Chapter 6: Party’s End

ELLIE’S SCREAMS WOKE me up. She’d started to sit up and apparently had fallen back, her hand on her sex. Her tears covered what little I could see of her face.

“Ellie, what is it?” I put my hand on her and she jerked back. “Ellie? What happened?” I babbled like an idiot. Ellie scrambled to move further away from me.

“Don’t touch me! Don’t!” She kept her hand over her sex. She wasn’t playing, she was protecting or holding herself as if she hurt.

“What happened, Ellie?”

She shook her heard.

“So, what’s going on here?” Dale’s voice was louder than it needed to be. “What happened, dude? What did you do to her?”?

“Nothing, asshole. Nothing.” I wasn’t in the mood for any crap from Dale.

“Yeah, doesn’t sound like nothing.”

Graciela had come up behind Dale. She knelt beside Ellie. “Sweetie, what is it?”

Ellie moved her hand a little. She quieted, if only for a moment. “It hurts.”

“Holy shit, girl! What is this?” Graciela lowered herself to her knees and looked closely. “Ellie, is that blood?”

Ellie nodded.

“Who did this to you, Ellie?”

Ellie didn’t answer. She looked at me. Her face screwed up. In a second I realized what she was going to say, and I put my arms out as if to defend myself.

“Ellie, no!” I reached for her, and she scrambled back once more.

“Fuck, O’Brien, you asshole,” Dale said. “Leave her alone.”

“Fuck you, Dale.”

Graciela put her hand on my arm. “Don’t press her, Christopher. Let her be right now.” Graciela took Ellie’s arm. “Come on, Ellie, let’s go inside and clean up.”

Dale jumped forward.

“No. Not yet. Call the cops. Anyone can see what happened.”

The party music had stopped and in the relative silence I heard the cars arrive and doors slam. Evidently someone had already called the cops. It wasn’t hard to guess who. One of Dale’s buddies, probably. For all I knew they’d planned this as soon as Ellie woke up.

Mateo showed up about then, and it’s only our long friendship that kept him from immediately trying to beat me to a pulp.

Two cops appeared, one female, followed by two EMTs, also one male, one female. A part of my mind thought, this must be co-ed night. Absurd. The female cop stepped forward first. Behind her the male cop ordered everyone back. The closest EMT stepped past and wrapped Ellie in a blanket and then withdrew.

“Miss, you, too,” she said to Graciela.

“I’m her friend!”

“I have to ask you to step back, miss. I need you to let me speak with this woman alone.” To Ellie, “Can you tell me your name, miss?”

Ellie looked over to Graciela as she stepped back.

“Graciela?”

“It’s OK, girl. I’m right here.”

The cop repeated her question. Ellie gestured at her sex, where red streaks mixed with white spots of some substance. She pointed at me. “He did it, I think.”

“What do you mean, ‘you think’?”

Ellie shook her head.

“It’s confusing. I think I blacked out.”

The cop motioned for the EMTs to come closer. “In a minute these folks will help you, miss.” The cop sat down beside Ellie. “Tell me your name.”

“Ellie. Eleanora Rodriguez.”

“Thank you, Ellie.” The cop wrote in her notebook. I realized the male cop had moved closer to me. I didn’t say anything.

“What do you remember, Ellie?”

I saw her look around. I think she was blushing even as her tears started again.

“We were kind of making out, you know?”