Chapter 1
I thought I knew what I was doing. I had this plan. I called it The Plan. I was going to “do the right thing” and give the baby up for adoption. I mean what happened wasn’t the baby’s fault. Technically she wasn’t my fault either but then again, I was the idiot that played followed the leader and went to a party that I shouldn’t have gone to. So in a way, yes her existence is at least a little bit my fault, or at least my responsibility. I was supposed to be smart. I was supposed to be one of those kids that knew better. But instead, I played the fool and got roofied. By my best friend’s boyfriend no less, the girl that I’d gone to the party with so she wouldn’t do anything stupid or get in trouble.
I woke up in the middle of the fifth guy and panicked. I started screaming, crying until snot bubbles ran down my face, vomiting, the whole nine yards. No one could get near me. They could even hear me next door. Some in on the gag started to panic when I almost went out a second story window, headfirst which would have meant that I suicided … only they would have done a tox screen and realized something was hinky. Yep. I completely destroyed the vibe of the party. Or so I was told by more than a few people that were trying to play it off as a joke. I don’t really remember. Thank God. Because only five guys admitted to “partaking of the free stuff that was just lying there.” The rape kit says there were several more than five.
Even admitting that he’d “partook,” Layton refused to admit that he’s the one that put the pills in my orange juice. See I thought I was being smart. There’s that “I thought” again. The smart thing I thought was that I’d go to the party but I wouldn’t drink. And if I saw anyone else my age at the party drinking then I’d be a good friend and play designated driver. The first glass he’d given me had enough vodka in it to turn the “Screwdriver” into a jackhammer. He kept egging me on to drink it, but I got an attitude and I poured it down the drain right in front of him … and someone caught it on their phone camera. He acted all contrite and let me pour my own glass of OJ after that. What I didn’t know, and couldn’t see because of the low lighting, is that he’d already put crushed up pills in the bottom of the red solo cup before handing it to me. But that had been caught on vids already.
A lot of people made the mistake of documenting what was happening. Big mistake on their part. The cops collected all the phones at the party that night before people thought to delete things; for those that did delete them they forgot to empty the folder of newly deleted items. And for those that wouldn’t give up their passwords, there was enough evidence by that time that they got a court order to break into the phones and boy was there more than just what they did to me on some of those devices.
A few people admitted from the beginning that it was a revenge gag. Not a good enough reason, not that any reason is good enough, but even in a messed up teenager’s head why they did it wasn’t near close to being good enough. So the reason for trying to destroy my life? I’d screwed up the academic curve that kept several of the football players off the team for the remainder of the season. Can you freaking believe that?!
First off, their problem for playing idiots first term and getting into the academic fix to start with. Second? Had someone told me, I might have done one of two things … free tutoring or I would have screwed the curve in their favor. I’m not heartless and I thought some of those people were my friends. I always made it a point of not lording my brains over other people. I worked hard to keep my GPA at the top, but I always knew there was some genetic component to it as well and figured other people might not be able to keep up with me even if they tried hard.
Yeah, talk about arrogance. I’ve had a few uncomfortable conversations with Mr. Belding, the court mandated counselor, over my ego. I didn’t mean anything bad by it but there you go. Sometimes no matter what you do you wind up doing the wrong thing which means sometimes in this life it doesn’t feel like doing anything right is possible. So I try and do things as right as I can, and would have done it then as well. But no one asked me. That part I can’t be blamed for. It’s not like I hadn’t done it a few times before. All someone would have had to do is get a little birdy to whisper to me.
But no matter how the counselor has twisted it - or the cops, or some other people including myself in the beginning - I can be blamed for being an idiot about going to that party. Smart me should have seen the possibilities of things going wrong. But nope. Ego tripping is exactly what I did. I was going to save my friends if they screwed up. Boy did I learn my lesson. Day late, dollar short, but a lesson well-learned nonetheless. If people want to screw around I now get out of the way of their potential personal train wreck.
