"Easy." Erin spat. "You're easy slut. That's why he raped you."

The words had stung almost as much as the slap to my face that had accompanied it, only the words remained long after the physical pain had faded. Erin Hardy had been my best friend for five years, but the second we entered our freshmen year of high school, she'd changed. She had started to climb the social ladder, and even though she'd prompted me repeatedly to join, I never quite met her standards, so she started to turn her back anytime I passed her in the hallway. But the second the words fell from her lips, I had lost any faith or hope that there was any love for me in that cold, bitter heart.

As I stared at my reflection on my phone screen, I could hear the words clear as day, as if they were being whispered in my ear. Jeremiah was still quiet, his hand occasionally shooting to the radio to change the station or turn it up so the car was completely silent, but he seemed to give that up once he'd parked my brother's Range Rover in the driveway and put the car in park. His fingertips brushed the knob, and after a moment of contemplation he turned it counterclockwise until the music died out.

It was then, sitting in the agonizing silence, that I realized why he'd been insistent to keep the radio on.

"Addy." he whispered, a caution in every word. "You know you can talk to me, right?"

I nodded but refused to look in his direction. "Yeah, I know."

"Jon too. He's worried about you, Addison. I think everyone is."

"Why?" I whispered, barely audible. "What would lead any of you to think there's anything wrong with me?"

That excluded Jonathan as he'd come to the conclusion, and I'd silently confirmed it a couple weeks ago. I suppose that meant Jere was kind of put into that same space as well now that he knew the little bit he did.

"Addison, come on—"

"Because I don't fit this. . . this image of women all of you men seem to have?" I made a gesture toward my sweater. "Because I wear all of this. Because you don't have my tits in your face and fantasies every second of every day."

Jere's lip curled slightly, and he shook his head. "Says the girl who's putting us all into a box. That's sitting here naïve and unwilling to accept that she's just had a few shitty experiences and that we aren't all the same."

"So you've never cat called a girl?" I asked him, crossing my arms. "You've never stared so long it made her uncomfortable?"

He ran a hand down his face. "Addison, men are wired different then girls. We—"

"I'm so tired of that excuse!" I snapped, interrupting him before I could hear the same response I got anytime I brought this up to a man. "I'm so tired, Jere. I'm tired of having to sleep with one eye open. To have to lock my door regardless of who I live with. I'm tired of living in constant fear of men."

"Then don't." he extended a hand, but I dodged it and pressed my back against the door. "Addison, I'm not going to hurt you."

I wiped under my eyes and shook my head. "I don't think you'll ever understand. It's not something I can just stop, Jere. Logically I know that not all men are that, but because of all the shit I've been through, my body knows different."

"I'm sorry."

"I just want to be able to breathe. To walk down the street in shorts and a t shirt without having someone cat call me." I explained. "I want to be able to walk in a parking garage to my car without having to hold a key between my fingers, on edge and anticipating a man trying to attack me."

He slumped back against his seat and remained silent for so long I thought he was going to drop the subject, kick me out of the car, and drive back to my brothers. Instead he cut the engine and glared at the garage door through the windshield. "Have you looked into support groups? Therapy?"

"Excuse me?"

He sighed, shifting his body in my direction, "Addison, you're broken. You're so fucking lost and confused, and just. . . hurt. You need to be around people who understand what you've been through. You literally went from being. . . being assaulted to an entire house full of males. That can't be easy. I can't sit here and empathize, I can't say I've been through what you have, even if there are a lot of men who can. You need to be with others who understand."

I opened my mouth, wanting desperately to deny his words, but my own fell dry in my mouth.

He was right.

"I don't. . . I'm not ready to talk about it, Jere."

He reached out and touched his hand to my forearm. "You don't have to. They understand you, Addy. They know what you're going through, what you're feeling. Please, for your own health, find a group and go to one meeting. If you don't like it or it doesn't help, then don't go again."

I nodded slowly, and though I wanted to hug him, I just sat and trained my eyes straight ahead, tears silently falling. After a minute, he adjusted himself and rested his hand on mine, and followed suit.

*

By the time Jere finally forced me into the house, he claimed to be exhausted and headed upstairs to Jonathan's room. My father must have crashed early as well, because Elise was on the couch alone, watching a soap opera with a glass of wine and a bag of popcorn. Feeling my eyes on her, she paused her show and set the glass on a coaster.

