Shattered - A Rape Story

Aftermath

The second he arrived at the station Chris was charged and booked with unlawful restraint in the third degree. Once they took the kid's statements, collected her clothes, and looked over the doctors reports they were able to add two counts of first degree rape, menacing in the second degree, and assault in the second degree. Because Lily was still 16 and he was 21 he was suspected to receive a lifetime sentence without the possibility of parole.

"It's not enough" Eric growled punching a wall in the hospital waiting room.

Vanessa walked over to him carefully and slowly slipped her hand over his. You could see him relax just from her touch.

"Common, let's take a walk."

"I'm not leaving until she comes out."

"You know it won't be good for her to see you like this. She'll still be here when you get back."

She could see him getting tense again just thinking about it.

"Hey" she whispered kissing the hand she was still holding. "It's all going to be okay. It's over now."

He sighed leaning his forehead against hers. Vanessa started to feel him trembling against her and took the lead on getting him away from the rest of the group.

"Call me when she's out" she said to April as they passed by.

The rest of them sat in the pediatric surgery waiting room silent and stone faced. As the paramedics suspected she had internal bleeding in her left kidney from the beating some point in the attack and had to be taken into surgery immediately. Physically she was going to be okay but a counselor had come by and explained all the side effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder to them and they knew it wouldn't be the same.

"I blamed her."

April and PJ looked up from the ground at the sound of Brandon's voice. He wasn't even sitting in a chair. He was curled up in a corner on the floor covering his face with his hands.

"I... I called her a whore. I made her cry. I should've known better. It's my fault. I should've known. I could've done something."

PJ turned away. A part of him was still blaming Brandon for what happened. How could he have believed those things? How could he have said that to her?

"You didn't know" April chimed in trying to ease some of his guilt. "This whole situation's so messed up."

"But I should've known. That's the point."

"Okay, fine. If you want to go down this road then yeah, you fucked up. You should've never said those things to her. But there was no way you could've known or prevented this. It's not like she would've told you. You know how she is. If there was any chance anyone would've gotten hurt she wouldn't say anything and that's exactly what happened. I'm pissed as fuck at you for the things you said but the second you started to suspect something was wrong you did the right thing. If you and PJ hadn't come together then we'd probably be standing in the morgue right now and not sitting in these stupid plastic chairs. You did everything you could. So shut the fuck up and stop whining about yourself. You need to focus on her. You need to be there for her."

"And you" she said turning to PJ. He looked up surprised. "Stop blaming him. He wasn't the one that hurt her. Chris hurt her. This is his fault. It doesn't do anyone any good for you to be mad at him for what happened."

Both boys sat wordlessly a bit surprised at the outburst. Even after a few seconds passed neither of them could find anything to say. They refused to even look at each other.

"Fucking children" April cursed walking away exhausted.

Brandon hesitantly glanced towards PJ who immediately tore his eyes off the floor as if he had been waiting for him to make the first move.

They held the stare for a moment before each giving a small nod agreeing on a million things with this one simple gesture then looking away.