Things Made Right Read Online Free PDF

they told Chelsea when she was looking for Loren so she could leave.
    And no one else at the frat house had remembered seeing Loren there after midnight. They’d heard nothing, seen nothing.
    The four men vouched for each other, that they’d waited until after the party broke up around three or so to go to bed.
    She said, they said.
    And Loren had washed the only proof she had off in the shower. Apparently they’d used condoms for the rapes, because the hospital had found no traces of semen inside her. Or the shower had washed it all away, which Loren doubted.
    The men said that whoever Loren left the party with was likely her attacker, not them.
    Gee, too bad they couldn’t offer more help, and they felt badly about what happened to her. If they heard anything, they’d immediately pass it along to the campus cops.
    In the backseat, Emily ranted, railing, until Ross finally spoke up. “Em, stop. Please.”
    She fell silent.
    “It’s okay,” Loren softly said. “I knew it’d be a waste of time.”
    “We’re not done yet,” Ross said.
    “Yeah, we are.” Loren turned to look at him. “They won’t do a damned thing about those guys. There was no evidence. I was stupid. I should have called 911 when I woke up in the park but I wasn’t thinking. I just wanted to get home.”
    “Lor,” Emily said from the backseat, “you didn’t do anything wrong. You’re the victim here. It’s their fault.”
    “They were smart,” Loren said. “They alibied each other. There were no witnesses to what they did.” She felt dead inside. “They set it up. They’ve done it before. I remember them saying they knew they’d get away with it because they always did, and they would this time, too.”
    Ross reached across the seat and took her hand, gently squeezing, tapping that soft rhythm against her flesh with his fingers.
    Earlier that morning, Loren had to go back to the hospital for a follow-up visit. She was still bleeding, and still in pain. The bruises had turned into dark purple marks all over her body, handprints, fingers, on her breasts, her hips, her legs, around her ankles and wrists.
    Marks she couldn’t wash off and wished like hell weren’t there.
    Marks even Ross’ gentle kisses pressed to her wrists couldn’t heal.
    Emily had gone to Loren’s teachers for her and explained she was ill. She got Loren’s assignments so at least Loren could keep up while she missed classes.
    Loren would have dropped out already except for Ross sternly nixing that idea when she suggested it on Sunday.
    “You do that, they win,” he said. “I’m not letting you drop out if I have to personally walk you to and from every class myself.”
    “You can’t do that,” she said. “You have work, classes.”
    He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I won’t let you let them win. I’ll do whatever I have to do to make this right. You will not drop out.”
    She appreciated his support, his strong, comforting shoulders.
    But she didn’t know if, long term, she could keep up her end of it.
    All she wanted to do was curl up in bed, pull the covers over her, and cry. She refused to go to the campus rape crisis counselor. Even Ross’ stern order about that wasn’t enough to move her, and he finally backed off that when she promised not to drop out. That she’d return to class the next Monday.
     
    * * * *
     
    It was three weeks after that night. Loren was leaving one of her classes when a girl approached her.
    “Are you Loren?” she hesitantly asked.
    Warily eyeing her, Loren didn’t miss the haunted look in the girl’s eyes.
    The same haunted look that now stared back at her every morning in the mirror. “Why?”
    The girl swallowed hard. “My name’s Kelly. You aren’t alone,” she said. “You aren’t the only one they did that to.”
    Loren felt like she’d been gut-punched. “What are you talking about?”
    “Them,” the girl said. “I was at a party there last year. One of my friends is friends with Chelsea and