Whisky on My Mind (8 page)

The apartment was again eerily quiet when she let herself back in later that morning. Whisky took a deep breath before rapping on Bella’s bedroom door. “Bella, it’s me. You awake?”

The door swung open and Whisky took a step back as she came face to face with a furious Bella.

“Are you planning on going to class today?” Whisky asked, determined not to let this new, angry Bella put her off.

“
No,
I’m not. Jesus Christ, Sky. You’re not my mother—get off my back, will ya’.”

“What the hell is going on with you? I don’t get it. You’ve only got a few more classes to sit through and you’ll graduate…why are you throwing this away? It’s like you just don’t care anymore.”

“Leave it alone, Sky. I mean it! Just leave. Me.
Alone!
” Bella growled.

Whisky stared at her. Who was this person? Where was that cool and sophisticated girl who’d been living her dream in Paris for the last year? It was hard to see her at all in this woman who stood before her sounding so surly and miserable. “I’m sorry but I can’t do that,”
Whisky said, inserting her body between the door and frame as Bella went to close the door. “You need to get a grip. Stop drinking for starters,” she said, eyeing the empty bottle on the bedside table from the night before. “I’m not leaving here until you tell me what’s going on.”

Bella shook her head. “I can’t.”

“Bell, please. Tell me.”

“I can’t
, alright!” she yelled, pushing past Whisky and heading into the kitchen. “I can’t tell anyone.”

Whisky’s heart was pounding in her chest. She’d never seen Bella like this before. She was hysterical. “You can tell me
anything
, Bell,” she protested as she followed her.

Bella dropped her head, and her usually sleek and shiny hair now
hung limp and untidy, covering her face like a curtain but it couldn’t hide the shaking of her shoulders as her friend broke down in gut wrenching sobs.

“Bell,” Whisky rasped
, moving across to take her friend in her arms and rock her gently. “Baby, whatever it is, you have to tell me. I’m going to help you through whatever this is. I’m here for you. Remember? We’re blood sisters,” she said softly, holding the other woman’s hand and lifting it up to press their thumbs together. Just as they had when they’d pricked their fingers as kids.

Bella shook her head mournfully. “Everything’s a mess. I don’t know what to do…I just don’t know what to do anymore,” she cried, burying her head against Whisky’s shoulder. She wasn’t sure how long they stood there while Bella cried, and Whisky held her gently. It broke her heart to see her friend so twisted and torn up inside. She was worried. Whatever was happening to her, it was bad enough to break the once strong sassy girl Whisky had grown up with.

After a while Bella’s tears began to ease, and Whisky sat her down and passed her a handful of tissues to sop up the mess. She moved to make a cup of tea; it was something Sawyer had done for her the night he’d told her about her father’s illness and the day after she’d been attacked by  Razor and his two filthy friends. She shook off the memory and focused on her friend. She had to get to the bottom of this now, before it got any worse.

Sitting back down at the table, Whisky waited until Bella had drank most of the tea
and  seemed a little calmer. “Tell me, Bell…
everything
.”

Bella swallowed and dropped her gaze down to where her hands twisted in her lap anxiously. “A few weeks ago I went to a frat party.”

Whisky knew that part of Bella’s internship included an exchange in one of Paris’s most prestigious universities. There had been a group of five students from colleges all over the United States on the same exchange/internship program as Bell.

“I was drinking,” she admitted quietly, before looking up to hold Whisky’s gaze fiercely, “But I swear I didn’t have enough to make me pass out…but that’s what happened,” she added, lowering her gaze once more. “When I woke up,” she paused, squeezing her eyes tightly shut, “I was in a bed upstairs…naked.”

Whisky held her breath, hardly daring to breathe in case it spooked her friend and she clammed up before finishing, but she had a horrible feeling in her stomach about where this might be heading.

“I was alone,” she said quietly, “so I got up and found my clothes and got out
of there as soon as I was dressed. I walked home, but I still felt drunk…dopey…like I was high or something, but I didn’t know how. I knew I’d had sex, I had red marks all over me and I was a little tender but I didn’t remember with who…I don’t remember anything after arriving at the party and having a couple of drinks.” Bella stopped talking for a moment, as though gathering the energy to continue.

Whisky covered her hand and gave a reassuring squeeze, encouraging her to keep going.

“I fell asleep once I got back to my dorm, and when I woke up I found an envelope under my door. There were photos inside, Sky…photos of me and…”she stopped and broke out in fresh tears. She took some deep breaths and blew her nose. “There were photos of me and a group of guys. They’d been…doing stuff to me…and I didn’t remember a thing about it.”

“You were drugged and raped?”

Bella shrugged. “I was definitely drugged, someone must have spiked my drink somehow, but in the photos it didn’t look like I was being forced…I was sore the next day, but I wasn’t hurt…it was like it was some whole other person in the photos.”

“Who would do that?”

“I know who,” she said bitterly as she swiped at her eyes. “It was Paul Sorenson…he was a guy in the exchange group, he comes from upstate. There was a note on the back of the photos to go and meet with him.”

