I hadn’t told Ben what I was up to and he’d probably kill me if he found out that I’d volunteered as bait. I’d just have to hope that Theo didn’t tell him what a mess I was. He’d be just the kind of crazy asshole to drive over here and fling me over his shoulder to take me back to campus. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him — he just didn’t need to worry about me. I was getting so used to Ben taking care of me that I could almost forget that I had taken care of myself a long fucking time and I could still do it.

  I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Oh shit. He was coming. I had to be ready to catch him. I faced the door, stone cold sober and ready to fight when I heard a scream coming from outside. Fuck.

  “HELP!!!! LIBBY!!!!! BESS! HELLLLLP!!!”

  The window in the room was open which is why I heard Hope’s loud shriek from outside. Fuck. Oh fuck. I yanked the door to the bedroom open to find Theo standing there.

  “Libby, what the fuck are you doing?”

  “Come. Now.”

  I grabbed Theo’s hand and dragged him downstairs.

  “BESS!” I screamed, “He’s outside! He’s with Hope!”

  Bess and a few of the other girls followed me. Theo followed even if he didn’t have a damn clue what we were doing. We ran as fast as we could out the doors of the summer house. Hope was lying in the parking lot. She’d stopped screaming. Whoever attacked her hit her on the head. There was a little blood coming from her temple and Bess rushed over to her.

  “Oh my God! She’s hurt! Theo call an ambulance!”

  Theo fumbled for his phone as partygoers either gathered around or scattered, depending on how many Class A drugs they’d consumed.

  I bent over next to Hope when I saw something glittering next to her. Something the assailant must have left. When I picked the object up, my throat tightened. No.

  The inscription on the white-gold keyring glittered in the light from a streetlamp. I felt woozy as I whispered it out loud.

  Roses are red,

  Violets are blue,

  I want to kiss a boy,

  Maybe even you.

  Love Always Liberty Jones

  The Christmas gift I'd given Ben. Lying next to Hope.

  How Much Do I Really Know You?

  "Liberty, you know I didn't attack her."

  "Why was your keyring there? I mean... you weren't there the night I got attacked either," I complained.

  "I told you... I lost it weeks ago. You can ask Theo. I didn't want to tell you 'cause well... I'm a wanker?"

  "How did a rapist get it then?"

  "I dunno! I never lock my room it could be anyone. I might have lost it in the rugby locker room."

  "It's offseason!"

  "I know but I brought my things down there to play squash with Liam the other day. That might have been when. Fuck's sake, I don't know but why are you asking me this? You don't actually think I could have raped someone?"

  "I don't know what to think."

  "Libby!"

  "You should have told me that you lost it."

  "Did you tell anyone it was mine?" Ben hissed, continuing to pace nervously outside my dorm.

  We shouldn't have been out after lights out, but I had to get the truth from him.

  "Of course I did! Plus it was obvious I knew what it was."

  That night had been a nightmare. We didn't bother calling police. The boys were all confused. But I did eventually have to fess up and tell Theo (and Ben) that I wasn't actually drunk and the girls planned the whole thing.

  "What about Hope. Is she okay?"

  "She's a little shaken up but she's fine."

  "You were bloody reckless, Libs."

  "We weren't reckless," I insisted, "We were close."

  "Does Hope think it was me now?"

  "No. I don't know. I haven't really talked to her."

  "Fuck," Ben grumbled, "I should talk to her."

  "And what if she does think it was you. Wouldn't that be more suspicious?"

  Ben scowled and his upper lip twitched with suppressed rage.

  "I don't give a shit what seems suspicious. I didn't fucking rape anyone or attack anyone and you of all people should know me better than that."

  "How much do we really know anyone?"

  Ben scoffed.

  "Oh, that's rich."

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "You're the one who doesn't open up... ever! I mean, you know every little dirty fucking detail of my life and my family but all I know about you I could have found in a Google search. You never talk about your past or your family. Fuck, to get you to tell me how your day is going is like pulling teeth."

  "Why are we fighting right now?"

