It Happens All the Time: A Novel

Three weeks after I walked into the police station and turned myself in for raping Amber, I made my way inside Bellingham Towers, where I had an appointment with my attorney, Peter Thompson, whom my mom had hired as soon as I called her and said that I’d signed a document waiving my right to have a lawyer present during my confession. Hours later, after an officer had led me into a small room and recorded every word I said about what I’d done to Amber on the Fourth of July, second-degree rape charges were filed against me, and after one night in jail, my mom bailed me out and introduced me to Peter.

Today, I was headed to his office in order to discuss the plea bargain he’d been offered by the district attorney, and though I was determined not to let my anxiety get the better of me, I could still feel it surging in uncomfortable sparks beneath my skin. As I opened the single, smoked-glass door that led to the reception area of his office, my heart banged inside my chest, and I wished hard for a Valium to steady my nerves.

“Hi, Tyler,” Peter’s receptionist, Jane, said when she looked up from her desk and saw me. She was a short, skinny woman, likely in her late fifties, who wore red-framed glasses, and whose silver hair stuck straight up in messy spikes on top of her head. “How’s the shoulder?”

“Better, thanks,” I said, trying to smile, even though my lips trembled. The sling I’d worn since the morning at the hospital in Monroe came off a week ago, and though the wound still ached and itched as it healed, the pain was manageable with Tylenol. Every time I looked at it, though, every time I took in the red, puckered skin around the dark scab that had formed, I was reminded of Amber’s face just moments before she shot me—the pure, rancorous anger in her hollowed-out eyes. I remembered the terrible pain that I had caused her. And even though I was terrified of what might happen to me next, I tried to hold on to the fact that at least I’d done what she asked—I’d given her the one thing that she needed most.

“Peter’s ready for you,” Jane said, nodding in the direction of his office. “Would you like anything to drink? Coffee or water?”

I shook my head. “No, thanks. I’m good.” I wondered if it was difficult for her, as a woman, when her boss represented a client like me, who had confessed to committing a rape. The few times I’d been to Peter’s office, she had never been anything but polite, but I couldn’t help but think that she was probably just a good actress. I bet she went home and had a drink to blur out the uglier portions of her job.

I turned right and headed down the narrow hallway that led to Peter’s office. “Hey,” I said, as I entered the room and shut the door behind me.

“Good morning,” Peter said. He stood up from his sleek glass-and-chrome desk, and walked around it in order to shake my hand. He was a little shorter than me, not quite six feet, with the body of a college football player who had lately spent more time on the couch than in the gym. He was fighting a receding hairline, and wore a blue suit and shiny black loafers. “How are you?”

“I’m okay,” I said, as I dropped into one of the two high-backed, black leather chairs that sat closest to the door. I should have said I wasn’t okay. I should have said that I was about to crawl out of my skin, wondering whether or not I was going to end up in prison. “As good as can be expected, I suppose.”

“I take it you heard from your captain?” Peter asked as he returned to his own seat, across from me.

“Yeah,” I said, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice. “He fired me.” I’d gotten the call a few days before, after Captain Duncan had been contacted by the D.A., who informed him of the charges filed against me. The conversation had been short, less than two minutes, at the end of which my captain told me that I wasn’t welcome back at the station—he would have someone clean out my locker and send me my things.

“Well, we expected that, right? The law doesn’t allow for you to be a sex offender and a paramedic, too.”

“I guess,” I said, flinching at the use of the term “sex offender.” No matter how hard I tried, I still couldn’t believe that’s what I’d become. “But that doesn’t make it any easier. That job was my life. It’s all I had.”

Peter shrugged, and I shifted in my seat, feeling my face flush, suddenly furious that he could just brush off my entire career with a roll of his shoulders. What if someone came along and took his job away? How would he feel, then? Knock it off, I thought. This isn’t Peter’s fault. You did this to yourself. You walked into a police station and told them what you did. I tried to focus on remaining calm as he spoke again.

“So, we have a plea bargain on the table,” he said, glancing down at the open file in front of him on his desk. “They’ll reduce the charge to rape in the third degree instead of second—”

“What’s the difference again?” I said, interrupting him. He’d explained it to me at our first appointment, but I couldn’t recall the distinction now.

