Second Down (Moving the Chains Book 2) (4 page)

My head throbs. I have so many questions that I don’t know where to start. “How do any of you know that Evie and I are...were...together?”  

“Christina told me about it as soon as she got off the bus yesterday.” Diana gives me a small but sad smile. “Apparently, the whole school was talking about it.”

“Do you two know each other?” I glance between Mom and Diana. They seem way too chummy for this whole situation.

Mom decides to field this one. “Yes, we’ve actually been friends for a long time. Diana and I met at an Al-Anon meeting years ago.”

Holy shit. My mom was attending support meetings for alcoholics’ wives? I know Dad’s a heavy drinker, but I never considered how much it affects Mom. Guess I just didn’t want to see it.

“I’ve actually known about your infatuation with my little girl from the very beginning.” Diana winks at me even as tears well in her eyes.

This brings up another good question. “Then how did Evie and I not know you two were friends?”

“We’re your mothers and we love you, but we didn’t want to interfere.” Mom rubs my shoulder. “Not that we haven’t secretly been pulling for you two to get together.”

“Excuse me,” Cathy interrupts. “I know you all have a lot to talk about, especially in the coming days and weeks, but we really need to speak with Eva now. I’m disappointed that neuro didn’t consult me this morning. The longer she believes this lie that she’s created for herself, the more difficult it will be for her to come to terms with what actually occurred.”

Mom and Diana look to me expectantly, but it’s all I can do to shake my head. I can’t be in that room, causing her more pain. I just can’t.

“Rob, let me offer you some parting advice. Feel whatever you need to feel. Remember that you are a victim too. Any emotions you have are valid. Everything going forward needs to be your choice, whether it be going into this room to talk with Eva or not. Whether it be seeking out professional help for yourself or not. Those are your choices, and you are free to make them as you see fit.” Cathy gives the women beside me a quick gesture for them to go ahead into Evie’s room.

They each give me a quick hug, then leave me alone in the hallway with the head doctor. Great. They set me up, and I fell for it. At least she backed me up on not being in there in a few minutes.

“I also want you to try and remember that you are not the only victim here. I understand that you may feel you have let Eva down, and that she will blame you. And you need to understand that may be one of many reactions she will have when she learns what happened to her. It doesn’t mean either of you are to blame for any of this. We will tell her that you were the one who found her and got her the help that she needed because she deserves to know all the facts about what happened yesterday. I’m very sorry she has no memory of your relationship. I understand that’s another difficult thing for you to process. We’re not going to discuss that with her today. We’re only going to tell her about the assault. I don’t want to overwhelm her with all the information that she’s missing from the past three days. Those memories may return to her or they may not. For now, I recommend being a supportive friend to her as you are able. I know you are dealing with a lot of your own emotional distress. You have every right to take care of yourself.”

She pauses, studying me carefully. “I don’t want you to do anything that makes you uncomfortable. If Eva should need you, I hope that you’ll consider being there for her. She will need all the support she can get going forward as will you. It’s time now for you both to move from being victims to being survivors. Do you have any questions for me?”

I shake my head, unable to speak because, Jesus Christ, I might puke again.

Cathy enters Evie’s room, then everyone except her and Evie’s mom files back out. They stand around in the hallway, their stares burning holes into my already-warped mind. I slide down the wall, still trying to catch my damn breath and not dry heave all over the hallway. I can faintly hear the conversation in the room even though Mike closed the door behind him as the last to leave.

Evie’s voice carries through the wood like a nail gun straight to my chest.

“No. NO!” She wails.

Her anguish reverberates through me harder than any tackle. I scramble up quickly, holding onto the wall for support as I make my way toward the elevator.

I have to get out of here.

Chapter 3

Little Talks

Eva

They’re lying. That never happened.

I was in a car accident, that’s all.

Words like “cranial pressure, heart rate, breathe” muddle around in my already pounding head. My lungs burn for air as I drown in a lake I never chose to swim in. Surely this is a nightmare. All I have to do is force myself awake to be free of it.

