Darkness Before Dawn (19 page)

“Could I talk to her alone for a few minutes?” I heard the voice say to my mother.

“Sure. I'll be right downstairs if you need me.” I know Mom was desperate to find someone who could break through to me.

“Keisha!” the voice called. It was a female voice.

“Go away!” came my muffled reply.

“My name is Rita Bronson. I was on the cross-country team for a while last year. Remember?

“So what? Go away.”

“I was attacked by Jonathan Hathaway also.” Her voice was clear and firm. “But I was not as lucky as you were. You got away. I didn't.”

I opened the door.

My hair was uncombed,
I still wore my pajamas, and my eyes looked sunken and distant. Rita marched into my room, looked at the window blinds, which were closed and let in none of the afternoon sunlight, and checked out my leaden-looking face. Rita took a deep breath, raised her arm suddenly, and slapped my face with a sharp, crisp
whack.
I gasped and cried out in pain and surprise. “Are you crazy?” I shouted as I rubbed my throbbing cheek. “Get out of here! You can't come to somebody's house and just hit them! Who do you think you are? Get out of here!” I was so angry I couldn't even cry.

Rita didn't leave. She sat down on my unmade bed and said, “At least I got your attention. I bet that's the first emotion except for feeling sorry for yourself that you've had since your attack.”

I refused to agree with her. “Where do you get off coming in here smacking me around?”

Rita sighed. “I was once where you are, Keisha. I didn't think I could live again. But right now, you are doing exactly what he wants you to do. You are letting him control your life, your thoughts, your very existence. Is that what
you
want?”

I said nothing at first. “How did you find out?”

“Everybody knows, Keisha. Get over it. People care about you and you won't let them help you.”

I began to cry. “I'm so ashamed of myself. I'm afraid to face anybody.”

“What are
you
ashamed for? You ought to be proud of yourself. You survived. You're alive! You managed to outwit him, overpower him, and escape from him. You ought to be screaming that proudly on national TV instead of hiding in here like you did something wrong. The only way to beat him is to live, and live well!” Rita's eyes flashed with anger.

“Is that what you did?” I asked sullenly.

Rita sighed and picked a piece of lint off the bedspread. “No, I was like you at first. Remember that day at track practice when Rhonda and Tyrone found me and took me home?”

“Yeah, they said you were upset, but nobody knew what was wrong, and then you didn't come back to school.”

“I had been dating Jonathan,” Rita began. “Secretly, of course. My mother hated any man I dated, so I kept them a secret.”

“How long had you been seeing him?”

“Oh, long before he came to Hazelwood. I guess I met him last summer. He was so smooth and sophisticated—a breath of fresh air for me. He wasn't like the usual trashy men I found myself attracted to. He had class; at least, I thought so.”

“I feel you,” I said, hanging my head.

“When school started, I went out for cross-country to get myself together. I really wanted to straighten out my life and graduate with the rest of you this year.”

“Did you go out for cross-country because he was the coach?” I asked.

“No, actually, he decided to coach the team when he found out I had decided to run. But I think he had already turned his attention to you that first day of school.”

“I had no idea,” I said quietly.

“I know.” Rita sighed. “That's partly why I'm here. I was no sweet little innocent like you. I'd had older boyfriends, and I'd run away from home before. But that didn't make what he did to me any less horrible.” She walked over to my window and opened the blinds. She stood there for a moment peering at the afternoon sky.

“Can you talk about it?” I asked.

Rita took a deep breath and began. “He was always such a gentleman. He took me to museums and the opera and the ballet. I had never been to anything like that and I was overwhelmed with the beauty—I guess the word is
maturity
—of it all. I felt like a lady for once in my life.”

Tears rolled down my face. “I know exactly what you're saying.”

“Finally, the night before Rhonda and Tyrone found me after practice, he invited me to his apartment.”

I gasped. “He had wine and soft music and candles, right?”

“Lavender,” we said together. We both almost gagged at the thought.

