Chapter Thirty-Two

I was crying when it was my turn to swallow the pill. I drew in a few deep breaths, mindful of loosening my constricted throat so I could get the medication down. It took effort, but I managed, through small hiccups, to follow Marco into the space between.

I was floating in darkness until I heard those words Dr. Crimm had used to guide each of my friends before.

It was time to figure out whether I could overcome my past or whether it was always going to be a weight pulling me beneath the surface of the water. The sound of my rapid heartbeat seemed to echo in my ears as I used Marco's breathing technique to remain as calm as possible.

The first tiny bubble appeared and floated up quickly from the bottom of my vision to the top before another few followed. Then, suddenly, there were hundreds of them, against a dirty-yellow background. They raced and chased each other from bottom to top until thick, white foam formed where they gathered. My brother Luke was suddenly there, as if Dr. Crimm's words had pulled him from the place in my mind where I'd locked him away. I tried to swim, but my movement caused a wave to form and as if a cup had been tipped, the yellow drained and left the walls of an old house behind.

It was the house of my nightmares.

The headache was immediate, so sharp and unyielding I had to grab my head and try to press the pressure back into my skull before it cracked me open. Thump, thump, thump, beat the bass as a hip-hop song blasted from the living room and the kids I'd gone to school with since kindergarten moved drunkenly against each other on the makeshift dance floor. Those who weren't dancing were clumsily tripping between rooms, giggling as they held themselves up against the walls.

I saw him, exactly the way I'd been remembering him each night as my eyes tried to close, each time I tried to let my head rest. I was so tired of the thoughts of him. His strong arm supported his built frame as he held out a red cup to be filled with the bubbly yellow liquid I'd never want to drink again.

"Koralee, we should go," Luke pleaded. I'd promised to take him to the party that night. God, what I wouldn't give to go back and beg him to stay home. He looked worried, eyeing me suspiciously as I pulled him in for another hug. I wasn't usually that affectionate, but something about the night was making me feel connected and happy in a way I didn't want to stop.

"What's that smell?" he asked. He wrinkled up his nose and pulled away from me.

I laughed. "It's a new perfume. Levi asked me to smell it before he gives it to Genny." She was going to love it. I'd never admit that I was jealous. I'd had the biggest crush on Levi since sixth grade, but he was the brother of one of my best friends, and for the past two years he'd been in a serious relationship with my other best friend, the third in our super-tight group that had been together since kindergarten. I'd always felt guilty for crushing on him, but I knew he was off-limits.

"What did he do, spray the whole bottle on you?" Luke shook his head and laughed.

"I'll get my purse," I answered, rolling my eyes. I felt almost giddy. I spotted some friends passing by and hugged them all before they moved on to another room.

"Dude, come here for a sec. They can't get the record to play. Can you fucking believe someone still has vinyl? I told them you could do it," our neighbor George enthusiastically told my brother. No one cared that I'd brought Luke to a senior-year party; he was the most popular guy in his own grade and had a bevvy of skills that made him useful. Like figuring out electronics.

"It's cool," I said as I waved to another kid over his shoulder. "I'll just say goodbye to a few people and get my purse from Levi's room. I'll meet you by the sound system when I'm done and we'll take off." I was never this friendly. I wasn't exactly an introvert, but I also didn't go out of my way to connect with everyone around me. It was odd to watch. I tried to remember how many drinks I'd had and could only recall the one Levi had handed me when I walked through the door. There had only been one, so why didn't I feel like myself?

George pulled my brother away and I headed for Levi in the kitchen. He chuckled when I squealed and pulled a girl I hadn't talked to since eighth grade into a tight hug. I wanted to feel closer to her, nostalgic for the friendship we once had, even though it had never really got that far off the ground. Levi's friends—my friends—laughed. "Finally cutting loose, Koralee?" Kegan asked. "I thought for sure you'd graduate straight-edge."

"No," I laughed, "I just really miss some of these people. Have you seen Genny?"

Levi held up the cup he'd just had filled. "She had to leave. Her parents found out it's a party and my parents aren't home."