  "We're not fighting," he snarled.

  But of course, we were. Ben reached for a cigarette and I couldn't help but lash out at him.

  "You should really stop smoking you know."

  He ignored me and puffed O-rings in the air.

  "You should go inside," he said, "You'll get in trouble if they find you out here."

  "I'm not going to leave in the middle of an argument."

  "Right."

  "Ben, talk to me."

  "No, Liberty. I'm done talking tonight. You think I'm some sort of twisted fucked up rapist and like you said, how much do you really know me? Go to bed. I'll see you tomorrow."

  "Ben..."

  "Go."

  His voice was distant and icy. Tears stung the back of my eyes but I fought them back. I didn't want to cry and give his sadistic side the satisfaction.

  "I'm sorry," I mumbled.

  "The question is, Libs, how much do I really know you?"

  "You do know me. Better than anyone."

  "Hm."

  "I love you, Ben."

  "Don't," he said hoarsely, "Not right now. We'll talk tomorrow."

  It clawed at me that he didn't say it back. I turned and snuck back upstairs. Bess was sleeping, curled up in her bed with her thumb in her mouth. Weird habit for a grown girl, but at least she didn't hear me sneaking outside to talk to Ben. I couldn't even remember what happened to the keyring after that night. Maybe in the morning, I'd ask Bess. She was the only one clear-headed enough to remember.

  But in the morning, Bess was gone by the time I woke up and I had to hurry to Monday classes. I still didn't have my phone back, so I checked my email on my school-issue laptop.

  From: hope21@rapettiacademy.co.uk

  To: liberty21@rapettiacademy.co.uk

  Subject: din din?

  Hey girl, Can we get dinner tonight? Something weird happened Sunday and we should talk. xx

  I sent her a reply, agreeing to meet up. I walked to breakfast where I was supposed to meet Ben but he wasn't there. I sat at the rugby table where (thankfully) Theo sat alone.

  "Hey, where's Ben?"

  Theo stared into his oatmeal like I hadn't said anything.

  "THEO!"

  "Hedidn'ttellyou?" Theo mumbled.

  "Tell me what?"

  "This morning Dean Chiswick was there with the police. Bess gave them his keyring and said that he raped her. He's in the Dean's office but he'll probably be at the police station soon."

  Will He Walk Free?

  I had to see him urgently. My morning classes were a complete nightmare until lunch. I wasn't at all prepared for my math pop quiz, but I only got one question wrong. Everyone in the class did way worse, so with a curve, I got 101%. Valedictorian status still secure, I hurried to the Dean's office.

  "Are you looking for Ben?" Dean Chiswick asked as she came down the hall carrying a cup of oolong tea in one hand.

  "Yes."

  "I just sent him to the caf."

  I wanted to ask her what happened in their meeting, but I could only muster a stiff thanks and rush onward. Ben sat at the rugby table with Liam, Jezza, and Theo, laughing with them as if he hadn’t spent the morning in the Dean’s office getting questioned for rape. Theo pointed me out to him and he looked up at me before I could make my way to his table.

  Because of our fight, I felt awful and my stomach twisted into angry knots. Theo nodded at me, and I accepted his nod as permission to approach the rugby boys’ table. Liam kicked out the seat next to Ben.

  “You two need to talk,” Theo said, calmly coring an apple with his illegal pocket knife.

  Ben grunted and spooned oatmeal into his mouth. Okay, so I guess we would not talk. I had nothing to eat yet and sat there awkwardly. Theo cleared his throat and cast a sidelong glance at Liam. Liam sat upright, the tips of his ears reddening as he asked what I wanted for breakfast. I asked for sausages and eggs, opting to skip the “beans on toast” phenomenon that everyone English was positively obsessed with. He scuttled off to do Theo’s bidding — or mine. I honestly couldn’t tell which.

  Jezza laughed at some meme on his phone, and Theo cleared his throat.

  “Go on, bruv.”

  “I’m not arrested. Considering I have multiple alibies. The dean and detectives assume Bess was mistaken.”

