A/N: Here's another chapter for you guys. Sorry they come so irregularly, I'll try to be better. I'm pretty sure this is the longest chapter so far, and it's also my favorite so far. This was basically the scene I had in mind when I originally got the idea for this story, so I hope you enjoy. Also, I really appreciate people favoriting/following this story, and it definitely is nice to know that I do actually have people reading this. It would be really nice if you could just leave a quick review to let me know what you think of it, if you like it, anything you'd like to see happen, etc. I hate to be that person who begs for reviews, but it takes like two seconds and I really value your opinions. Anyway, on with the story!
4. Answers
Emily's watching at lunch as her friends chat, always making sure, every so often, to bring her into the conversation. She pokes her sandwich more than really eats it, though she laughs at the right moments. She nods, and, when asked a direct question, she answers it with a smile.
But she is far from okay. It's not just the rape, though that is certainly, of course, a lot of it. It's that she can't help but remember how Annabel didn't have friends making sure to bring her into the conversation after it happened to her. She especially can't get out of her mind the many times she stood by and laughed while Sophie called her a slut or a whore—the couple of times she said it to herself, too.
Most of all, she can't help but wonder if, even though Will Cash has been arrested and is facing trial, he will get away with what he did to Annabel.
She's sitting out in the courtyard at school, poking her sandwich and listening to her friends talk when she sees someone walking along the wall, directly into her line of sight.
She knows who he is, of course. Everyone does—he's Owen Armstrong, that guy who got in that fistfight and had to go to juvie. Or something. He looks angry now, too. He walks along the wall, scowling, earbuds in his hands instead of his ears. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, he turns and kicks the wall hard enough, were it a person rather than a wall, to break bones. He lets out this sort of grunt, and Emily is perplexed, now completely ignoring her friends' conversation, as she watches him turn in her direction so she can see his face. He is crying.
Suddenly, she remembers that he's not just that guy who got in a fight. She remembers seeing him and Annabel hanging out together, thinking what an odd pair they were.
She knows who to tell.
It's an especially bad day. He's been back at school for four days now, everyday scanning the hallways, trying to think who he might ask about why Annabel would've killed herself. The problem is he was the only person he knew of who she hung out with, and he couldn't think of who she used to be friends with—who probably wouldn't know anyway.
He was walking out to the courtyard for lunch when Thank You by Led Zeppelin came on his iPod, which was just on shuffle. He froze, listening to the first few bars.
He suddenly realized he was crying and yanked the earbuds from his ears, not even bothering to pause it. He kept walking, trying not to remember, trying not to remember...
He was sitting in Annabel's car, looking at a mix CD her sister had made for her, scanning the track list.
"She has good taste," he'd said. "I mean, there's Led Zeppelin here, but at least it's not Stairway to Heaven. In fact, Thank You is my favorite Led Zeppelin song."
"Really?" she'd said, turning to look at him and smiling as she always seemed to whenever he started to talk about music.
"Really," he said, smiling, as he always did, at her interest in his music. "It's got that kind of cheesy, power-ballad feel. Kind of ironic, yet truthful. Can I put it on?" And she'd agreed and he had, and they'd listened as she drove him home.
He turns and kicks the wall they used to eat lunch together on as hard as he can, letting out a grunt at the pain of his toe making contact, even through his shoe, with the stone.
He cannot fucking believe that she's gone.
He's just thinking that he needs to go spend lunch in his car, trying to collect himself, or maybe just skip rest of the day, he hasn't decided, when a girl walks smack into him.
"I'm so sorry," she says, backing away. She's probably a freshman or sophomore by the looks of her, but he honestly doesn't care right now. He starts to walk past her.
"Owen, wait," she says suddenly, and he turns around. "I need to talk to you." He glowers at her, definitely not in the mood for whatever she has to say. She looks nervous at the look on his face.
"It's... it's about Annabel," she says quietly, and the glower melts away. He can tell she knows something.
"Let's go talk in my car," he chokes out.
They sit in his car, leaving it off but rolling the windows down. He turns to her.
"What's your name?" The girl tucks her hair behind her ear.
"I'm Emily," she says. "I don't know if you know, but Annabel and I were kind of friends last year. We modeled together, and we sometimes hung out at school."
"But you're not anymore?" he asks. She shakes her head.
