It Happens All the Time: A Novel

It’s almost dawn when Tyler and I finally arrive at the cabin. The sky is a dusky mix of lavender and gray; a few stars still twinkle above us as we walk down a path surrounded by a dense forest of snow-dusted evergreens. The roar of the river fills my head—the water is only thirty feet away. When I was young, falling asleep to that sound was something I looked forward to every year. My mother called it nature’s lullaby. It does nothing to soothe me now.

After we get inside and light a single lantern, I point the gun at Tyler and tell him to sit on the lumpy, plaid-patterned couch. The air is musty and cold; mouse traps, some of which have already done their job, litter the floor around us. I try not to look at the motionless rodents; I try to pretend that I don’t smell death.

“So, we’re here,” Tyler says, as he complies with my request. “Now what?”

I take pleasure in hearing the tremble in his voice, but the truth is that I don’t know what I should do. Getting him to the cabin was as far ahead as I had planned. I want him to confess. I need to hear the words “I raped you” coming from his mouth. But I don’t know how to make that happen. I consider holding the gun to his head and forcing him to speak the truth, asking him to recite, in detail, the way he attacked me.

“Remember the first time you came here?” I ask instead, thinking back to the summer just before my freshman year. Even though Tyler and I spent the first nine months of our friendship at different schools, we had grown close during the many fall and winter evenings he spent at our dinner table, the weekends we watched horror movies together at his house because my mom wouldn’t allow me to view them at mine. His parents’ divorce was finalized in the spring, and my mom and dad decided to invite Liz and Tyler to the cabin with us for a weeklong vacation in June. We packed up several ice chests and plastic bins full of food, stuffing both family vehicles with sleeping bags, inner tubes for floating down the river, and board games we could play. Tyler and I rode with my parents, while Liz followed behind us. They’d both been camping, but neither of them had stayed this far into the woods before.

“Of course I remember,” he says now. “You took me hiking and made me learn how to fish.”

“And I taught you how to ride the river on an inner tube.”

“You almost drowned,” Tyler says, softly, and I know we are both thinking about the day my black rubber tube had unexpectedly flipped—how I got sucked into a circling undertow next to a giant, craggy rock. I remember kicking and flailing all of my limbs as hard as I could, trying to free myself from the strong funnel pulling me down, trapping me beneath the surface. But I couldn’t, and it was Tyler who grabbed on to a fallen tree with one arm and managed to grab on to my hand and lift me to safety with the other.

“You saved me,” I say, tears welling in my eyes. Remembering moments like this in our friendship only added to the nightmare of what he’d done to me in July. It magnified his betrayal, amplified my pain, and made me feel like I’d never be able to trust another man again. The friend Tyler had been to me for so many years was the polar opposite of the attacker he had become. Most of the time my mind didn’t know what to do with this disparity. It made me feel crazy, one moment remembering how close we’d been, how often he was there for me, listening, refusing to abandon me when everyone else seemed to. Then I’d be hit with the memory of the weight of him on me, the stench of alcohol on his breath, and the sharp pain of him jabbing at me with his hips. I couldn’t reconcile these two versions of the same person. My mind kept telling me it couldn’t be real.

“Sometimes I think it was you who saved me,” he says. His green eyes reflect the flickering light from the lantern on the table in front of the couch.

“What’re you talking about?” I say, momentarily distracted from the fury I feel by the memory of that day. “You pulled me out of the water.”

“I’m not talking about the river,” he says. “I’m talking about how you came over and sat next to me at your parents’ party after my dad threw me in the pool. Having you as a friend saved me in so many ways.”

I let out a short, barking laugh and sit down in the pleather recliner, opposite him, and drop the gun into my lap. “You have a fucked-up way of showing your gratitude.”

“I know,” he says. “Trust me, please. I know how badly I screwed up. But you have to believe I never meant to hurt you.”

“So you keep saying. And I keep saying that what you meant to do doesn’t matter. What matters is what you did. You raped me, Tyler. Just say it. Just fucking admit it so I don’t have to shoot you.” I try to sound strong, worried he might call me out on my bluff. I don’t know if I actually have it in me to pull the trigger. I don’t know if I can follow through on my threats.

“You’re not going to shoot me,” he says, but there is a hint of uncertainty in his voice. He is testing me, seeing if he can come out the winner in this battle of wills.

“How can you be sure?” I ask, holding his gaze while I run my free hand over the cool steel of the gun. With one quick bend of my thumb, I turn off the safety and give him a challenging look. Go ahead, the look says. Try me.

“Because that’s not who you are,” Tyler says. “The only person you’ve ever been able to hurt is yourself.”

