The House that I Grew up In

“I think she’s coming to,” the familiar voice sounded far away in Annabelle’s head as she struggled to open her eyes. The first light struck her as harsh, and she blinked a few times. She couldn’t focus clearly; she felt like she was trying to look through an ice-covered window. But as the voice returned, the shapes in the room started to take focus.

“Hey baby,” Quinn was the first thing Annabelle saw, his face smiling but trying to hide underlying concern. “How are you feeling?”

Wrinkling her eyebrows, Annabelle studied Quinn with confusion for a moment, and then moved her eyes over a bit. She was in a white room she didn’t recognize, filled with medical paraphernalia she was familiar with from her time working with her mother. Around her stood friends – Josh, Katy and Forest. They were all giving her the same half smiling, half concerned look Quinn had given her.

“What’s going on?” Annabelle finally woke up enough to ask, her eyes wandering back to Quinn, who was squeezing her hand and staring at her with an uneasy look. “What happened? Was I in a car accident?”

Pushing some loose hairs from her face, Quinn leaned down and kissed Annabelle’s forehead affectionately. “No, nothing like that. You’ve just been… asleep for a while.”

“How long?”

Glancing over his shoulder at Katy for help, Quinn looked grateful when his friend took a step forward. He didn’t think he could explain it to Annabelle without becoming enraged again. And he didn’t need that to happen again; if it hadn’t been for Forest calming him down when he first heard about what had happened, he would have been thrown out of the hospital.

“You’ve been asleep for about eight hours, give or take,” Katy told Annabelle in a soothing voice as she approached the bed on the opposite side of Quinn. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

Her brain felt like cotton candy, but Annabelle tried to think. What was the last memory she had? Looking up at Josh, she tilted her head. “I remember talking to you and Christy,” she said, confused by the tortured look on the large boy’s face. “I wasn’t having a good time. I was going to leave the party…”

“Do you remember anything after that?” Katy urged her friend gently.

No matter how hard she tried, saying goodbye to Josh and Christy seemed to be the last thing she could remember. “I’m sorry,” she shook her head.

“Don’t apologize,” Katy’s eyes were filled with compassion and understanding. “That makes perfect sense.”
“How?” Annabelle was confused by this response.

Sitting down on the narrow hospital bed beside Annabelle, Katy gave her a sad look. “It looks like someone gave you Rohypnol.” As Annabelle’s eyebrows crinkled together in lack of comprehension, Katy glanced furtively at Quinn before continuing. “Rohypnol. It’s a roofie… A date rape drug.”

Annabelle’s eyes grew wide in horror, causing Katy to rush to continue explaining the situation. “But nothing happened to you,” she told her friend, pausing to let the news sink in. “Josh found you asleep, and he brought you to the hospital.”

Looking over at Josh, Annabelle tried to comprehend what she had just been told. “You saved me?” she asked, her voice soft. “Thank you, Josh.”

“Don’t thank me,” Josh sounded disgusted with himself, surprising Annabelle and causing everyone in the room to turn and look at him. “I’m pretty sure it was The Wiz who gave it to you, and you never would have met him if it wasn’t for me.”

Trying to absorb everything she was being told, Annabelle remembered seeing The Wiz at the party across the room, but she couldn’t recall actually interacting with him. “Josh, whatever somebody else was planning to do to me,” her eyes grew wet and her voice was horse. “That’s not your fault. I still have to say thank you for taking care of me when I needed it most. You’re a real friend.”

Running her eyes over Quinn, and then Forest, and then towards Katy, Annabelle gave the girl a small smile. “And thank you for coming. But where’s Christy?” She glanced around the room once more, as if somehow she had missed her.

Everyone in the room looked uncomfortably at one another, until finally Josh spoke. “I don’t know what’s up with her,” he shrugged helplessly, exasperation evident in his voice. “I came downstairs from the party, and I was carrying you… She jumped up to take care of you, and she came here with me, and then she called her parents and these guys. But when the doctors came in to tell us what the lab tests said, she… she took off. She said she had to go.”

Biting her lip, Katy thought about what she should say next. Before she said anything, though, Quinn interrupted her thoughts to speak to Annabelle. “Are you ok if I talk to Josh for a minute outside?” he leaned over his girlfriend and touched her face tenderly. “I’ll be right back.”

“Of course,” Annabelle gave Quinn a grin and softly returned the chaste kiss he gave her. With that, Quinn left the room, Josh following behind him with his head dropped.

Closing the door behind him as they stepped out into the hallway, Josh looked Quinn in the eyes and gave him a determined nod. “If you want to take a swing, I won’t hit back,” he promised, and then stood as if steeling himself for some sort of impact.

