She jerks herself from her inner thoughts. “Fine. Just fine. Are you sure you’re okay?”
After the dinner we had, I know I have my friends at my back. “I’m going to be fine.” I wrap my arms around her tightly. Carys’s body bucks a bit when I whisper, “Thank you.”
During dinner, we reminisced about some of the more intriguing places we’ve been directed to by Carys to check out the artists we eventually took on as clients. “What about the time I sent you to the bowling alley near your grandparents’ house! Oh, God. Do you remember me asking you to do that when I was out on maternity leave?” Carys couldn’t catch her breath, she was laughing so hard.
Becks calmly reached over and smacked her between the shoulders since David was feeding Ben. I grinned before answering, “Yes. Now aren’t you glad you asked me to go?”
“They’re my best clients! No drama.” Carys shot a pointed glance at Becks.
“Well, you never know about those guys. They might surprise you,” Becks drawled.
Everyone laughed.
Carys and David were also adamant about stating they didn’t care if they had to shove through reporters each day to get to the office. “Hell, most of our clients will take this as a challenge to get their name in the paper by showing up at the office. Don’t you dare take it as one. You’re already in it too much as it is.” Carys stabbed her fork in Becks’s direction.
“You’re no fun,” Becks complained.
She threw a dinner roll at him that bounced off his head.
“How did you two ever manage to date one another?” I wondered aloud.
Carys and David began to laugh like hyenas. Becks rolled his eyes before admitting, “I guess it’s okay to let Angie in the know. We never dated. I was Carrie’s escort—no more.”
“Her escort?” I parrot.
“Yes. That one”—he pointed at David—“wouldn’t get his head out of his ass. Carys concocted a scheme to get him to notice her.”
“It worked,” David growled.
Carys smiled serenely before lifting her wine to her lips. Her eyes collided with mine before bouncing away. “It’s too bad Ward couldn’t join us for dinner.”
I snorted. “Why? So everyone could have indigestion?”
“Don’t like my brother?” Carys sounded amused instead of insulted.
“More the other way around. He barely tolerates me. So little, in fact, he can’t speak to me in the office. I swear, if they offered grunting as a course online, I’d take it so I could translate him.”
Both David and Becks began to choke. Carys rolled her lips inward and pressed them together tightly. My eyes narrowed. “Why do I feel like I’m missing some kind of in-joke?”
“You’re not. They’re only laughing because it’s a language they speak fluently. It’s called jackass.”
A rush of laughter burst out of me. Carys reached over and squeezed my hand.
Now, feeling her shudder in my arms, I can’t help but worry. “Was that about…me?” Could a reporter have got a hold of her cell number? Or worse yet—I shiver—someone from XMedia?
Carys delicately wipes beneath her eyes. “It’s nothing for you to worry about. It’s just something I have to fix.”
“If there’s anything I can do to help, please let me know.”
“And the same goes for you, Angie. You’re not eighteen anymore, trying to prove someone’s guilt. You have a bevy of legal power at your back. We’re here if you need us.”
“The call just came from the doorman, ladies. Angie’s car is here,” David interrupts us.
I shrug into the coat Becks holds out. The three of them walk me to the door. Just as I’m about to leave, I pause. “Thank you. I couldn’t have anticipated this when I woke up today.” I try to get my thoughts in order. “It’s an honor to call you my friends as well as my colleagues.”
Then I race out of the condo before they notice the tears falling down my face.
On the ride back to Brewster, I’m almost lulled to sleep by the hypnotic lights, a full stomach, and warm feelings. That is until my female driver comments to herself in disgust, “God, women like the one who accused that man of rape and lied should be shot. She doesn’t realize how hard she made it for the rest of us to come forward.”
Yes, I do. I know exactly how hard it is.
Except it wasn’t rape. If it was, maybe they would have believed me.
I whisper a quiet “Thank you” when I exit the vehicle before I dash into the sanctuary of my home.
Stripping off my clothes, I race for the shower and begin scrubbing every inch of my body. My skin turns bright pink, and still I scrub harder. I feel like there’s slime crawling all over my skin. “And Sula wonders why I don’t have dreams?” I blubber. I don’t dare. It’s a level of vulnerability that lays your soul wide open for someone to heartlessly destroy it. I close my eyes against the spray of water as I duck my head beneath.
“Ms. Fahey, we’d recommend counseling. There’s very obviously a problem,” the head of the Student Conduct Board called out in a clear, controlled voice.
“Angie-love, you can stay here as long as you need to. One day, you’ll move past this,” my grandmother reassured me.
“Come here, pumpkin,” the gruff voice of my grandfather echoes in my brain as I remember the times when I stood with wet hair in the door of his library. He hugged me and ran a hand through my hair until the sopping, ropey length began to dry.
The invisible chains of the past try to snap around me, to drown the progress I’ve made in the last ten years as I step from the shower. Determinedly, I recall one of the sessions with my psychologist where he said to me, “You know the truth. You live with the truth, and you have to live your life assuming everyone else believes you as well.”
“Do you believe me?” I anxiously awaited the answer.
He hesitated. And in that moment, I was back in that small room. I lived and died a thousand times, until he finally said, “This isn’t a place to be judged. I will say, I hope I manage to raise my daughter to be as honorable as you one day.”
As the tears began to spill, he handed me a box of tissues. “We’ve spoken of the support of your grandparents. What about your parents?”
After I blew my nose, I asked, “What about them?”
“Have they been supportive?”
“Certainly.”
“That’s…”
“Of Michael.”
“Excuse me?” The hand he used to take notes, which normally was smoothly elegant, scratched like a needle across a record.
“They went to the media and sold them information about me. I haven’t spoken with them in five years now.” Even as I slip into my pajamas and a sweatshirt Sula sent me from Ireland, I’m still awed by how calm I was when I admitted that.
Finally, the cold in the room begins to penetrate through me. I quickly wring out my hair and braid it so I don’t have to worry about doing much more than brushing it before I race out the door in the morning.
The next morning at the office is unusually somber. At first, I begin to wonder if it’s something about me until Carys informs me, “Ward will be out all day, Angie. He’s ill. Can you address any scheduled appointments he has? Work the urgent ones in with me if you have to.”