Mackie, May I ask you why you’ve been a bit MIA lately? Come on girl! We miss you!

As I stare down at the computer screen in front of me, gnawing on my bottom lip, I can’t help but think about how these past two weeks or so have caused me to abandon my online fans.  Before all of this, before…before Jesse, I’d post a blog or a vlog at least twice a week, sometimes even more if I wanted to avoid homework.

But now…now I’ve been so caught up in my dilemma and now new “relationship”, that I’ve been neglecting everything.  I haven’t even thought of a new post to do, let alone multiple like I usually do.  I need to do something; I don’t want to lose the following I’ve grown so attached to over the few years I’ve been doing this.

So with a new sense of resolve in me, I bring up my blog and then click on the link for a new entry.  I then spend a good ten minutes coming up with a post to explain to everyone why I’ve been so sparse lately without mentioning the new guy in my life. That’d cause way too many problems.

Feeling quite content with myself once I’m done, I press the submit link with a small smile and then close my laptop.  I’ve been sitting in the student union for almost an hour now and since lunchtime is starting to close in and those too good for the cafeteria are starting to fill the few voids, I need to get out.

Carly texted me a little while ago saying she had a babysitting job for the rest of the day, and since I really don’t want to go to the cafeteria by myself, I decide to go to one of my favorite sandwich shops just down the road.  But as I’m shoving my laptop into my book sack, I hear a vaguely familiar voice ask, “Mackenzie Creswell?”

When I look up my entire body goes cold, and my heart drops into the pit of my stomach.  Standing before me is a short and stocky brunet, his dress shirt tucked into the rim of his khaki shorts.  He looks just the same as he did in high school, and the same as he did when police escorted him out of a court room in handcuffs.

He was Ted’s best friend, and the one who took pictures of the whole ordeal.  He was supposed to have been locked away for years on distributing child pornography, but Cameron Deaton has always been a charmer and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d gotten out on good behavior.

“What…what are you doing here?” I ask, my voice shaking just as much as my hands.  The last time I saw this boy before the court hearing was when he’d been standing to the side as Ted raped me, and as I’d called out for his help he’d just given me this slow and horrible smirk.

Just seeing him takes me back to that night, to that moment, feeling helpless and hurt and mortified.

He pulls out the plastic chair on the opposite side of the table and slides smoothly into it, crossing his forearms over his chest.  He says, “Just wanted to catch up, I guess.  How’ve you been?”

“Guess,” I hiss at him, my voice sounding incredibly strong for how weak I’m feeling at the moment.  “Just guess how I’ve been, Cameron.”

He shrugs nonchalantly, and the move lights an enraged fire in the pit of my stomach.  “Better than me, I’m guessing.”

“Why the fuck are you here?” I demand, hating how conversational he’s trying to be with me right now.  He saw me get raped, he didn’t help, and then he sent pictures out to the entire school of the entire thing.  He didn’t even try to stop Ted; he just watched.

He gives me a smirk, “Ted was curious as to how you were doing.  Now that I’m out, I go to see him once a week.”

Just hearing Ted’s name makes my skin crawl and my heart pound, and in that moment I know I can’t sit here with him anymore.  I don’t want to hear his name, and I sure as hell don’t want to talk about him. 

So with as much strength as I can muster, I rise from my seat and keep my eyes averted straight.  I faintly hear him say, “Oh come on, don’t leave,” but I just move my feet forward.  He tries to stick his arm out to stop me but I just shove it away, and then hurry out of the union.

I somehow or another manage to keep myself upright the entire walk back to the dorms, even with my legs shaking and my heart racing.  I blaze through the lobby, ignoring the few looks of concern I can feel being cast my way.  I know I must look like a mess, but for once I can’t really find the energy to care. 

My chest feels like it’s about to cave in and my breathing is coming quicker and in shorter pants, and by the time I’m attempting to shove my key into the doorknob I feel like I’m about to pass out.  With my fingers trembling the way they are I can’t even get the door open and by the sixth attempt I curse in defeat and decide to find solace in my car.

Eyes now prickling with tears, I grab tightly at the strap of my backpack and then hurry down the hallway, the end of it seeming like light years away.  It’s just before I’m at the door leading to the parking lot that it swings open, and a familiar face finds mine.  My vision is so blurred by nerves and tears that I can barely tell who it is, but when strong arms come around me and I get a whiff of expensive cologne; I know exactly whom it is.

