Toward the middle of our freshman year, as the ground began to thaw and winter slowly began to give over to spring, something shifted. It started with stories of a serial rapist. Tales began to spread around campus, and depending on who told the story, there was either a masked man exposing himself to young coeds or an even more sinister predator lurking about. A monster was grabbing young women from behind, pulling them into the bushes and doing the unthinkable.
Of course, no one actually knew anyone that this had happened to. Nonetheless, the fear around campus was palpable. Spreading like a virus, life began to change. Soon, male students were asked to accompany female students after dark. Life around campus began to look a little different.
For me, things changed for the better. This is how I actually came to know Eve. I waited for her in the library, which meant I was often the one tasked with walking her back to her dorm. She seemed annoyed by the fact that circumstances required a chaperone. But given that none of her friends hung around long into the night, nor did that pesky boyfriend of hers, she was stuck with me, and I could tell she did her best to hide her annoyance.
To my credit, I didn’t try to talk to her on these walks. I did better. I listened. Sometimes, when it was just the two of us left in the library, and she was ready to pack it up and call it a night, I would make her wait, telling her I needed to get in a few more pages. “What are you concentrating so hard on over here?” she asked once, striding up to the table where I was seated.
Grabbing the paper from my hand, a devious smile spread across her face. I tried to take it back, even as her eyes deftly scanned the page. She was quick. She dodged me and ran, making it halfway across the library before I caught up with her. She wasn’t laughing when I grabbed her wrist and then the paper. “What is this?”
She looked fragile, frightened maybe, at the very least caught off guard. “It’s nothing.”
Her brow knitted. “It’s not nothing.”
“It’s my first novel.”
“Hmmm.”
I reached for it, but she held on. “Give it back.”
“Say please.”
“Please.”
Her eyes flickered with a hint of mischief and something else. Something I couldn’t yet name. “Get on your knees.”
“I’m afraid we don’t know each other well enough for that.”
She waited for me to say more. When I stepped forward, my frame towering over her, she reluctantly handed the paper back. “You’re strange.”
I assumed it wasn’t a compliment, so I said nothing. I turned and walked back to my seat.
“Aren’t you going to ask me what I think?”
“No.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, fine then. I’ll tell you anyway.”
“That much I assumed.”
Perching herself on the edge of the table in front of me, she said, “It needs work.”
I didn’t look up at her. I couldn’t.
“But it’s not bad. It’s actually really good.”
“Good to know.” I stared at the ink blurred on the page. She always did make me feel a little like a leaf in a hurricane.
“You know what else?”
This time I couldn’t help it. My eyes met hers. “You’re different.”
You don’t say. “You have no idea.”
A wry smile spread across her face. “I like how cocky you are without even trying.”
“You don’t know me that well,” I replied, like an invitation.
“You said it’s your first novel. And that, George Dawson, tells me everything I need to know.”
Three nights later, Eve and her boyfriend were studying two tables over from mine. Every once in awhile she’d glance up and look over in my direction. Usually I pretended not to notice. But not then. I watched her like a challenge.
Until her boyfriend looked up, nodded my way, and made a comment that caused their entire table to erupt in laughter.
Not long after, I packed it up.
There were few things I hated more than seeing them together, and I knew the only direction it could go from there was one none of us wanted. For whatever reason—but most likely because if you imagine the worst specimen of a man possible, he would be it—he left her there in the library alone.
Eve set out, heading west toward her dorm at 12:18 a.m. By 12:23 a.m. she was attacked from behind. Her attacker drug her twelve feet until he reached a dumpster. He threw her to the ground, pinned her down, and held a knife to her throat.
She fought like hell. Meanwhile, he had trouble with the buttons on her jeans and, frustrated, he stabbed her three times. Twice in the abdomen. Eve would have bled out had she not army-crawled twenty-two feet to the courtyard before passing out. By the time she was discovered at 2:27 a.m. she’d lost three-fourths of the blood in her body.
I wasn’t sure if I should go and see her in the hospital. I only knew that I couldn’t not go. When I arrived, her round face was the only thing visible through the sliver of glass on her door. She looked pale and tired. Like the light had gone out in her eyes. Nothing like the girl who had challenged me, holding part of my novel behind her back just a few nights before. Her parents were with her, and I could see her father pacing the floor. The boyfriend was there too.
My feet suddenly felt cemented to the floor. I could kill him for not staying. For putting her through this. For nearly getting her killed. I decided not to go in. I was only going to stay for a moment, there outside her door, just long enough to see that she was really okay. But then a nurse opened the door, and there I was, looking like a fool with my nose practically pressed to the glass.
Eve’s eyes met mine, and she smiled faintly. I couldn’t speak. I just stood there with a bouquet of flowers in my hand, the most expensive I could find even though I couldn’t afford them. Back then, I had no idea flowers could even cost that much. But I didn’t care. I’ve never been good with words where she is concerned. It was easier to say what I felt without them.
“You didn’t have to come.”
The air in the room shifted before it felt as though it had been sucked out altogether.
The nurse smiled, scooted out the door, and seemed to take any remaining oxygen with her. Eve’s father looked worried as he sized me up. He looked as though every plan he’d ever had for his daughter had just flown out the window. Her mother said, “Who’s this?”
“George,” Eve said. She glanced over at her father. “He’s my study buddy.”
“The one who usually walks her home,” the boyfriend said.
I balled my fists and dug my nails into my palms. I rehearsed the breathing techniques I’d read about. I counted to ten once, and then back down again. Anything to avoid punching him in the face.
I laid the flowers at Eve’s side and then shuffled backward toward the door. No one said anything after that. Not until her mother suggested that she and Eve’s father make a coffee run. Then it was just the three of us —and my rage—in the room.
“I’m sorry this happened,” I said to Eve.
“At least they caught the bastard,” the boyfriend mumbled.
“I can’t have children,” Eve said, looking from me to Chase or Chance or whatever his name was.