A knock on the door cuts through my confusion. YiaYia pokes her head in, spouting something in Greek that even I can’t translate.

Mama stands from my bedside and glances quickly between me and YiaYia while wringing her hands.

“Is there a problem?” The lady with the blond hair asks.

I can’t remember her name though she was introduced to me only moments ago.

“She wants to know if we’re done. Rob passed out in the hallway; they want to sit him down in one of the chairs for a minute.” Even though Mama answers the woman’s question, it’s me she can’t stop staring at.

My gaze flits between the stranger in the chair next to my bed, my mother, and the doorway. YiaYia’s eyes are sharp, watchful on me.

The air crackles with electricity and unspoken questions that I can’t nearly form answers to.

Finally, the blonde breaks the silence. “Eva, would it be all right for them to bring Rob in? You can say no. It’s your choice.”

I try to swallow past the lump in my throat, but my voice remains an unwilling hostage to my mind that can’t quite comprehend anything going on around me.

“Evie?” Mama prompts. “If you’re not comfortable with seeing him, I’ll tell them to take him somewhere else.”

Should I be uncomfortable seeing him? Mama told me something about Rob; I just can’t remember. Why can’t I remember?

The door opens wider. Mike’s face appears beside YiaYia . “Is it okay? Or should we take him down to the ER?”

“He can come in.” The voice that echoes around the room sounds like mine, but I’m not certain it was me who spoke.

Mike shoots me a look filled with pity as he drags a half-conscious Rob into the room.

Rob’s face is a sickly shade of white. Dark circles ring his barely open eyes, their beautiful chameleon color hidden from my sight. His tall, muscular form hunches under an invisible weight, and it strikes me as odd that he looks as broken as I feel.

This is exactly like a nightmare. I’m unable to even make sense of the things that don’t cause my chest to constrict in horror.

My chest. My chest hurts. It burns like a million needles pricking the surface, but not like a bruise that might have been caused by a seatbelt digging into my skin. I assumed that the windshield shattered, and I was cut by glass. Deep down, I realize that makes no sense. I don’t have the same sensation anywhere else on my body. Why would my chest have been cut by glass underneath my shirt, but my face doesn’t feel the same way? My face has the bruises; my chest has the cuts.

“What happened to my chest?”

I don’t want to know, but I need to know. After the words “sexually assaulted” tumbled from Mama’s lips, my ears quit hearing. Tears stream down my throbbing face, but I’m working hard to control my breathing. Panting honestly makes the irritated skin under my gown hurt worse, a painful stretching sensation over too-tight scabs.

“Evie…” Mama rubs my hand, clearly stalling.

I jerk back violently. My mother’s touch makes my skin crawl.

Tears well up in Mama’s eyes, a hurt expression on her face. “Your attacker, he…he…”

Her almost-answer is cut off by the sound of Rob heaving across the room.

The second his eyes snap to mine, he panics and triesto wrest free from Mike’s grip
.
“No. No, I can’t be in here. I shouldn’t be in here.”

Watching Rob frantically try to escape my hospital room like a caged animal kills my attempt to control my erratic breathing.

Papou and Mike box Rob in, trying to still his thrashing.

What have I done to my friend? He doesn’t calm in the slightest, his frightened eyes never leaving me.

“Look at her!” His shout cuts through the cotton in my ears as clear as a knife. “Can’t you see this is hurting her? I can’t hurt her. Please, don’t make me hurt her. I don’t want to…I can’t be here.”

Fighting against the stranglehold that grips my throat is a lost cause. I’m not strong enough. As darkness creeps into my field of vision, Rob’s haunted eyes brand onto my brain.

They look teal just now.

His particular scent fills my nose, and a sigh of relief escapes my chapped lips. The terror from before evaporates, replaced by calm security. His scent means safety, protection. The muscles in his arms shift around me, shielding me from harm. Somewhere in my mind, the knowledge that he’s cradling me filters through. Just as quickly as the idea takes root, it withers into the oblivion. My whole body aches, sleep beckons with greedy fingers, and it’s so easy to give in. My eyelids flutter enough to catch a glimpse of changeable blue-green. Beautiful, concerned chameleon eyes. Maybe tears, maybe some red, but it doesn’t matter. Those eyes looking at me like that are the stuff dreams are made of. Fighting to hold onto the sight is no use. The fight has drained out of me. Darkness prevails.

