Page 31 of Trusting Trey
“Hey, I couldn’t find you in there,” Trey said, squatting next to me and wiping my face. “Are you okay?”
“I think I want to go home,” I said, my chin trembling. “I’m having a hard day. I know you’re having a worse day and maybe I’m being inconsiderate, but it’s just how I feel.”
He tucked a piece of hair back into my hat and frowned. “Last I checked we weren’t having a contest to see who could have a worse day. I don’t think telling me how you’re feeling is inconsiderate, though I would like to talk about it with you. I’m not sure we want to stay out here in the cold since you don’t have a coat. How about we go get a cup of coffee?”
I threw my hand up at the suggestion. “It will just be another place I can’t get in or out of in this chair.” I pounded my fist down on the padded armrest and turned away from him, not wanting him to see my tears. My shoulders were shaking, no matter how much I tried to stop them, and I hated that even more.
“It’s Christmas, you’re not supposed to be crying,” he said, somewhat exasperated.
“Don’t you think I know that?” I nearly hollered at him. “Don’t you think I would like to walk down this street holding your hand, going in and out of shops as we laugh together? Don’t you think I want to go to the tree farm and walk through the rows, picking just the right tree, and helping you cut it down and bring it out? Don’t you think I want to be making Christmas cookies while singing and dancing around the kitchen to Christmas carols? I know I’m lucky to be alive. I know I’m lucky that maybe, someday, if I work hard enough, and the stars all line up right, I might be able to walk again. I know I’m lucky not to be dead like Jake. I know I’m being a brat and acting like a spoiled child, but I wasn’t expecting it to hit me like this,” I said, breaking into heavy sobs that weren’t easy to hide on a sidewalk in the middle of the city.
“Honey, it’s okay to feel this way. I’m sorry for not thinking about how hard the holidays would be for you.”
I felt my chair moving, but I kept my head down because I couldn’t stem the flow of emotions that overtook my heart and made me quiver with built up pain and anger. The next thing I knew he was pulling me from my chair onto his lap where he sat on a couch. He tucked my head into his chest and held me, tucked in a corner where no one else sat.
I heard a woman whisper to him. “Is she okay? Can we help in any way?”
Whatever he said to her I didn’t care, I was trying to regain my strength and get the day back on track before I ruined both of our holidays. Another few minutes and I felt a blanket go around us both, the warmth sinking into my cold skin from the walk outside. I didn’t have a coat that fit inside my wheelchair, so I had to layer with sweaters and turtlenecks whenever I went outside. I was going to have to visit a secondhand store and find a coat for cheap that would carry me through.
I sighed as he held me and kissed my forehead every so often. He whispered that he loved me and understood life wasn’t easy for me right now. I began to smell the coffee wafting toward us the longer we sat and I knew I was ruining his day, which was already bad enough. I needed to buck up because he was the most important person today. I had to show him that I am worth his love and worth taking along with him when he moves, even with my challenges.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my voice hoarse. “I didn’t mean to fall apart like that.”
He held me tighter and laid his cheek against mine. “Sometimes we have to fall apart before we can start to put ourselves back together. I don’t have any idea how you’re feeling today, Allie. I should have thought it out better than I did. I was excited for our first Christmas together and I didn’t consider your frustrations, which are new and not easy to deal with.”
I motioned with my hand toward the windows of the coffee shop. “I wanted to look for books, but I couldn’t get the chair through the aisles and it broke my heart. It could be like this for the rest of my life and it overwhelms me sometimes.” My voice was still warbling, fresh tears threatening to fall.
He rocked me, still wrapped in the blanket. “Shhh, I’m sorry. I need to think about the little things I want to do, the way I do the big things, and I didn’t today. I apologize for that.”
I felt another presence near us and looked up at a woman who stood in front of us. She reached out with a tissue and I took it gratefully.
“Thank you,” I said, trying to smile.
She nodded and knelt in front of me, one hand on my knee. “Is there anything I can do to help you feel better? You’re Allison, right?” she asked and I looked up at Trey who was smiling and nodded to me.
I wiped another tear from my face and nodded. “How do you know who I am?”
“I go to UMD, too. I’m a sophomore and they pulled all of us in to talk about what happened. I’m sorry, Allison, for what you went through and are still going through. If it helps, you’ve opened the eyes of the administration and shown them that their campus isn’t as safe as they thought it was. I want you to know you’re making a difference in our lives just by being you. You’ve inspired me to start a program to keep the girls on campus safe.”
I sat up a little as she spoke and looked at Trey then back to her. “Really? I had no idea anyone knew what happened to me.”
She shook her head a little bit and sat on the edge of the couch rather than squatting. “They were honest and up front about it. Of course, that was before they knew it wasn’t a simple hit and run. Since they closed down Lambda Sigma Omega, they’ve kept us informed because knowledge is power.”
I pulled the blanket a little tighter around me. “Will you tell me about the program you started?”
“I would love to,” she said happily.
I felt my spirits lift knowing that my challenges were helping to keep other girls safe. That knowledge felt like a small consolation prize in a big game of terror, but I grasped it and held onto it for dear life.
“The campus didn’t have a program to provide female students with a chaperone when walking alone at night. So, I talked to the chancellor about how we could address that issue. He thought your incident was nothing more than a one off event, until I started sending in girls to tell him about their experiences with fraternities and older guys on campus.”
“You’re kidding me? How did you find them?” I asked. I knew most girls didn’t want to talk about their attacks.
She held her arms out. “It wasn’t that hard, actually. They came to me once they heard what I was trying to do. It only took a few girls sharing what happened to them before the chancellor called me back to his office to hear my idea.”
I held out my fist and she bumped it. “Good going. In Greek we call thatthárros, which means courage or guts.”
“That’s awesome, thanks for telling me that,” she said, grinning. “I just want to make a difference in my little part of the world, so I started Allison’s Way. A group of us vetted a large part of the male population in the junior and senior classes to be available to walk with girls who are on the campus alone at night.”