“Mackie, baby, what’s wrong?” Jon asks me, but I can’t find my voice to answer him.  I can’t even return his hold, instead my arms are down at my sides and my head’s awkwardly resting against his chest.

“What’s going on?” another voice asks from beside us, and even though the deep timber of his voice immediately tells me it’s Jesse, I can’t seem to want to move to look at him.

Instead the tears suddenly start to fall and I feel my chest start to quiver in sobs.  Jon’s arms tighten around me, and I can barely hear him tell Jesse, “I don’t know, something’s wrong with her.”  He then turns his attention to me, “Mackie, what’s going on?”

“Nothing,” I answer instinctively, even though it’s completely obvious that something is definitely wrong.  I try to move away from Jon, not wanting anyone’s touch on me right now, but when I slightly stumble moving away from him, he grabs at me again.

This time I’m stronger moving away from him, and I somehow or another meet my eyes with his and say, “I’m fine, Jon.  Okay?  I just couldn’t get into my room so I was going to go to my car.”

“You can’t drive like this,” Jesse says from beside us, and as I look at him I see the concern lines etching into his smooth skin.  I feel my heart jolt as I look at him, and it causes even more tears to build in my eyes.

I shake my head pathetically, “I wasn’t going to drive, I just…I just needed somewhere to go.”

Jon grabs at my arm, obviously not understanding how much I do not want to be touched right now, and says, “I can let you into your room, okay?  Carls left me her key.”

“Okay,” I answer mutely, just wanting to get away from everyone and crawl into bed.

We both start to move in the direction towards my room, but when I realize Jesse isn’t following, something in me causes me to look behind me and ask him, “Where…where are you going?”

I feel Jon keep towards my room, obviously wanting to give us some space.  Jesse takes a couple steps towards me and says, “I didn’t think you’d want me to come with you.”

Something inside of me feels to have closed, as the shaking stops and the tears stop their burning.  My voice comes out in a whisper as I start to say, “But I…”.  But then I can’t think of anything to say to him.  Do I want him to come with me and see me cry?  Hell no.

I never want him to see me like that, no matter how much I think that him holding me like Jon just was would feel infinitely better.  “Never mind,” I say, and right after I do I feel a few tears trickle out of my eyes.

I go to turn around and walk away, but I feel his hand on my arm turning me around before I can even take my first step.  “C’mere,” he murmurs softly, and I can’t help but run into his arms and twine my arms tightly around his waist, burying my head against his chest.

I know that when this is all over I’ll be absolutely mortified by all of this, but I honestly just can’t control myself.  Right now I feel like I’m acting solely on instinct, and he just feels so good and so comforting that I don’t want anything else but this.  I tighten my hold on him at the thought, and he reciprocates the motion, and now, instead of wanting to bury myself in my covers alone, I want him to be with me.

With the most pathetic of sniffles I remove my head from his chest and look up at him, and he looks so utterly concerned that it tugs at my heartstrings.  I ask him, “Are you doing anything right now?”

He simply shakes his head, not saying anything else, and running one of his hands down the length of my hair.  In a pathetically sad voice I say, “Stay with me.”

“Sure,” he says, pressing a sweet kiss on my forehead and then following me into my room.

Thankfully Jon’s no longer there and has left both doors opened, and I’m sure that later today I’ll be getting a very colorful text from him demanding I tell him what’s going on.  But for right now, I’m not going to worry myself about it.  Instead I’m going to let Jesse do what he does best and make me forget about all of my problems.

I immediately go to my mirror and curse when I see my reflection looking back at me, the black smears under my eyes and the red blotchiness of my cheeks.  I look horrible, and I really can’t believe that Jesse is willing to look past this.  It’s disgusting.  I wipe the smeared mascara away with my fingers and then go to grab my foundation to cover the red mess of my complexion, but as I’m doing so Jesse asks me, “Are you putting make up on to lay down?”

“Do you see me right now?” I ask him in reply, looking at him through the mirror.  He’s sitting on the edge of my bed and looking at me as if he doesn’t understand what I’m doing in the slightest.