  “Right. That’s good then?”

  Theo cleared his throat.

  “I’m sorry for being a dickhead,” Ben mumbled.

  “See, he can apologize.”

  Jezza looked up from his phone.

  “I told him he was probably in the wrong. I mean... you’re no Jess,” he said and then resumed scrolling.

  I guess the boys banded together to get Ben to say sorry to me, but they were wrong about who needed to apologize.

  “I’m the one who’s sorry,” I said, “Ben was right and I never should have doubted him.”

  Theo nodded.

  “Good. So you two are sorted? ‘Cause I can’t take Ben acting like a total wanker any longer.”

  Ben grinned and flicked a spoonful of oatmeal at Theo’s blazer. Because we were in the early lunch block, our food options were breakfast foods, hence the weird eating choices. Boarding school does that to you. Liam brought my plate, and I picked at it. Things were still weird between us. What happened with Dean Chiswick and what exactly did Ben say? I wanted to know if Bess reporting him was an innocent mistake.

  After lunch, Jezza and Theo left to go to class. Ben took my tray up.

  “Creative writing?”

  The class we had together was next. I nodded, and we walked out of the dining hall together.

  “Dean’s office was a total joke,” he said.

  “What happened?”

  “The police have nothing. The Dean has nothing. They’re twiddling their thumbs, and the monster who attacked you is still out there. He could be at my bloody fucking lunch table, for fuck’s sake,” Ben grumbled.

  “Do you think it’s one of them?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” Ben muttered, “But I got the keyring back. Sorry I didn’t tell you I lost it.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “It isn’t. There shouldn’t be any secrets between us. Not now.”

  He stopped and before I could say another word, he pulled me close to him and kissed me. It had been a long time since we last kissed. His lips were warm and tasted like cinnamon and green apples. I ran my hands through his brown hair as he squeezed my hips.

  “I want to hook up,” I blurted out as I pulled away. Ben chuckled.

  “Not here, I imagine.”

  “No! Not here. My room. Or yours.”

  “Can you sneak into the boys' dorm?”

  “Aren’t you on the ground floor?” I asked.

  Ben nodded.

  “I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

  My eye twinkled with thoughts of mischief, of touching Ben and finally reconnecting.

  “I won’t get in trouble. Come on, let’s hurry to class. We’ll be late. What did you write about this week?”

  Naughty Girl

  I didn't bother waiting until after lights out. That way, even if I might have a higher chance of getting caught, there would be less of a chance of me getting in trouble. Sneaking into a boy's room was crazy. But this was Ben Fox, and he'd put his ass on the line tens of times for me. I crossed campus in a hoodie and sweatpants. I couldn’t wait for February to ease into March. So far, I didn’t have plans for spring break, but Ben hinted a couple times he had something huge planned.

  Ben promised he would leave his window open and told me it was the fourth from the archway that led to his dorm. That should be easy enough. 1… 2… 3… 4… There it was. With the shade pulled down, I could only make out a glowing blue light inside. I glanced around to make sure no one was watching. No one was. I pushed the window open and climbed through. Ben wasn’t there. I looked around for a moment, wondering if I entered the correct room. Two very different personalities inhabited the room. The desks parted the room in half, like most of the Year 12 rooms.

  On one half of the room was a giant Sex Pistols poster — the one with Queen Elizabeth emblazoned on the Union Jack. Black clothes littered the desk and floor and open bags of loose tobacco covered the open spots on the desk. The other side of the room was definitely Ben’s. Where was he? I pulled out my burner phone to call him when the door swung open and Ben walked in fresh out of the shower with a towel wrapped around his hips.

  “You’re early.”

  He grinned. I was speechless. His chiseled body was only slightly pink from the shower and his hair stuck to his neck in the back but was a complete mess in the front.

  “Who’s Darth Vader?”

  Ben scoffed.

  “He’s never here. He’s probably in some dungeon somewhere slitting his wrists and writing emo poetry.”

