The Balcony

Adult stuff

When you spend your whole life acting like a child, it's hard to transform into an adult at the snap of someone's fingers. Perhaps at the ripe age of 18 I should have been grown up enough to deal with such an adult situation already, but I don't believe anyone is ever prepared for something like this.

I didn't know for a fact that I had been seriously taken advantage of, or how far anything had even gone. I just knew who had kissed me in that locked bathroom a few nights ago. The idea of confronting this boy seemed almost impossible; he was obviously not a nice guy, maybe even dangerous. Elliot, or now Oliver had decided to subtly interrogate the suspect himself and record the encounter with his phone. Meanwhile, I called over Avis to discuss the issue with.

When she arrived, her bubbly attitude was still fizzing away to itself, but I didn't need cheering up. I needed help.
"Miles Jackson." I said as she hung her bomber jacket on the end of my bed. I took a seat in my office chair and rolled towards the computer. I showed her his Facebook and personal Instagram account.
"None of this proves he's a rapist, though." She sighed.
"That's why Oliver is trying to get him to admit what happened now." I nodded.
"Oliver?" She frowned.
"Yeah, he's Elliot. You know? But Oliver is his real name." I smiled, remembering the previous night and the positive parts of it.
"Right." She sighed. Avis seemed uninterested with the whole conversation.
"Is everything okay?" I asked.
"Look, I don't like how you're throwing around accusations. I know Miles, he's a nice kid. He's in my art class and we're actually good friends. I know him. He wouldn't rape anyone. You were drunk, he was drunk. It didn't mean anything, did it?" She said angrily. It took a minute for me to process the situation.
"I'm not calling it rape, Avis. But he kissed me without consent which proves he's not a good guy. I just want to know what happened." I tried to reason with her.
"You probably wanted it!" She yelled, pushing a stack of notebooks off my desk.
"What are you talking about?" I jumped up as she ran towards the door.
"You're so blind! You go off with all these boys and you can't even see when there is someone right in front of you." She shouted and slammed the door behind her.
"Avis!" I yelled and ran towards the door, but when I opened it she was already gone.

It was some real childish stuff; getting jealous over something so stupid. But the grand scheme of things was that I wanted to know what happened to me, not to make anyone jealous that I had kissed a boy at a party. I didn't even know Avis would be jealous. I didn't even know that she felt like that about me.

I sat for an hour or so, listening to sad music and drowning my sorrows with a few cans of cider. My phone began to ring. Avis, I thought. But no, it was Oliver.
"Hey, are you in your room?" He said.
"Yup." I replied.
A few minutes passed before I heard a knock at my door. I opened it to reveal a sweaty Oliver, panting and out of breath. There was blood splattered across his face, but I couldn't find the source.
"Shit, what happened." I exclaimed. He flopped onto my bed, which was freshly washed. I didn't mind him sweating on it. If it had to be anyone, I was glad it was Oliver.

His body was heavy on my sheets, obviously exhausted from running or fighting or panicking; a trait of his I was well acquainted with at this point. I supposed we had a lot to panic about. He lifted himself up and edged closer to the while walls. Then, he gestured for me to sit next to him whilst he got his phone out. So I followed his suggestion. I felt equally as drained as he was exhausted, but did a better job of hiding it. Suddenly, Oliver turned to me and cupped his hands around my face, staring into my eyes. I could feel his breath hitting my mouth softly. Finally, he broke the tension.
"Before I let you listen to this, just know you are safe now. You're safe here." He assured me and stroked the side of my face with his hand which was plastered in blood. I nodded, worriedly.

He started up the recording, and it began with some boyish banter to set the conversation. It was odd for me to hear Oliver being one of the boys, he was always so tranquil with me. When he looked up at me suddenly, I knew the real story was about to come out.
"So how did things go with that girl, dude?" Oliver asked in a boyish tone.
"Oh man, she is such a cutie!" He exclaimed.
"Nice! Did you get up to much?" Oliver asked again, I could hear his voice shaking slightly as he spoke.
"She was practically begging for it. But nah, just gave her a quickie." He laughed and I heard a slap of some sort. But it was only a high five. It felt disgusting for Oliver to high five this guy, but I knew he didn't really enjoy it.
"So you fucked her?" Oliver questioned in a more angered tone.
"Yeah man." Miles chuckled.
"You sick fuck." Oliver whispered. The phone seemed to fall to the ground and all that could be heard was rustling and grunting.

It was obvious that some kind of fight had occurred from the minute that Oliver entered my room, but I was still unsure of how bad it had gotten. The muffled struggle played for another minute before I looked up at Oliver. He was hyperventilating like crazy, perhaps only just reflecting on the confrontation. I took the phone out of his trembling hands and paused the audio momentarily; he didn't need to relive that fight. I could feel the fear radiating from his body in a nightmare concoction of heat and sweat. I supposed he was having some kind of adrenaline fuelled panic attack. The more I tried to calm him down, the more furious he became until all actions came to a halt. He threw himself onto me, aiming for a hug, but pushing me with such force that we were lying on my bed. I held him for a while, trying to decrease the frequency of his tremors. I daren't ask what the outcome of the fight was, but I knew it must have been traumatic.

I hadn't even had chance to reflect on the fact that Miles had admitted to raping me; all I could think about was Oliver's wellbeing. My problems were secondary to his suffering right now, and if I had to sit with him for hours like he did for me the night before, it seemed like a fair plan. Just as I settled down against the wall, Oliver sat up.

"It was so bad, August. I lost it." He whispered. I sat up next to him and crossed my legs just as he had.
"How bad?" I asked calmly. As much as I wanted Miles to suffer, I didn't want Oliver getting in trouble.
"Bad. Really bad." He said slowly.
"Did he run away and tell someone?" I asked. Oliver continued to stare into the carpet, daring not to look into my eyes.

"No."
"Did he get up afterwards?"
"No."
"Did you kill him?"
"..."
"Oliver...did you kill Miles?"
"...I think so."