He says bluntly, “You look upset, which you are.  Why should you cover that?”

“’Cause not all of us are as pretty as you?” I joke dryly, not in the mood to have my makeup dependence questioned right now.  Of course I don’t like to look bad--I’m a girl.  I mean, sure, I may be a bit more reliant on it than other girls, but so?  What’s wrong with that?

I see him roll his eyes at me in the mirror.  He says, “Mack, come on.”

“Fine,” I huff with annoyance, turning around and leaning my back on the edge of the dresser.  “But you’re stuck with this face.”

He gives me a silly grin, a smile I have yet to see from him and find myself immediately loving.  He says, “Good,” and then pats the spot next to him.

I make sure to turn the light off, not wanting the horrible lighting in the room to amplify my appearance, and then cross the tiled floors to my bed, immediately sitting at the head of it and sliding underneath the covers.  Jesse follows suit, crawling into the small space next to the wall and then letting me rest my head on his chest.

I automatically feel better, safer, and I sink into the embrace, turning slightly towards him and letting my eyes flutter shut.  I feel him thread his legs between mine underneath the covers, and the scratchy warmth of his jeans against where my legs are bare beneath my shorts is just what I need.

“Thank you,” I whisper, hoping that it doesn’t sound as awkward to him as it does to me.

He soothes my hair back from my forehead and asks me quietly, “Are you going to tell me what happened?”

I tense at his question, the thought of telling Jesse about my past putting a sick feeling in my gut.  I don’t want him to know me as that girl who got raped at that party by that douche boyfriend.  There are pictures on the Internet if you know to look closely enough, and if he saw them then I don’t think I’d ever recover from that.

Although I may not be as strong as I wanted to be to him, at least I’m not damaged goods.  Not that he knows about, anyways.

My voice sounds much more broken than I’d like it to when I tell him honestly, “You don’t want to know.”

“Okay,” he answers, and I thank whomever I need to thank that he doesn’t push on the subject like I know most people would.

Opening my eyes I angle my head to place a quick kiss on his jawline, thanking him for just being there, and then cuddle closer to him, letting myself fall into a quick and effortless sleep

------

“Hey Dad, it’s me,” I greet after hearing his automatic greeting on his work phone.  It’s later that same day, and now that Jesse’s left I’m sitting cross-legged in my bed and staring at the wall, thinking about how there’s a million awkward conversations I’d rather have than this one.

“Hey hon,” he responds, “How are you?  How’re your classes going?”

“Um, they’re okay,” I answer, thinking that it’s kind of cute how he thinks I’m actually calling him just to talk.  While he’s never been as intimidating to me as my mom, he’s still been cold since the incident in high school.  Even though he wasn’t the judge on the case of my rape, he couldn’t because of his personal involvement; he still had access to the case file.

He saw the pictures, and I know he’s never seen me the same way since.

“But that’s not exactly why I’m calling you,” I explain, trying to come up with the best way to tell him what happened earlier today.

“Okay,” he says slowly, his voice as deep and as gruff as it was the last time I saw him months ago.  “What’s going on?”

“Um…” I start, swallowing back a gulp; “Cameron Deaton came to campus to see me today.  He was…”

My dad cuts me off angrily, “I know who he is; I have all of those bastard’s names memorized.”

“Yeah,” I respond dumbly, “I was just…I mean, how did he get out so early?  It’s only been five years.”

He says, “That’s the mandatory minimum sentence, as ridiculous as that sounds.  Usually they get locked away for longer, but the Deatons have money and their attorney is top notch.  So as much as I hate to say it, I’m not surprised he’s out.”

The feeling of nausea slowly starts to sink in at his words, “Well is there any way to keep him from coming to me again?  I mean, he talked about Ted and about how he sees him and Dad, I freaked.  I don’t want that happening again.”

He says, “I’ll get you a restraining order, okay?  And Ted’s going to be locked away much longer, so don’t worry about him.”

It doesn’t lift the nerves even a little bit.

Noting my silence, he says, “Well onto happier things…your mom called you about Thanksgiving, yes?”

“Yes sir,” I answer, trying my hardest not to sound grim.  But still, after today, the prospect of going home is even more terrifying.  If Cameron was willing to drive two hours to see me today, what’s he going to do when I’m in town?