Fog swirls around me, robbing my voice, muddling my mind, blinding my eyes, deafening my ears. Still his scent remains. He’s close. The faint sound of sobbing washes over me like a dream. No, not a dream. A nightmare. My tongue works furiously against the numbness to cry out for him. If he won’t save me, the darkness will come back. Without his scent, panic overtakes me. Loneliness, fear, so much pain wrap around my throat until my resolve dries up. Darkness prevails.

Chapter 4

Move Slow

Eva

Cracking my eyes open seems like a monumental feat. I let my senses take over instead. My head pounds as though someone is using it for a bass drum, my chest burns and itches, my hips and abdomen ache, and the sheets feel scratchy. I smell disinfectant and hand sanitizer, and not…

Bolting upright in bed, my eyes snap open quickly. Panic renders the previous list of aches and pains null and void. A warm hand lands on my arm, injecting absolute terror into my veins.

“There, there,
kouklitsa mou
. It is only me.” Papou watches me carefully from a chair beside the bed, his Prayer Book folded across his knee.

The hand that had touched me lays on the blanket, and I stare at it in shock.

I take a deep breath to calm my pounding heart. The movement makes the scabs on my chest itch and burn worse. Looking around the room, Papou is the only one here. It’s quiet and dark, the sunshine that had filtered in through the windows the last time I was awake replaced by moonlight.

Laying back against the pillows, I turn my gaze to Papou. He continues to watch me as though I’m some rabid animal that may turn on him.

“What...what happened? How long have I been asleep?”

He chuckles softly and picks up the Prayer Book to set on the nightstand. “You have been asleep for nearly four hours. The neurologist and therapist think the stress was simply too much, and you fainted. I sent everyone home so you could rest.”

Therapist?

“Cathy? Cathy was the therapist, right?” My brain is still so fuzzy that I wonder if I’ll ever be able to think clearly again.

Papou nods his head.

Remembering the day’s events is like trying to recall my earliest childhood memories. They’re present, but just beyond my ability to reach. I swallow several times, trying to put moisture back into my parched mouth. That only increases my desire to vomit. Mama told me how I was hurt; how Rob had saved me. He was here, and then…

“Papou. Tell me everything. I don’t want to know, but I need to.”  

“What do you want to know?” His voice is quiet and reasonable.

“Everything. Start from the beginning.”  

“What is the last thing you remember?”

“Friday night, I remember being at the game. Rob got injured, and my friends were annoying me. We won 42-16. Um, I had really bad cramps, and I felt sick. I didn’t go to the diner afterwards like I was supposed to. I came home.”  

Papou doesn’t need to know everything about my last concrete memories of jealousy and wanting someone that could never be mine.

“Good. We will start there. You did come home. You went to sleep. When you woke up the next morning, you visited Rob before going to work. You did not come home until after midnight. On Sunday, we all went to Liturgy, and then you went to work again. When you came home, you stayed in your room and finished all of your homework. On Monday, you got up and went to school.” He pauses, eyeing me critically.

“Why did I go see Rob before I went to work? And did I work that late? I don’t feel like that’s right.” Searching the air in front of my face yields no results, so I turn to Papou for the answers I seek.

“Your mother suggested that you check on him because he was injured at the game. I assume you were asked to stay later at work. I cannot prove that though. You will have to check at the diner if the memory does not come back to you.”

I nod my head slowly; too much movement is painful. “Okay, tell me about Monday. Did it happen on Monday?”  

I don’t even know what today is.

“Yes. After band practice, you went running on the trail behind the school like you sometimes do. A man attacked you.”

I open my mouth to interject, but he raises a calm hand to silence me.

