Brian came jogging down the stairs, wearing light gray sweatpants and a dark gray sweatshirt with his orange fraternity coat of arms on the left chest. “What in the hell is going on?” he asked with crazy eyes and crazier hair.
I passed him the rejection letter from the victims’ assistance committee. Brian took it from me and scanned it, standing, then sank down on the third step and read it again.
“What happened?” I asked, my voice much too chipper. I sounded like someone trying to remain calm who was one minor inconvenience away from an atomic meltdown.
Brian tongued at the white film in the corners of his mouth, removing it with his thumb and index finger, wiping that on his sweatpants. I stared at the slime on his knee and experienced a fearsome urge to be alone forever.
“Maybe because of Roger?” Brian offered dimly.
“It’s definitely because of Roger,” I snapped. “Otherwise there would be no need to apply the sexual exemption to our situation. They’re saying he did this, and because Denise used to date him, she somehow brought this on herself.”
“I know you’re disappointed, Pamela—”
“Furious, actually—”
“Think of it from their point of view! No one’s been arrested! All they have to go on is your account. And I’m not trying to upset you, but you did say you thought it was Roger. And now you’re considering pressing charges against him—”
“I did press charges.”
Brian did a double take. “When did that happen?”
“Yesterday. I called Sheriff Cruso last night.”
I’ll let the prosecutor know right away, Pamela, Sheriff Cruso had said over the phone. He’d yawned loudly, then laughed, hearing himself.I’ll be honest. I had trouble sleeping last night, thinking about letting this guy out on the street tomorrow. You made the right call.
I still don’t think he killed Denise and Robbie, I’d been quick to say, before we started braiding each other’s hair. I wanted desperately to tell him about the trip to Colorado, but Tina and I had talked it over and realized that Carl’s story would be more likely to sway Sheriff Cruso if he believed that another person had come to the same conclusion we had, independent of our influence.
Brian nodded firmly. “Good. I think that was your only option, Pamela. But it’s not going to help your case here.” He waved the rejection letter in case it wasn’t clear what he meant by that.
I closed my eyes and pictured the uniform vacuum lines in my carpet that I’d made that morning when I couldn’t get back to sleep, willing the orderly image to lower my blood pressure before I said anything I regretted.
“They’re only trying to protect the fund for the people who actually need it,” Brian said. “And it’s hard, because there are a lot of women out there who willingly put themselves in dangerous situations.”
“I wish you had communicated this to me before I applied.” I opened my eyes to find I was still incapable of focusing on anything but the slobber on Brian’s knee. “I could have spared us the humiliation.”
From his position on the lower step, Brian reached for my hand, giving it a downward tug. He wanted me to sit next to him. “Who’s humiliated? The only people who know about this are me and the people on the panel.”
“But I know about it,” I said quietly, allowing him to pull me into his lap.
Brian bounced me on his knee as if trying to cheer up a brooding child. “Want me to talk to my dad? Maybe I can get him to reconsider. At the very least, let me pay you back for whatever you’re out of pocket.”
It was under two thousand dollars. I would easily raise that with a luncheon among our regular donors. “I’d rather you didn’t,” I said. “I would like to be done with this.”
Brian’s knee stilled, and he slipped his hand under my hair, lifting it up and over my shoulder so that my face was exposed. “I really admire how you’ve handled this,” he said. The right thing to do was lean in and return the kiss he was clearly angling to deliver. Denise once did this impression of me when someone tried to hug me, or cuddle up, or sit too close. Her thin shoulders shot up, her neck disappearing, and her eyes went big and horrified. You want to touch me? She was right that getting too physically close to anyone repelled me. I was afraid of what they might say and how they might smell. I’d had sex with Brian before, but it was always after a date when we’d both been properly perfumed and minted. We’d never spent the night together, and I was aghast to learn what his mouth tasted like in the morning. I parted my lips and accepted the dry slug of his tongue, realizing you have two choices in life. You either wake up to someone’s fusty kiss or you wake up alone. Pick your poison.