  Ben’s side of the room was meticulously clean. His room in Scotland was nothing like this. He had crisp white bedsheets, made to perfection, and a navy blue plaid bedspread with a throw pillow. I stifled a giggle at the fact that Ben Fox had a throw pillow in here. Ben stacked his books neatly on the desk with an expensive-looking metal lamp arching over them. His room smelled like warm vanilla and patchouli.

  “Like it?”

  “Why have I never been here before?”

  “Because,” he murmured, “You don’t break school rules.”

  Then, just to shock me, Ben dropped his towel. I gasped. He was stark naked with his cock hanging halfway down his thigh. I gulped, and he turned the lock to his door.

  “Ben…” I gasped.

  “Come on, strip,” he demanded.

  “I…”

  “Now… I want to taste your cunt.”

  He knew how to get me to act quick. I threw off my hoodie, and Ben chuckled.

  “Didn’t bother wearing a bra?”

  “I was in a hurry.”

  “Sweatpants, love.”

  I peeled my sweats off. My thigh creases swallowed my black underwear, and it nearly blended in with my skin. Ben approached me and bent to his knees before me. The towering mass of muscle that I loved with every bit of my heart got down on his knees and kissed the soft spot on my skin just beneath my belly button.

  “Perfection,” he murmured, “You are… perfection.”

  My heart raced. Back home, before I got here, boys always told me I was too dark, my hair was too nappy, they said that I wasn’t pretty. Once, the boys rated all the girls in the class out of ten and pushed our substitute teacher out of the classroom, locking her out so they could read the ratings out. They rated me a “zero”, but don’t worry, they gave me tips to improve.

  They said, “Liberty needs to get some weave in her head, some skin lightening cream, and lose about fifteen to twenty pounds to even get a 3/10.”

  Everyone in the class laughed — even my friends. They said I was being too sensitive, and it was just joking, and maybe if I stopped “acting white”, I wouldn’t take shit so seriously. I was sixteen and no stranger to bullying. Maybe that’s why Rapetti boys and girls had to do a lot to get to me. I’d been through it.

  My stomach recoiled as Ben planted another kiss.

  “What’s wrong?” he murmured.

  I could have kept it all to myself. I could bottle all of this inside and never tell him because telling him would make me weak and fuck it, I was through being weak after daddy and Niecy, and after my first semester here. I’d abandoned weakness. But Ben… He said I never opened up and I couldn’t prove him right. If I wanted to keep him — the boy who thought I was perfection — I’d have to be real.

  “When you say I’m perfection, it feels like a dream. It doesn’t feel real because my whole life, people always told me how ugly I was. They’d much rather be with a girl like Hope or Jess or even Bess. So when you say it, I just feel... weird, like it’s a big joke.”

  He rose to his feet, and he touched my cheek.

  “What do you mean?”

  I told him about that time in school, when the boys rated me a zero and when everybody laughed. I didn’t mean to cry, but a tear squeezed out of my eye and Ben wrapped his arms around me and I threw my arms back around him. I choked out another anguished sob, and he pressed his firm, strong chest close to mine.

  “Shh,” he murmured, “It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to get upset about it. But I’m here now. I’m right here, Libs, and I’m not going anywhere.”

  I buried my face in his neck and when I could finally will myself to pull away; I wriggled my nose, urging my sadness to rebury itself.

  “Pain doesn’t make you weak, Liberty.”

  “When I don’t tell you about me, or about my past, it’s because it’s embarrassing. I’ve always been ‘Libby the loser’ and some part of me thinks you’ll never stop seeing me that way, as some fucking loser in your perfect world, some charity case.”

  I spat out the last words, relief extending through my limbs and chest.

  “Fuck,” he murmured, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for any pain I caused you.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “Maybe not. But I should be the one taking care of you.”

  He bent his head to mine and kissed me, hard. When he pulled away from me, his eyes narrowed, and his face grew stern.

  “You are beautiful, Liberty Jones. You need not change anything about you for me to love you. You are the first person to see me after knowing all the bad shit about me.”

 

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