Close: A New Adult Thriller by M.H. Young Read Free Book Online

tissue from my purse. I felt broken, like someone had come along and scooped out my insides.

 
    Twelve
     
    Kish sat me down on her bed. She offered me a beer that she’d stolen from someone’s ‘not as secret as they thought it was’ stash in the kitchen at the end of the hall. I waved it away. The last thing I wanted was alcohol. She disappeared to go make me some tea and give me a chance to calm down enough that I could actually form a sentence.
    She came back a few minutes with a mug of camomile tea, the steam rising from the surface. I took a sip but it was too hot to drink. Kish sat next to me and rubbed my back.
    “Laura, what is it? What’s happened? Is it John? Have you guys had a fight?”
    She had no idea. That much was clear. This was the most serious I’d ever seen Kishani in all the time I’d known her. I was freaking her out.
    Telling her was going to have to be like ripping off a band aid. There was no use doing it slowly. That would only prolong the agony, and make the whole thing harder. I had to rip it off; get it over and done with.
    “He raped me.”
    Through my tears, I saw the shock on her face. Her mouth open and closed without her being able to form words. Finally, she said, “John?”
    I shook my head. “The guy we met. Bentley.”
    Thankfully, she didn’t say anything stupid like “Are you sure?”. She just let me speak. No matter what problems we had afterwards, I’ll always be grateful to her for that. At that moment, when I needed her the most, she was there for me. She did all the things a real friend does when something terrible has happened. She listened. She believed. She didn’t judge. I would have lots of people later who wouldn’t do any of those, some because they didn’t want to face the truth, and others. Like attorneys, because they were being paid lots of money to tear me down, and make me look like a liar.
    I told her what had happened, or at least what I had been able to piece together. By the time I finished, we were both crying. Kishani was saying “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Laura.”
    “It’s not your fault,” I told her through my tears.
    “Have you told anyone?” she asked me.
    I told her about the day I’d had. About the flashbacks and going to the police, then the Crisis Centre. I mentioned getting a ride home from a Detective, but I didn’t say much more about him. I was still confused about my feelings. Part of me thought that maybe it was perfectly normal for someone to start to have a crush on a Detective who was going to help you through something so traumatic. After all, people had crushes on Doctors and nurses, and college professors all the time. Another part of me was focussed on how gorgeous and strong he was, and how safe he made me feel.
    So why couldn’t I confide in Kishani about meeting Drew and the connection I felt between us? I already knew the answer. It was because rape isn’t a crime like other crimes. If I’d had my purse stolen, or been mugged, even beaten up pretty badly, no-one would think anything about it. But because rape involved sex, and we had all sorts of taboos and hang-ups about sex, it seemed weird. Even though Becky had told me more than once that rape was not about sex, it was about power, that wasn’t true for me. It might have been about power in Bentley’s sick, twisted mind, but for me it was the most intimate, personal, and painful way of destroying someone’s trust.
    It was all mixed up together somehow. Bentley and what he’d done. Drew and how he’d made me feel. I couldn’t shake the sense that I was expected not to feel anything towards anyone for a while, and especially not so soon.
    It was messed up. I was already punishing myself for something that wasn’t my fault.
    Once I was all cried out, Kish walked with me down the hall to my room. She offered to stay the night with me, but for the first time since it had happened, I wanted to be alone.
    I peed, brushed my teeth, got into the