Chapter 13

I frantically looked around me. I was trapped, pure and simple. May was clinging to me, failing to make any kind of coherent word, as Phil tried to talk over her anyway. As I looked around us, I couldn't help but notice the dozens of people with their eyes on us. On every face I read confusion. People knew that something had happened but they didn't know what.

In desperation, I turned to Nicole, who was looking down at the floor, an uneasy look on her face. She wasn't even bothering to try to make eye contact with anyone in the room. I was hoping she'd be the one to get me out of this mess. She always was in the past, but I guess it was all up to me now.

But I didn't know what to do. I just didn't. My eyes darted around the room, going from person to person, until they landed on a noticeably curious face.

Paul's face, to be precise. He was sitting down again, and was scanning me. I moved my eyes from him to May, back and forth, hoping he would get the message. His eyes moved to May, then Nicole, then Phil, then back to mine. He nodded and stood up.

He sauntered over to us, stopping just in front of our crowd, and turned around to face the crowd. He was conveniently within arm's reach of the music player, and turned it down as he cleared his throat.

"Excuse me, everyone! Could I have your attention, please?" he addressed the crowd. He was met with one or two 'shut up's from class jokers, but aside from that, the crowd quieted down. "Could everyone please keep an eye peeled for an earring? My cousin lost one, and it's from her grandmother so it's kind of important to her. Now, she knows she had it when she arrived, so it's probably on the ground somewhere. If you find it, she'll be in the drum room. Thank you all so much in advance!" With that, he turned back up the music, covering the murmurs from the crowd, as he silently ushered the group - Phil, May, Nicole and myself - into the drum room. Luckily, there was no one in there that we would have had to shoo out.

As soon as Paul closed the door behind him, the ominously quiet group exploded again with words, most of them swear words, being flown around in all direction. When the smoke had cleared from the general venting, Nicole turned to Paul.

"What the fuck was that?" she asked him with a razor-sharp tone. "This is a private thing. Why the fuck do you always think you need to get involved and prance into every little thing?"

The playful glow that normally surrounded Paul left as he listened to Nicole. His eyes widened just a little as he cleared his throat and slowly started walking forward, his eyes never leaving Nicole. "Listen, you." he spoke in a scarily calm, yet furious tone, speaking quickly yet articulating every word perfectly. "You all were clearly in some kind of situation back there, and I didn't see you doing a single damn thing about it." He jutted out a finger into her collarbone, effectively making her take a step back. With each word he got closer to her face. "I just got you all a place to talk, and prevented any gossip forming as a result of this, and you still find a reason to crawl up my ass. This is my first and only warning - get off my fucking back. I don't even know what I did to piss you off, but you'd better let me know what it is right now or you can try to actually be a kind person, as hard as that must be for you. Which one is it going to be?"

Paul was such a goofball in most situations that I never saw this coming. He was scary. His tone was terrifying. His serious face bared no resemblance to his normal joking face. Everyone in the room stopped talking as soon as he started. His mere presence in the room made everyone shrink back, with him towering over everyone in the room despite being maybe 5'9.

Out of everyone, Nicole was clearly the most taken aback. For the first few seconds she processed what he said, her eyes fearfully darting back and forth. Her eyes slowly traced their way back up to his, then immediately went down to the floor.

"Sorry, sir." She quickly and shakily muttered.

Holy shit. I was floored. I never thought anyone would break Nicole. I thought I was watching history unfold. The effect he left on Nicole left me feeling silly that I thought I was 'dominating' Nicole just a few short minutes ago.

That was good enough for Paul. He nodded and turned to Phil. "I don't know what's going on here, but I figure it's serious enough that you guys want your privacy. Want me to keep an eye on the door for you guys? Make sure no one comes in?" He asked him.

Phil was still visibly disturbed by this whole thing. "Nah, it's cool." he said to Paul. "Just enjoy the rest of the party."

"If you insist." Paul responded, not wishing to press the issue. "You got my number if you need anything." Without waiting for a response, he swayed out of the room, shutting the door behind him. as soon as he was gone, the yelling continued, except for Nicole, who was clearly upset. She walked backwards over to the wall, leaning up against it and sighing. If it were any situation other than this, I would have immediately gone over to her and tried to comfort her.

