Chapter Thirty-Three

As soon as I could, I pushed myself out of the treatment chair. Marco was reaching for me already. His eyes were red and wet from the tears he had shed and I only realized then that my own face was moist with tears, too. We met somewhere in the middle and he had his arms wrapped around me before I could even think about it. I held him, too, needing to comfort him and feel his heartbeat against mine as much as I needed him to hold me.

He'd watched his father die. No one should have to see that. "I'm sorry," I told him as I held on tightly. "I'm so sorry."

"Me, too," he answered. "I'm sorry no one stopped him that night."

It was the first time anyone had said that to me. I knew logically that it was because no one had known what had happened, not even me, but it still felt like a long-awaited salve for a wound that had been festering. It wasn't my fault. I rested my forehead on his shoulder and let myself feel safe in his arms.

When we finally separated, I saw that our friends were all on their feet. Each of them came to us and gave us a hug. When Aideen's arms wrapped around me she whispered, "That fucking bastard." It was such a change to have Levi be the villain of the story. For months I'd had horrible things whispered about me and even worse written on my locker or typed anonymously on my social media. Now the truth had been seen and in my head the doubts I had about that night were erased.

"Let's get the contacts out so we can sit down and talk about your experiences." Dr. Crimm handed Marco and I our cases and we easily removed the small lenses from our eyes. When we handed them back to her she began shutting down the secret area, turning off the large screen.

"How are you feeling?" Dr. Crimm asked me when we were all sitting in the circle again.

"Tired," I told her honestly.

"It's exhausting. The medication can also make you a little sleepy, but that will wear off," she informed me. "Marco, did your vision give you any answers?"

Marco readjusted his position in his chair. He crossed his arms over his chest and bit his bottom lip. I could imagine the piercing there now, even though there was no trace of it anymore. "I spent my whole life thinking I wasn't good enough for my dad. I tried everything. I played every sport, thinking there had to be one that would make him proud. Maybe if I could be the best at it, he'd notice. He was so hard on me. I remember telling my mom when I was thirteen that he just didn't like me."

"It was hard to watch," I couldn't help but say.

"It was hard to live," he answered. "I had no idea he remembered those moments in the end. I thought his last minutes would have been filled with him worrying I'd fuck something up. I was sure he was lying there dying, thinking his family was in the hands of this inept teenager that was never good enough at anything and would surely fuck this up, too." Marco lost his composure. The tough guy we'd come to know crumbled like a broken little boy. I pressed my hand to his back for support.

A few others in the group reached for tissues. Maybe in the beginning we'd cried because something hit close to our own wounds, but now we were crying for each other. Marco was hurting and that made us hurt. Our worlds didn't have the luxury of being contained anymore, we were all bleeding into each other. It was exactly what we hadn't wanted, because that was dangerous. If you saw outside your own problems and feelings, you could see that there might be more than what you were experiencing. That opened the door to the possibility that others suffered and recovered and you could, too.

"A few months after my dad died, that Marine with the baby came to see me." Marco could hardly get the words out. "I didn't know," he said with regret. "He knocked on our door and I thought he was crazy. He was a grown man holding a baby and when he saw me he just started crying. He couldn't stop. I remember my dad telling me that not all Marines come back the way they left and I just thought this guy was one of them. He told me my dad loved me and started rambling on about that day, but I couldn't focus on anything but that baby in his arms. Then he turned around and left." Marco sat up and my hand slid from his back. He reached for it and when he held my hand in his I didn't pull it away.

"I know deep down you wanted him to come home to you," Aideen said tentatively, "but he valued being your father so much he didn't want to deprive another father from ever getting to meet his son. I don't know a better way for him to show you how much he loved you."

"I think he was brave," Shima added. "He made a choice about the path of his life. He could have been selfish and risked the lives of two fathers—maybe even more, or he could sacrifice his to save one." Shima patted Marco's back. "I'd find peace in that choice. We all made that same choice about ending our own lives. We all decided we wanted to choose when we left this world, when our story was over and the ending had arrived. He might not have wanted to die, the way we did, but when faced with death he made the most honorable choice. I hope you can find peace in that."

Marco gave my hand a gentle squeeze. Ken spoke up next. "He was proud of you. You have to remember that above everything else. I know what it's like to have the negative self-talk in your head be spoken in your father's voice. It's powerful, but you'll have to remember that what he said to you was out of fear and what really mattered was how he remembered you."

Marco nodded. "Okay." The room grew quiet as we just sat and held space with his grief.

