Selena Kitt - Falling Down

He was wearing a hard hat and writing something on a clipboard, his face slightly in shadow, but she knew him, would have known him anywhere. Then Smooth appeared behind him, and they faced each other, talking, and Lindsey thought she might faint as she pressed herself back against the brick of the store behind her, looking for something solid to hold her up.

When the phone rang again in her hand, which was still half-buried in her purse, she startled and yanked it out, looking at the display. It was Zach. Oh thank God. She flipped it open, pressed the phone to her ear, and whispered, “They’re right across the street.”

“Lindsey?

Hello?”

Her voice was choked as she shrank against the building, praying they wouldn’t look over, wouldn’t see her, but she seemed unable to move. “Zach, I saw them. Both of them. The men who…who…”

“Where are you?” He understood, she could tell.

“The corner of…” She glanced up to be sure. “Woodward and Ten. They’re right across the street at the construction site. Right now. They’re just standing there talking-”

“I’m going to hang up and call the police. There’s a hardware store there on the corner, right?”

She looked behind her, seeing red brick, but she knew the area well enough- her back was against the outside wall of the hardware store. “Yeah.”

“Go inside. Tell them someone was bothering you, and the police are on their way. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. The police will probably be there before me.” He swore under his breath. “Do you hear me?”

“Yes,” she agreed, inching her way around the corner toward the hardware store door, feeling her way for the entrance. She couldn’t take her eyes off the two of them, both laughing at some joke now.

“Do exactly as I say,” he insisted. “I’ll call you back in two minutes.” The line went dead. She slipped into the store, heart beating hard, breathing too fast, and she took a cart just to steady herself as she walked. It was more like five minutes before he called her back-she’d already told the first cashier she came to, a young girl with spiky black hair and a coiled tattoo on her neck, whose mascara-rimmed eyes grew wider and wider as Lindsey talked until she finally ran to get her manager.

The older man was more helpful, leading Lindsey to the back office, offering her a seat, bottled water. She accepted both, and was just taking a long drink when the phone rang again.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m in the store,” she said, smiling at the concerned-looking manager, who kept taking his wireless glasses off and wiping them on his shirt. “They’re nice. They let me wait in the office.”

“Good.” He sounded a little less tense. “I’m on my way. The police should be there in a few minutes. They’re sending an unmarked car. It was in the area.”

“Okay.” The thought of talking to the police made her stomach lurch and she closed her eyes, swallowing hard. “What…what are we going to do?”

“You’re going to tell them.”

She whimpered. “I want to go home.”

“I’ll be there to get you. Just a few more minutes, baby. I promise.”

“I feel like I’m falling.” She did. The world was spinning.

“You’ll want to put your head between your knees…” The man with the glasses looked concerned.

“It’s okay,” Zach said, his voice choked. “I’ll catch you, remember?” She looked up at the sound of someone in the doorway. “They’re here.”

“Tell them everything,” he insisted.

“Okay.” She looked at the man in uniform standing in the doorway and wondered if she could.

“I love you, Lindsey.”

“I love you, too.”

She looked up at the cop, opened her mouth, and told him everything.

It was from the back of the unmarked cruiser parked on the street that she identified them both. And a few moments later, Zach’s car pulled up behind them. The cop was suspicious when Zach knocked on the driver’s side window, but Lindsey’s relieved, “Zach! Oh thank God!” was enough to convince him that it was safe to roll it down.

“Let me out!” Lindsey pulled on the door handle, locked from the inside.

The cop got out to talk to Zach, but left her inside, and the longer they stood there, the more panicked she felt. When the door finally opened, she flew into Zach’s arms and he held her tight as she trembled against him.

“Can we go home?” she whispered. “Can we go home now?”

“Yeah, he said we can go. Come on.” He put her in the car and slid into the driver’s side. Lindsey didn’t talk on the way, letting him hold her hand while he drove with the other.

But there was a message on the machine when they got home that made Lindsey curl into a fetal ball on the couch.

“I can’t,” she wailed as Zach knelt beside her, brushing the hair out of her face. “I can’t!”

“Yes you can.”

She tried to imagine it-like every bad Law and Order , standing behind two-way glass, facing them, knowing they couldn’t see you, but still…

“And you will. Come on.”

She thought of Brian and the games she had played leading up to that night. He hadn’t meant for it to happen that way, she knew it, but if she stood up and started

pointing fingers, he would be in just as much trouble. That weighed on her, but the thought of the things she’d done, the way she’d dressed, acted, instigated, the men she’d let feel her up, fuck her, use her-she pulled the sofa pillow out from under her head and pressed it over her flushed face to hide it.

“You don’t understand,” she whispered, when Zach pulled the pillow away and made her face him. “It went all wrong that night, I know. It wasn’t supposed to…be like that. But I…I…” She closed her eyes, unable to look into his. “I went there to meet them.

I knew…I knew what could happen.”

“Did you say no?” Zach asked quietly, and she felt his hand in her hair again, stroking gently.

She remembered, and knew she had, clearly and unequivocally. She’d told them no over and over, and it just made things worse instead of better.

“Yeah.” She opened her eyes, looking at him through prisms. “But that doesn’t mean I didn’t deserve it. How many times had I said yes before that?”

“Don’t.” He shook his head. “I don’t care if you said yes until the very last minute, and then decided you didn’t want to. No means no. Period.” She laughed, a short, strangled cry. “But ‘no’ never meant ‘no’ before…”

“And why was that? Because no one ever listened to you when you said ‘no,’ did they?” He touched her cheek, his eyes pained. “Your stepfather didn’t listen. All the men who took advantage of you didn’t listen. Lindsey, baby, you’ve been saying ‘no’ all along. It’s just that no one was willing to stop and listen to what you actually meant.” Everything in her went silent as she stared at him, the slow realization creeping like cold fingers up her spine. She wanted to deny it, but she couldn’t. All that time,

she’d been saying “No”-egging them on, sure, teasing them, trying her best to get herself or someone else hurt, she realized with a flush of shame-but she never once stopped saying, “No.”

“Okay.” She sat up on the couch, wiping her eyes, blinking back any more tears, and managed to give him a small, hard smile. “Let’s go.” She was going and, not just this one time, but now and forever, “No” was going to really mean “No.”

* * * *

“Ugh, did you have to make me eat waffles?” Lindsey held her stomach as they approached the pavilion. It was crowded with a sea of kids in black robes, but there were far many more parents and siblings, grandmothers and uncles. All she had was Zach-not that she was complaining.