“And a huge mirror,” Rita added. “I think he liked looking at himself more than he liked looking at me. He was
so
vain!”

“Now that you mention it, you're right!” I mused. “Even in the car, he constantly checked himself in the rear-view mirror. There's something sickening about that.”

“Oh, he's a real sick bird,” Rita continued. “Anyway, when things got too hot and heavy and I decided I wanted to go home, he dragged me into his bedroom and, well. . . you know. He raped me.” Rita was trembling.

I reached over and touched Rita's hand. “Did he have a knife?” I asked.

“A silver-handled, sharp-pointed blade that he kept in his pocket.” Both of us were silent, remembering our own personal horror. “He cut me here,” Rita said, pointing to a faint, but long and jagged scar on her neck. “I wish I had been able to fight back like you did. He was just too quick and too strong.” She started to cry.

I wept also, touching the scab on my neck. “I don't know how I was able to do it. I didn't
mean
to cut him; I didn't even
try
to cut him. I just remember looking up and seeing his face sliced like a piece of meat. It scared me to death.” I let myself remember for a moment, then shook
the thought away and asked Rita, “So what happened next?”

Rita sighed deeply and continued. “The next day I tried to pretend that it was no big deal. I went to school! Can you believe it? Somehow I thought if I pretended it had never happened that the memory would go away.”

“You've got more guts than me,” I told Rita. “I haven't been out of my house in two weeks.”

“Everybody reacts differently,” Rita told me. “I had no one to talk to, so I just stuffed it inside. I even went to practice, where I knew he would be. I don't know what I expected, but somehow I figured he would be nice to me. Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

“Don't say that,” I said. “You were just trying to cope the best way you knew how. What happened at practice that day?”

“It was awful,” Rita began. “He yelled at me and laughed at me. I could see those golden eyes mocking me. When I couldn't take anymore, I threatened to tell what he had done to me. Then he threatened to tell what he had done
for
me.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, confused.

“My high school years were all messed up. I failed most of my classes in the eleventh grade, even failed summer school. As me and Jonathan got to know each other last summer, I told him how I had decided to turn my life around, but didn't know how I could ever catch up. He offered to help.”

“What did he do? Tutor you?” I could imagine him smoothly and easily manipulating Rita, just as he had done to me.

“Not hardly. Since his father is principal, he had access to all the computer security codes. He changed the grades on all my permanent records in the computer, including my SAT scores, so that I could graduate and get into a college. Otherwise, I wouldn't even have had enough credits to get out of the eleventh grade.”

“Wouldn't that have got
him
into trouble, instead of you?” I asked.

“Maybe. But he has a way of twisting things so that he looks innocent and you feel stupid and guilty.”

“I know.” I understood completely.

“But that day I threatened to expose him anyway—about what he had done to me the night before, about everything. He got really angry, snapped out the little silver knife, cut my arm through my track jacket, and told me if I said a word that he would kill me. I believed him.”

“So that's when Rhonda and Tyrone found you? I remember them telling me you had a cut on your arm.” So much more was clear to me now.

“Yeah. I went home, told my mother as much as she could handle, and we split. Just like that.”

“Where'd you disappear to?”

“We've been living with my aunt in Dayton. Her name is Cleopatra Majestic Macmillan. She acts like she's some kind of queen, too. Insists on the very finest, even though she hasn't got a nickel. She's the one who shook me up like I'm trying to do to you, the one who made me see that living and living good is the best revenge.”

“So what can I do?” I asked her. “I can't move to Dayton.”

“You gotta go back to school—with your head held high. You beat him, Keisha! You won! Let your friends help you. What kind of friend turns her back on folks when they're offering love and support? You may as well smack them in the face just like I did you.”

I hung my head. “I didn't want to hurt them. I guess I was just thinking of myself.”

“Give them the chance to love you, Keisha. Give yourself the chance to love yourself. And take a shower! You're kinda funky, girl!” Rita laughed, gave me a hug, and marched out of my room as boldly as she had marched in.

