Page 32 of Her Alien Neighbor

Sam rolls her eyes in solidarity. “So fucked. The whole thing was so fucked.”

Axil rises to his feet. “Please,” his voice barely containing his obvious frustration, “just tell us what you are talking about.”

“Trevor raped me on prom night,” I say in a blunt tone. It’s probably the third time I’ve uttered the statement out loud, and it still feels strange to my ears. As if part of my brain knows it happened and is desperate to accept the truth, while the other part of my brain scrambles to protect me from it with unyielding denial.

Axil and Zev react to my words simultaneously with waves of rippling fury coming off their strained bodies. “He…” Axil begins, his teeth gritted, “he did that to you? And he still walks free?”

“Happened to me too,” Sam says as she looks down at the carpet beneath her feet. “About a year after graduation. Way before Trevor and Beth started dating.”

I swallow, praying she’s just saying this to offer me some kind of temporary comfort. That this isn’t trauma we share. “Are you serious?”

Her demeanor changes, the sadness she felt on my behalf now gone as she shuts down. Her lips form a flat line, and her tone is wooden as she says, “There was a house party. I don’t remember whose house it was. At some point, I was drunk and found a room upstairs to pass out in. I woke up to Trevor on top of me.”

All I can do is gasp; the horror of what Sam is telling me prevents me from forming coherent words.

She stares at the pillow next to me, her gaze unfocused. “My memories of that night are spotty, but I do remember saying ‘no,’ and him saying ‘shh.’”

Axil explodes. “Why! Why does he still live? Why has no one rid this Earth of his twisted soul?”

Sam turns to him. “You expect us to kill him? Believe me, I’d love to. But that would just create more problems for us, and he’d be seen as the victim. Just like he would if either of us had pressed charges in the first place.”

Zev shakes his head. “I do not understand. How is he able to get away with these violent crimes?”

“Um, because he’s a white guy whose uncle is a cop,” I reply, annoyed that we have to spell this out for them. Axil and Zev are in their thirties, they should know this by now. Of course, it would be just as easy for them to not pay attention to how hard it is for women to exist. They have the luxury of remaining blissfully ignorant until something like this affects them personally.

“A man’s potential will always outweigh a woman’s suffering,” Sam adds. “After what happened to Vanessa, there was no way I was going to report him to the cops. So I did nothing.”

Axil’s chest is heaving, his face a tight grimace. He looks around the living room helplessly. I have no idea what he’s looking for. “We must stop him. He does not deserve to breathe another day.” He turns to Zev and repeats himself, this time louder and angrier.

Zev nods and places his hands on Axil’s shoulders. “Relax. Axil, you must calm yourself.”

“No,” Axil growls, “I will not relax.” He runs a rough hand through his hair, cursing under his breath. “The way women are treated on this planet is unacceptable.”

This planet?Why did he phrase it like that?

“I know,” Zev says, trying to gain Axil’s attention, but failing. “There is nothing we can do about that tonight.”

Axil shakes off Zev’s touch and begins pacing back and forth in front of the coffee table. He’s speaking quietly to himself, and I can’t understand a word, but if I had to guess, I would say he’s forming a plan. I eventually pick up “obliterate” and “broken bones” and my suspicions are confirmed.

“You can’t do anything to him, Axil,” I say. “It’s not worth the trouble you’d get into.”

He ignores me. Zev grabs his arm, and Axil shoves him, hard, and he goes stumbling into the wall.

“Calm yourself!” Zev shouts, righting himself and cracking his knuckles.

I cannot have these two buff giants throw down in the living room. The damage would be too expensive to fix.

“I will not!” Axil yells back. “You expect me to do nothing? To allow this savage beast to continue attacking women?”

Axil looks like he’s two seconds from punching a hole in the wall, and though his temper scares me a little––god help anyone who finds themselves on the business end of it––I also find it comforting that he’s this angry on our behalf. It’s kind of hot, actually. I can’t speak to Sam’s experience, but there wasn’t much anger after I was raped. I expected more than I got.

My parents seemed heartbroken when I told them, but not angry. They weren’t even angry when I told them I wasn’t going to file a police report. They seemed relieved that I wasn’t going to drag them through a lengthy litigation.

Willa supported me by letting me cry on her bed for several days in a row. Hers was a quiet, composed anger she never expressed outwardly.

Beth refused to believe it was true. She didn’t think Trevor was capable of hurting anyone, and that the incident must’ve been a miscommunication between me and him. Caitlyn followed her lead and remained silent whenever someone brought it up in front of them.

It took about a week for the gossipmongers at school to move on to another scandalous story, at which point, what happened to me was forgotten.

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