He reached his hand across the seat, covering hers with his in the same gesture he had made when she was a child and he wanted her to know she had his full attention. It was a gift, a blessing, an honor. The Reverend was listening. Finally listening. To her. “The truth, Naomi.”
She hauled in a breath, staring out the windshield at the road—she couldn’t face seeing his expression or it might break her entirely. “I went to the party at the house. John wasn’t there but he’d told his friends to look after me. They were nice, real gentlemen. One of them brought me a Coke. We danced—everyone danced together, it was a big crowd. Nothing intimate, just letting off steam. Kids having fun. People were laughing, I thought maybe a few were drunk, but everyone was having such a good time.” Her words caught; her throat felt raw. She swallowed twice. “Then I started feeling funny. Sick. Like the sounds were too loud and the lights too bright, everything was fuzzy.”
“But you weren’t drinking?”
“I hadn’t even finished the Coke.” She glanced over, met his gaze, making sure he understood. “The Coke he gave me.”
His jaw tightened but he nodded for her to go on.
“One of them took me to a room to lie down—no, first he took me upstairs to a bathroom, in case I was going to be sick. I felt nauseous but nothing happened. I splashed some water on my face, drank a little, then he was holding me. Helping me, he said. And he took off my sweater and unbuttoned my blouse—so I could breathe easier, he said. And in the back of my mind I felt panicked but also I kept saying to myself, he’s John’s friend, he’s looking out for me, he’d never hurt me.” Her voice had tightened, no longer a grown woman’s but the voice of that scared girl who was desperate to trust that everything would be all right, that there was nothing to be afraid of. Harper glanced at her father. His face was ashen, his hand abandoning hers to retreat to his side of the car, gripping his door handle as if they were hurtling toward an abyss.
“Then two more came in. They said I could lie down in their bedroom, where it was quiet and no one would hear us.” She swallowed, bracing herself against the avalanche of memories. She almost shared them, but relented. He didn’t need the specifics, the bits and pieces of sensory overload that formed the kaleidoscope of her nightmares. “And then they took turns.”
The Reverend made a low groaning noise, deep in his throat.
“It was almost dawn when they let me go. They actually walked me back to my dorm but of course it was locked because it was after curfew, so the RA called security. I was so out of it, half-naked, incoherent. And they were three well-respected seniors saying they’d seen me act inappropriately at the party so decided to escort me home to make sure I got there safely and hopefully to mitigate my punishment. As if they were protecting me. After all, I was only a freshman, away from home for the first time, these things happen, right?”
Now her tone turned bitter, raw. “The guard actually shook their hands, told them they were gentlemen, a credit to the school. And later, when I tried to file a report, to tell the truth, the campus cops laughed. Then they got angry—how dare I tarnish the reputations of these three fine upstanding young men? So they called a disciplinary board and, well, you know the rest.”
“The rest” being of course the lone young Black girl sitting across from a sea of white faces, including the three soon-to-be ordained ministers who painted her as an angry Black woman intent on destroying their lives because she refused to accept responsibility for her own poor choices. That John, the brother who was meant to watch over her that night, the brother who’d left her in their care, that he sat among those white faces, refusing to speak to her, humiliated even as his friends pitied him for his embarrassment, the embarrassment that was her, his adopted sister—that was the final straw.
Memories of the insults hurled in person and on social media, scrawled across her door or keyed into her car. Bitch, slut, harlot, jezebel. The death threats, the noose left hanging in her room. She’d left school, worked for a year, found a small state school that she could afford with the help of two jobs and decided that never again would she be a victim—and she’d found a career where she could stand up for victims who were silenced, as she’d been.
“So,” she said after a long moment, her gaze fixed on the road. She couldn’t bear to look at him, was too afraid of what she might see. Judgment, disappointment, shame? But no matter how he felt about what she’d told him, she was glad she had. Now that he knew the truth, maybe they could start afresh. Surely there was room for the Naomi she had become, the woman she’d forged herself into, so different from the daughter he’d lost after that night? Surely there was room for her in his heart? “That’s everything. Now you know.”
“I’m glad.” The Reverend cleared his throat; still his words emerged slow, formal. “I’m glad you’ve finally told me.”
As if she’d chosen to keep this from him for all these years. She swallowed her pride and pain. “Thank you for asking.”
Then silence. Long enough for them to leave the heart of the city behind and start winding over the switchbacks that led up the mountain. “I have a confession to make.”
She held her breath, nodding for him to continue.
“I know you feel excluded, not a real member of
