After a while, his hands hit the top of his thighs. “I should read you a book or something.” He stood up, examining my shelves for a few minutes, and then returned to the bench, opening the book to the first page. He read out loud to me:
You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth…
Rob read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn all morning and well into the afternoon, only pausing to prepare me a plate of food, which I did not feel like eating, or to go to the bathroom, which he did with more frequency than me. And by the time his mother phoned him, soliciting his help with moving some furniture around the living room, he had finished the entire book.
“That’s still one of my favorites,” he said, sliding it back on the shelf, where it had remained since he gave it to me for my sixteenth birthday. “So, did you like it?”
“Yeah, it was okay.”
“Of course, you should have read it in English this year. Do you feel like you missed out by taking AP this year rather than next year?”
“No.”
He slipped into his brown flip-flops and paused by the side of my bed. “Which English class are you going to take next year?” Really, it was a simple question, but I was tired of answering them. He kept asking them all day long—Are you hungry? Do you need to go to the bathroom? Are you cold? Are you hot?
I looked up at him. “Stop asking me a million questions!”
“Sorry.” His voice was strained, and his swallows were audible.
“It’s okay.”
He stood by me, and we both didn’t know what to say to each other. “So, I’ll see you later,” he said finally.
“Yeah…later,” I mumbled. Then the words just came out of nowhere. I had no intention of using them, and when I said them, they felt foreign on my lips. “I love you.”
He waited a moment. “I love you too.” But it was the worst “I love you” in the whole world because it was completely conditional. It was what he had to say, and as I climbed under the covers again, burying my face into my pillow, I wondered if he would ever truly love me again.
-28-
The Aftermath
The following morning, Rob appeared in my door way. I was at my desk, trying to get lost on the Internet, but no matter where I went, my mind remained on Saturday night.
“Hey,” he said like he had been waiting for me to speak first.
I lifted my eyes from the screen and acknowledged him.
“Listen,” he said, entering my room slowly. “You need to tell someone about what happened to you.”
“I did.”
“Besides me.” He rested a hand on the edge of my desk. “Because I’m not really sure what to say to you, and I don’t know how to help you get through this.” He handed me a folded piece of paper. “This is the number for a support group, which meets at the hospital. I’ve heard my dad talk about it.” I took the slip of paper and tucked it under my laptop. “But first, you’ll have to tell your parents, and then you should report it to the police…” He went on, rambling off a post-rape to-do list while I stared blankly at my computer screen. I wanted him to stop talking about it. I wanted things to be normal again, but he just continued with more questions. “When does your mom get home?” I shrugged even though we both knew she would arrive home shortly after five o’ clock, the same time as always. “And what about your dad? When does he get back?”
“I don’t know.” I paused. “Can we talk about something else?”
“Like what?”
“Anything.”
“You can’t pretend this didn’t happen. You have to—”
I lifted my eyes from the screen and stared at him, fighting the temptation to yell. “Listen, I don’t have to do anything.”
“You’re right. It’s probably too late anyway. You should have gone to the police right away.”
“Is that all you care about? Getting revenge?”
“No! I care about you!” he contradicted quickly. He walked around my room and mumbled, “But revenge would have been nice.”
“You’re not helping, Rob.”
“What? Am I not allowed to have feelings?”
“No, you’re allowed to have them, just not entitled to express them.” I soon repented my words, but rather than retract them, I just stared at the screen.
He said nothing at first and then decided, “Maybe I should go get some coffee.” He started toward the door. “You want anything?”
I shook my head and tapped on my keyboard, continuing with my ruse of busyness.