And then there is the fact that it turned out my BFF … former BFF … was in on it and helped set me up. Oh, she claimed not to have known what was going to happen. Then after it was proven she knew, she claimed that she didn’t think they would really do it. Then when they proved that wasn’t true either, she claimed that she didn’t think it would go as far as it did because she didn’t know that a lot of college guys were going to be at the party. It was supposed to just be people from school, people that were in on the gag. But a few of the kids invited a few outsiders because they didn’t think it would hurt and would cover their backsides. And those few invited a few more. And then the party time and location got advertised on social media and away the flying monkeys flew.
Now it turns out that most people thought that they were just going to get me drunk and take some embarrassing movies they could blackmail me with and put me in my place. People admitted they had planned on uploading the vids to all the social media platforms using fake accounts, both the oldie but goodies and the newer ones that weren’t monitored by the thought police yet. But enough knew what was really going on that by the time the powers that be finished charging people, a lot of families in town were totally shocked at how the future plans for their innocent darlings were going to have to change. Expulsions, being charged as an adult, and jail time just doesn’t look good on the ol’ college application. And even those not charged were named and called as witnesses and with the way schools Google, Duck-Duck, and Bing your reputation scores there were a lot fewer acceptance letters coming to fruition than might have otherwise happened. And some already in college either got expelled on “community standards” rules or lost scholarships, loans, etc. which wound up the same thing as being expelled.
See, plenty of the charges turned out to be felonies and enough of those families had given the police heartburn in recent years that there was no sympathy or cover up. There were yet more people that were happy to point out the hypocrisy of several prominent families that had a bad habit of telling other people how to live right. And the people above the police, even if they sympathized with the politics of those families, had too much at risk. They had to prove that they were on the side of law and order and not the militant anarchists. It was coming up on an election year dontcha know. And it was too easy to get blacklisted by banks, corporations, social media, and whoever else think they have a say.
And above and beyond that? The presiding judge had been caused enough heartburn by political friends of the families of the kids charged that she did everything she could to throw the book at everyone involved. Not to mention she laid claim to being a real live feminist and she just couldn’t look the other way when a group of males used their maleness to beat down a female. Didn’t matter whether those males were minors or of legal age.
That’s right happy campers, there were some adults (of both genders) that helped to set me up by providing the location and the drugs and alcohol though they claim they didn’t know how far it was going to go either.
I thought I knew what I was doing. I had this plan. I called it The Plan. I was going to “do the right thing” and give the baby up for adoption. I mean what happened wasn’t the baby’s fault. Technically she wasn’t my fault either but then again, I was the idiot that played followed the leader and went to a party that I shouldn’t have gone to. So in a way, yes her existence is at least a little bit my fault, or at least my responsibility. I was supposed to be smart. I was supposed to be one of those kids that knew better. But instead, I played the fool and got roofied. By my best friend’s boyfriend no less, the girl that I’d gone to the party with so she wouldn’t do anything stupid or get in trouble.
I woke up in the middle of the fifth guy and panicked. I started screaming, crying until snot bubbles ran down my face, vomiting, the whole nine yards. No one could get near me. They could even hear me next door. Some in on the gag started to panic when I almost went out a second story window, headfirst which would have meant that I suicided … only they would have done a tox screen and realized something was hinky. Yep. I completely destroyed the vibe of the party. Or so I was told by more than a few people that were trying to play it off as a joke. I don’t really remember. Thank God. Because only five guys admitted to “partaking of the free stuff that was just lying there.” The rape kit says there were several more than five.
Even admitting that he’d “partook,” Layton refused to admit that he’s the one that put the pills in my orange juice. See I thought I was being smart. There’s that “I thought” again. The smart thing I thought was that I’d go to the party but I wouldn’t drink. And if I saw anyone else my age at the party drinking then I’d be a good friend and play designated driver. The first glass he’d given me had enough vodka in it to turn the “Screwdriver” into a jackhammer. He kept egging me on to drink it, but I got an attitude and I poured it down the drain right in front of him … and someone caught it on their phone camera. He acted all contrite and let me pour my own glass of OJ after that. What I didn’t know, and couldn’t see because of the low lighting, is that he’d already put crushed up pills in the bottom of the red solo cup before handing it to me. But that had been caught on vids already.
