Jack went back to his little house and worried about Kelsey and the fight they had all night. He went to bed and worried, tossing and turning, then got up for morning practice, noticing that she hadn't returned, because her downstairs hall light was still on. He felt like he had bees buzzing in his stomach. He swam, worrying the whole time, unable to focus, and after the workout, he stood in the showers, unable to remember any of it.

He wasn't sure what he should do. Was he supposed to apologize? Send flowers? The politics of relationships was beyond him, and he didn't give a rat's ass about who was right or wrong. Being in a fight felt awful, and he wanted it to be over. His phone had remained ominously silent all night, he hadn't heard from her at all. He asked Zach and Jeff's advice in the parking lot, wisely waiting until Toby was gone.

"Dude, girls are weird," was Jeff's response. "This is just one of the many reasons I'm so glad I'm gay. Guys just make so much more sense."

"If you want to stay with her, and I assume you do," Zach said, pausing, looking at Jack, who nodded, "then it's simple. You apologize first, as much as you need to, sincerely. That's the key, bro. You have to mean it." He clapped Jack on the back. "And you make sure you never do it again. That's it, man. Good luck."

Jack returned home and was glad to see that the hall light was out, which meant that she'd come back, at least. He debated texting her first, but decided against it. He went straight to her patio door and used his key to let himself in.

"Kelsey?" he called. "Kels?" He wondered if she'd fallen asleep. He walked quietly to the stairs and saw that her bedroom door was closed.

Should he let her sleep?

He decided the uncomfortable buzzing in his stomach couldn't wait, and he climbed the stairs and opened her door.

She was coming out of her bathroom, her hair still wet from a shower, pulling Jack's old high school spirit T-shirt over her head. As far as Jack could recall, he'd thrown that in her hamper yesterday morning. He could see over her shoulder a pill bottle of Vicodin on the counter. He wondered how many she'd taken.

And why was she wearing his dirty clothes?

Her head emerged from the top of the shirt and she saw Jack standing in the doorway. She stopped moving, and her mouth formed his name, though no sound came from her lips.

Then he saw the bruises.

Kelsey was covered in them. A long pink mark ran along one side of her neck, with three corresponding marks on the other, as if someone had grabbed her throat, really hard. She had abraded the flesh under her eye, as if her face had been rubbed into something. Her upper arms, wrists, and legs had pink, blue and purple marks in all sizes, all over, and was that a bite mark on her thigh?

Jack's eyes widened and he took a step toward her as she quickly reached for a silk robe. She pulled it on and yanked the belt closed with a quick jerk.

"Why are you here?" she asked, stepping over to the bed and getting under the comforter.

"What happened?" Jack asked, ignoring her question. He gestured to her body. "What happened last night?" He walked over and sat on the edge of the bed.

She looked up at him, her features starting to sag into tears for a split second before she got control of herself. She shook her head.

"Jack, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean for it to happen, I didn't," she said, her words running together. "Please don't leave over this, okay?" She put a hand on his arm, and he could see that three of her fingernails were ripped down to the quick, two of them so far that they had bled.

"I didn't mean the terrible things I said to you yesterday," she continued. "I was being a bitch, trying to hurt you, that's all. I love that you're a student, and that you took me to Disneyland, and that you don't drink or swear, I do," she said in a desperate, insistent voice, squeezing his arm with her damaged hand. "And last night was a terrible mistake, I'd take it back if I could, but I can't." She took a deep breath. "But please don't leave me over it Jack, just please don't, I don't know what I'll do if you leave--"

"Sshh, stop," Jack interrupted, smoothing her damp hair back. She flinched violently away from his hand, and he lifted it for a moment before putting it back, making sure she'd accept its presence on her head.

"Kelsey? Kelsey. Look at me."

He waited until she looked up. He saw anew the abrasion on her upper cheek, the bruise on her neck. He saw, too, the look in her eyes, the terror, the watchfulness.

Oh no. No no no.

"Sweetheart, did you go back to Don's house with him last night?" He kept his voice quiet and steady, knowing that she needed him to be both those things right now.

Kelsey nodded, her gaze sliding down to the comforter.

"And what happened?"

Silence.

Jack wasn't sure if he should try to hug her or not. He wanted to offer comfort, but he didn't want to traumatize her even more. She needed a girlfriend, Kiki or JJ, perhaps, but he wasn't in a position to call either of them, and Kiki was in Europe, besides. He settled for putting an arm around her back.

Just when he thought she wouldn't say anything, he heard her voice. It was starting to get blurry as the codeine in the pills she'd taken took effect.

"We, uh, we had sex." She was nearly inaudible. She reached for the front of Jack's shirt, grasping a handful and twisting it until Jack could feel the cloth pinching his Adam's apple.

