Page 276 of Tis the Season to be Bullied

“Did you rape Jessica?”

The world undulates around me as I wait for him to answer. My body responds, pulsing and throbbing as if I’m connected on some cosmic level.

Holy shit, that weed was strong.

No, it’s not that. It can’t be.

It’s Briar.

It’s this unfathomable connection we have.

I don’t understand it one bit—and I don’t consider myself a stupid person—but somehow, we’re the same.

I should have asked him if he killed her. That’s the greater sin here, right? But it doesn’t seem important right now. I can’t explain it any more than I can explain the fact that I’m still here, allowing him to touch me, allowing him to be part of my world when I should be miles away.

“I…” Briar’s throat moves. He looks away, but I grab his jaw and force him to look at me. My heart pounds, and I feel his jaw bunch under my fingertips, but I don’t release my grip.

And he doesn’t pull away, although it would be the easiest thing in the fucking world for him.

“Did. You. Rape. Her?”

His eyelids droop. His shoulders sag. A soft sigh washes over my face as he briefly squeezes closed his eyes before flaring them wide open.

“I don’t know, Indi.” When he looks up, his eyes are the softest I’ve ever seen him. Inside those blue irises, a maelstrom of confusion and frustration swirls.

“I can’t remember a fucking thing.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Briar

We drive back to school in silence while my heart pounds along to some sullen beat. I don’t know what happened back there, and I don’t like it one bit.

It felt like someone—something—else was steering me. Even when Indi pushed me away, the urge to claw her back, tear off her clothes, and claim her was so strong I almost couldn’t fight it.

But I did.

It took more than I thought I ever had in me, but Ifoughtit.

And then I told her the truth.

Something I never thought could feel that good. But it should, right? Why the fuck haven’t I been doing it since day one?

Did you have sexual intercourse with Jessica Hamilton?

I don’t know, officer. I don’t fucking know.

But it’s not the truth, is it? It’s a thinly veiled attempt at a lie.

I know what I saw that morning when I woke up beside Jess. There’s no denying that I took her virginity. And if she didn’t consent then it’s rape.

But is it still a crime if I don’t remember doing anything? What if I slipped into some kind of a fugue state or something? Veroza would back me up on this—that shit’s real. When your brain chemistry gets unbalanced enough, shit goes down. Shit you wouldn’t remember, even under hypnosis.

But it doesn’t add up. I wasn’t mentally unbalanced. I was happy as fuck.

Fuck it, I was in love with Jessica. I used to wake feeling like the sun had risen solely to bake me in its beatific rays.

So why would I have fucked out like that? Could it have been the drugs? I’d only done coke once before, and I was on my sixth line when Marcus and I took Jess upstairs to go lie down.

---