It was quarter past four on a Thursday and Kate's violin was silent again. Just like last Thursday, and the Thursday before Thanksgiving, and Max was beginning to see a pattern to it.
They'd walked back to the dorms together after class, and Kate had seemed in a hurry to get back to her room, so she must be in there. Apparently the hurry wasn't to start violin practice, though.
Half past four Max was across the hallway knocking on the door. "Kate?" It could be a big group project or something. "It's Max." Or some kind of study session. Maybe a religious thing? "Are you in there?"
The door opened. Half a dozen faces stared at her. All girls, all about their age, maybe a touch older. Save Kate's, none were familiar. And it probably wasn't fair to judge based on their appearances, but the group sure didn't look like an Abstinence Club meeting.
"Come in Max." Kate's voice was warm and welcoming, and Max obediently stepped into... whatever this was.
There were two girls on the couch, and one on Kate's bed. The desk chair was turned around to join two folding chairs, with Kate, a blonde in a sundress, and a girl with pink hair in them, forming a kind of circle. The girl on the bed-a tall, black-haired woman with olive skin and piercings
-motioned for Max to take a seat beside her. Max remained standing.
A freckled girl with a bushy red ponytail
closed the door behind Max and sat back on the couch next to a black girl even smaller than Max, who wore her hair in small, tight braids with wooden beads at the ends.
"I should probably go over the ground rules again." Kate spoke with a kind of authority that Max hadn't witnessed before. "Nothing that's shared here leaves this room, ever. Not even to a therapist unless you take out all the names."
...shit. Max instantly realized what this was, and what Kate was doing. The door was right behind her, but Max was just as caged-in as the rabbit over on the dresser.
"Nobody has to share anything they're not comfortable with. You can just listen, and that can help too."
She planned this.
"And remember: This affects everyone differently. There's no wrong way to react to it, just healthy and unhealthy ways to cope. It's important to respect that."
She sounds like a fucking therapist.
"Now why don't we all introduce ourselves again. My name is Kate."
As if I don't fucking know who she is.
"Last October I was at a party when I was drugged." Kate caught Max's glare and paused for a moment before continuing uneasily. "Someone took a video of me kissing a lot of people, and posted it online. Then Nathan kidnapped me and Mark Jefferson took photos of me while I was unconscious."
She sounded more like she was introducing herself to a classroom playing 'two truths and a lie' than recounting trauma. Wonder how many times she's practiced that little speech.
Kate looked to the girl in the folding chair by the couch, a tall, thin girl with a pink pixie cut and a black tank top with stick figures on the front. The girl leaned forward in her chair and glanced in Max's direction, then rested her elbows on her jeans. At least she wasn't staring.
"I'm Megan."
Megan didn't deserve to be glared at, and Max did her best to hide her anger for the moment.
"I was drugged just before Rachel disappeared. She was a friend of mine, so... Fuck, I don't even care about the photos."
The black girl on the couch paused for a few seconds to be sure Megan was finished, then spoke.
"Same story, pretty much, just two years earlier." She looked directly at Max. "Roofied at a party. Ended up as Jefferson's zonked out model. Don't remember much of it. Never reported it, cause who the hell'd believe me over a respectable teacher." Max had never heard the word 'respectable' spoken with so much venom. "Oh, and my name's Tyra."
Max could already tell she wasn't going to remember half of the names here. Just those faces, and the thought of them groggy and terrified, with Jefferson leering at them from behind his camera.
The redhead spoke next; her gaze only rose once or twice from the carpet to meet Max's.
"I'm Lucy. He only got six photos of me. I had some kind of reaction to whatever he dosed me with, and I started seizing. He just takes a few more shots, then dumps me on a street corner." She put her thumbs in the straps of her overalls and took a deep breath. "Thought it was just a worse episode than usual. I had no idea til last month. Or October I mean. Then I find out there's photos, and it's been messing me up ever since. Even if it's just him and the police that saw 'em, it's just awful."