"Jack, I'm sorry, please don't go, don't go, okay?" She leaned into him of her own accord, and Jack could smell her shampoo.

She began to cry, horrible, ragged sobbing like Jack had never heard before. She drenched the front of his shirt, and it was long minutes before she was able to ride it with any kind of rhythm. Jack just stroked her back, mindful of the possibilities of bruises or other injuries there, too.

"I kept saying 'no', and he kept hitting me," she finally said. She seemed to have found the end of her tears at last, and Jack could kind of understand her.

"He said we hadn't been together in months, and I wore this dress and teased him at the club all night long, we were going to fuck and that was that," Kelsey repeated, and Jack could hear in her voice the slight mimicking of Don's accent, the cadence of his speech the hiss of his sibilants.

"Every time I thought he was finished and tried to leave, he wasn't," she continued, and Jack felt her shudder. "He kept pulling me back. He's really strong, you know? He's not big and built like you, but he does some kind of exercises called isometrics and dynamic tension or something like that, and he's really fit."

She sat back from Jack, and it broke his heart to see her face, puffy from crying, and the guilt on it, my god. "He really really likes my body, you know? He likes long legs and perky tits? And he likes that I was a model, like a runway model. He likes knowing that people saw me like that, it's a turn on for him." She shrugged. "So he kept going, all night, like five or six times." She drew her knees together. "I'm really sore," she whispered. "I wasn't into it, so there wasn't any lubrication, you know? He didn't care, though, until I started bleeding. He doesn't like that," she said with a tiny, vindictive smile.

She looked at Jack. "But he shouldn't have made me bleed, then, right?" she asked him.

Jack just nodded.

"But even with all that awful fucking, the worst part was the kissing." She touched her mouth. "I never liked his mouth, even when I liked the rest of him. It's gross, very thin lips, like a weasel or something." She looked at Jack, and her expression softened. "You have a beautiful mouth, Jack, has anyone ever told you that?"

He shook his head.

Kelsey nodded. "Yeah, your lips are really soft, and you know what to do with it, too." She smiled again, a smile so vulnerable and lovely that it made Jack want to cry.

Kelsey sighed again, and drew her robe more tightly around her. Her eyelids were really drooping now.

"Okay." Jack put a careful hand on Kelsey's knee, over the comforter. "Kelsey? Sweet, sweet Kelsey, beautiful Kelsey."

Kelsey blinked gray eyes at him. "You aren't going to leave, Jack? You forgive me?" She looked down at herself. "I wore your dirty shirt because I needed you close to me, I needed to feel you close, Jack."

"Kels." Jack fought back tears.

"Please say it before you say anything else?"

"I forgive you, because there's nothing to forgive," Jack said carefully, looking straight into her eyes. "And I'm not leaving, I promise.

"Now we have to call an ambulance, okay, sweetheart?" Jack said, pulling out his phone. "And the police."

"What? Why?" Kelsey asked, opening her eyes all the way, in spite of the drugs she'd taken.

"Kelsey, you've been raped," Jack said, struggling to keep his voice even and not shout, knowing it would frighten her. "He raped you."

She leaned back so she could see Jack's face more clearly. "No," she said, shaking her head. Rape was what happened to young girls walking home from dates alone, or what happened to librarians late at night.

Jack nodded. "You said no. Multiple times. Not that that mattered. After you said it the first time, it became rape." He looked at his phone. "I'm calling the police."

She shook her head again and took his phone. "No. Jack. This is so hard for me, I'm not thinking clearly right now, but I need for you not to do this right now, please. Please?" She looked at him imploringly.

"I'm going to be out cold in a few minutes, and I need you to promise me you won't call anyone until we can talk about this, okay?" She nodded at him.

"He could be getting on a plane right now to go back to Europe," Jack fumed. "He needs to be arrested!"

Kelsey laughed, an awful, hollow sound. "He's sleeping the sleep of the righteous, I guarantee it, Jack. He hasn't done anything wrong, he's not getting on a plane to anywhere."

She lay down on the bed, pulling Jack with her. "Please. Please," she begged. "I need this right now. I need this." She looked at him, her eyes troubled. "All I could think about was how stupid I'd been, how you were going to leave me, how the only good thing in my entire, fucked up life was going to walk right out the door."

"How?" Jack was mystified. "How could you possibly think I'd leave over you getting assaulted?" Just saying the words got him upset again. "Please let me call an ambulance, at least. Or take you to an emergency room? We can go over the hill to the valley, pay cash? An urgent care center or something?"

Kelsey's eyes were closed, but she shook her head.

"I need to sleep," she murmured. "And I need for you to stay with me, please."

And, even though she knew that she shouldn't want to be close to anyone, she scooted a little closer to Jack, to his comforting presence, to his warmth, the fragrance of his shampoo and fabric softener, and chlorine.

Ahh.