“Second degree is a Class A felony, punishable by up to life in prison and a fifty-thousand-dollar fine,” Peter said, looking back up at me. “Third degree is a Class C felony, and gives us the option of a lower fine and negotiating for little or no jail time, depending on the circumstances of the rape.”

“Oh,” I said. “So you negotiated?”

“Yes,” Peter said. “And since you stipulated to what you did, and that everything Amber told them in her follow-up statement was true, they’re willing to waive jail time in lieu of you attending a two-year outpatient sexual offender treatment program and paying a ten-thousand-dollar fine.”

“Jesus,” I said, as I tried to let the weight of his words sink in. I wouldn’t have to go to jail, but I’d have to spend two years in a room talking to a therapist, and possibly a bunch of sexual predators. I’d have to somehow find an extra ten thousand dollars to pay the state, despite the fact that I’d just lost my job and emptied my entire savings paying Peter’s retainer. I knew my mom would help as much as she could, but after having bailed me out, she didn’t have any extra money lying around. In fact, over the past couple of weeks, tired of trying to avoid running into Tom and Helen in the neighborhood, she had decided to list her house with a real estate agent, and while it had sold after only two days on the market, she ended up barely breaking even. She had just enough equity to buy a two-bedroom condo near Barkley Village, where I was planning to move in with her now that I wouldn’t be able to pay rent. My father, since learning that I’d gone to the police and confessed, had refused to speak with me or offer any financial help. I wished I could say that his reaction surprised me.

“It’s a great offer,” Peter said, sitting back against his chair. He folded his hands together over the swell of his belly and looked at me with cool blue eyes. “You’re lucky they’re not trying to make an example of you.”

“I get that,” I said. “But still. A treatment program? Seriously?” My mind flashed with images of having to sit in a circle with a group of nasty old men with pockmarked faces and porn-style mustaches, listening to the horrifying things they’d done to women or, even worse, children. I couldn’t fathom being among them; I couldn’t believe they were anything like me. I gave Peter an imploring look. “This was a one-time fuckup. I made a mistake, but I’m fully aware of what I did and I owned up to it. Doesn’t that count for something?”

“Sure,” he said, carefully. “It’s what earned you this offer.”

“Can’t you counter it? Bargain for a lesser sentence?” I racked my brain for the words that would make him realize all I really deserved was a slap on the wrist. If he just argued more, if he just emphasized that I was first-time offender, that my record was otherwise totally clean.

“No, I can’t. That’s not how plea bargains work.” He paused and gave me a pointed look. “Unless you’re willing to change your story about what happened at the cabin. You’d have to say that Amber meant to shoot you. Then we could argue that your confession was made under duress, and a judge might rule to throw it out.”

“But that would mean Amber would be charged with assault, right?” I thought back to the small room where I’d told the detective on duty how I’d raped Amber, how he’d questioned me over and over again about if the shooting had been truly accidental. At the time, I knew he suspected there was more to the story—that it was too much of a coincidence that the same girl I’d raped had “accidentally” shot me, too. I’d protected her, though, because I’d promised I would. It was the one way I could show her that the friend I’d been to her over the years hadn’t been a figment of her imagination. It was part of the price I’d promised to pay.

“Assault with a deadly weapon, yes. Which, considering the circumstances, is more believable than it being an accident, and she’d probably be convicted. Then we could go back to the prosecutor and your case would take on an entirely different light. The confession wouldn’t be admissible, you could plead not guilty, and without any physical evidence, the rape would be almost impossible to prove. You might even be able to get your job back.”

I considered this, sorely tempted to do what Peter suggested. After all, Amber had purposely shot me. If reporting her for it would mean I could avoid having to register as a sex offender, if it meant that I could skip treatment and be able to do my job again, shouldn’t I want to tell the police the truth about what happened? Hell, the prosecutor might even tack on kidnapping charges, and, as I’d told Amber that night at the cabin, she would be the one who went to jail.

But even as I thought these things, an undercurrent of self-loathing seized the muscles in my throat at the memory of Amber’s strangled voice when she told me to stop as I pushed her thighs apart. I remembered her tears and the way she screamed the next morning when I entered her room. I thought about the conversation we had in the truck, the night she took me to the cabin, the anguish in her voice, the way she could have killed me if she had wanted to. But she didn’t. She chose to let me live, despite the fact that I had raped her, only because I promised to admit what I did and endure the consequences. If I changed my story about the details of the shooting now, I’d be going back on my word. I’d caused Amber enough pain; I couldn’t hurt her again.