"That sucks. I left my purse in your room with hers." My cheeks heated when I recognized my desire to be alone with him. The guilt hit me. What kind of friend am I? I'd never made any move on him before—never crossed any line. I wouldn't do that to Genny or to Nola; our friendship was far more important than any attraction or curiosity I felt about Levi.

"You want to go to my room?" Levi asked. From my perspective in the treatment chair, I heard for the first time the smug sound of his tone and it grated at my spine, causing a shudder to run down my flesh. My stomach tossed and my skin heated.

"Please," I answered. I wasn't being me, but I couldn't make it stop. Our friends chuckled and gave each other knowing looks. This was when I began hating myself, this moment when I started a chain of events that caused so much pain for all the people I loved. Selfish Koralee threw away years of friendship along with her reputation in that kitchen, and I could never figure out what for. In my vision the walls warped like blistering paint, and tiny bubbles escaped to the ceiling.

"Sure. We can go to my room." Levi motioned with his chin toward the hall and when I took a step and stumbled, he helped keep me steady with a hand at my back. My brain felt as if the information inside was flickering. The room jolted. It was slow at first, as if the tilt-a-whirl ride was just beginning, but it started speeding as we got closer to Levi's room. I'd been in there a dozen times. He was Nola's twin. The shirt I'd worn to the party that night I bought because he once told me I looked pretty in purple.

The walls around us could easily have been made of liquid. They rippled as we walked, sending small wakes out into the distance like pebbles dropped in a pond. I reached to the doorframe and tried to stop my feet from moving forward, but he pressed me into the room, his hand firmly on my back. My sweaty palms slipped on the smooth paint, but I managed to fold my fingers around the trim. Only his fingers were stronger and his mind clearer.

"Relax," he said into my ear. His warm breath washed over my face. "Let's just sit for a minute until you feel better."

I shook my head. The door clicked shut behind us and the lock slid into place. My heart pounded violently and I grew greedy for air, expanding my lungs in panic as the muscles tightened around my chest and stomach. If I didn't sit down I was going to pass out. The second my legs touched his bed, I knew I'd made a mistake. His bedroom wall, the one that separated his room from Nola's, sloshed like beer in a dropped cup. Had I drunk too much? I'd only had one beer.

Color splashed up the walls and my perspective shifted. I was in his body now, standing at the dresser, glancing in the mirror before looking down at a small container of pills. I could feel the excitement he felt, the way his heart was racing, too, and the way his hand shook as he slid a drawer open and tucked the pill bottle inside. Before turning back to me on his bed, he clicked something on the keyboard of his laptop which was sitting on the dresser. He pulled up a menu and hit record.

No.

I could see myself on his bed. I could see the way my cheeks grew an even deeper shade of red. Now that I was seeing it from Levi's point of view it was very clear. The boy I'd once thought worthy of my attention, the one I'd grown up with, my best friend's brother, had slipped me something.

The room spun again. Tiny bubbles multiplied in the air like a shaken soda, and I was back on the bed in my own body, the bubbles gathering above me to form the dingy white ceiling of his bedroom. I felt warm and limber. I was so confused but unable to move, putty in his hands as he climbed on top of me. I didn't want this—would have never made this choice if I was clearheaded, but that was just it. I wasn't.

"Relax," he told me again, the word hissed through his clenched teeth as he pulled my wrists together above my head and dug his fingernails into my skin. His knees pried apart my own and his free hand ripped at the thin cotton fabric of my underwear.

"No." I protested weakly. My words slurred. I wasn't drunk, but I wasn't myself. 

"You wore purple," he said, as if that was an invitation to violate my trust and my body. He was right; I'd purposely worn the color he'd told me looked good on me. I must have wanted this to happen. What kind of person did that make me?

His hand pushed my knees open further, his fingers pressing into my flesh so hard they would leave marks for weeks. He braced himself on his knees, slid his hand down to the zipper of his pants. In the treatment room, I turned my head, trying to avoid watching him take from me what I knew I'd never be able to get back. The room went dark and I felt myself once again begin to spin.

