Page 66 of Give My Everything
Wyatt’s face breaks out into a shit-eating grin like I’ve never seen before.
“Seriously?That’swhy you called me? Because you wantmyadvice?”
My expression flattens into a hard line as I wait for him to finish gloating.
“Alright, alright,” he says, waving his hand around and then leaning to the side, his face resting in his palm as he settles in. “Hit me with it.”
So I launch in. I go through the entire evening on Sunday, from picking her up to our conversation in the car, how great things were going at the promenade market, then as we settled into the movie…and ending with…
“Fuck, man. That is…” Wyatt pauses, like his words are getting stuck in his throat. “I can’tbelieveassholes give out awards like that. And I didn’t know it happened to Remmy.” He stops and his head tilts to the side as he considers something. “How didyouknow about it?”
I roll my eyes. “I saw a post on Facebook when it happened. It was complete chance, actually. Mark Jessup’s younger sister was Remmy’s roommate.”
“Josslyn Jessup and Rem were roomies?” Wyatt asks, wrinkling his nose. “How’d that work out?”
I shrug. “I wasn’t friendswith Josslyn, but I think she had a crush on me at one point and friended me or something. Honestly I don’t even remember adding her. Anyway, she posted about what happened and it popped up. Seriously, though, this was years ago. I don’t even remember why I saw it.”
“Think the info is still online somewhere?” he asks, drawing his phone out of his pocket. “Because now I’m curious what happened.”
I take a sip of my drink and watch Wyatt as he fucks around looking at who knows what. I’m not personally a fan of technology that isn’t directly related to managing my business.
I hire people to deal with things like social media and marketing, and if I want to know something, I just hire someone and getthemto spend the time collecting the information. I don’t waste my time trying to dig around and find it myself.
“Alright, here we go,” he says, surprising me with how quickly he was able to find what he was looking for. “It probably popped up because Josslyn shared a link to the university’s newspaper.”
My eyebrows rise. “It was in the newspaper?”
He nods, his thumb tapping around on his phone. “I think this is it. It’s short. Looks like it’s on their community safety page.”
The confusion I feel grows. “Are you sure you’re looking at the right thing?”
Wyatt holds his hand up then starts reading.
“Campus security reports indicate that a female student called and asked for an escort to provide safety as she packed her belongings during winter finals. The student, a freshman at Caldin Hall, indicated she had been the target of harassment and threats from fellow residents and her Resident Advisor, and that she was withdrawing from the university and moving out of the hall but was hoping for assistance. Two campus security officers were a visible presence in Caldin Hall as the student removed her belongings and loaded them into her vehicle. All names have been removed to protect personal privacy.”
“How do you know that has anything to do with Remmy?”
“What I found was in the comments section,” he continues.
“Well it’s about time the trash got the fuck out of Caldin. Maybe don’t fuck your RA’s boyfriend and half the guys in the building if you don’t want people to call you a whore. The Bicycle Award was well deserved for a trashy-ass slut like Remmy Wallace.”
My mouth drops open.
“There are more comments, a few people calling that first poster an asshole and then people saying you should be able to have sex with whoever you want without fearing for your physical safety on campus.” He shrugs and keeps scrolling. “This shit’s crazy. I can’t believe this happened and we didn’t know about it.”
Wyatt’s attention stays on his phone as he continues to dive into what happened, but I’m still so surprised by all of this that I can’t seem to form a fully functional thought.
Remmy was so uncomfortable about things after that happened that she moved off campus. No wonder her face went ghost-white when I referenced it. It’s probably something she’s been trying to move past, and I brought it up as a joke.
There’s a voice inside of me that’s refusing to be quiet, that’s saying I have to right this. I have to tell her I’m sorry in a way that convinces her, that absolves her of any fear or embarrassment that comes her way when she thinks about what happened.
I rub my hand against my beard, scratching it slightly.
“So what do I do now?”
Wyatt’s eyes connect with mine. “Huh?”
I shake my head. “What do I do? I mean, I barely know her. You know her much better than I do. You’re the one who knows what a relationship looks like. And if you and Hannah were able to come back from your shit…just…I need some help on this.”