"Come on, sweetie. I don't bite like the rest of the heathens in this house."

Though I was still emotional from my night with Jeremiah, I laughed a little and slowly crossed the room to her. Once I'd sat down, she wrapped her arms around me and nearly sent me spiraling again. I hadn't had this kind of motherly touch in, well, forever. My mother loved to be intimate with the rotating door of men she had in her bed every other day, but wouldn't even tuck me in as a child.

"What's wrong, honey?" she whispered, brushing her cold thumb under my right eye. "Why are you crying? I thought you guys were going to a party."

I sniffled, wiping at my cheeks with my sleeve. "Do you think I need therapy?"

"Therapy?" she repeated softly, then tilted her head and considered the thought. "I mean, I don't think it'd be the worst idea, sweetheart."

I bowed my head, fiddling with my sleeves until they were completely covering my hands. "Jere thinks I need a support group."

"A support group for what, baby?" she whispered, brushing my hair, damp from my tears, from my face. "Did your mother hurt you?"

It took me a long time to comprehend I'd never told Elise about what happened. I guess some part of me had just assumed she'd connect it all the way her son had on her own. But the perplexed expression on her face told me she had no clue what I was getting at.

"I. . ." my breath hitched for a moment, throat tightening, but I forced the words out before I could talk myself out of them altogether. "I left home because I was sexually assaulted at the end of my junior year."

My stepmom remained quiet for so long I thought maybe she'd nodded off, but when I looked her way she was staring down at me, eyes unreadable. "Did you tell your mother about this? Did you contact the proper authorities?"

"Authorities?" I echoed, then added quietly, "I told her but she was. . . she was high. She didn't even ask if I was okay."

Elise's eyes roamed me, then shot to the phone in between my hands. "The boy who did this to you, did you file a report on him?"

I started to shake my head but stopped and breathed out, "I don't remember much. I was drunk. I just. . . I get flashes, and some nights while in bed I can feel the weight of his body on top of mine, suffocating me. But I don't. . . I don't remember who it was or what he looked like."

My stepmom heaved out a long, exhausted sigh and circled her arms around me, pressing my head against her chest.

"This is why you dress this way, no?" she asked. "I assumed it had something to do with a boy, but I had no idea it was to this extent."

I made a gesture toward my body. "I hate it."

"What?"

"My body. Myself. I don't love myself. All this body has ever done is draw unwanted attention and all my brain has ever done is remain too weak to do anything about it."

Though she tried to conceal her own emotions, I felt her flinch hearing my words. She hugged me tighter against her and pressed her lips to the top of my head. "I'm so sorry, sweetheart."

I sat there for another five minutes as she gave me a run down of what he plan was with making an appointment with a psychologist and finding me a support group. Once she'd finished her long explanation, I excused myself to bed and headed for the stairs. I didn't have enough energy to be angry when I found Jeremiah sitting halfway down the staircase, his head against the railing, eyes trailing me until I reached the stair just below him.

The sympathetic look he was wearing only confirmed the suspicion he'd been eavesdropping on the conversation.

"You should learn to respect people's privacy and personal space." I lashed out, taking out my pent-up emotions on him. "I think you might be able to keep a girl if you weren't constantly breathing down her neck."

He shot to his feet immediately and I thoroughly expected him to explode on me, to shout in my face or call me some demeaning name as so many other boys in my life had.

"You can keep trying to push me away, Addy." he said, grasping the railing in one hand, eyes trained over my head, or likely somewhere far beyond the front door. "But I know what it's like to internalize it all and push through my pain alone. I'm not going to let you feel like that. Like you have nowhere to go and nobody to turn to. I'm here, okay? Even if what you said did hurt my fragile little ego a bit."

I had done enough crying to last me a few months, but tears still threatened to spill as I stepped up on to the stair beside him and I eyed him down for a while before I whispered, "You've got your own load of emotional baggage to work through, Jeremiah. There's no need to take on mine too."

"I'm strong enough to carry it all." he said. "I'm not saying you're not, I just. . . I think you need a break for a while."

I touched my palm flat against his chest, and met his eyes, surprised by how green they looked as down at me. "Thank you for the ride home. And you're suggestion. I appreciate it. Goodnight, Jere."

He looked as if there was a lot more that he wanted to say, but I continued up the stairs, and just as I stopped in the doorway, one of my hands wrapped around it, the other on the doorknob, Jeremiah finally responded.

"Goodnight, Addison."