Dr. Crimm broke the silence. "Koralee, what was your experience like?"

"What even happened?" I asked her. "I don't understand it all."

Dr. Crimm took a second to think. "Levi gave you Rohypnol. I don't know how he got hold of it . . ."

"He's friends with some shady people. What did it do to me?" My throat constricted. In my head I knew the answer: It had made it impossible to fight back. It clouded my head.

"He gave you the 'date rape' drug. It impairs the victim, making them immobile or easier to force into situations, or they make the victim forget about what they were doing and what they'd done. It was rape, Koralee. If he took away your ability to think clearly without your consent, he violated you." Dr. Crimm paused for a moment. "You are a rape survivor. Don't let him continue to make you a victim."

"Asshole," Ken spat. "Fucking rapist asshole."

"Did your brother ever ask you about it?" Dr. Crimm asked. "Did you ever talk to him about what happened that night?"

"No. I told him to take me home. He didn't know what to do, I think. When I stood up from the bed he saw the underwear Levi had ripped off of me, I thought he was going to kill someone. He grabbed me by my shoulders and screamed, 'What did he do to you?' But I couldn't talk. I couldn't bring myself to say the words. I doubted myself. As my brain cleared I knew I wouldn't have wanted that, but I hadn't said no enough. I told myself I was a horrible person. When my brother asked me again, 'What did he do?' I begged him to please just shut up and take me home."

"The bastard recorded it," Marco said solemnly.

I recalled that moment when I'd been inside Levi's head. The thought made me sick. I moved out of my chair so fast it tipped over, and I ran for the trash can at the corner of the treatment room. I was too dizzy and weak to stand up so I dropped to my knees and held on tightly to the rim of the stainless-steel can.

Dr. Crimm moved to the intercom and requested a cold rag. Within minutes Lorelei arrived with one and the doctor pressed it to the back of my neck. She moved to sit on the floor beside me. "He committed more than one crime. All of them were against you. You have the choice of whether or not you want to hold him accountable for any of them."

"No one would believe me." I said. It had only taken six days for the rumors about that night to spread and for the entire student body to see me as a whore who seduced my friend's boyfriend. Never as a victim.

"We believe you," Dr. Crimm assured me. 

"There's proof he did it," Damien said. "You won't even have to defend your side. That rapist was such a fucking narcissist he recorded his crime."

"It's been six months. I'm sure he's erased it. And even if he hasn't, he's not just going to turn it over. What would I even tell the police? I can't tell them I saw it all in a hallucination." I moved the cold rag from my neck and used it to wipe my face.

"We've been down that road before," Dr. Crimm said. "The medication is too new to be used as evidence to prove what you're seeing is real. For now, the hallucinations are considered drug-induced memories and are thought to be as unreliable as hypnosis when brought to court. People are trying to change that, but it hasn't happened yet. It will take a powerful person accepting the data as real to change the way it's seen by the courts."

For a few minutes we sat quietly in the room. I understood even better why Dr. Crimm was taking a stand against treating Braden Ertz. If her work was not considered valid in the eyes of the court for the teens she'd wanted to help in the past, then why should she allow the courts in now that they want to use it for themselves?

I wasn't even sure I'd be brave enough to go to the police with my story. I'd want the evidence to show them what Levi had done. I didn't want to have to defend my every move. I wanted his actions to speak for themselves. I wanted everyone to see that it had nothing to do with my behavior or what I'd said. It was his issues that led to my rape, not mine. When would we stop blaming the victims? Until I knew that answer, I didn't want to risk my already damaged sense of self to drag this to court and maybe see him walk free.

"Nothing is ever really erased." Damien said, leaning forward in his chair. "You'd just have to know the right person."

Dr. Crimm gently touched my arm. "You have the information you need. What you choose to do with it is up to you. We're here to help you with whatever you want to do, even if that is simply to move on and put it behind you."

She helped me to stand up and get back to my chair. My head was still spinning, but it wasn't just from the nausea. Now my thoughts were bumping around in there, too. I was growing surer of myself as I remembered the details of that night. Things that had been blacked out in my memory were finally lit up and I had the answers I'd been longing for, the ones that nearly took my life.

Dr. Crimm looked around at the group. "We have two more days together. Pack up your bags and meet me in front of the nurses' station in twenty minutes. I have a few more things I want you to experience before I release you back out into the world." She smiled at us and I felt nervous again, but this time it wasn't because I was going to be around people, it was because soon I'd have to leave the people I'd grown to call my friends. 

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