"One needs to be slow to form convictions, but once formed they must be defended against the heaviest odds."

-Mahatma Gandhi

Chapter Twenty-Four

Dear Sarah,

So, our summer is drawing to an end and we will all be meeting back up soon. I got a phone call from Lainey today telling me about Vanessa and Craig. I hope that she won't make too big of a deal out of it. It could be very interesting to watch those two butt heads. Well, I better be going, but I will see you at the end of summer thing.

Bye,

Bailey

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Lainey looked around at her party to see her brother standing against a wall, looking bored. The whole subject of Vanessa hadn't really come up at all since she had found out a couple days earlier. Judging by the look that was on his face most of the time, he was very disappointed and sad that his relationship with Vanessa had not turned out to be more than friendship. However, Lainey was sure that Vanessa must have feelings for him, if Sarah seemed to think so. She bit her lip, wanting to go talk to him, but not really sure if it was the best time to bring it up.

"Hey," she heard behind her. She turned around to see a smiling Marcus. She had seen him and Rachelle walk through the door earlier that night and had given them a small wave, but had not said anything to them.

"Hi," she cautiously said, looking around for his girlfriend.

"She's not with me," Marcus informed her, as if knowing who she was looking for.

"And why not?" Lainey quirked an eyebrow, "I thought she would never leave your side."

"I thought you were the one who told us to keep the drama on hold," Marcus shook his head, laughing a little to himself.

"Sorry," Lainey muttered, "So, what exactly do you want?"

"I haven't talked to you much this summer, and I wanted to apologize about the way I behaved," Marcus informed her.

8888

"Hey," Bailey softly greeted Scott as he sat down next to her at breakfast. The whole camp was talking about the dance tonight, and about leaving tomorrow. Pretty much everybody was upset about the summer being over so soon, but Bailey and Scott hadn't really mentioned the end of summer in their recent talks.

"Hey," he said back, grabbing a piece of bacon off of her plate and stuffing it in his mouth.

"What are you doing?" she giggled, swatting his arms. Just then, Bailey noticed that not only were all of her friends looking at them, but most of the Scott's friends were looking at the couple too.

"Can we talk?" Scott asked her, leading her out of the mess hall and sitting her down on a bench outside of it, "so …,"

"What are we going to do?" Bailey blurted out, facing him, "I mean, after this summer."

"I don't know," Scott said, uncomfortably, "last year, Shannon just decided we were going to stay together, so we did, but, I don't know … what do you want to do?"

"I don't know," Bailey admitted, "part of me doesn't want to leave it like this. But, you live in an entirely different state than I do, could it really work at all?"

Scott seemed to deliberate on this point for a moment before pulling Bailey into his arms and kissing her gently on the forehead.

"You know what," he whispered to her, "let's just see were it goes … we can still date for now, and if anything comes up, we'll just let it go."

"Besides," Bailey smiled as she settled herself into his arms, "there is always next summer."

8888

Sarah sat down in the counselor's office, debating whether or not to just run back out. Last session had gone well, and at the end of it she had blurted out about the rape before practically sprinting out of the office and back to her house. She didn't know what the counselor was going to say, and wasn't sure that she wanted to be around for her reaction. But, she had shown back up today, and was curious as to what the counselor was going to say.

"Hello Sarah," the counselor smiled as she walked through the door and took her seat, "how are you doing today?"

"Fine," Sarah muttered, looking at the floor.
"So, you left in quite a hurry the other day," she brought up, "and after dropping such a big bombshell."

"Sorry," Sarah looked guiltily up at her.

"Not a big deal," the counselor waved her hand around, "it just brings an interesting question to my mind. How many people have you exactly told about this?"

"I haven't really told anybody besides you," Sarah admitted to her, "I mean, two people kind of just figured it out."

"Figured it out?" the counselor asked, curious, "and how exactly did they find out?"

"Apparently this guy did the same thing to another girl, and she told people, but hardly anybody in the school believed her," Sarah started, and recapped the whole story about Seth and Vanessa finding out about her own rape.

The counselor sat in silence listening, contemplating, before gently asking, "do you feel like telling me about the night it happened?"

Sarah closed her eyes as tears began to spring up in them. She had relived that night so many times, it was like it hadn't happened just once, like she had been raped over and over again. She had never given many details to anybody, not even Vanessa about the whole thing. She wasn't too sure that she could say anything now, she felt as if her throat was contracting so she couldn't speak.

"You don't have to say anything if you don't want to," the counselor brought her out of her daze, "we can talk about it when you're ready."

Sarah just nodded, knowing she couldn't trust herself to speak at all.

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Vanessa hummed as she was getting ready for work that day. She had thought about several ways in which she could tell Craig about she liked him. She knew that in her advice she had told the person that if they couldn't make a movie-style speech of love, then they could just let the words fall out.

