X & Y ✓

eight / rage

Tearing him back once more, he hurled him onto the floor. "HOW COULD YOU DO THAT?!" he screamed, face turning an awful shade of pinkish red from the exertion of shouting. "SHE'S A SWEET GIRL! HOW COULD YOU DO THAT?!" Still bewildered, Austin's nameless friends just stared, controllers in hand.

Cameron was careful not to say what Austin had actually done, but he got the picture.  And so did they.  Without knowing specifics, they knew that it was something so great that it warranted a surprise visit and subsequent ass-kicking.

Austin had nothing to say for himself.  The sound of Kith's crying entered Cameron's reality and he hated his brother.  He genuinely hated him for doing something so horrible.  Kith put up with his drunk ass on a nightly basis.  She didn't deserve what Austin had done to her. No one did.

"If you ever go near her again, I'll kill you," he hissed.  Leaning down, he wrapped his hand around Austin's throat until it looked like he couldn't breathe anymore. "DO YOU HEAR ME?! GO NEAR HER AND I SWEAR TO GOD, I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!"

Releasing his grip from Austin's throat, he stood back up, straightened his shirt, and turned to go.  Shooting his younger brother's friends scathing looks, he stalked back in the direction he'd come.  Kith just stood there, crying.

"Kith!" he shouted her name without looking back.

She didn't move.

"Kith, please!" Yelling louder, he commanded her attention.  Turning around, she ducked her head and walked quickly back to the front door.  The same silence reared its head when they were back in the car, but he didn't care.  He just wanted to be far from here, far from everywhere, somewhere away.

When they got back on campus, he parked his truck in front of the frat house.  Seizing her purse, she threw it over her shoulder, and fled the car without saying anything to him.  That was perfectly fine with him.

He sat in his truck for hours.  The sky was dark and most people were in their dorms.  He hadn't moved for hours.  When eleven o'clock rolled around, he went inside just to grab a new shirt.  Retrieving his hat from the back of his truck, he followed his friends to one of the parties across campus.  His one and only goal was to get completely, utterly, and shamefully drunk.  Nothing wholesome in the world could alleviate his current affliction.

Alternating cans of beer with shots of vodka, he sat on one of the couches, alone, repeatedly turning girls away and ignoring his friends.  He felt like the weight of the world was on his shoulders, and he wasn't even the victim here.  Everything was so heavy.  Sitting up straight became too much of an effort.

Slumping to the side, he struggled to think over the horrible things racing through his head.  His brother was a rapist. That piece of shit had raped her in their house.  And now he was a father.  A rapist and a father-to-be.  Burying his face in his hands, Cameron couldn't help the guilt that flooded his veins.

Over Thanksgiving Break, she walked past that room every day and night in order to get to his room.  Cameron felt disgusting.  And for some strange reason, he felt like crying.  But he couldn't.  He couldn't even recall the last time he'd cried.

So he wandered outside and threw up ice cream and booze into the bushes. Everything was too much.  Austin raped his new friend.  Cameron had encouraged Kith to talk to her rapist several times.  What if Austin had done it again?  Would she tell him if he'd done it again? He'd fucking kill him. Nothing would stop him.

Doubling over on his hands and knees, he pressed his forehead against the damp grass and battled the growing waves of nausea.  They were aggressively painful due to the lack of contents in his stomach.  His mouth tasted horrible and he still felt like shit.