A lot of people made the mistake of documenting what was happening. Big mistake on their part. The cops collected all the phones at the party that night before people thought to delete things; for those that did delete them they forgot to empty the folder of newly deleted items. And for those that wouldn’t give up their passwords, there was enough evidence by that time that they got a court order to break into the phones and boy was there more than just what they did to me on some of those devices.
A few people admitted from the beginning that it was a revenge gag. Not a good enough reason, not that any reason is good enough, but even in a messed up teenager’s head why they did it wasn’t near close to being good enough. So the reason for trying to destroy my life? I’d screwed up the academic curve that kept several of the football players off the team for the remainder of the season. Can you freaking believe that?!
First off, their problem for playing idiots first term and getting into the academic fix to start with. Second? Had someone told me, I might have done one of two things … free tutoring or I would have screwed the curve in their favor. I’m not heartless and I thought some of those people were my friends. I always made it a point of not lording my brains over other people. I worked hard to keep my GPA at the top, but I always knew there was some genetic component to it as well and figured other people might not be able to keep up with me even if they tried hard.
Yeah, talk about arrogance. I’ve had a few uncomfortable conversations with Mr. Belding, the court mandated counselor, over my ego. I didn’t mean anything bad by it but there you go. Sometimes no matter what you do you wind up doing the wrong thing which means sometimes in this life it doesn’t feel like doing anything right is possible. So I try and do things as right as I can, and would have done it then as well. But no one asked me. That part I can’t be blamed for. It’s not like I hadn’t done it a few times before. All someone would have had to do is get a little birdy to whisper to me.
But no matter how the counselor has twisted it - or the cops, or some other people including myself in the beginning - I can be blamed for being an idiot about going to that party. Smart me should have seen the possibilities of things going wrong. But nope. Ego tripping is exactly what I did. I was going to save my friends if they screwed up. Boy did I learn my lesson. Day late, dollar short, but a lesson well-learned nonetheless. If people want to screw around I now get out of the way of their potential personal train wreck.
And then there is the fact that it turned out my BFF … former BFF … was in on it and helped set me up. Oh, she claimed not to have known what was going to happen. Then after it was proven she knew, she claimed that she didn’t think they would really do it. Then when they proved that wasn’t true either, she claimed that she didn’t think it would go as far as it did because she didn’t know that a lot of college guys were going to be at the party. It was supposed to just be people from school, people that were in on the gag. But a few of the kids invited a few outsiders because they didn’t think it would hurt and would cover their backsides. And those few invited a few more. And then the party time and location got advertised on social media and away the flying monkeys flew.
Now it turns out that most people thought that they were just going to get me drunk and take some embarrassing movies they could blackmail me with and put me in my place. People admitted they had planned on uploading the vids to all the social media platforms using fake accounts, both the oldie but goodies and the newer ones that weren’t monitored by the thought police yet. But enough knew what was really going on that by the time the powers that be finished charging people, a lot of families in town were totally shocked at how the future plans for their innocent darlings were going to have to change. Expulsions, being charged as an adult, and jail time just doesn’t look good on the ol’ college application. And even those not charged were named and called as witnesses and with the way schools Google, Duck-Duck, and Bing your reputation scores there were a lot fewer acceptance letters coming to fruition than might have otherwise happened. And some already in college either got expelled on “community standards” rules or lost scholarships, loans, etc. which wound up the same thing as being expelled.
See, plenty of the charges turned out to be felonies and enough of those families had given the police heartburn in recent years that there was no sympathy or cover up. There were yet more people that were happy to point out the hypocrisy of several prominent families that had a bad habit of telling other people how to live right. And the people above the police, even if they sympathized with the politics of those families, had too much at risk. They had to prove that they were on the side of law and order and not the militant anarchists. It was coming up on an election year dontcha know. And it was too easy to get blacklisted by banks, corporations, social media, and whoever else think they have a say.
And above and beyond that? The presiding judge had been caused enough heartburn by political friends of the families of the kids charged that she did everything she could to throw the book at everyone involved. Not to mention she laid claim to being a real live feminist and she just couldn’t look the other way when a group of males used their maleness to beat down a female. Didn’t matter whether those males were minors or of legal age.
That’s right happy campers, there were some adults (of both genders) that helped to set me up by providing the location and the drugs and alcohol though they claim they didn’t know how far it was going to go either.