But, being the writer that she was, Vanessa just couldn't imagine herself just throwing the words out there. She had always thought that when it came to someone that she cared for, a lot, she would have something really poetic to say. She could think of how much she cared for Craig, but couldn't quite find words to say it And, right now, the only things that kept coming to her mind were the speeches from movies.

"Stupid movies," Vanessa grinned, "give you all the wrong ideas about love."

Even though she hadn't quite figured out the way she was going to tell him, Vanessa was happier than usual because she knew she was going to tell him.

"Hey honey," her mom said as she bounded down the stairs, all dressed in her work uniform.

"Hey mom," Vanessa smiled at her. Things had been getting back on track with her family as well. They actually had held family dinners, went bowling one night, and just generally tried to set more time aside for each other.

"So, when does Craig get back?" Carmen innocently asked. The two of them had never officially talked about Vanessa and Craig and the kind of relationship they had, or could possibly have, but Carmen knew that her daughter had feelings for the son of one of her best friends.

"In a couple of days," Vanessa said, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. Carmen just smiled at her daughter, causing the teenage girl to grin back.

8888888

"Are you talking to my boyfriend again?" Rachelle demanded as she marched over to Marcus and Lainey. Lainey was still speechless about Marcus saying he was sorry and didn't immediately answer.

"Yeah, she is," Marcus shrugged, pulling Rachelle close to him, "doesn't want to ever leave me alone, does she?"
"What?" Lainey asked, mouth hanging open. She couldn't believe this. Five seconds ago, Marcus had been apologizing, now, well, now he was definitely making up false things to tell Rachelle.

"I thought you learned your lesson about coming near MY boyfriend," Rachelle said, protectively, stressing the word my in her sentence so Lainey got the point.

"I thought we were leaving all the drama at home," Lainey snapped at Rachelle, looking around for an escape, anything to get away from this. And then, as if in answer to her request, somebody close to the window let out a shout.

"The police are coming!" the person yelled, pointing at four or five police cars pulling up to the house.

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"I … I can't be around guys anymore," Sarah managed to get out after a few seconds, "I mean, I can be, but if I'm ever alone with them, I feel as if they are going to hurt me. And even my other friends, Vanessa, whenever she is alone with a guy, I feel like she is going to get hurt. It's like I can't trust them anymore."

"And what about this guy who knows about the rape?" the counselor asked.

"I feel nervous around him too," Sarah admitted, "but, it also feels different, like I know I can trust him, but my body doesn't want me to. He is pretty understanding about it, I don't know. Does this mean I'll never be able to date again? If I can't even stand having guys touch my arm or something, how could I possibly date them?"

"I'm sure that eventually you will go back to being your old comfortable self around boys," the counselor tried to assure her, "you've already made a lot of progress if you don't get as uncomfortable around this boy you mentioned earlier."

Sarah nodded. She knew that what the counselor was telling her was true, a couple of weeks ago she wouldn't have been able to hang out with Seth in the computer room between her cheerleading try-outs like she had done for the last several days. But, another thing kept coming to Sarah's mind. She seemed fine whenever she didn't have to see Carlos, but the time that she had seen him after the incident had happened, she had been even more frightened of him than ever. Maybe it was because she now knew what he was capable of. Sarah started to open her mouth, but thought better of it and just listen to the counselor list off several tactics to help her feel more comfortable.

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Lainey looked down the line of people sitting in the police station. There were about fifteen of them in total, including all eight of the members from her group of friends, and her brother. They had been taken down here for breaking and entering a house that had been vacated. Lainey could hear laughter raising up in her as the police explained that a neighbor had called to say that the family that lived in the house had moved out earlier that summer. Now the police officers were taking names and phone numbers of all the kids who hadn't been able to escape the house before the police got in and were planning on calling all of the parents. They were also going to call the people who lived in the house that had just recently moved out to see what exactly they wanted to do with the troublesome teenagers. Lainey couldn't help but have a tiny smile on her face as she thought of the look on the face of the police officers when she told them that the phone number of the previous owners was also her own phone number.

"I can't believe you would do that!" Bridget yelled at her daughter fifteen minutes later when they were on the phone, there was no trace of smile on Lainey's face as her mom continued to yell, "you are coming home tomorrow morning at ten a.m.. I trusted you down there! Tell your brother the same thing …"

The yelling continued on for a few more seconds, before the police officer made them hang up and then Lainey turned to Craig, filled him in on the conversation with their mom and finally said, "you should ask Vanessa out."

"Why she doesn't like me," Craig grumbled, obviously still in a bad mood from being in a police station.

"If Sarah thinks she likes you, she probably likes you," Lainey informed him, "and this is me saying okay to the whole thing. You might not get a second chance."