“It was an accident,” I told Peter, locking my gaze with his. “She didn’t mean to do it.”

“Well, then,” he said with a sigh, “I don’t have anything to go back to the prosecutor with. You admitted to rape, Tyler. This is the best deal you’re going to get.”

“Okay,” I said, blowing out a puff of air along with the word, trying to settle the squirrelly feeling in my chest. “What happens, now?”

“I’ll tell the D.A. you accept the plea, and we’ll get a sentencing hearing on the calendar. In the meantime, Jane will get you all the information you need to set up your first appointment with Dr. Philips, who runs the treatment program. He’ll do an intake, and then you’ll see him once a week, in addition to attending a group session with other offenders. After the hearing, you’ll be assigned a probation officer, who will perform your drug tests and hopefully help you find a job.”

“Who is going to hire me now?” I said, bitterly. I hated that I would no longer be a paramedic. I hated that I’d lost the one thing I’d worked so hard for—the part of me, outside of having been Amber’s best friend, that I was proud of.

“There are businesses that participate in state incentive programs for hiring convicted felons,” Peter said, leaning forward and shutting the file in front of him. “But your probation officer can tell you more about that.”

“Okay,” I said, standing up. He held out his hand, and I shook it, trying not to let the terror I felt show on my face. “Thanks for your help.”

“Just doing my job,” he said.

I nodded and turned around, toward the door, knowing that this was true. Peter probably didn’t care what happened to me, one way or the other. He was happy because he’d been paid several thousand dollars to have a few meetings with the district attorney, and now, he’d simply move on with his day to another client, another case.

“Tyler?” he said, just as I put my hand on the doorknob.

“Yeah?” I replied, looking back over my shoulder.

“For what it’s worth, I think you did the right thing, confessing. It took some serious balls. Believe me, most men in your situation wouldn’t have gone through with it. I see far too many cases of sexual assault where the victim is the one who ends up paying the price in court. The trial traumatizes them more than the rape itself already did.”

A lump formed in my chest as he spoke, and I only managed to bob my head in response.

“I know this is going to be rough for you,” he continued, “and I don’t say this very often, but in the end, with treatment, I’m hopeful you’ll learn enough about yourself so you won’t do anything like this, ever again. Eventually, you might be able to have a normal life.”

A normal life. Standing there in his office, having just learned my immediate fate, I couldn’t begin to picture what that would look like. I couldn’t imagine finding a decent job, falling in love, getting married, or having children, as I’d always hoped I would. What woman would want a man who had admitted to rape? What community would accept me when they found out about my past? My blood pressure began to rise as I found myself suddenly picturing angry fathers screaming at me to stay away from their daughters, and I had to close my eyes. How had I ended up here? What was it inside me that had allowed me to do this terrible thing to my best friend? Why hadn’t I listened to her—why wasn’t I able to stop myself when she tried to push me off of her? What was wrong with me? My pulse sped up even more, almost as though it was attempting to answer these questions, and the possibility struck me that my issues with anxiety weren’t as “situational” as I’d previously believed. Perhaps when I was lying on top of Amber, my brain had been chemically hijacked by swirling hormones and sputtering synapses, and, just like a hundred times before, I’d been desperate enough to do anything—even the unthinkable—to find relief. That doesn’t excuse what you did, I scolded myself. Even if anxiety played a part in enabling my behavior that night, there has to be something else, something more in the way I think—in my subconscious—that permitted me to cross that line.

“Thank you,” I said to Peter, even though I wasn’t sure I believed that my life would ever be normal again. I was too confused, too screwed up, to even think it possible. And yet, after I made my way back down to the street, I knew the only thing I could do in order to get through this moment—and maybe the rest of my life—was to focus on what I’d finally been able to give to Amber, instead of everything I’d taken away.

•  •  •

On a Tuesday morning in mid-December, a week after my meeting with Peter, he and I walked into the courthouse and headed to the room where my guilty plea would be officially accepted and my sentence would be handed down.