He says, “I think your grandparents are even going to come in.”

“That’s awesome, Dad,” I respond, “But, um, there’s someone at my door so I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

He’s quiet for a moment, and then he comes back and says, “Alright, Mackie.  I’ll call you when I get the restraining order sorted out, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I love you,” he says, and I think it’s the first time I’ve heard him say that to me in quite some time.

“Love you too,” I respond before hanging up the phone.

-------

The next afternoon, as I’m lying in bed and watching my fifth episode Say Yes to the Dress and wallowing in self-pity, there’s a loud knock at my door.  I groan, having spent the majority of the day in bed and not wanting to change that, and then call out, “Who is it?”

“Fred and Jesse!  Open up!”

My heart gives a ridiculous jump at the sound of Jesse’s name, and before I know it I’m jumping out of bed and rushing to my mirror, thanking God that I had class earlier and had to fix my face.  Luckily nothing’s out of place, so I eagerly open the door.

Fred barges through the door and I can hear him looking around, making dumb comments about how nice the dorms are, but I can’t really concentrate due to the guy still standing in front of me.  His eyes intently concentrated on my face, he asks me quietly so that Fred doesn’t hear, “You okay?”

I nod, “Better,” and then quickly add, “Thank you for yesterday."

He gives me a small smile, slyly reaching out and giving my waist a quick squeeze.  “No problem,” he says, and then comes into the room, making a beeline for my bed and then hopping onto the edge of it.

Trying not to let myself get too distracted by how delectable and available he looks just sitting there on my bed, I ask them, “So what’s going on?”

Fred answers, “We were bored, so we figured we’d make ourselves un-bored by coming here.”  I then watch as he throws himself onto Carly’s unmade bed and stretches out, his eyes moving to the TV screen sitting atop the mini fridge.  He grimaces when he realizes what’s on and then looks back at me, “Can we have a channel change?  This is awful!”

“I love this show!” I argue, but knowing that if I want Jesse to stay with me I’ll probably need to change the channel. I hop onto my bed next to Jesse and then grab the remote from where it’s laying on the ledge behind my bed.  I toss it at Fred and say, “Nothing stupid, though.”

“Fine,” he grumbles.

I giggle at him and shake my head, turning to grab a pillow and then sticking it behind my back so that the ledge doesn’t dig into my back.  I then offer one to Jesse and he gladly takes it, mirroring my position and making sure to sit close enough that we’re touching.

With a smile on my face, I sneakily try to lean my weight against him.  I know I’ve been caught when he looks down at me and grins, but I really don’t care.  He has to know by now that I like touching him.  It’s so simple and effortless that it doesn’t scare me like it used to, although the thought of doing anything further still frightens me a bit.

He threads his fingers through mine and after giving them a slight squeeze, we both turn our attention to where Fred’s going through all of the channels.

About an hour or so into a mind numbing episode of Adventure Time, Fred gets a call on his phone and then announces to us that he must go pick his friend up from the store, and that, not to worry, he’d be back in an hour or so.  I remind him that we should probably study for Spanish before he leaves, and he leaves the room grumbling to himself about party poopers.

When the door shuts I immediately look up at Jesse and ask, “Can we please change the channel?”

He sighs dramatically, “I guess,” before pulling himself out of the pretty comfy position we’ve been in and heading over to Carly’s bed.  He fishes around for the remote and then when he extracts it, he heads back over to me.

But before starting to change the stations, he looks down at me and says, “On one condition will I change it.”

“What’s that?” I ask him with a hitch of my eyebrow.

“Tell me what happened yesterday,” he says softly, cautiously, as if he wants to know but is scared to anger me by asking.

I immediately shake my head, averting my eyes from his own searching ones and instead looking down to pick at a loose thread on my comforter.  There’s no way in hell I can tell him, no way at all.  If he finds out he’ll either think I’m used, damaged goods, and want nothing to do with me, or he’ll try so hard to make things right after what I’ve gone through that he’ll treat me like broken glass.

They both sound awful.

“Maybe another time,” I eventually say, thinking that it might give him the hope for later so that he’ll shut up now.  I don’t want to talk about this now.  Not even a little bit.

His hand