Page 2 of All Hallows Mate
“You alright, Kate?” I ask, tugging her along with me.
“Ah. You know me,” she laughs, but she has sadness in her eyes. Kaitlyn and I don’t get along super well, but I don’t hate her. She’s just a giant bitch when she is sober. Seeing her like this makes me wonder if she has demons lurking, too.
“Want me to get you a ride back to your dorm?” I ask.
“Josh wanted to…”
“Girl, you are far too drunk to be hanging out with any of them,” I say.
“You weren’t,” she snaps.
I know she’s trying to be hateful. The last time I hung out with Josh, half the student body got a video of him throat fucking me when I was mostly unconscious. The wild thing is, he has everyone convinced that I was wide awake and participating. It seems so fucking obvious to me that I was too far out of it to be even close to consenting. I didn’t even know that it happened until someone showed me the video. I always do this to myself. I numb the pain with alcohol and put myself in risky situations with shitty people.
“You’re right,” I say, looping my arm around her waist so no one can pull her away from me. “That prick assaulted me when I passed out, and everyone was convinced I wanted it.”
“You did drink a lot that night,” she giggles.
“Hey, come play cards with us, Kaitlyn,” a guy shouts as we walk across the living room. “Let her come play with us, Tori. She doesn’t fuck chicks.”
I roll my eyes and flip him off as I get Kaitlyn on the front porch. She flops down on the wicker couch, and I sit next to her so I can pull up the rideshare app.
I cannot count how many times people around me have known that I was drunk and did nothing to help me. I refuse to be thatperson. I don’t care if I fucking hate them; I’m not letting them sit around so that people can take advantage of them. I know what that feeling is like the next morning. The shame. The guilt. The jokes. Ha ha. So funny. Tori got blackout drunk again, and someone fucked her. Hilarious. Rape is justhilarious. If you ask the school officials, I should’ve known better than to be drinking. The one time I tried to get help, campus police told me that maybe next time I won’t drink as much.
Truth be told, I’m putting myself in these positions knowing it’s risky. Mom’s drug habit was often paid for at the expense of my body, so I learned from a young age that fighting back causes more pain. The one time I did fight back, I was fourteen, and my best friend’s older brother decided to be so nice and take me home one evening. He didn’t tell anyone that he took a detour, and I never told anyone that he held me down in his back seat. When I turned up pregnant from it, I was crowned the class whore. I sat alone in a procedure room and had an abortion with no one to hold my hand. No one to hug me that night and tell me it wasn’t my fault. All I could think about was him telling me that my skirt told him I wanted him to fuck me. From there, I figured that if I am going to be called a whore, I may as well live up to it. It’s not like I am the one to initiate anything, but I stopped fighting that night in his car.
“Wake up, Kate. Your ride is here,” I say. She groans as I pull her up to stand.
“I’m so tired,” she mutters.
“Just a little further,” I say. When we get to the car, I open the door and poke my head in.
“For Tori?” she asks.
“Uh. Yeah. It’s for my friend. She is very drunk and needs to get back to her dorm. If I tip you now, can you help her?”
“Absolutely,” she says. The woman is in her mid-forties, and she looks like a mom. The kind of mom I wish I had. She gets out and goes to her trunk to get a bag before coming around to us. I get her seated, and the lady gives Kaitlyn a bag. “If you get sick, honey, aim for the bag.”
“Mmmm,” Kaitlyn groans.
“Thank you so much,” I say. Do you have CashGo?” CashGo is essentially like an online bank where you can send money to people.
“Don’t worry about it, honey. You’re a good friend,” she says, patting my arm.
“Yeah,” I say with a simple smile. I don’t want to tell her that we aren’t actually friends because that detail doesn’t matter. I just care about her getting back safe. No one should be left so vulnerable.
Chapter Two
I watch as theydrive away before I go back and sit on the porch. In hindsight, I should have just left with her. Really, I should not even be here. I surround myself with people so I don't feel so alone, but the noise is deafening.
“Damn. It’s a little early to pass out, Tori,” I hear. I open my eyes and frown when I see that it’s Jacob. He is one of the ones who torments me, so I stand and walk inside without saying anything to him.
There are so many fucking people here, and I just need to be alone for a moment, so I go upstairs to try and find an empty room. I end up closing myself into one of the bedrooms and lying back on the bed to stare at the ceiling fan.
When the door opens, I jump up, and a wave of panic starts building when I see Jacob and Jason, another asshole, come into the room. My first reaction is to run—to get the fuck out of thisroom and away from them. I try to rush to the door, but I’m shoved back on the bed.
“Aht. Where are you going, whore?” Jacob asks.
“I’m leaving. Just fuck off,” I snap as I get up and try to escape again. Jason grabs me by the throat and squeezes as he pulls me close.
