Chapter 1

Melanie made her way through the heard of partying college kids, most drunk, being that the party was well into the fourth hour mark. Melanie had only been there for about twenty minutes though, but already she was ready to leave. She wasn't a big party girl, but didn't mind them occasionally, however tonight she just wasn't into it.

She just wanted to get out of there, she was tired and the loud music was giving her a headache, but she had to find Poppy first, to tell her she was going.

"Melanie," she heard her name being called behind her, turning she found Logan. He was in her in her drawing class; she talked to him sometimes but didn't really know him too well. She was surprised to see him here though, him being a junior, and this party mostly being freshman, with a couple of sophomores.

"Hi Logan," she greeted with a friendly smile.

"Hey, how's it going?" he asked casually, grinning at her.

"Oh, fine, you know," she said distractedly, wanting to continue on her way, but not wanting to be rude.

"Yeah, me too. I've been fine, I mean."

"Good, that's good," she said nodding.

"So, do you maybe want to dance?" he asked.

"What?" she couldn't quite hear him over the loud music.

"Do you want to dance?" he leaned over and shouted in her ear.

"Oh, actually I was just leaving. I have to find Poppy first, though," she said back, glad the conversation was ending.

"Leaving so soon?" he said, and Melanie didn't catch the disappointment in his voice.

"Yeah, I'm kind of tired." And she turned to leave, "See ya," she said over her shoulder.

Melanie finally found Poppy talking to some girls, and pulled her aside. "I'm leaving," she said into her ear.

"Really? Do you want me to come with you?" Poppy asked.

"No, I'm just tired. You stay here; I'll see you back at the dorm." Poppy nodded and waved goodbye. Melanie had just made it to the door, when she felt a hand on her arm.

"Hey, Melanie." It was Chris Stanwick. She beamed up at him, pleased he was talking to her. She only knew him casually, but she had a bit of a secret crush on him. He was just too handsome.

"Hi Chris!" She hoped her voice wasn't too enthusiastic and told herself to play cool.

"You look really hot tonight," he said smoothly.

"Really?" God, could she be more pathetic. She sounded like some pre-teen groupie.

"Yeah, you wanna dance?" Melanie loved the way he leaned into her when he asked, and forced herself to respond with a very calm "sure." Chris led her out to where people were dancing, and she started to sway to the music, letting her body rub up against his.

Across the room stood Logan. He watched her dancing with growing anger, and cursed himself an idiot. He had come to this asinine party, just because he had heard she'd be there. He had waited around four hours for her to show up, and when she finally did, she blew him off. He hadn't even been mad then, she was just tired. The thought that she was making an excuse hadn't even crossed his mind. Idiot, he cursed himself again.

Now she was over there dancing with some punk, gyrating all over him. He couldn't watch, he couldn't bear to see the woman he loved all over another man. Yes, Logan loved her, had been in love with her since the first time he saw her. She had walked into the drawing class with a little white dress on, her soft brown hair shorn into a short, pixie-like cut, rosy cheeks and big blue eyes. Though she didn't seem to notice him at all, she had sat right next to him. They hadn't spoken until a couple days later.

Logan forced himself to stop thinking about her. She wasn't who he thought she was, he told himself, just forget her. But forget her he could not.

Melanie woke up in a strange bed, confused and disoriented. Her head was throbbing so hard, she didn't realize at first that she was naked. She instantly panicked, forcing her brain to think back to last night. She could remember the start of the party, wanting to leave, dancing, drinking, but after that her mind goes foggy.

She slowly sat up. She could feel the pain between her legs, the soft throbbing. She knew instantly she had been raped, even before she saw the dried virgin's blood on her thighs. Melanie let herself break down into sobs. She couldn't believe this had happened to her. She wanted to save herself for the man she loved, but her virginity had been cruelly taken from her.

She hated being naked, and she put her dress back on. Her panties were too torn to wear, and she couldn't find her bra. She just wanted to get home, to get home and take a shower. To wash the evidence of her rape off of her.

The walk back to her dorm was the longest of her life. She could feel the passers-by's eyes on her, she felt like somehow they knew.

