"A few weeks ago, after reconstructive surgery on my foot, my doctor said that there's no chance I'll ever play competitive sports again. I was upset. A little later that same day, one of the nurses said I should look on the positive side—the doctor was able to save my foot, and I'm still going to be able to walk and function normally. I slapped her. She said she wouldn't press charges if I took this class."
Dr. Stryker nodded. "Those were pretty extreme circumstances and not something that is likely to happen again. I assume you were taking pain medication at the time?"
"I was."
"Thank you for sharing." She turned to Adam. "Last one. Please tell us why you're here."
Adam scowled and said defensively, "I found out that someone matching my neighbor's description was not only suspected of raping women, but suspected of doing it at Sigma Alpha Kappa, the frat house I'm p… the frat house I was president of. So I invited him over, and when he started acting dodgy, I beat a confession out of him. I got arrested for assault. My lawyer said taking this class would help the judge go easier on me when I have my court date."
Sadie couldn't believe she hadn't heard about this yet. That's what she got for avoiding all social media and all of her friends for the past couple of weeks.
"Did the rapist get arrested too?" Sadie asked.
Adam nodded. "He did. And a few days later, his request for bail was denied at his arraignment. I've already been subpoenaed to be a witness for the prosecution."
Dr. Stryker nodded. "I can understand why you'd be upset after hearing that your neighbor was suspected of rape. Everyone in this room can agree that rape is vile. The question for you is going to be why did you invite your neighbor over, instead of calling the police?" She moved back behind the podium and addressed the class as a whole. "And that leads us straight into our first lesson, identifying your true feelings."
While she was bringing up the next image on the television, Sadie leaned closer to Adam and whispered, "I personally think beating up a rapist is heroic."
Adam's eyebrows went up in surprise. "Yeah?"
She smirked at him. "Oh, yeah."
His lips turned up before she focused back on the teacher.
Forty-five minutes in, at the halfway point of the class, Dr. Stryker announced a ten-minute break and told people that the bathrooms and water fountains were down the hall.
Sadie noticed Adam getting out his phone and said, "Will you tell me about it?"
"About what?"
"The whole story of your neighbor, the rapes at SAK, and your arrest."
"Sure." He set his phone down and turned slightly to face her. "It was two weeks ago today, on August eighteenth. The cops came by early that morning to tell me… Well, I guess I have to start a little earlier. The week before that, the cops came by and told me that they'd had reports of women getting raped at SAK during our parties. I hadn't heard anything about it until that point, and we canceled the party for that weekend. Then on the eighteenth, they came by early in the morning to tell me that they had a basic description of the guy. They said he was Hispanic, with a crooked nose and a lazy eye. My neighbor, Rubin, matched that description, and I'd given him a standing invitation to come to all of our parties."
Adam shook his head, and his hands balled into fists. "He'd been doing all the yardwork for SAK for a while, and he just seemed like a really nice guy. Everyone liked him, and I felt bad about his lazy eye. I figured that would make it hard for him to meet a girl, and I wanted to help him out." He looked at her with pleading eyes. "He didn't give off any kind of creepy vibes. He seemed like a normal guy."
A rush of sympathy washed over her, and she put a hand on his knee. "You couldn't have known."
He took a deep breath and nodded. "Thanks. So anyway, when the cops gave me that description, I just… didn't want to believe it, you know? I'd known this guy all summer. We'd shared a few beers, we'd talked about sports, we'd laughed at the same jokes, and I'd even seen him break up an argument between two of the other guys. So I didn't want to implicate him if he was innocent."
"That's understandable," she said.
He glared off into the distance, as if reliving it while he told the story. "I called and asked him to come do some yard work for us. When he got there, later that day, I handed him a beer like usual, and we chatted in the kitchen about the work I wanted him to do. Then I mentioned that the cops had been there that morning and that they were looking for a rapist. Rubin got really still, like a deer caught in headlights. Then when I said the cops would be back anytime with a police sketch of the rapist, Rubin dropped the beer I'd given him and ran towards the front door."
Adam looked into her eyes, and she could see the fury. "I wanted to kill him in that moment."
A shiver of fear ran down her spine, but she nodded. She understood the difference between the desire to do something violent and actually carrying out that violence.
He looked down at his lap to confess the rest. "Rubin's not a big guy. I caught him before he made it to the door. Shoved him down, sat on top of him, and punched him in the stomach until some of my brothers pulled me off him. Rubin stayed down. I demanded a confession and told him I'd have another go at him if he didn't give me one. He immediately wheezed out that he'd roofied and raped eleven women." Adam looked up at her, and his eyes were narrowed into dangerous little slits. "Eleven."
She moved her hand from his knee and covered his tightly clenched fist with both of her hands. "That's awful."
Her touch seemed to calm him down a little. He took a deep breath, nodded, and then opened his hand to hold hers. "The guys had to hold me back, but I got in another solid kick before they pulled me away. I yelled a lot of threats and called him every name I could think of. The cops arrived not long after that. They cuffed me and read me my rights, and one of them checked Rubin over. My lawyer said I was stupid for not keeping my mouth shut, but I told the cops exactly what had happened." He shrugged. "Then I was hauled into the station and booked. That's when I called my dad, and he sent over a lawyer. I spent the night in jail, but I was released on bail the next day, at my arraignment."
"Sounds to me like you caught a criminal and saved a bunch of women," Sadie said gently, squeezing his hand. She could see his tense shoulders relax marginally and his angry scowl smooth out just slightly.
"Thanks," he said softly.
After an awkwardly long pause, he said, "What happened to your foot?"
She glared down at her foot and then looked back at him with a defeated expression. "My two best friends and I went on a hike at Multnomah Falls, the day after our last final. There was a sign up that said the trail to the top was closed due to recent landslides, but we decided to try getting to the top anyway. We didn't think it would be all that bad, and if the trail was blocked at some point, we figured we'd turn around."
Shaking her head, she focused on her cast and muttered, "It was stupid of us. Part of the trail had been wiped away, and the part that was left was about five inches wide and six feet long. We tried to lean against the rock wall and make our way to the other side. Part of the ledge broke off when I was on it, and I fell. It was a steep section. I only fell about six feet initially, but I didn't really land after that six feet; it was more like I bounced off the side of a boulder. I just kept rolling and falling for another twenty feet, hitting rocks, dirt, boulders, and broken tree limbs. My fall caused several of the rocks to start falling with me, like a small landslide, and once I finally stopped moving, a huge rock landed on my foot and smashed it."
He squeezed her hand that was still in his. "I'm sorry."
"It took three hours to get me off the side of the hill. My friends immediately called 911 for help. But the medical team had to get several men to carefully climb down without causing more of a landslide so they could pull the rock off my foot. They said I'm lucky I was