“Fuck you,” I whisper, knowing he’s referring to the years I spent starving myself, the same way I’ve been starving myself since the night he led me up to that room and pinned me down on the bed. Restricting what I eat is my go-to act of self-defense, the best way I know how to feel strong in the midst of turmoil. I’ve lost twenty-six pounds since July, my weight sliding back into double digits. My old behaviors have snuck back in, embracing me like a familiar blanket.

“Is your heart okay?” he asks. “With all the weight you’ve lost?”

“Stop pretending like you give a shit!” I say. My tone is an octave higher than usual, on the verge of shrieking. “Nothing you say right now can make a difference, except admitting what you did!”

“What we did, Amber,” Tyler says. “Don’t forget how drunk you were, too. Don’t forget that it was you who kissed me, first.” His voice is still soft, but it’s also laced with a hint of defiance, a fact that only serves to feed my rage. When we first climbed inside his truck, he’d said he was sorry—he’d said he hated himself for hurting me. And now he was going to blame me? Fuck that. Fuck him.

“Kissing didn’t give you permission to have sex with me! I told you to wait! I asked you to stop! And you ignored me!” I lift the gun again and point it at him, my arm shaking so much that I have to cup the butt of the weapon with two hands in order to hold it still. “You made me bleed! You left bruises all over my body. I couldn’t move without remembering what you did. Goddamn it, Tyler, just admit it! Admit it and promise that you’ll tell the police. That you’ll turn yourself in! That’s all I’m asking you to do!”

“I’m sorry,” he says, “but I can’t. I’ll lose my job. I’ll lose everything.”

“What about what I’ve lost?” I say. I stand up, arms held straight in front of me, gripping the gun. “You don’t give a shit about that, do you? All you’re thinking about is you. What might happen to you.” I breathe in and out, rapidly, feeling my heart flutter, and I am suddenly terrified that I might have another heart attack. But then it hits me that I’ve come too far, fought through too much, to give up now. A renewed sense of determination flows through me. I’m going to right this wrong. “You know what, Tyler? You sound exactly like your father. Like an egomaniacal, self-absorbed, rapist bastard.”

He closes his eyes momentarily, and I know that I’ve hit him where it hurts most. Good, I think. I want you to hurt. I want you in so much pain you feel like you’re going to die. He’s just said that I couldn’t shoot him. But there is a fiery ache in the pit of my stomach and I think I’m capable of doing anything it takes to get him to speak the truth.

“There has to be some other way,” he says, sounding as though he is struggling to remain calm.

“There isn’t,” I say, cocking the hammer with my thumb. “Admit what you did. Say it. Promise you’ll go to the police.” If he refuses, there’s only one thing I can do. One way to make him pay.

“Amber, I can’t. You have to understand. If you’d just stop—”

“The same way you stopped that night?” I take a step toward him, and he freezes, realizing his mistake.

“We can find another way,” he says, again. He stands up then, too, looking like he might come at me, like he’s trying to figure out a way to grab the gun.

“No,” I say, gripping the weapon as tightly as I can. With the safety off, all it will take is a single twitch of my finger. “Sit down. Now!”

He holds completely still, except for his eyes, which bounce between my face and my hands. I can see a thick blue vein pulsing in his neck, and beads of sweat sprout across his forehead, but he doesn’t comply with my order. I am white-hot with rage.

“You won’t shoot me,” he repeats. “Give me the gun, Amber. This has gone on long enough. You can’t prove I forced you to do anything. If you could, I would have been arrested by now. Bringing me here was a mistake. If you stop this, if we just get in the truck and drive back home, I won’t tell the police.”

“Tell them what?” I goad him, preparing my stance the way my father taught me at the shooting range back in high school. “Steady legs and tight, strong torso gives you the most control,” he said, and even though I never thought I’d have to use his advice, I’d never forgotten it.

“That you kidnapped me,” Tyler says, taking one more step toward me. We’re less than six feet away from each other now. “At gunpoint, no less.” He waits, trying to stare me down. “I think that might be even more jail time than rape.”

When I hear him suggest that it would be me who would be incarcerated instead of him, the fury inside me explodes, blotting out any restraint I might have left. This is not the Tyler who sat by my hospital bed, helping me find my way back from my own personal hell. This is not the Tyler who saved me from drowning. That Tyler is gone—he disappeared the night he yanked down my panties and speared me until I bled. This Tyler, the one who stands in front of me now, is pure evil, a spiteful, monstrous doppelgänger of the boy who was once my best friend.

With this realization, I meet his intense gaze with one of my own, and in that moment, everything changes. My breathing slows, and my body relaxes. I’m no longer afraid. No longer unsure. I feel calm. Full of resolve. I know exactly what has to happen next.

“Go to hell,” I say. And then, just as he lunges toward me, his arms outstretched, I put my finger on the trigger, take aim, and shoot.