"So what the hell is going on?" I tried to cut through the yelling.

May noticed me, evidently for the first time since we came in to the drum room, and ran to my side. "Keep me away from him, Adam." she rasped, pointing an accusatory finger at him. "You want to know what's going on? He did things to me." She could barely finish the sentence without bursting into tears.

Phil pointed a finger right back at her. "Don't listen to this bitch." he told me, seething with anger. "She was the one to come onto me. She wanted it. She told me she wanted it. Five minutes later she runs out with this fake crying shit. I don't know why but this cunt is trying to ruin me."

"So she was drunk and didn't consent to it halfway through?" I asked him.

"No!" May interjected. "He's lying. I didn't say I wanted it. He just took what he wanted. He just assumed I would go down easy and took what he wanted."

"So you ran from him?" I asked.

She shuddered. "He did things to me first, Adam." she told me quietly.

"I'm not denying we did stuff." Phil pointed out. "Yeah, we had sex. But she expressly told me she wanted it." He turned to her. "Hey. If you wanted a more convincing lie you should have told him it's because you were drunk and ... and the whole 'halfway through' thing." He waved his hand around in my general direction, referencing what I had said before.

"Okay..." I said, mostly to myself. There was no way I could fairly take anyone's side. "I guess the only way we can prove this is with medical testing. Swiping for sperm or something."

"That won't work." May uneasily pointed out.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Well I ... I escaped halfway through, so he didn't ... you know ... finish."

I sighed into my hands. I didn't know if that was a thing. Could medical testing for rape victims still work if the rapist hadn't ejaculated? I didn't know. I didn't know a lot of shit, so I took her word for it. Shit, I was only a freshman. I should not be the mediator for shit like this, I thought to myself.

Phil, as if looking for holes in her argument in the future, nodded. "That's kinda true. Halfway through she just got off me, grabbed her clothes and straight-up fuckin' ran out of the room."

I saw a ray of sunshine in the agreement. "So maybe this is a misunderstanding. Maybe you thought you consented, but you didn't and went along with it until you couldn't take it anymore." I concluded, pointing to May and Phil respectively as I made my point.

"He didn't even wait for me to object, Adam. That's not what happened." May timidly told me.

Phil was facing the ceiling, trying to remain calm in his building anger. "She literally fucking told me that she wanted to have sex with me. It doesn't get more crystal-clear than that." he told the ceiling.

"Okay." I huffed. "I ... we ... um..." I eyed Nicole, who was still against the wall. "Nicole, jump in any fucking time here. We could use another opinion."

"Shut up." She mumbled, not looking up.

I sighed loudly. "Nicole, any other time it's fine, but could you please put whatever it is aside and h-"

"I said shut up." she told me firmly. I looked at Phil, who shrugged and shook his head no. I guess Nicole was out of this debate for whatever reason.

I thought to myself as tension and silence hung heavily in the air. "The only thing left I can think of would be to call the police if th-"

"No!!" both of them called out at the same time, then looked at each other with a distrusting sneer.

"Why?!" I asked exasperatedly. I was getting sick of this.

Phil was the first to voice his objections. "Word is going to get out if the police are called to my house, bro. And what do you think is going to happen to my reputation? Shit, even if the rape isn't mentioned my life is going to be hell. And I already told you about that, remember?"

There was no malice to his voice, but a chill ran down my spine as I remembered his threat. I sighed as I realized that Phil had me by the balls. "Okay, sure, whatever." I replied, giving less of a crap by the second, and turned to May. "Alright, why the hell don't you-"

"Are you living in a fantasy world?!" May accused Phil, turning to him. "First of all, anything that happens to you, you fucking deserve it. Secondly, if I say you raped me and you say you didn't, they're never going to take me seriously. They're going to ask me if it was actual rape or just eye contact, and they're just going to press me for anything I may have done to 'ask for it.' You get off scot-free because 'she's probably lying' or some shit."