“Thanks, Rita,” I called to her. “I needed this.” As Rita drove away, I opened the window to the early March air that held the slightest hint of spring. I changed the sheets on my bed and cleared the clutter from my room as well as my mind. Edna's words echoed in my mind once again:
Yo' spirit is a shinin' silver star, chile. Can't nobody take that away from you.

After a shower, with clean hair, clean clothes, and a fresh look on my face, I went downstairs to talk to my mother. “I'm going to school tomorrow,” I announced. I know my mother breathed a silent prayer of thanks.

The phone rang, as it had been doing constantly for the last two weeks. Mom sighed and reached over to answer it, but I touched her hand and said, “I'll get it, Mom. I'm ready.” Tears filled Mom's eyes. “Hello,” I said tentatively.

“Keisha!” It was Rhonda. “Girl, it's
so
good to hear your voice! You feeling better?”

I thought,
It's not like I had the flu or something,
but I
just said, “What's going on, Rhonda? You think I flunked the twelfth grade yet?”

Rhonda, glad to be talking about other things, chatted on about the English paper we had to do, the history test, and the leak in the school swimming pool that had flooded the cafeteria. “I'm sure you can catch up. We'll all help you. We got your back, Keisha. You gotta know that.”

“I know,” I said quietly. “How's the new principal?”

My father had told me that Principal Hathaway had resigned three days after the incident. I knew everybody at school was upset. Mr. Hathaway was really cool—he was fair, and honestly tried to get to know us. I knew that a lot of the students were angry that he had been forced to resign because of the supposed criminal behavior of his son, but I guessed they understood why he had chosen to go.

Rhonda replied, “Girl, you won't believe this. Her name is Emmalina Wiggersly. She's this lemon-faced, pencil-lipped lady, and—get this—she wears this huge wig! And she's mean. Not cool and together like Mr. Hathaway.” Then she added, laughing, “She gave Leon detention last week because he wore a wig to school that looked just like hers. It was
too
funny!”

I smiled, knowing how silly Leon would look in a lady's wig, prancing down the hall, mimicking the walk of a woman who was probably tied a little too tightly. “How's Leon?” I asked.

“Going crazy with worry about you,” Rhonda told me immediately. “I didn't know how much he cared about
you. Do you know he has a whole bulletin board in his room with just your picture on it?”

“Yeah, I found out by accident during Christmas. I really underestimated Leon—all of you, actually. I'm sorry, Rhonda. I just couldn't bear to talk about it—about anything.”

“I understand, Keisha. We all do.” She paused. “Hey! You feel like shopping? Let's go to the mall!”

Suddenly I was anxious for my world to be normal again, to look for the perfect shoes to match a new outfit, to giggle with my friends about teachers and parents, even to talk about boys. “Oh, yeah! That sounds great. I'm ready to get out of here. Call Jalani—even Angel and Joyelle. Let's get out of here. I need to find something new!”

As soon as I hung up the phone, it rang again. Leon's voice, strong and determined, asked politely, “It's Leon again, Mrs. Montgomery. How is Keisha? Do you think she'll talk to me?”

“Hi, Leon, it's me,” I said softly.

Leon was momentarily stunned into silence. “Keisha!” was all he could say. “I've missed you,” he said simply.

“I feel like I just got back from a real bad trip, Leon,” I told him. “I don't ever want to see the slides or look at the pictures or visit that place ever again.”

“Consider it erased,” Leon said forcefully.

“I'm going to need some help learning to travel again,” I continued, glad to have an easy way to talk about it.

“I'll be your travel agent and your guide if you want me
to,” Leon offered. “But,” he added quickly, “I can just be your friend if that's what you really need.”

“I'd like that, Leon,” I told him. “Your friendship is real important to me right now.” I changed the subject. Emotions made me feel wobbly and unsure. “Hey, Leon! Is it true that you were the one that made the swimming pool leak and flood the cafeteria?”

Leon laughed. “I'll never tell; however, you should know that I prefer dunking my donuts in coffee, not funky pool water!”