Page 47 of Saving the Halfback

“Yeah.” Lachlan had gotten teased for it, even though we backed him up and told everyone he wasn’t. The amount of fights the guys and I would get into, trying to protect him, wasn’t right. Why people were obsessed with telling him he was gay was beyond me. So what if he was? It wasn’t a taboo thing. But why couldn’t they respect him when he said he wasn’t?

“Yeah, well, my brother told his university friend how he had planned to save me from myself someday. He brought her home for March break.” Lachlan didn’t look away from me; everythinghe said, it was like he was waiting for some sort of reaction from me. “At the beginning of the break, it started out as touching and caressing. It was her laughing at everything I said and ruffling my hair. She was beautiful, and I did like her. I thought she was dating my brother.

“We went to the lake house, and while everyone was busy inside, I was outside, swimming. That’s when she kissed me. I remember pushing her away and telling her I wasn’t interested. That night, though, she woke me up, touching me.” Lachlan shivered. “She told me she was going to fuck the gay out of me.

“I can still feel her on top of me, her mouth going around—” He cleared his throat while he looked away from me, staring at the center console. “I was so powerless, and what was worse, my body betrayed me. It responded to her. I knew I didn’t want her. I knew I didn’t like what she was doing. But it felt good.

“Up until that point, I was starting to think maybe I was gay. So many people told me I was, so many people would say they could see it, but then here I was, getting hard for this chick, and what the fuck, you know?” He looked up at me, his eyes shining with so much pain.

“I’ve never felt so powerless in my life, so messed up. And I just let her do it. When the trip was done, she and my brother went back to college. Talking about it now is easier. I had therapy through my incarceration. I see now it was her that was messed up, but in the days that followed that March break, all I could think was how messed up I was. How I was the problem.”

“You were a kid,” I whispered.

“I felt dirty.” He flopped back against the seat. “Fuck, sometimes I can still feel her on me in my sleep. I used to vomit every time I thought about it. It was…a difficult time. I was mad because I was a guy, right? I should’ve enjoyed it. I should’ve been boasting to my friends about how a university chick…did those things. But every time I thought about it, I would vomitor be thrown into a panic attack. I tried so hard to not think about it. Trauma denial…that’s what the therapist said.” His eyes met mine again. “It’s this process your brain will do to minimize what happened. Even if you deny it, your body is still struggling to cope. Whether you admit it or not, your mind still knows the truth.

“At some point, before summer break, I learned she was coming back with my brother. She called me and told me she was looking forward to seeing me again. That was the switch. Anger. You know? Like, how dare she? But also fear. Will she try it again? I swear, anger and fear together are a deadly combination.

“I don’t remember too much about that night—the first night she was there—other than I couldn’t sleep. I stared at my bedroom door for the longest time, afraid. Until it opened, and then the anger came. I jumped out of bed, and I want to say I was trying to defend myself. That’s what I told the judge. That’s what I was instructed to tell the judge. But so much of the pain I had been holding in just exploded out. I was out of control.

“By the time my brother woke up and my parents came out, so much damage had been done. My dad hauled me off her, and an ambulance was called. I remember my dad shaking me and asking over and over again,Why?Why did I do this? And I… there just…” Lachlan’s breathing was rapid, coming out in short spurts until he took one long, steady exhale. “There was nothing left in me. I didn’t talk for weeks. That night, police took me into custody. I didn’t kill her, but she was in the hospital for a long time, and her parents pressed charges against me. She also claimed I tried to rape her.”

“Holy shit,” I breathed out. “All this time…all this time, we had no idea. You were there one day, and the next, just gone.”

Lachlan nodded. “When the police released me on bail and I was waiting for my court hearing, my mom talked to me, and Ibroke down. Told her everything. That’s when we got the lawyer, and we thought I might get off with a minimal sentence. I was walking back from the store with Ethan when they picked me up, though. The judge had decided I was a menace to society and demanded I be brought in right away. During the hearing, when I pleaded my case and explained what she had done to me, the judge said it wasn’t an excuse. Which I understood, but then he said that most boys don’t react that way when a beautiful young girl shows interest in them. She was twenty, I was thirteen, about to turn fourteen, but still.”

My mind reeled with what he had gone through. Something so big in his life, destroying our best friend, and yet… “How did we not know?”

“I didn’t want you to,” he whispered. He reached his hand out, placing it on my arm. “I didn’t want you to be grossed out by me.”

“Grossed out? Seriously?”

“I, a guy, harmed a girl. At the time, I kept calling myself a monster. I changed and became someone I hadn’t meant to.”

I held out my hand for him, and he gave a little smirk before taking it in his. “It took me a long time, a lot of therapy, to realize what happened wasn’t my fault. I take full responsibility for hurting her—I did my time for it, and I never recovered who I was—but what she did to me is on her.”

“I wish we had known. I would’ve gone after her.”

He gave my hand a slight squeeze and nodded. “I wasn’t planning on telling any of you, and not because I don’t trust you or anything. I’m just ready to let it go and move on. But I have a few triggers, things that set me off. I used to get panic attacks multiple times a day, and today, in the parking lot, I saw it in you.” I opened my mouth to argue that I was fine, but he held up his hand, stopping me. “I’m not going to ask. If you want to tell me, I’m here, but I’m not going to drill you on it. I get it, I’mstarting to see now that, when our group fell apart, we all went through our own trauma. I just…need to know your boundaries.

“I can’t stand to be touched, held, fuck, anything where my skin touches another person’s because it makes everything inside me crawl until I get sick.” I looked down at where our hands were joined, and he chuckled. “I’ve been slowly testing it out with you. It’s different. But I don’t know where your lines are. When I saw you fall to the ground, I wanted to grab you, but what if it made things worse? My parents tried to help, but they always, unintentionally, made things worse.”

I kept my eyes down as I spoke. “You’ve had girlfriends.”

“No. I’ve hooked up. I’ve never had a girlfriend. With the hookups, I have concise rules, and still, they never listen. They just take what they want. You seem to get it, though.”

Lachlan shifted in his seat, leaning close to me. “Tell me, Bailey, what are your boundaries? Tell me so that I don’t cross them. Tell me so I can protect you from anyone who thinks they don’t matter.”

18

Bailey

Ipulled my hand away and looked out the front windshield, slowly shaking my head. “I…don’t know what my boundaries are.” I frowned.

“Does it bother you when I touch you?”

“No. I was never…raped. I, he—” I hated thinking about Ed. “He was my boyfriend. It was consensual.” My stomach rolled. I didn’t want to talk about it, but I needed to give Lachlan something. He’d told me so much.

Lachlan nodded, and his shoulders relaxed slightly. “What did Chase say or do that caused you to react the way you did?”

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