"Yeah, that never happens." Phil dismissed May.

"Sometimes it does." Nicole piped up, still keeping her head to the floor.

"Now you choose to contribute?!" I yelled at her.

"You have no idea what it's like to be violated! Fuck you!" May spat at Phil.

"Fuck me?! Fuck you!" Phil shouted back at her. Before long, the room had devolved once again into a series of shouts and disagreements. Not knowing what else to say, and emotionally spent, I backed up and joined Nicole by the wall.

She lazily looked over at me. Evidently, she had gotten over what was making her inconsolable, but still didn't feel 100%. "Oh, right, you don't like yelling." she remarked calmly, noting how uncomfortable I looked. I nodded, so with great effort, she got up from the wall and clapped in between May's and Phil's faces, which were getting closer by the second.

"Alright, fuckers, listen up." she addressed them with not a shred of emotion in her voice. "If you're not going to call the police or do anything decisive about this, then there's really nothing else we can do, so QED, Jimmy Carter and I are outta here." She grabbed me by the wrist and started to lead me out. "Hope this all gets resolved." She stopped as soon as she was in front of Phil, and looked him in the eye. "Bye, Phil. Thanks for the party." She gave him no smile, and continued to lead me out of the room, practically dragging me. I didn't feel it was right to leave those two alone, especially if Phil really did violate her. Leaving them alone with someone making sure no one came in would just make it ... worse.

"Nicole, come on, please, wait." Phil begged as Nicole opened the door, waited until I was past it, then slammed it after me. She was still looking back at the door as Paul walked up to us.

"Is everything resolved?" he asked warmly. Nicole, upon seeing him, gasped, bringing both hands to her mouth, letting go of me in the process. Her back hit the door as she recovered from the shock.

"Sorry." she mumbled defeatedly, throwing her hands down to her side and walking as quickly as she could without running towards the main door.

I looked at her then back to Paul, who was watching Nicole with a cocked eyebrow. "No clue what her problem is." he said to no one in particular. "Don't get me wrong, she's interesting, but she's hated me for no reason for a long time now."

I ignored him and pointed to the door. "They're alone in there, and they probably shouldn't be." I told him. "Go back in there and ask if they're willing to tell you what happened. You'll be better at helping them than me."

"Are you okay?" He asked me, noting how distressed I both looked and sounded.

I ignored him again. "Even if they don't feel comfortable telling you, just don't let them be alone in that room together. Hopefully this whole thing will blow over. I gotta go." I didn't even wait for a response as I ran out the door and to Nicole's car, where she was waiting and idling.

As soon as I shut the door behind me she mumbled, "About time." She started driving as silence loomed over the car.

" ... Jimmy Carter?" I finally asked, hoping to cut the tension. It seemed to work, as Nicole chuckled.

"I guess not everyone pays attention to Israeli-Palestinian conflicts." she said humorously as she kept driving. "Not your fault, squirt." She kept driving for a few more seconds before adding, "None of this is your fault."

"Are you okay, Nicole?" I asked, my voice reflecting real concern. She turned to me and gave a small, hesitant smile. She turned back to driving, but my gaze remained on her.

"Was it really that smart leaving those two alone? I mean, rape is a pretty serious thing." I lamely kept up conversation.

She shrugged. "Who even fucking cares." she told me flatly. "If it's just a game of he said she said, more people being involved just means more bullshit."

"If she was violated, it would have been nice for people to have comforted her and taken her side." I pointed out.

Nicole shrugged. "Maybe. It's the most devastating fucking thing in the world right now, but she'll get over it. It's just one of those things life throws at you. Give it a couple of years and she'll realize it's no big deal."

I scoffed. "I bet that's how May will justify it to herself." I said aloud. "But I bet she's still hurting. I'd like to do whatever I can to make that hurting go away. I like seeing her happy."

I was no longer talking about May. Nicole, still looking at the road, bit her lower lip slowly. Her right hand came off the steering wheel and extended towards me, grabbing my left hand and bringing it in between the seats. I looked at our hands, entwined awkwardly.

