Page 112 of The Pinkie Pact

I stared at him a moment longer, but for some strange reason, I was okay with telling both of them at the same time. Weirdly, they were my two best friends right now. "You can stay."

"Just let me know if you change your mind," he added.

Nodding, I took a deep breath. "So you both know I went kind of crazy those first two years of college. My parents are amazing, but I didn't get out much in high school, except for hanging with my friends, going to movies, dinner, dances, that kind of thing. So the freedom of college caught me off guard I guess."

"I can understand that," Kara said.

I smiled at her before continuing. "And as much as I love my mom, she was kind of clueless about..." I felt pretty bad saying this. But it was the truth. "Well, she didn't really talk to me about what college wasreallygoing to be like. Ultimately, it was my own fault. I guess I should have just known or researched it or something. But I didn't know even to do that."

"Right, of course," Kieran agreed.

"So your mom didn't give you the sex talk? Or warn you about protecting your drink and all that?" Kara asked.

"Nope. Well, I guess I got a sex talk when I was younger. But it was just the basics, not all the things I actually needed to know." I shuddered. "Not that I could have handled that anyway."

"Yeah, it was pretty awful having that talk with my mom," Kara admitted. "But I'm glad she did. Not that I could even look at her the whole time."

I noticed Kieran didn't say anything, and I wondered if he'd suffered through a talk with his god-awful dad.

"So anyway, I went crazy. Of course, that was all on me. I should have at least tried to set some sort of limits. But I didn't. I partied a lot—likea lot—and hooked up a ton." I avoided Kieran's intense gaze. "And I was fine miraculously. Until late in my sophomore year when I..." Ugh, just telling it sucked and brought it all back.

Kara's sudden hand on my leg helped me get it out.

"Well," I continued, "I woke up one morning alone in a strange apartment, completely naked on a couch with a used condom on the floor and no idea who I had even been with."

I looked down, afraid to meet anyone's eyes. Even though my therapist had told me not to feel any shame, I did at the moment, waiting for their reactions.

"Oh, my God," Kara gushed. "Were you raped?"

Tears rushed to my eyes at the sympathy in her voice. "I don't think so. I had a hazy memory of some guy, and I'm almost positive it started off consensual. But I blacked out at some point, though, maybe even during. I don't know. I just hated waking up like that. I was so scared, not sure where I even was, if there were maybe roommates involved..."

I still avoided looking at Kieran who was strangely quiet.

"That's so terrible, sweetie," Kara whispered.

Keeping my focus on Kara, I said, "That was rock bottom for me. I knew I had lost control, and it was all my own fault. And I know other people have been through way worse,way worse, and what I went through wasn't bad at all compared—"

"That's not fair to yourself to say that," Kieran interrupted me.

I finally looked at him and was amazed to see his eyes filled with concern. "But it's true," I argued.

"No. You can't compare like that. Your problem was...isgenuine. If we all compared our problems to everyone else, saying others have it worse, well, there'd only be one person on the planet who could complain. And the rest of us seven-point-whatever billion people who don't have it as bad, our problems don't matter?"

I was speechless at his argument.

"There's no hierarchy to our problems," Kieran said. "And you're an incredibly strong person for going through it and figuring out you wanted a change from how you were living."

A tiny piece of my heart healed with his caring and considerate words.

"He's absolutely right," Kara agreed. "So what did you do?"

I sighed, remembering back to that time. "I called my mom and said something bad had happened without going into specifics. Well, she insisted on me coming home immediately, and when I got back to Sacramento, I went to the doctor and got tested for every single STI and went to see a therapist."

"Good for you," Kara said. "You know how to get your shit together."

That made me smile. "Not really. As you can see I'm sitting in a fort on the floor, pigging out on brownies and chips."

Kara laughed. "But that's totallymyfault. And for what it's worth, I'm really proud of you."

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