CHAPTER THIRTY: What Are You Gonna Do?

I show him the picture I took of him on Ashley. I watch his face nervously. How he reacts to this will determine what kind of a person he really is. His expression goes from bewildered and doubtful to horrified in .02 seconds flat. I don't even hear him breathing. He's frozen in place, his eyes glued to the screen. I hold it up for a few more seconds, then take it back.

"Like I said," I say quietly, "You tried to rape Ashley." He sits back, rubbing his hand over his jaw.

"You–you walked in on that?" he asks, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Yeah," I reply. "I pulled you off her right after."

"I…" he trails off.

"Ruined everything? Probably," I say. I want to be sympathetic, but it's just not in me.

"Did I do anything to you or the girlfriends?" he asks, looking at me. I look away, shifting in my spot on the floor. I'm not sure if I should tell him what he said last night.

"N-no," I say. "No, just Ashley." He looks at me more closely and I fidget uncomfortably.

"Why don't I believe you?" he asks.

"I–I, um…" I stutter, my mind racing to find an excuse.

"Lily. I need to know if I did something, because I'm not gonna remember."

"I–You may have said some things," I say, still avoiding his gaze.

"To you?"

"Yeah. When we were upstairs, after I pulled you off Ashley."
"What did I say?" he asks.

"It's–it's nothing," I say. I don't want him to know what happened.

"Lily." He reaches out and puts his hand on my knee. I pull up the recording on my iPod and press play. His drunk, slurring words echo slightly off the tiled walls.

"You're not as pretty. Or nice. Or pretty." Our conversation plays out as his face falls farther and farther. I'm just now noticing how weak my voice sounded.

"–Know what you did wrong. You don't get it. No one does!–" I stop playing the tape, not wanting him to hear the rest.

"Was that the end?" he asks.

"You don't need to hear the rest," I say, looking him hard in the eyes.

"I can't believe I said those things to you," he says, moving over to me and placing his arms around me. I let him hug me briefly before scooting away.

"You apologized later," I say.

"I just… I… I can't believe I…" he trails off, staring at the wall.

"Neither could I," I say, "but there it is."

"I'm so sorry," he says.

"Good," I say. "I'm hungry."

"That's honestly what you're thinking about right now?" he asks.

"This conversation was making me uncomfortable so I stated a relevant fact."

"I mean, I'm hungry too, but you just told me some deep shit, dude."

"I'm not saying you're off the hook, but I'd rather talk about this when I'm not distracted by hunger," I say, standing up. I help him up and we go down to the kitchen. I fix us a couple sandwiches in silence and we sit on the counter, eating them without speaking.

-oO0Oo-

*MITCH'S POV*

Everyone comes back in while we're eating our sandwiches. Most of them are smiling, greeting Lily and I and laughing about things we did last night. Ashley comes in last. I accidentally catch her eyes but she looks away instantly. She practically runs away to the mattress that she and Lily share under the stairs. Lily goes out to talk with her as everyone slowly trickles off to somewhere. Mat stays behind.

"Dude, what happened to her? She barely talked at all while we were out," he says, looking in Ashley's direction.

"I–uh, I apparently tried to r-rape her," I say, looking at the floor.

"Dude, you shouldn't joke about that," Mat says, punching my arm.

"I'm not," I say, looking him in the eyes. He's dumbstruck.

"You actually tried to–holy shit, dude!" Mat says too loudly. I shush him.

"Dude, what the fuck?!" Mat whispers.

"I don't know," I whisper back. "I don't remember it."

"Then how do you know for sure?" he asks.

"Lily has a picture," I reply. "Can we not talk about this here, dude?"

"Yeah, yeah," he says. We go up to my room and I flop on the bed on my back while Mat sits down in my desk chair.

"So you actually–like, rape-raped her?" he asks.

"I tried, apparently," I say. "Lily wasn't too specific with the details."

"What was the picture?" he asks.

"It was of me on her and I wasn't wearing a shirt and I was almost grabbing her boob," I say in one breath, trying to get it all out as quickly and (hopefully) painlessly as possible.

"Shit, dude."

"Yeah." We're silent for a few moments.

"So what are you gonna do now?" he asks. I sigh, laying an arm over my eyes.

"I don't know, dude. I really fucked up big time."

"Yeah, no shit."

"I just–I can't believe I did that, y'know? I wouldn't believe it if it weren't for the picture."

"I gotta see this pic, dude," he says.

"Ask Lily. She has it," I reply, my arm still over my eyes. I hear him get up and leave, shutting the door behind him. A few minutes later, I hear the door open again and someone flop down in the desk chair. There's a massive sigh, then Mat speaks.

"Holy shit, dude. You weren't kidding," he says.

"Yeah, no fucking shit," I reply, sitting up.

"What are you gonna do?" he asks.

"I told you, I don't know," I say. I move over to the edge of the bed and drop my feet on the floor. I slump over and put my head in my hands.

"I've never fucked up this bad," I say. I can hear my voice starting to shake.

"Yeah, dude, she could press charges," he says. I look at him, pissed.

"Dude, seriously? Not helping," I say. He shrugs.

God, what have I done?

A/N TIME! PLEASE DON'T HATE ME: Hey y'all. QD here with an update (finally) for you all. I cannot apologize enough for the lateness of this chapter. My life decided to intervene, and I let you guys down. Every time I sat down to write this chapter (which was a lot, don't even get me started), I had complete and utter writer's block the likes of which I've never seen before. It was probably related to some personal stuff that I'm working through at the moment. I'm sorry that I've lost a lot of my motivation for this story, but I will see it through to the end. Hopefully I won't have this long of a break again, but with 4 AP classes I can't make any promises. Again, I am so, so sorry. I can't say that enough. That being said, thank you to everyone who remained supportive through this long break. The few positive reviews I got really made me feel so much better. Thank you to the people who understand that writer's block is a serious problem and that it's difficult to get chapters of a significant length up on a regular schedule. You guys were the calm in the storm, so thank you. Anyway, I don't think I can really do a fact/fiction section for this chapter so I'll just say sorry one more time and make my exit. Much luv [less than three]

-Quiet Defiance

PS– I changed my Twitter handle to QDefiance and the other one is now inactive.