"I thought you don't l-"

"Shut the fuck up and hold my damn hand, squirt." Nicole told me, her voice slightly quivering.

I nodded and looked forward. We didn't say anything for the longest time, but every so often, I'd give her hand a compassionate squeeze.

There was really no indication of how word spread, but did it ever. Before first period even started, the school was abuzz. Phil raped May. No he didn't, she was lying. Maybe both happened. How could both happen?! You're stupid. No, you're stupid. Etc.

I had come by bus, which meant I really only had fifteen minutes to make of the situation before I had somewhere to be. The school administration seemed to have about as much of a clue as I did as to what to do with what was passing by everyone's lips. Just as I was sitting down in Mr. MacDonald's geography class, the P.A. system piped up.

"Good morning, staff and students. This is Mr. Scott speaking."

"Yeah, we know." The class clown piped up, earning a generous two slight chuckles.

Mr. Scott's voice sounded oddly hesitant in comparison to his normal jolly self. "Uh ... could Phil Love and May Stevens please come to the main office as soon as possible? Apologies for the interruption. Morning announcements will commence in five minutes."

An initial response of 'ooooooh' waved throughout the room. I looked around at everyone, almost sad. Everyone knew what was happening, but no one seemed to care. To everyone else, this was just a spectacle. Something for them to watch, not someone's feelings. It made me uneasy.

I turned to Megan, shock evident on my face. I was about to say something, but then realized she didn't know what was going on. For all I knew, she spent the whole night upstairs and this whole thing didn't mean anything to her.

"What do you think that was about?" I asked her, trying to play it cool.

Megan looked at the PA box, then back to me. She shrugged. "I don't know." she simply responded.

For some reason, I was relieved. I think some of it was the guilt knowing that I had dragged Megan through a lot of shit, and I didn't want to complicate things further.

"Hey." she attempted to get my attention again. I turned back to her and nodded. "Would you like to sneak off at lunch? I think the janitor's closet is unlocked that time of day..." she trailed off, giggling and looking at me with her trademark innocent yet mischievous face she had managed to perfect in such little time.

I'm sure a few months ago such a proposition would thrill me. Now, I had to prevent the worry from showing on my face. "I'm, uh ... fine, thanks." I managed, not bothering to hide the shock. "Boy, when you said you wanted to be like Nicole, you weren't kidding, were you?"

She blushed. "Well, I mean, it's ... you know ... fun." she feebly responded.

"No no." I reassured her. "Don't worry, I didn't mean it like that. I just didn't expect it. I mean, we're practically adults, there's no reason to judge someone for sleeping around or sleeping with a lot of guys or something..." I attempted to parrot Nicole, and somehow managed to put together a worse speech than Herman Cain. Great.

Still, it appeared to satisfy her. "Really?" she beamed. "You think it's okay?"

Whatever made her happy. "Yeah, totally. I didn't want to stop you when you were having sex with that other guy at the party. It looked like you two were having fun."

"So it's okay for a girl to sleep around?" Megan concluded, as if looking for my approval.

"Um, sure..." I stumbled awkwardly. Where was she going with this?

Her smile turned blatantly mischievous. "Then it's your loss." she told me. "If you don't want to sneak off, I'm going with someone else." She playfully tossed her hair over her shoulder. "If you want to reconsider, you know how to reach me."

Oh, great. Great. "Megan..." I began exasperatedly.

Within seconds that innocent look was back on her face. "What's wrong?" she asked. "Didn't you mean what you said about me?"

I sighed. "Yeah, I meant it." I admitted. At that point I was wishing my problems were only limited to Phil and May.

Without another thought, Megan turned around and started chatting up another guy. I didn't really need to guess what she was talking about, seeing as after thirty seconds the boy's responses went from general disinterest to hormonal excitement.

My head collapsed into my arms on the table. You know what? I thought to myself. Fine. As long as she stays out of trouble, that's totally fine. I already had a lot of worry clouding my mind - I really didn't have the energy to spare some of that worry for another.

