Page 63 of Daring to Love You
“A little, but I still felt out of it. I sat on a stoop with my eyes closed and my head in my hands. I don’t know how long I was out there when I thought I heard Marisela asking someone to help get her fiancé back to the dorms. She could always talk people into doing her bidding for her. When we were kids, I thought it was cool because I often benefited from whatever she acquired.”
Lynix cursed under his breath and rubbed his beard methodically with the back of his hand. Seconds ticked by, and Dorian waited patiently, wanting to hear the rest. Or as much as he’d share. When she laid her head against his shoulder, he continued.
“My memory is still spotty regarding how I got back to the dorms, but I vaguely remember telling Marisela she couldn’t stay. Then I closed my room door and passed out on top of the bed. The rest of the night was a blur… until I watched the video the next day.”
“Oh, my God! What?” Dorian snapped. “That witch videotaped you?”
Lynix never thought he’d have to tell this story again, and if it were anyone other than Dorian sitting next to him, he wouldn’t. He loved her so much, but telling her about the attempted rape was hard to do.
“No, the video came from Jake,” Lynix continued. “My roommate was a techie who used to take electronics apart and tweak them to make them better. He was also a computer science major who loved gadgets.
“Anyway, someone’s dorm room had recently gotten broken into, and Jake thought it a good idea to have a hidden camera set up in our room in hopes of catching the perp. Assuming they’d try to break into our room. It was motion activated and had some other wild features.
“The night of the party, Jake was studying somewhere in the building and got an alert on his phone that someone had entered our room. It was me. Once he saw me crash onto the bed, he didn’t think much of it, especially after a party.”
Lynix swallowed hard. “A few minutes later, Jake received another alert but didn’t check the feed that time. Not right away at least. When he did finally look at the live footage, Marisela was in the room… on top of me.”
Dorian moved closer, still rubbing his back as he tried to force the rest of the words out.
“Jake almost ignored what he was seeing, but what gave him pause was I wasn’t moving, and my wrists and ankles were tied to the bed posts.”
“Oh. My. God.” Dorian whimpered next to him, and he could feel her trembling. Lynix wanted to hold her, comfort her, but if he didn’t keep going, she wouldn’t hear the rest.
“The video included sound and showed Marisela on her cell phone, telling someone that she might’ve spiked my drink too much. That she was having trouble getting me aroused. That’s when Jake came running. He burst through the door, catching her off guard, and yanked her off me. All of it was captured on tape from when she reentered the room, struggled to get me undressed and tied up, to Jake getting her out of there.”
Dorian lifted her head. “Wait. He didn’t call the cops?”
Lynix grunted. “No. He was too busy freaking out.”
In watching the video, Lynix saw his friend cover him up, then frantically trying to wake him.
“I couldn’t tell by watching the video, but Jake said I told him,call Omari. No parents. No cops. He said it was like I knew what was happening, but I struggled to move and fell in and out of consciousness.”
“What did Jake do?” Dorian asked, swiping at her tears.
Lynix sat back and pulled her against his body, holding her close. “He called Omari, told him what he saw, told him about the video, and told him what I said to do. My brother told him to call 911 and to not mention the video or Marisela.
“Keep in mind, we all came from influential families who kept personal shit in-house. With four boys, my dad was always warning us to stay out of trouble. That we represented the family, and that we all had too much to lose if we made wrong choices. That our decisions not only affected us, but also the family and the family business. Basically, he didn’t want any negative press to touch us.
“So Omari told Jake to make the ties disappear, say nothing about the video, and to tell anyone who asked what happened that he’d found me barely breathing and called 911. He also told Jake if anyone asked about my parents to tell them that Omari was my guardian.”
“Wow. Is your brother a lawyer?”
“At the time, he was in his last year of his undergrad, majoring in political science. He has a law degree now, but he doesn’t practice law.”
“I just don’t understand. Why would Marisela do something like this? Surely, her father was like your father and gave her similar speeches about her actions, consequences, and protecting the family.”
“I don’t know if she got the same speeches as me and my brothers. My guess would be she didn’t. As for her motivation for doing what she did to me, she wanted me to get her pregnant.”
Dorian gasped and slammed her fist against the sofa cushion. “You’ve got to be kidding me! I hate her so much! What if whatever she slipped into your drink had killed you? What if you would’ve died?” she said. “She was reckless, selfish, and stupid! That… that, urgh! I don’t even know what to call her!”
Dorian’s anger-filled words pierced Lynix in the chest. He kissed the top of her head, hating that she was all riled up on his behalf, but he loved her for it. Besides maybe his mother, no other woman had ever come to his defense for any reason or cared enough to be angry on his behalf. Of course, that could be because he never let a woman get close to him before.
“Marisela assumed if she was pregnant with my child, then my father would force me to marry her,” he continued. “Twisted thinking, I know. But that was her excuse.”
“Please don’t tell me she got away with what she did.”
“I know you’re not going to understand my reasoning, but I didn’t want anyone to know about what happened—especially my parents or my other brothers. Maybe it’s a guy thing, I don’t know, but I was embarrassed and humiliated. Omari agreed to keep my secret, but I had to promise to go to therapy, which I did.”