Looking confused for a moment, Quinn shook his head and smirked a little. He put out his hand. “I wanted to say thank you, Josh,” he told the boy standing before him. “I had some opinions of you before tonight that weren’t based on anything concrete. And I was wrong about you. You’re a good guy. So I want to apologize, and say thank you.”

Staring at Quinn’s hand in confusion, Josh didn’t take it immediately. “But what I just said to Annabelle in the room is true,” he shook his head in uncertainty as he studied Quinn’s expression. “If it wasn’t for me, she never would have met The Wiz.”

Feeling tension build in his neck just at hearing the scumbag’s moniker, Quinn held his breath for a moment and then pressed his hand forward a bit further. “And what Annabelle just said in the room is true, too. If it weren’t for you…” His voice was shaking with emotion, and he had to pause again. “Just, please, Josh. Thank you for taking care of Annabelle when I couldn’t.”

Looking at Quinn, his last sentence finally sunk in with Josh. If it had been Christy in the reverse situation, he would be saying the same thing to Quinn. “If it makes you feel better,” Josh gave a tentative smile. “I never really liked you before tonight, either.”

Both boys laughed in understanding and shook hands. They then slid open the door, but stopped for a moment to listen to what was being discussed in the room.

“I still don’t understand why Christy’s not here, though,” Annabelle looked small and pale in the bed as she questioned Katy.

“It’s a little complicated,” Katy replied gently, squeezing Annabelle’s hand. “It has to do with… well, everything you’ve been asking about this summer – all the reasons Christy and I stopped being friends, and why she changed so much.”

Up until now, Annabelle had not wanted Katy to explain any of this to her; she was hoping that Christy would tell her herself. But as she began to wake up more – and as the reality of what had happened, and especially what could have happened, took over – she needed to know. “Tell me everything,” she quietly requested of Katy.

Taking a deep breath, Katy wasn’t sure where to begin. “After you left in seventh grade, things didn’t change too much,” she started, and then gained some strength to continue as she felt her boyfriend knowingly squeeze her shoulder. “Our group of friends remained together, and that was true in eighth grade, too. What changed in eighth grade was Christy – she really started turning into a knockout. Boys starting noticing her, the ‘popular crowd’ started inviting her to sit with them at lunch. But inside, she hadn’t changed. She remained our friend – my friend.”

Annabelle could see that it was hard for Katy to continue her story, so she squeezed her hand encouragingly.

“And then the summer before we started high school,” Katy forced herself to continue, although with obvious difficulty. “My dad got me and Christy jobs at the country club. Nothing special - we were barely fourteen – but I handed out towels at the gym and Christy cleared tables at the café. That’s where she met The Wiz.” The sound of hate just saying his name was clear on Katy’s tongue. “He came to the club a lot, just to lie around and do nothing – he’s dad is loaded - and he started flirting with Christy. I didn’t think anything of it; I was used to boys flirting with her by then. But Christy became obsessed with him.”

Giving her friend a moment to compose herself, Annabelle could feel the dread rising up in her at hearing how this story was going to turn out. But she really needed to understand exactly why Christy wasn’t there for her right then; she really could use her best friend by her side at the moment.

“They started hanging out after she’d get off work,” Katy finally continued. “Nothing big, just talking and kissing, Christy said. But I could tell she felt a lot more than that; despite the attention she had been getting the previous year, she’d never had a boyfriend. So, when things started to escalate between them physically, I tried to say something. But she wouldn’t listen. She kept talking about how great it was going to be to have a senior boyfriend starting high school.”

The difficult part was coming for Katy, so she tried to reign in her emotions. “So one night, a couple days before school started, they were hanging out. She said he kept pouring beer for her, and then they started making out and…” Her eyes filled with tears at the memory, and she didn’t say anything for a minute.

“Afterwards, she came to my house. She looked terrible. She was crying, and her skirt was torn, and there were bruises on her cheek and arms.”

For a moment, Annabelle thought she might throw up. “He raped her?” she asked Katy in a quiet voice, hoping she was somehow misunderstanding but knowing deep down that she wasn’t.

“Yes,” Katy wiped some errant tears that had drifted down her cheek. “He forced himself on her and hit her when she tried to push him off. She told me everything that night.” Sighing, Katy’s shoulders suddenly sagged before she went on. “But for some reason, in the morning she wouldn’t admit it. She said I’d misunderstood her; that she’d been nervous, so he took control… and when I said it was rape, she got mad. She told me it wasn’t – that I didn’t understand, because I was jealous. She left and wouldn’t speak to me when school started. But when school started, that asshole acted like he didn’t know her.”