I didn't actually have to go to the washroom, I was just nosy as hell. It didn't matter much to Mr. MacDonald, so I had a fair amount of time to look into just how events were unfolding.

And unfolding they were. As I approached the main office, the sounds of faint murmuring and some kind of occasional beep greeted my ears. As the situation came into my viewpoint, the worst case scenario came up and hit me straight in the gut.

Police. The police were called. Memories of what had been said at the party flashed through my mind as I realized that this was probably the school's doing, not May's or Phil's. The beeping came from inside the office as some police officer was talking into a walkie-talkie. I looked around cautiously then tiptoed my way up to the front door of the office, peering into the door's window.

I could faintly make out civil arguing between May and Phil. Why the school thought this would help, I had no clue, but no surprise, the officer was doing a much better job of being a mediator than I was.

"If there's no evidence, how can you charge me with anything?" Phil asked loudly, his voice muffled by the door coming between he and I. His voice was slightly raspy and very angry. "Don't you realize what you guys being here is even doing? I won't be able to fucking walk around in the halls here anymore without feeling guilty for shit I didn't do!" he shouted. I had never seen Phil so angry in my life. He attempted to calm down and added, "Suppose even for a second that this bitch is lying. Isn't it-"

"Fuck you you stupid rotten bastard!!" May leapt up from her chair and came within millimeters of Phil's face before the officer intervened and grabbed her, making her sit back down on the chair. If this weren't such a serious situation, I would have laughed at how genuinely terrified Phil's face looked when May went all bonzai on him.

I can't imagine the use of 'this bitch' earned Phil any points. At any rate, it was abundantly clear they were getting nowhere fast. My guess was they had already interviewed the both of them and realized how much of a game of 'he said she said' it was, so they were trying to find something out while having them together in the same room. But anything was possible. I didn't know about police proceedings and I didn't know how they handled cases like this. Unfortunately, I knew this meant that someone was going to win, and someone was going to lose. Whether or not Phil actually did it, they were either going to charge him or not, and that meant there was a clear winner and a clear loser.

"This is a private matter, young man." An authoritative female voice piped up from behind me. "I need to ask you to leave."

I turned around and faced a giant of a woman with one eyebrow cocked, with most likely the most scared expression my stupid face could provide. "S-sorry." I stammered.

She looked me up and down. "What's your name?" she asked me.

"A-Adam." I timidly answered. "Adam Watson. Yours?"

It was stupid of me to try to make conversation but it was a nervous reflex. I could see the woman hold back a chuckle. "Constable Dickson. I'm responsible for this school."

"Why aren't you in there then?" I asked.

"This is the last question you get to ask me." she warned. "This is a serious matter, so we needed multiple officers to respond. If word gets out about this you could seriously be damaging people's lives. You understand that?"

I chuckled nervously. "Half the school's been talking about this since before announcements." I told her honestly.

She sighed, and looked down the hallway. "Sounds like the Hazelwood I remember." she remarked bitterly. "And no, before you ask, you can not know what this situation is about. Now go."

"I already do." I continued conducting the Train of Honesty. "May claims Phil sexually harassed her, Phil claims he didn't."

She folded her arms. "Is that all you know?" she asked me seriously.

"Pretty much." I nodded. "After the fact May found me and told me what happened, then Phil told me his side. It's probably the same stuff you guys heard." I paused. "Isn't there no evidence? How do you guys approach a 'he said she said' thing like this?"

"I can't answer that." she told me bluntly. "You already know too much. It's your responsibility as - I'm going to assume you're their friend..."

I meekly shrugged.

" ... to not say anything about this situation to anyone. Not a word. This situation is only going to get worse."

"I know." I replied, a little offended.

She didn't respond. She moved her lips from one side to the other in thought.

"Do I get to know what you're thinking about?" I asked her.

"I think I'm going to need to send you home for today." she answered. She read my face and immediately added, "Don't worry. This isn't a punishment. You did nothing wrong. But we need to do as much damage control as possible. You understand, you know a lot about this. We'll make a decision and we'll try as hard to make the right one, but anything not handled by us could have major consequences for those two." She gestured with her head towards the office.

