apparently, if you have influential parents, you can get away with anything.

I was dejected that my pleas fell on deaf ears, which soon made me spiral into depression. I drew back into a shell and stopped talking to everyone else. 

They thought that I was coping with my mother's death.

No one knew the real story.

And I didn't want to tell anyone either.

As I glance as my mom's photo, I think of Leah dating Adam.

If I told Leah this incident, she'd pick Adam's side, saying that he wouldn't have done it on purpose.
Would she, though?

I didn't know.

But I'm not going to tell her and be an object of her sympathy.

Meanwhile, Leah is really happy with dating him. He too seems to like her, the way Leah describes him.

At this point, I do think Adam has changed. He didn't force himself onto her, at least according to Leah. He is gentle with her, and she trusts him.
Maybe what had happened with me was a mere mistake.

The only thing that nags me is if it was all an act. That Adam desperately wanted something from her and he's going to drop the act once he gets what he wants.

I realise, that I do need to protect Leah, irrespective of her opinion on Adam.

So that she doesn't make the same mistake that I did.

Trusting him too much.