“You could not have known he was there. You could not have prevented it from happening. The police think he was watching you, waiting to get you alone. He ambushed you; hit you on the back of the head with something. We still do not know what that was, and we may never know. This is why your head hurts. You sustained a severe concussion from the force. You have staples holding the gash together. Yes, they had to shave some of your hair, but it is not noticeable because you have so much of it.” He raises his eyebrow, challenging me to argue.

I wasn’t even concerned about my hair, but now I reach a tentative hand back to feel the area he mentioned. My fingers dance over the staples and bald spot, and it hurts like a bitch.

“Why was he watching me? Do you mean he was stalking me, or he was just waiting for anyone? Do you know who it was?”

The look on his face conveys that he was hoping I wouldn’t ask
.
“Robert told the police that he was a regular customer of yours from the diner. His name is Jackson Sinclair.”

Is. His name is. I should be more concerned with the fact that Rob was right about Jackson, but my mind focuses on Papou’s use of the present tense to describe him. Is doesn’t sound right. I can’t explain why.

“What happened to him?” Abandoning the exploration of the back of my head, I study my hands that look as if I’d been clawing at brick.

“He is currently in the ICU downstairs.”

“Why?”

“Because young Robert beat him within an inch of his life for hurting you.” The unmistakable pride in Papou’s voice takes me aback but only slightly.

That makes sense. Somewhere in my foggy brain that information registers true, and yet it doesn’t. It’s only a tiny piece of the puzzle that I can’t put together on my own. “Okay, tell me what happened after he surprised me.”

“You fought back. You fought hard. You fought until young Robert found you when his coach made him run after the football practice. Then, he fought for you when you could not fight for yourself any longer. When your attacker was no longer a threat, Robert carried you the two miles up the trail. Michael and their friend, Alex, found you both there. Michael called 911 while Robert stayed with you. Michael and Alex went back down the trail to retrieve Mr. Sinclair because Robert asked them to. He did not want him to get away.”

Furrowing my brow, I instantly regret that reflex, and the pain it brings to my already throbbing skull. Some things still don’t add up, but I don’t even know how to ask for answers. I’m not quite sure what the questions are.

“Why did Rob think Jackson would get away if he beat him enough to land him in the ICU?”  

Papou lifts his shoulders. “I do not think he realized what he was doing. Robert thought that you were gone, and he went into a...blind rage they call it, yes?”

“Gone? He thought I was dead?”

“Yes. The harder you fought against him, the more your attacker tried to overpower you.” He gestures with his hand to the side of his face. “This is why your face hurts. He hit you so hard that it knocked you unconscious. Robert was already in a panic to get to you, and when he saw this, and saw you not moving, he assumed the worst. When Michael and Alex found Robert with you, they also believed the same.”

They all thought I was dead? That doesn’t seem right. Why wouldn’t they just have checked to see if I was breathing? Rob’s smarter than that.

Papou must see the look of confusion on my face. “They are all young men, Eva. They were panicked. None of them have ever experienced anything like that. There was much blood because of the deep cut on your head. They did the best they could for you. They all stayed at the hospital until they knew you were alive, and would be all right. Robert fell asleep right there.” He gestures to the other side of the bed near my leg. “He was exhausted but too worried to leave you. I helped Patty take him down to her car after two in the morning.”

“Who’s Patty?”

“Patty is Robert’s mother. Lovely woman. She has been a good friend to your mother these past few days.”

Days?

“Papou, what day is it?”

“It is Tuesday, around ten. You will be released from the hospital sometime tomorrow.”

Okay, so I haven’t been here too long even though I’ve apparently lost roughly three days’ worth of memory. “Why does my chest hurt? What happened to me there?”

Papou heaves a sigh, crossing his arms over his own chest. It’s obvious he’s weighing whether or not to answer my question which makes my heart pound violently.

“Papou?”

“This is why your attack has been labeled a sexual assault.” He swallows, tears springing into his kind, blue eyes. The wrinkles around them seem deeper than they were before Friday.

“Why would my chest hurt if he raped me?” I force the word out through the quicksand in my throat. I still don’t believe it happened, but the aches in my abdomen can’t be denied.