They seemed to be going clockwise around the room, so after that punch to the gut it was Max's turn. All eyes focused on her, and her insides turned to lead.
Kate offered some reassurance. "Remember, you don't have to share anything if you don't want to."
"I'm Max. I... I'm sorry. I can't do this." Even if she wanted to, she didn't dare. And right now she didn't even want to.
"Hey, it's okay," the redhead on her right-Lucy, wasn't it?-said. "I didn't even give my name the first time. Kelly?"
Kelly sat on the bed and stared out the window. "It was three years ago now. Almost four. When I woke up I went to the police right away. Did everything you're supposed to, SAFE kit, PEP, Plan B and all that. Nothing came of it, 'cept maybe police asking all the awful bullshit questions like it's still the 19-fucking-50s, like I must have done something wrong. I thought-"
Kelly was interrupted by the slam of the door, and when she looked to her right Max had left. "Whatever."
Kate looked to the blonde girl on the other folding chair. "Lynn?"
"Why bother?"
So Kate did her best to get the meeting back on track. "Kelly, you were telling us about when the police contacted you again. Did you want to con-" A chime and a buzz from the phone on her desk interrupted, but she hardly missed a beat. "-continue?"
"I guess the thing that bothered me most is that he was acting like this was such great news. Like I should be super thankful that I wasn't raped after all, and that we caught the guy. And I mean I guess I am glad, just so he can't do it again. But I mean, jesus, it's been three years and I thought I was done with this bullshit."
Checking her phone would be inappropriate, even though she knew who it must be. Another message elicited the exact same chime, but it somehow managed to sound more urgent than the first time, and Kate finally gave in.
Max: What the hell
Max: How long were you planning that
Kate: Cam we talk later?
Max: Fuck you too
Kate: Please don't be like that. I'm just trying to help.
Kate went back to listening, even though Kelly was giving her story a level of detail that made her stomach churn.
After several minutes with not a single chirp from her phone, Kate waited for an opening to excuse herself. "I'm sorry, I have to go take care of something." She felt their stares on her back as she opened the door, and realized she probably shouldn't have bothered being vague. Hopefully they'd understand.
She knocked as politely as she could on Max's door. A conversation wafted down the hall-Dana's door was never shut-but no sounds of Max, not even yelling at her from inside to go away. She knocked louder. Still nothing. Trying the handle was a risk, but if Max hadn't shouted by now maybe...
The door swung open. Everywhere she looked she saw messes-the bed was unmade, the desk buried in papers, and the carpet covered up in laundry-but no Max.
This is bad. The stereo was broken, the houseplant had long shuffled off this mortal coil, and a messenger bag lay carelessly on the couch, spilling papers onto the floor. I should have known something was wrong when she avoided me all week. Or when she borrowed my camera yesterday.
Kate closed the door quietly and rushed up the stairs. The wind carried the shouts of two boys practicing their spiral throws up from the quad below, and blew a few stray wisps of hair into Kate's face, but Max wasn't on the rooftop.
The cafeteria was busy, but not so busy that it took more than a minute to be certain that Max wasn't in it. There was no sign of her in the halls either.
Kate's jacket was still in her room, there was no going back to get it now, but she braved the bitter cold to look around the campus. She even managed to find the log they'd sat on the other day, but not Max.
Finally back in the main hall, shivering heavily, she pulled out her phone to double check. Still no response, so she tried again.
Kate: Where are you?
Another minute of silence passed before Kate sent more texts.
Kate: I can talk now.
Kate: I'm really sorry.
Max: ...
Max: For what?
Kate: What do you mean?
Max: Do you even get why I'm pissed?
Kate: Because you weren't ready?
Max: Cause I told you no and you tricked me into it
Max: Cause you basically told the whole room that Jefferson drugged me
Kate: I wasn't trying to trick you
Max: And yeah, cause I'm not ready.
Kate: Can we talk in person please?
Max: Baseball bleachers. Don't bring any of your 'friends'.