I was terrified—anxiety raged through me like an angry river, practically drowning out the voice in my head that told me I was doing the right thing. I wondered if I could still change my mind. If I could tell Peter right now that Amber had kidnapped and shot me as a way to get me to confess to a crime I didn’t commit. It was so tempting to travel down that road—one where my life wouldn’t end up demolished.

But then I thought about what would happen to her, how I would be ruining her life more than I already had. I’d made my decision; I was going to be held accountable for what I did.

I took a deep breath and followed my lawyer into the courtroom, where my mom sat on one of the wooden benches. I thought she’d be alone—my dad had told her that he wouldn’t be there: “I’m not going to sit there and watch my son throw his life away over a stupid girl,” he’d said—and was surprised to see Mason sitting next to her. He and I hadn’t spoken since the night we fought, the same night Amber had taken me to the cabin, and I certainly hadn’t expected to see him today. When I walked past them, he locked his eyes on mine and gave me a brief, tight-lipped nod. I imagined he’d only come to see that I actually went through with taking responsibility for what I’d done, but part of me hoped his presence meant more than that. Part of me hoped that, after all of this was over, we might find a way to be friends.

“I love you, honey,” my mom said, wringing her hands in her lap. Her blond hair showed at least an inch of dark roots, and the skin under her eyes was smudged blue. She’d been working as much as she could, and had called in a favor from a friend who owned a diner in Ferndale, to get me a job as a dishwasher, at least until I could find something better. It was humiliating to think that, after being a paramedic, I’d be doing such a menial job, but I tried to swallow my pride and see it as only temporary, like everything else in my life right now. I needed a paycheck, and for the time being, scrubbing pots and pans would be how I earned one. I didn’t have much of a choice.

Peter led me to a rectangular table and had me sit down with him, facing where the judge would be. To our right was the prosecuting attorney, and as I glanced over my shoulder, I saw Amber and her parents sitting behind him. Tom’s gaze flickered to mine, and there was so much disgust in his eyes, I had to look away. It struck me that I wasn’t just losing a friend—I was losing Tom and Helen, too. They’d been parents to me as much as my own parents were. I was losing three people I’d long considered part of my family.

The bailiff announced the judge as she entered, and we all stood up until she took her seat and banged her gavel. She was a heavyset, stern-looking woman with a black bun worn at the base of her neck. Blood rushed around inside my head, past my ears, making a roaring sound that made me worry I might pass out.

“Take a breath,” Peter whispered, apparently having noticed me sway on my feet.

I nodded, just as the judge looked down at the file in front of her, and then looked back at Peter. “I understand that there has been a plea bargain reached in this case?” she said, glancing over to the prosecuting attorney as well.

“Yes, Your Honor,” the attorney said. “Mr. Hicks has agreed to plead guilty to rape in the third degree, and in lieu of jail time, he will register as a sexual offender and spend two years in an outpatient treatment program, as well as pay a ten-thousand-dollar fine.”

“Is that correct, Mr. Thompson?” the judge asked Peter.

“It is,” Peter said, standing back up.

The judge looked down at her file again and then over to where Amber sat. “Ms. Bryant,” she said, more gently than she had spoken to the lawyers. “The D.A. has informed me that you would like to make a statement today, before Mr. Hicks’s sentence is read into the official record?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” Amber said. Her voice shook as she stood up and made her way to the table where the prosecutor sat. I was happy to see that she’d put on some weight in the month since I’d seen her last, the day she dropped me off at the police station. Her eyes looked brighter, and her cheeks were pink. She held a piece of paper in her hand, but she didn’t glance at it as she began to speak. Instead, she kept her eyes on the judge, seeming to purposely not look at me. I couldn’t blame her.

“Tyler Hicks was my best friend,” she began, and I could see that her entire body was trembling. I blinked back tears and forced myself to focus on her words. My knee began to bounce under the table, and unobtrusively, Peter reached over and put his hand on my thigh to get me to stop moving.