“He did not rape you. Robert saw to that. But, when your attacker saw young Robert barreling towards him to rescue you, he began to bite you.”

Bite me?

My hand involuntarily travels to my breast, but I jerk it away when Papou watches me. Dear God, what did Rob see? His behavior in here earlier makes a whole lot more sense now. The urge to vomit is overwhelming, but I choke it down and press the call button on my bedside control panel.

“Papou, was I naked?” My voice shakes with a barely controlled sob. My eyes flick anxiously to the door, waiting for the nurse to help me to the restroom. I have to see what’s left of my breasts. I need to see what Jackson did. What Rob saw.

Papou takes a deep breath to steady himself. “No. But, the
bastardos
pulled your shirt up.”

“What about my bra? I had a bra on, didn’t I?” I’m grasping for straws, but the longer the nurse takes to arrive, the more the horror plays on my mind.

“He pulled it up too.
Lypamai poly
.”

“Don’t apologize; tell me how you know this. Did Rob tell you all of this? Did he tell you what he saw?” Panic rises in my voice with every syllable.

“Patty told us. She was with Robert when he gave his statement to the police. He will not speak of it to anyone else. He blames himself.”

The nurse arrives in the room, looking far too cheerful for the mood in here. “What can I help you with, Eva?”

“I need to use the restroom.”

“Eva…” Papou warns.

“I need to use the restroom,” I say with more force.

Nurse Smiley doesn’t seem to notice the tension between Papou and I, simply goes about unplugging the IV pole from the wall and wrapping the cord and the tubing tighter around the machine. “It’s good for her to get out of bed, sir. We need her to be more independent and gain some steady equilibrium if she wants to go home tomorrow.”

She gives me her arm for support. Holy hell, the floor turns sideways under my feet as the walls spin around me. I have a whole new respect for the jocks that get concussions on a regular basis.

When we reach the restroom, she helps me pull the IV pole inside the door, and closes it behind her with a smile.

On shaky legs, I make my way over to the large mirror above the sink, hesitating as I inspect the bruise that covers my entire left cheek. Though my eye is open, the area around it is still puffy, making my cheekbones seem asymmetrical.

I touch the area gently, but don’t feel as much pain as I expect. It’s already yellow at the edges. It’ll be at least a week until my face looks normal again.

Maybe I can just tell everyone at school that I decided to join a fight club. Surely, Mike, Rob, and Alex haven’t told anyone what they saw. As the thought dawns on me that more people might know about this than I first assumed, my throat closes up and a fresh wave of nausea overtakes me. Remembering how quickly the rumors spread about me last year, all I can do is pray there wasn’t a crowd gathered around the scene to fan the news like wildfire through the student body. I’ll have to ask Tini about it if she goes to school tomorrow. I don’t even know if she went today, or if any of them did.

Recognizing that I’m avoiding my primary objective for coming here, I reach for the tie of my hospital gown with a trembling hand. Clumsy with the IV, I maneuver out of the sleeve of the gown, allowing it to fall down. My right breast bears two unmistakable bite marks. I swallow the bile that creeps up my throat and pull down the rest of the gown to reveal the damage to both.

On my right breast the bites are deep which explains the more severe pain on this side. One on the outer side, almost below, the other on the top towards my cleavage. The unmistakable pattern of dental impressions on my flesh.

On the left breast it appears as if he was trying to rip the nipple off altogether. The teeth marks frame the areola which is angry and inflamed. The last mark is near the center, right at the juncture of my cleavage, but it’s not as deep. The teeth marks aren’t as recognizable here because they’re elongated, resembling scratches more than anything else. Was this where he was biting when Rob tackled him?

The first sob wells up from my throat as I sink to the ground. Though the next sound comes from me as well, I don’t recognize my own wail.

The nurse barges in the door. I hurry to cover myself up, but I can’t stop my hysterics. I’ve been marked for life. There’s no doubt that once the scabs fall away, scars will remain. I feel more violated than if he had sunk himself into me and actually raped me. I may not remember any of it, but I will see the proof until the day I die.