We Are Us

Chapter 13 Worthington University

Fall Semester, Freshman Year

The smell wakes me. Vomit and chemicals. Urine and sweat.

My brain is on fire, my tongue thick and fuzzy inside my mouth.

Forcing my eyes open, I’m immediately assaulted by bright lights that stab at my corneas.

“Ah, finally. You’re awake.” A woman dressed in scrubs appears at my side.

Scrubs.

Jägermeister.

Last night.

Last night… What happened last night?

My mind instinctively pivots away from the locked door of my memory and goes into triage mode, focusing on what I do know. I am in a hospital. Everything hurts, but I’m alive. And, beneath a thin sheet… I am naked.

“Hi. Um—” My throat closes as my eyes fill with tears.

She passes me a tissue before thinking better of it and handing over the whole box. “You don’t remember much, do you?”

I shake my head, the slight movement sending a bullet ricocheting through my skull. “No,” I whisper, taking the tissues with shaking hands. Lemonade. Dartboard. Piled laundry. Soft bed. Tucker.

Kissing Tucker.

“You were brought in a few hours ago because you had a seizure in your dorm. Not really surprising, if you want to know the truth. Your blood could have been bottled as a wine cooler.” She clucks her tongue at me. “Unfortunately, I see girls like you all the time, young kids away from home for the first time, drinking whatever anyone hands you.”

“I— I’m really sorry.”

“Don’t have to apologize to me. This is my job.” Disappointment is etched into the lines around her mouth. “But it’s your life. Pull a stunt like that again, and next time it might just kill you.”

Her ring, a simple gold wedding band, taps against the handrail as she reaches for the clipboard hanging from its side. “Oh, and something else. We found evidence of sexual activity. A condom… inside your clothes.” Her pen hovers over the attached paper as her eyes probe mine. “Does that sound about right to you?”

Right? No, no, it doesn’t. It sounds wrong. Very, very wrong.

I look away. “I-I guess so.”

There is the scratch of pen on paper. “Well, I guess that’s that.” She puts the clipboard back. “I have a bag with your clothes. And there is a boy waiting to bring you back to school.”

Air leaves my lungs in a dizzying whoosh. “Tucker?” The thought of seeing him right now makes me… confused. I can’t wrap my head around what the nurse just told me. Did he… ? Did we… ?

She scrunches up her face. “No, something with an M, I think. He’s an advisor from your dorm—”

Relief and disappointment fight a turf war inside my chest. Not Tucker. “My RA, Michael.”

“Yes, that’s it. He asked your roommate for a change of clothes so you won’t have to go home in scrubs.”

Scrubs. My mouth fills with the taste of black licorice and I make a gagging noise, clamping a hand over my face.

The nurse grabs for a plastic bucket and thrusts it below my chin. “There shouldn’t be anything left in your stomach but if you need to be sick, go right ahead.”

She is right, I have nothing left to throw up. Dry heaves shake my shoulders for several minutes until I finally flop back against the mattress, clutching the bucket to my chest like a life vest. “Thank you.”

She gives my arm a final pat. “A doctor will be by in a minute to speak with you. Assuming he signs off, you’ll be back home within the hour.”

Home. I let the word sink in. Caldwell Hall isn’t my home. The little house in Sackett never felt like home either. Home isn’t here or there.

Home is a cave inside an enchanted forest. Home is Gavin, his arms wrapped securely around me.

But Gavin’s gone. I don’t have a home anymore. This isn’t a movie and I’m not Dorothy, wearing red slippers and skipping along a yellow brick road. The tornado that’s brought me here is all of my own making, my mind a fu

What happened between me and Tucker last night?

Does Wren know?

What about everyone else on the floor? In my dorm? At WU?

Yesterday I’d been just another freshman. But after last night, being rushed to the hospital in an ambulance—

The doctor appears, looking busy and frazzled. I answer his questions, look into the light he shines at my eyes, and recite my name, birthday, and today’s date. He walks away and I take a quick, fortifying breath. Once he talks to the nurse, I can leave.

But he doesn’t go far. Just a few steps to grab a stool on wheels, pushing it beside my bed. He sits. “You know, I have a daughter almost your age. I’m hoping she’ll go to Worthington, too.” He pauses, crossing his leg over his knee. I stare at his sock. It’s argyle.

I want to look away, cover my ears, make the world stop turning. A few minutes ago my heart was racing but now it’s just a slow, dull thud inside my chest. Whatever he’s about to say, I don’t want to hear it.

But there’s nowhere to go. I can’t escape. I’m trapped.

“I’m going to tell you what I would tell her. You were in no condition to have sex last night. I’d like you to consent to a rape kit. It won’t take very long, just an exam and some paperwork. And, of course, the police—”

A shiver vibrates through me, and I recoil. “No.” I stop to swallow a golf ball-sized lump of panic. “I don’t want a,” I can’t even say the word, skipping over it entirely, “a kit. Or another exam. There’s no need to call the police. Really.” My voice is high, my sentences short and choppy. Tears overflow my lashes.

I want this to be over. The sooner I leave, the sooner I can pretend last night never happened.

The doctor’s shoulders drop, and he exhales a defeated sigh. “That’s your right. But you should consider counseling. Sometimes it takes a while to process trauma like this, and you don’t have to do it alone.” He lifts a transparent bag containing a yellowish… My breath sticks in the back of my throat as I realize what it is. The condom. “Stay away from whoever this belongs to, okay?”

I manage a jerky nod, speech beyond my capacity.

At the door, he sends a final glance my way, one last chance to change my mind. But I don’t.

And then he drops the bag into a trash can and walks away.

I am staring at it, trying to catch my breath, when the nurse comes back in carrying my backpack and a plastic grocery bag, knotted at the top. She sets the bag at the end of the bed. “Your clothes from last night are in here. I recommend washing them as soon as possible.” Gently placing my backpack on my lap, she offers a kind smile. “Best of luck to you, Poppy. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope I never see you again.”

A feeble croak shudders from my lungs. “Me, too.”