“Did you tell anyone?” Annabelle asked cautiously.

Nodding, Katy shrugged in defeat. “I told the school counselor,” she explained. “She pulled Christy into the office, and she denied it. She said I was jealous that she had boyfriends and was popular, and that she didn’t want to be my friend anymore. Without her admitting anything… no one could do anything else. And that’s when she started this, like, mission to be the most popular girl at school. By homecoming, she was – and she had a whole new life, with new friends and a new boyfriend. She wouldn’t even look at me in the halls.”

Shaking her head with sympathy for both Christy and Katy, Annabelle felt her throat tightening as she wiped the tears that had fallen over her lashes. “But I don’t understand what that has to do with her not being here,” she looked sadly up at Katy.

Letting out a long sigh, Katy shrugged. “As soon as the doctor said that you’d been roofied,” she closed her eyes at the horror of the thought. “The two of us put it together. Josh finding you in the room with that asshole, what had happened to her… I think she feels like she’s to blame somehow. Like, if she’d been honest, you wouldn’t have been in that situation.”

“Where’s The Wiz now?” Annabelle asked, the question suddenly crossing her mind for the first time since she had awoken and heard the story. “Is he under arrest?”

Shaking her head, Katy looked apologetic. “There’d be nothing to arrest him for,” she said sadly. “There’s no way to prove he roofied you, just because he was in the room when Josh found you. Even though I’m sure it was him… And I’m sure he would have done… more, to you, if Josh hadn’t gotten you out of there. Someone who could rape a girl who’s awake and fighting could definitely do it to one who’s passed out and helpless.”

Pulling the door shut and stepping back into the hallway, Quinn looked at the horror and anger and disgust evident on Josh’s face. It was evident that the boy had not heard this story before. And now, more certain of what The Wiz’s intentions with Annabelle had been earlier in the night, Quinn felt his blood boiling. “Do you have this guy’s address?” he asked Josh.

“I’ll drive,” Josh replied, giving Quinn one quick nod of camaraderie before the two of them hurried out of the hospital and into the warm summer dawn.


Christy sat in her room, looking out the window at the sun starting to break the darkness of night and trying to make her brain stop. After leaving the hospital, she had waited until her parents left the house to head to sign paperwork for Annabelle, and then come inside. She didn’t want to talk to anyone; she couldn’t.

Taking a sip of the scotch she had stolen from her father’s well-tended bar in the dining area, she closed her eyes as the liquid burned her tongue and throat, hoping it could somehow make the guilt and pain go away. So far, it wasn’t.

Something awful could have happened to Annabelle tonight. And if she had, it would have been all Christy’s fault. After all, she knew what The Wiz was capable of, even if she hadn’t admitted it to even herself for the past three years. And yet, she hadn’t warned Annabelle. She just hadn’t thought there would be a chance…

“How could you have let this happen?” Christy could hear her mother’s voice in her head from earlier this evening. “How could you let Annabelle go wander off like that? She’s our responsibility!” Of course, her mother was just yelling at her for not keeping an eye on Annabelle on a whole; there was no way Christy would have ever been able to tell her about the rape.

Rape. As the word froze in her brain, Christy took another sip of scotch in an attempt to dislodge it, but there it remained. She allowed herself to think of the events of that night in a light she hadn't looked upon them since she’d first told Katy.

But now, in retrospect, of course that’s what it was. Yes, she’d been kissing him. Yes, she’d agreed when he’d started to undress her. She liked him, and she wanted him to like her. But she hadn’t expected him to get so angry when she said that she wasn’t sure she was ready. She hadn’t expected him to slap her, or pin down her wrists, or force himself on her…

Tears were streaming down Christy’s face now as she allowed herself to feel everything she had pushed away for the past three years. The physical pain. The humiliation. The fear. The grief. All of it had been locked away so vigilantly inside her. Until she had seen him again earlier that summer…

The minute he had even looked at Annabelle, she should have said something. Christy knew that, and in anger she suddenly threw the bottle of scotch against the wall. Hearing the CRACK-ing sound and watching the brown liquid drip down the eggshell paint was somehow soothing. Christy could have prevented anything from happening to Annabelle, but she hadn’t. She was too afraid to tell the truth and let out that hurt. She was too afraid to mess up the delicate balance in popularity and social scene that she had so carefully arranged. But most of all, she was too scared to lose Josh.

She loved Josh. Of everyone they hung out with, the entire ‘in crowd’, he was by far the kindest, best-hearted, most honest person. And he loved her back – or, at least the ‘Christine’ she had let him see. But that girl was totally different from person sitting alone in her darkened bedroom just then.