Flashes of texts sent to me from Luke, some he'd written and some from the friends who had sworn they felt the same way, raced through my mind. A conversation I'd fallen asleep to as he and Koji talked in hushed words just a wall away at night. Words whispered to me as I fought sleep but awoke to find Luke at my bedside.

Round and round the black record turned, the needle riding in its groove as Madonna blasted through modern speakers and the room cheered. I checked my phone for the time and noticed my brother's tattoo—the one my parents still didn't know about—poking out from under his sleeve. I was in his head, now. Anxiousness nipped at his gut like a tiny dog to an ankle and he pushed through the crowd of drunken kids.

He turned his face in all directions, searching the swarming mass of partygoers, checking every dark corner. "Fuck," he cursed, the word shooting from my lips. He managed to make it to the kitchen where I'd been only minutes ago. "Where's Koralee?" he asked my friends, who were still standing around the keg where we'd left them.

Blake lifted a shoulder and smirked. "I think she's busy." His answer earned him a few chuckles and a fist bump.

Deacon was leaning against the refrigerator, listening. He was one of my closer friends, since we were always in the same honors classes each year. "She told Levi she needed to go to his room." He lifted a shoulder as if to say he didn't know why I'd say that, but then he pointed down the hall in the direction Levi had taken me.

I felt Luke's anger. It was consuming as he pushed down that hallway, his fists ready at his sides and his teeth clenched. He reached for the doorknob of Levi's room, but it turned before his hand had even made contact with it. Levi stepped out, his fingers still working the zipper on his jeans. "Hey, man. You looking for Koralee?"

Relief washed over Luke as the door opened wider and he saw me sitting on the edge of the bed. He pushed past Levi and came to my side. "Are you okay?" He reached for my purse, careful not to step in the puddle of vomit near the end of the bed. He looked back to where Levi had been, but he was long gone.

"I want to go home," I told him.

With Luke's hands, I reached for my broken self the way he had that night. The bubbles floated between us, and then the walls drained away.

KORALEE IS A WHORE.

The writing appeared in black permanent marker on the wall near the showers in the boys' locker room at my school. It was the least demeaning of what was written about me. My brother's hand moved quickly, scribbling over each comment with a marker thicker and bolder than the one it had been written in.

"You've been on self-destruct for months, that's all I'm saying. Everyone's noticed," Koji whispered to my brother as the last two boys other than themselves exited to the gym. "What do you want her to do? Everyone saw her initiate them being alone. Let's just say you did convince her to go to the police with what you think happened. All those kids at the party are going to say how she was all over everyone that night, and that they heard her invite him back to his room."

I stared, through Luke's eyes, down at the marker in his hand. I'd had no idea my brother had any clue what happened in that room. The whole school had heard I'd had sex with Levi after coming on to him hard at the party. And maybe it would only have been news for a while on campus if Levi hadn't been in a relationship with my best friend.

"I want her to fight," Luke replied. "I want her to be mad, not afraid. I don't know how he did it, but he fucking did something to make her do that. That's just not my sister. She wouldn't do that to her friend."

Koji pulled on his white gym shirt. He bumped his friend's shoulder. "You want her to get angry at you?" he asked.

Did he want that? What would I be angry with him for?

"Even if she unleashed all the rage in the world on me, I'll never forgive myself for letting her go." His heart was broken and the enormity of his regret was staggering.

Koji patted him on the back and left him alone. He looked up into the mirror, and I was grateful for the opportunity to look into my brother's eyes again, even if it was only on the reflective surface.

The walls began to drip with moisture like condensation on the outside of a cold drink on a hot day. The tip of Luke's marker rose to the mirror as he began to write a message so large it couldn't be ignored:

LEVI MONTIGUE IS A RAPIST.

The bubbles jumped up from the base of the mirror. They moved over the reflection in a highway of tightly packed air pockets that blurred my vision until it looked like I was watching from the inside of a glass of beer. When the foam began to dip and the bubbles danced in a cresting motion, I closed my eyes and rode the wave as the world my memory had pieced back together dissolved in the foam behind me.