"Lanie, where have you been?" Poppy asked as she opened the door. "We've been worried sick..." and she trailed off as she saw the look on Melanie's face.

"Gee Melanie, what happened?" she asked worriedly. Melanie just pushed past her, heading for the bathroom. "Melanie, what's wrong?" she called as Melanie locked herself behind the door. She stripped off her wrinkled dress, stuffing it into the trashcan before turning on the shower. She let the warm water wash over her skin. She scrubbed her entire body, especially her thighs and between her legs.

She must have been in the shower for over forty minutes, but when she came out, Poppy was waiting for her. "Melanie, you tell me what happened last night, right now," she demanded.

"I-I," Melanie said looking at her, "Last n-night," she stammered, tears starting to stream down her face, "someone-someone raped me," she said on a sob. She couldn't control herself any longer, and broke down into heart-wrenching tears for the second time that morning.

"What?" Poppy screamed, overwhelmingly angry. How could anyone rape Melanie? "Who?" she asked.

"I ... don't ... know," Melanie said between sobs. Her body hunched over and she leaned against the wall.

"What's going on?" Bee, her other roommate, asked worriedly, coming out of her bedroom.

"Call the police," Poppy said, pulling Melanie into a hug, "Melanie was raped last night."

Melanie had calmed down and was sitting on the couch when the police arrived. She was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt.

"Okay miss, tell me exactly what happened," the police officer asked, sitting across from Melanie. She told him the whole story, everything she did since arriving at the party, up till when she couldn't remember. She told him about the next morning, too.

"Okay, very good. You told me you were talking to a Chris Stanwick. Do you think he could have possibly slipped you a date rape drug?" he asked.

"Well, I guess he could have, but I don't think Chris would do something like that," she said.

"Well, can you think of anyone who could have done this?"

"No, no, I can't think of anyone," she said, shaking her head.

"Okay," the police officer started, but was interrupted by Poppy, "I can." They all turned to look at her.

"Logan Tully," she said, then turning toward the police officer continued, "He's so creepy, he's always staring at her. And last night was no different, I saw him. Plus, Melanie said she rejected him for a dance," she said looking at the girls to gage their reactions, "He's obsessed with her, I wouldn't be surprised if the bastard did this."

"I don't know, I can't believe that he would rape me because I didn't dance with him," Melanie said. Logan always seemed so nice.

"I've seen a lot stranger things," the police officer said. "I'll talk to both boys, but I have to tell you, a lot of these cases involving date rape drugs are hard to prove, especially with no DNA evidence." Then he pulled a business card out of his pocket, handing it to Melanie, "Here's the card of a grief counselor who specializes in this sort of thing," he said and left the room.

"Well that was helpful," Poppy said sarcastically when he was gone.

"Come on," Bee said, pulling her to her bedroom, "Why don't you go rest."

"That sounds good," Melanie agreed, realizing that she was pretty tired. She climbed into bed and was asleep in no time.

Melanie insisted on going to her classes the next day. She wasn't going to let this ruin her life.

"Melanie, I heard what happened. Are you okay? Is there anything I can do?" Logan was upon her as soon as she walked into her drawing class.

"I'm fine," Melanie said looking at him suspiciously. She wondered it he could have possibly raped her. He didn't look like a rapist, but then what did a rapist look like?

She sat down and could feel his worried eyes on her for most of class, but she pointedly ignored him. "Lanie, do you want to skip the rest of your classes? Get your mind off things, I'll take you wherever you want to go," Logan asked her after class.

That was just the kind of sweet thing she had expected to come from Logan. She normally would have taken him up on the offer, but she couldn't get it out of her head that maybe he had raped her. Maybe he had stalked her and raped her.

"No thanks, I better not, you know," she said and hurriedly left. She didn't turn back to see the hurt expression on his face.

She saw Chris at lunch, and she was sure he saw her too, but he pretended like he hadn't. Well, the least he could do was come talk to her, say something. Oh well, she thought, he was just a jerk anyway.

It had only been a week, but Melanie found herself starting to go back to her regular life, and as the days went on, the pain started to fade. Nobody mentioned the incident to her, and she stopped thinking about it every second of the day.