"Something happened. It's kind of what I wanted to talk about."
Something. Placeholder. He doesn't say it though, because this is what he's been waiting for. Something happened, that's why she did what she did. Or at least part of why. He needs to know, and so does her sister.
"What happened?" he asks. She sighs.
"Well, I don't know how much you keep up with school gossip—"
"I don't," he says.
She makes a face like she has a bad taste in her mouth, then her mouth straightens out into a determined line.
"There was a party a little while ago, the Friday before Annabel... died." He looks up at that and their eyes meet, but neither says anything. "Sophie—you know who she is, right?"
"Pretty, mean, lots of friends?" Emily nods.
"That would be her. She and I were, I guess you'd say best friends. But her boyfriend made me a little uncomfortable. Anyway, he gave me a ride to the party but she wasn't there and he..." She's hoping to god she won't have to say it. It still gives her panic attacks at night, still gives her chills to talk about. But he doesn't know. "He... attacked me." She meets Owen's eyes. "He forced me."
Owen lets out a breath. Of anything he might have been expecting, it definitely was not that. He doesn't even know what to say to that. "I'm so sorry that happened to you," he says quietly. He's not sure what it has to do with Annabel, but he can hardly interrupt Emily now.
"Thank you," she says. She collects herself and continues. "Anyway, Sophie caught us and he told her I'd come on to him. She called me some terrible names, said I was a traitor, said I could never possibly have been her friend." Owen's fist clenches just imagining the scene. "Anyway, I went home, told my mom, we called the cops. He was arrested. It's okay. End of story."
Owen looks back up at her. "I'm sorry that happened to you," he says again, "but what does...?" She sighs.
"You don't understand. You didn't hear about all that drama about Annabel at the beginning of the year?"
He's about to shake his head when he remembers something.
"Me and Sophie? It was just... we had a falling out over the summer." At his raised eyebrow, she elaborated. "She thinks I slept with her boyfriend."
"Did you?"
"No," she said softly, "I didn't."
"No," he murmurs.
"You know?" He hits his steering wheel with his open hand. He knows. Oh, he knows. But he asks anyway.
"What happened?" She can tell he's figured it out, but she'll tell him anyway.
"There was this party at the end of the school year," she begins. He's holding his breath, his throat tight, his fingernails digging into his palms. "And Sophie's boyfriend—the same boyfriend—was there. And Annabel went to go get us drinks and she was taking a while, and then Sophie walked in on her and Will together." Owen is breathing hard now. "And Will told her that Annabel had come on to him. And Sophie said horrible things to her, and Annabel was shaking and she said she hadn't come on to him but no one would listen to her. So she left. We didn't see her again all summer."
He can't imagine her having held this all in for nearly a year. He remembers the first day he met her, when she'd shoved Sophie. What had Sophie said? Something about how one time wasn't enough for her and she had to come back for more? He remembers now something from right before that, something that hadn't even registered as being important—Annabel looking uncomfortable as she talked to a guy in a car through his rolled down window. And then, minutes after that when Owen had officially met her for the first time, she'd been kneeling in the grass vomiting.
She hadn't been uncomfortable. She'd been terrified. Had he been threatening her? Had he grabbed her arm so she couldn't leave? Owen can't remember the details.
Suddenly Emily is crying, sobbing hysterically. Owen can barely make out her words between sobs.
"And we were—all so—mean—to her! I—called—her—a whore—for—being—r—r—" Emily sniffs and takes a deep breath, and suddenly, just like that, she has calmed herself. "Raped," she finishes quietly. "She was raped and we all told her what a slut she was."
Owen's fist clenched and unclenched, wanting very badly to punch someone but knowing that this was neither the time to do so nor the person to do so to. Tears in his eyes, heart racing, he took deep breaths. Counted to ten. Turned his gaze back on Emily, who was watching with big eyes and whose cheeks were wet.
Calmly, coolly—with only his death grip on the steering wheel to betray his fury—Owen ran his fingers through his hair, turning back to look at her. He could remember how often Annabel had been sitting in that same spot. When she'd laughed at his using a hammer to buckle her in, when she'd first asked about his music and he'd explained what it meant to be enlightened. He blinked and reminded himself that all of that was gone now.
He took a breath and collected himself. He forced himself to see Emily again and not Annabel.
"Can you go somewhere with me after school?"