Christine was beautiful, confident, and powerful. Christy was the weak little girl who could hardly believe it when this gorgeous high school boy had told her she was pretty that summer three years back. Christy was the one too afraid of looking bad in front of people to tell anyone about her assault. Christy was the one too feeble to even remain friends with the one person who knew the truth about her.

There was no question about it: Christy had created Christine to be the girl she had always wanted to be. And Josh had fallen in love with that girl. But when he had originally tried to advance their physical relationship, Christy occasionally snuck back in, scared and distrustful. That hadn’t seemed to bother Josh, who wrongly believed that Christine was a virgin and wanted to wait for the right time. She was sure he’d feel deceived or even cheated if he knew he’d been so patient – waiting years – in an attempt to protect the virtue of a girl who was far from chaste; a girl who didn’t even really exist.

And that was why Christy couldn’t be at the hospital. She couldn’t face the guilt she felt for letting down Annabelle. And she also couldn’t face Josh, knowing what, by now, he had to know about her. And had to hate her for.

“That’s a lot of information to take in,” Annabelle gave Katy a weak smile, but her sadness showed. “I still wish Christy was here, though…”

“I know,” Katy replied, sympathetically patting Annabelle’s hand. “Do you want me to ask Josh to call her and try to convince her to come back?”

Biting her lip, Annabelle considered this for a moment. “No,” she finally gave a sad look at Katy. “She’ll come in her own time. She’s probably dealing with a lot right now.”

“Damn, you are waaaay too nice a person,” Forest said from behind Katy, eliciting a small grin from Annabelle. “Plus, you are going about this situation in entirely the wrong way. You have everyone here at your beck-and-call, girly. Use it! Make Christine come here and keep you company! Tell us to get you chocolate! Get your lame-ass boyfriend to buy you some really expensive presents! Work the system.”

Laughing now, Annabelle was really glad that Forest and Katy were there. They truly were good friends. “Speaking of my lame-ass boyfriend,” she grinned and glanced towards the door. “Would one of you mind getting him for me?”

“Of course,” Forest agreed, done teasing Annabelle. “We’ll be right back.”

Smoothing back Annabelle’s hair, Katy looked at her friend lying in the bed. “You’ve been through a mess tonight, haven’t you?” she asked and then grinned. “And found out a whole bunch of crap, on top of it. But you still look beautiful. That is so not fair.”

Annabelle chuckled at Katy for a moment until Forest returned to the room. The expression on his face was clear; he was distressed. “I can’t find Quinn,” he said slowly.

Crinkling her eyebrows in confusion, Annabelle looked at Forest. “What do you mean? Does Josh know where he went?”

Taking in a deep breath, Forest looked over at Katy, then back at Annabelle. “Josh isn’t there, either,” he said, his voice low. “The nurse at the station said they both left a few minutes ago together. And she said they both looked really angry.”

“Oh, no,” Annabelle said, shaking her head. “They must have heard Katy talking…”

“Good,” Katy couldn’t understand why her boyfriend looked so bothered by the news. “They’re probably going over to kick that guy’s ass. Which he deserves completely. Hi? Did you not just hear everything I was telling Annabelle?”

“You don’t understand,” Forest looked sincerely troubled as his eyes moved between the two girls before him. “Quinn is on probation. If he’s in any kind of trouble, especially something violent… they could send him back to juvi until he’s 21.”

“Oh, no,” Annabelle’s eyes grew wide. She hadn’t known about Quinn’s probation, and the last thing she wanted was to see him mess up the next three or four years of his future.

“Shit,” Katy said, but her expression was determined as she turned to Annabelle. “Are you ok if we leave you for a little while to save Quinn’s ass?”

“Please,” Annabelle insisted, wishing she felt well enough to get out of the hospital bed and join her friends. “Please, don’t let him do anything stupid.”

“I can’t promise that,” Katy smirked, but her expression turned serious once again. “But I’ll try to keep him out of jail.”

TO GIRLFIXER, JOEE, 7YEARS, CU-KID: THANK YOU ALL FOR REVIEWING THIS STORY! YOU GUYS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN THE BEST TO ME! I'M SO GLAD YOU DON'T HATE ME FOR MY HIATUS!

TO AKARUI, CUTEGIRL12356, AND THE ANONYMOUS POSTER: THANKS FOR TAKING THE TIME TO READ AND COMMENT. I REALLY APPRECIATE IT.

TO NESL247: EH, NEVERMIND, I'LL JUST EMAIL YOU MY THANKS :)