She never talked to Chris, but Logan was being extremely nice to her. She accepted his kindness with distant formality, but he didn't seem to mind in the slightest. One day when she was talking about her trouble with the human form, especially the male, he offered to model for her. She looked at him startled, but said no thank you, that it would just be too weird.

She didn't want to be alone with him, especially with him naked. It would just be too intimate, plus she was still a little uneasy about him. The next day, she was talking to another girl in her class, Samantha, and she off-handedly mentioned Logan's offer.

"Well, that's wonderful," Samantha had said before Melanie had time to tell her she had rejected it. "Can you ask him if I can come too? I need to get some practice in, and models are so expensive."

"Well, I actually told him no," Melanie said hesitantly, the other girl seemed so excited.

"Why?" she asked, but didn't wait for an answer, "tell him you changed your mind," she said and pushed Melanie in the direction of where Logan was sitting.

"Um, Logan?" she asked hesitantly. Logan looked up and smiled widely. She never initiated conversations with him.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"Um, well you know that offer you made yesterday, about modeling?" He nodded. "I was just wondering if I could take you up on that?" she asked.

"Yeah of course, how about tonight?" he said happily. He was glad she wanted to spend time with him, even if it was to practice for school.

"That's good, we can do it here, and Samantha's coming, too," she gestured to the girl on the other side of the room, "I hope you don't mind."

Absolutely he minded, "Not at all," he said.

"Okay, see you," she said, and walked back over to Samantha.

That night, Logan was upset to find more than just Samantha and Melanie in the room, but he didn't say anything. Apparently Samantha invited some other girls who needed to practice drawing, and how could he refuse. He couldn't say, "No, I just want these two."

So that's how he found himself naked, standing on a podium with a bunch of girls staring at him. He felt ridiculous, but he would do it for Melanie. She looked so cute and intense when she was drawing, and he had to force himself not to stare, though he let his eyes wonder in her direction every now and again.

Melanie, who didn't catch him looking at her, was too busy trying not to stare herself. He was so muscley and chiseled, so handsome and confident standing there in the nude. She had to force herself to work on her drawing and not fantasize about being inside those strong arms.

After several hours of posing, they were finally done and they all wrapped up.

"Can I walk you home?" Logan asked Melanie. For some reason, Melanie wasn't as scared of him after staring at him naked for several hours, and she nodded.

"Sorry Samantha brought all those girls," she said as they left the building.

"It's okay," he said. If it got her to warm up to him, then it was more than okay.

"You must be very comfortable with yourself, I could never have done that."

"It wasn't so bad after the first five minutes," he explained, "I kind of got used to it."

"You know, some of those girls, I don't think they were even in any art classes. They probably just wanted to see a hot upper classman without his clothes," she said teasing him.

"You think I'm hot?" he let the question escape his mouth without thinking. Melanie just blushed and didn't look at him. They reached her dorm room, and they stopped outside the door.

"Thanks for doing that tonight," she said.

"My pleasure," he insisted gallantly. "Hey Lanie, do you want to maybe..." and his words trailed off as Poppy and Bee had come into view of the dorm, and they rushed to stand next to her.

"Get away from her, you pervert," Poppy ordered, pulling Melanie back by the arm.

"What are you talking about?" Logan was stunned.

"Guys, it's..." Melanie started, but was interrupted by Poppy.

"We know that you're obsessed with her, that you've been stalking her," Poppy accused.

"I have not, what are you talking about?" Logan was completely taken aback

"Give me your wallet," Bee asked.

"What? Why?" Logan said looking at her oddly.

"Just give it to me." And he reached in his back pocket and pulled it out, slapping it in her hand. Bee calmly looked through it, and pulled out a picture of Melanie. It was black and white, really artistic, and she was sitting under a tree reading. Melanie looked at it, she remembered that day, the picture was months old.

Bee tossed him back his wallet, and he caught it. He looked really worried and lost, standing there, holding his wallet against his chest. He looked at Melanie to gage her reaction, but she didn't let anything show on her face.