“He was my best friend,” Amber repeated. “Like a big brother to me, really, from the time I was thirteen years old. We did everything together. We talked for hours about our families and what we were going to do with our lives. He was the person I knew I could always count on. The friend that I went to whenever I was upset or stressed or scared. He was there for me, no matter what, and I think I was there for him.” She paused, and cleared her throat. “But everything changed almost six months ago, on the Fourth of July, when we went to a party. We both drank too much and started kissing, then headed upstairs to a bedroom.” Amber’s voice cracked here, and I watched her swallow a few times before going on. “At first, I kissed him back. But then something changed. It felt wrong to be with him. It felt horrible. And I told him to stop, but he didn’t listen. I tried to struggle to get away from him, but he was so much bigger and stronger than me, there was nothing I could do. And even though I was crying and I told him I didn’t want to do it, he forced my legs open, pushed up my skirt, and pulled down my underwear.” She took in and released a quiet but shuddering breath, wiped away a stray tear that had escaped down her cheek, then looked back up at the judge. “He raped me. He forced himself inside me and jabbed at me until I bled. I had bruises on my body for weeks from where he held me down. I didn’t think I’d ever feel safe again.”

I felt sick to my stomach as I listened to what I’d put my best friend through. No wonder she took me to the cabin, I thought. No wonder she shot me.

“I couldn’t understand how he could do it,” Amber said, not trying to hold back her tears now. “Which was partly why I didn’t go to the police. I blamed myself for leading him on, for giving him the wrong idea, because he’d always been such a good person. It didn’t make sense that someone like him could do something as awful as this. He was there for me when I went through some incredibly tough times. He held my hand and listened and never asked me to be anything other than what I was. He was the person I trusted more than anyone else, but now, after what he did to me, I just don’t think he is that person anymore. Something has to be seriously broken inside him for him to be able to rape me, a girl he supposedly loved.”

She finally looked at me then, eyes glittering with conflicted emotions of revulsion and concern. “And honestly, Tyler, I’m glad that you finally confessed. I hope you find out what is wrong with you. I hope you get help and fix the fucked-up thinking that allowed you to attack me like that. To make me bleed. I hope there’s a way for you to someday become the kind of man I always thought you were, instead of the one that’s sitting in front of me right now.”

She kept her eyes on mine the entire time she spoke those last words, and I made myself nod, once, as I held her gaze, hoping she would understand that I’d taken in everything she said. I made a promise to myself then, the same way I’d made one to her the day she shot me. I promised myself that I would start treatment with Dr. Philips as soon as I could. I needed to figure out why I hadn’t been able to hear her pleas over my own desire and my conviction that we were meant to be together—that having sex was something we both wanted, even as she had begged me to stop. I would do as Amber had asked—I’d dig in deep and take it seriously. I’d try to figure out how I could have spent my entire life not wanting to be like my father, and still end up doing something so similar to what he might do. I’d try to figure out where my thinking went wrong, I’d be truthful about the depth of the anxiety I felt; I’d be willing to go on medication if that’s what the doctor wanted me to do. I needed to do whatever it took so that I never hurt anyone else like this again

“Thank you, Ms. Bryant,” the judge said, and then ordered that Amber’s statement be made a part of the permanent record in regard to my case. A few minutes later, after I’d stood up and officially entered my guilty plea, Peter shook my hand and told me he’d check in with me in a few days so we could get the final paperwork signed. I turned around to face my mom and Mason, both of whom had stood up, too. My mother hugged me, and I patted her back.

“It’ll be okay,” I said, and she nodded against my chest, before sniffling and pulling away.

“I need to get to work,” she said. “I’ll talk to you tonight.” And then she left, avoiding making eye contact with any of the Bryant family, who were huddled together with Tom’s and Helen’s arms around Amber’s shoulders. A moment later, they left, too, without so much as a glance in my direction.

“So,” Mason said in a low voice, standing in front of me.

“So,” I said. “Thanks for coming. It means a lot.” He nodded, but didn’t say anything more, so I spoke again. “You know I’m sorry about all of this. About everything.” I stared at him, wanting him to know just how much our friendship meant, holding out hope that he would understand I wasn’t just referring to what I’d done to Amber. Hoping that he might find a way to forgive me.

“Don’t be sorry,” he said, firmly. “Be better.”

“That’s the plan,” I said. I held out my hand, and after a brief hesitation, he shook it.

“Good luck,” he said. I knew it wasn’t luck I needed—it was rigorous honesty. With others, of course, but mostly with myself. It was taking ownership of the mistakes I’d made and dealing with the consequences. And then maybe, after all of that, I’d earn a chance to start again.