Easy

me. Please. Please.
    “He talked her into going to his room.” At this, Mindi’s hands flew up to cover her face and she crumpled face-first into Erin’s shoulder like a child. “Shh, shh,” Erin crooned, fitting both arms around her. We stared at each other over Mindi’s head, and I knew there’d been no Lucas for her.
    “J, we have to tell. We have to tell this time.”
    “No one will believe me!” Mindi rasped. She was hoarse, and I imagined her doing what I’d done—begging him to stop. I imagined her crying all night, and half the day, and I was more pissed than I’d ever been, and scared. “I’m not…” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “I wasn’t a virgin.”
    “That doesn’t matter,” Erin said firmly.
    I gulped at the knot in my throat and it slid down, but not without a fight. “They’ll believe you. He tried to—he tried with me, a month ago.”
    Mindi gasped, her blotchy face and wide eyes turning to me. “He raped you, too?”
    I shook my head as chills spiked up in a wave from my neck to my ankles. “Someone stopped him. I got lucky.” I had no idea how lucky until this moment. I thought I knew, but I didn’t.
    “Oh.” Her voice warbled softly, and she hadn’t quit crying. “Will that count?”
    Erin coaxed Mindi to lie down, flapping a blanket over her. “It’ll count.” She sat next to Mindi and held her hand. “Will Lucas corroborate your story, J? I mean, I’m guessing, with what we know about him, that he will.”
    Lucas had been irate that I’d not let him call the police that night. It hadn’t occurred to me that by not reporting what had happened, I let Buck think he was untouchable. That he’d do it again. I’d assumed that what Lucas had done to Buck was deterrent enough. Not that it had prevented him from what he did in the stairwell… or his implied threats during the party, right in front of Kennedy.
    I nodded. “He will.”
    Erin took a shaky breath and looked down at Mindi. “We need to call the police or go to the hospital or something, right? I have no idea what to do first.”
    “The hospital?” Mindi was afraid, and I couldn’t blame her.
    “They’ll probably need to do… an exam, or something.” Erin gentled her voice, but at the word exam , Mindi’s eyes widened and filled with tears again.
    Her knuckles blanched, gripping the blanket. “I don’t want an exam! I don’t want to go to the hospital!”
    How could I blame her, when reporting would bring more pain and humiliation?
    “We’ll go with you. You can do this.” Erin turned to me. “What should we do first?”
    I shook my head, thinking of the campus police. Some, like Don, would probably do well with this situation. Some might not. We could go straight to the hospital, but I wasn’t sure what the steps were. I picked up my phone and dialed.
    “Hello?” Lucas’s voice was wary, and I realized I’d never called him before.
    “I need you.” It had been over a week since we’d communicated outside of the worksheets he’d sent, and the self-defense class yesterday morning.
    “Where are you?”
    “In my room.” I expected him to ask what I wanted. He didn’t.
    “Be there in ten minutes.”
    I closed my eyes. “Thank you.”
    He hung up, and I put the phone down, and we waited.

    ***
    Lucas squatted on his heels just below Mindi’s eye level. “If you don’t report it, he’s going to do it again. To someone else.” His voice hummed through me, barely audible from across the room. “Your friends will stay with you.”
    Erin sat on the bed, holding her hand. I barely knew this girl, but thanks to Buck, we were now allies, associated in a way no one ever wants to be linked.
    “Will you be there?” Her voice was a whisper.
    “If you want,” he answered.
    She nodded, and I tamped down a trace of jealousy. There was nothing to envy in this situation.

    ***
    The television in the ER waiting room was set at an earsplitting volume that was no help to my aching head. I wanted to turn it off, or down, but an elderly man was planted in a chair ten feet from it, arms crossed over his chest, staring up at the sitcom repeat. If that noise was distracting him from his reason for being here, who was I to take that diversion away?
    Lucas sat next to me, his bent knee angled toward me, brushing my thigh. His hand was so close to mine I could have reached my pinky finger out to stroke his. I didn’t.
    “Got something against that show?”
    His silly question broke my