"I'm not going to blab about this!" I replied, a little angry. "Hell, half the school knows already."

"I can't know for sure that you won't, or if you didn't already." she told me. "This is supposed to be need-to-know information."

I gestured around me. "We're having this conversation in the main freaking hallway!" I argued.

She ignored me. "Come on." With that, she ushered me into the main hallway, where the other officer was talking to May and Phil. May had her back to me, so she didn't see me come in, but Phil noticed immediately.

"Him! That's him."He energetically pointed to me. "That's Adam. He knows."

The male officer turned to face me, then Constable Dickson. "Is he a witness?"

"He claims Phil and May came up to him afterwards and told him everything they know." she answered him. "He also claims we would know everything he knows."

"Good find, sir." the male officer responded, then turned back to Phil and May.

"Sir?" I whisper-asked Dickson. She shushed me.

"Alright, you two. We're going to ask Adam here a couple questions to see if both of your stories check out. Can you both verify that you told Adam the truth?"

"Yes." Phil practically beamed. For some reason he thought I was his saving grace.

"Y-yeah." May replied, not less confident but instead shaken from the whole event.

The two were ushered out of the room by Dickson and presumably taken to some other room as the officer sat me down.

"Adam, my name is Officer Teeson," he told me in a warm, calm voice, mildly reminiscent of Salvadore's. "Could I please have your full name, the name of your parents, your current address and phone number?"

I complied, then used the opportunity to ask my first question. "Constable Dickson said I know too much and need to be sent home. Is that true?"

Teeson shrugged. "It may have been true about a minute ago but now you're a witness. We'll discuss what happens with you after this depending on the situation and if anything has changed. Please tell us the whole truth. If you were threatened or put in any other situation implying personal harm, talk to us and you will be protected. Do you understand?"

"Yeah." I replied a little shakily. "Oh, and my geography teacher will need to be notified. He thinks I'm going to the washroom."

His eyes trailed up from his notebook to meet mine. "Did you come down here specifically knowing you could be a witness?"

"No, I just wanted to know what was going on." I answered.

"Under the circumstances we're glad you did but in the future do not do that, at least without being honest to your teacher. Dickson is going to tell him what's going on but he will know he was lied to. We are going to stress that part. Lying to people who are paid to watch over and take responsibility for you is never a good idea. Do you understand?"

"Yes sir." I meekly responded. Teeson mumbled into his walky-talky, presumably telling Dickson to tell MacDonald, then clicked his pen.

For the next thirty minutes he grilled me for every detail. Who left the bedroom and came to me first, what their emotions were, who else knew (and I honestly answered Nicole and possibly Paul), how proper their clothes and May's makeup looked - hell, even Phil's fly. They needed a reason to trust or distrust one particular suspect, and I was the key to finding out which suspect they could trust.

At the end, Teeson clicked his pen a few times and sighed. "I think we have all of the information we need." he informed me. "Thank you for your compliance. I am going to trust you to keep this entire thing to yourself though. If anyone asks you who did it, your only answer is 'I don't know.' If anyone asks what happened over the weekend, your only answer is 'I don't know.' They ask about the police in the school, where May Stevens and Phil Love are, or even where you were, your answer is 'I don't know.' If you fail to keep this information private, we will find out and there will be severe consequences."

"Aren't I being sent home?" I asked him.

He shook his head no. "Constable Dickson talked it over with the principal and reached an agreement with him. This agreement is based on trust. Do not break it."

"I understand." I replied, then scratched my head. "So what happens now? Do you have enough information to make the decision?"

"I can not disclose that." Teeson replied. "Besides, you don't know anything about this situation to begin with."

"Ah right, how could I forget." I replied sarcastically. I got up from my chair and started to make my way towards the door, looking up at the clock above the door. Still another thirty minutes left in class, I realized. With that, I made the trip back to class hastily, as if that would improve the reaction I would inevitably get from MacDonald.

When I got back in the room, the class was borderline silent, working on some paper. "Ah, Adam." Mr. MacDonald welcomed me. "You were in the washroom a long time. Are you okay?"