“Oh my God…did you report this guy?”

“Are you crazy? There was no way I was going to show those photos to anyone else. They were bad, Sky…
really
bad.”

“What did you do?”

“I went to the meeting. He was waiting in a coffee shop for me. He sat there and smiled at me,” her voice turned hard at the memory. “The smug bastard actually
smiled
at me.”

Whisky waited for her to continue, her mind racing a million miles an hour as she struggled to process everything Bell had told her so far.

“He told me the photos were stills of a movie he recorded. He threatened to upload it to the Internet if I didn’t do what he wanted.”

“What did he want you to do?” Whisky asked, almost afraid of what she’d hear.

“Pull out of the running for the job the company was offering. We’d been neck and neck all year. He was in the running for the position the company was going to offer to one of the interns at the end of the year. He told me he’d upload the movie if I applied for the position.”

“He blackmailed you over a
job?
” she asked incredibly.
Seriously?

“It’s not
just
a job, Sky. This company
makes
careers. It’s
the
dream company to be working for. It’s a big deal.” She shook her head a little. “If I didn’t apply for the job, he knew it would leave the field open for him to swoop in and take it.”

“We need to go to the police about this, Bell. This is serious. It’s got to be illegal to hold something like that over people.”

“He specifically said if I went to the police or told anyone about it he’d upload the video,” she said quietly. “Once it’s on the Internet—it’s out there forever. There’s no getting it back. My whole future would be ruined, any potential employers would find a movie of me giving blow jobs to a bunch of guys while other guys screwed me…I’d never get a job anywhere after that,” she said bitterly.

Whisky slumped back in her chair and stared at her friend across the table. “There has to be something we can do.”

“He holds all the cards. My reputation is going to be ruined—even if I ignore it and apply for the job—let him release the movie…no one in the industry will ever take me seriously…it’ll follow me around until the day I die. I can’t stand the thought of people smirking about me behind my back…how the hell would I look anyone in the eye after that? And my parents…”she paused and shut her eyes briefly. “It’s all over, Sky. My career…my whole life.”

“Don’t say that. It’s not over. We’ll figure out how to fix this, Bell. I promise.”

“How, Sky? How can we fix it? What’s stopping him releasing it anyway someday down the road? What do I do when I have kids and they find it online? He’ll always have it hanging over my head ready to use.”

A burning rage filled Whisky as she sat and watched her once confident, vivacious friend fall apart in front of her. This bastard, whoever he was, was not going to get away with this. When Bella had fallen asleep, exhausted by the ordeal of coming clean with what had been bottled up inside, Whisky’s gaze fell on a yellow envelope sticking out beneath a pile of clothing that lay strewn on the floor. Creeping over, she slid the envelope out and with one nervous glance at her sleeping friend, pulled out the contents from inside.

Whisky bit her lip, closing her eyes tight for a moment in anguish as she slid the photos back inside the envelope and replaced them where she’d found them. No wonder Bella had been distraught. The photos were graphic…bordering on sick. Her heart broke for the torment her friend must have been going through all alone, feeling ashamed and betrayed and utterly vulnerable.

She left the room quietly, going into her room to make a phone call.

“Hey, Babe,” hearing Sawyer’s deep voice made her feel better.

“Hey. Is there any chance you can come over?”

“To the apartment?”

“Yeah.
I can’t leave Bell here alone at the moment and there’s something really important I need to tell you.”

“What do you mean you can’t leave her alone?”

Whisky paused. Bell was not going to like the fact she was going to bring Sawyer into this, but they had little choice. She was not going to stand by and watch as Bella’s whole life got torn to shreds by this sick bastard. “She’s in trouble, Babe. I need you here.” 

“Are you okay?” his tone had instantly shifted from warm to all business in the space of a heartbeat.

“I’m fine. It’s Bella I’m worried about.”

“I’m on the way. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Thank you. I love you, Sawyer,” she added quietly.

“I love you too. See
ya’ soon.”

Whisky disconnected the call and stared across at the far wall feeling torn. Bella needed help and she couldn’t go to the police.
Just because you called him, doesn’t mean he has to interfere…he might have some better ideas how to handle it,
she told herself irritably. Part of her knew though, that by calling him—she knew in the back of her mind there was potential for him to use more persuasive methods of asking this guy to get rid of the photos he had…did she really want to risk Sawyer getting in trouble over this? How could she not? Bella was her best friend, and someone had abused her…they had to do something to help.

Chapter 7

“This is really screwed up,” Sawyer said
, frowning at her as they stood in the kitchen after Whisky had told him everything Bella had told her earlier.

“She’s at breaking point. I’ve been sneaking into her room all day just to make sure she hasn’t taken any pills or something…I’ve never seen her like this before.” She refused to show Sawyer the photos without Bella’s permission which she figured she wouldn’t give anyway, but assured him they were bad.

“What does she want to do about it?”

“Nothing.
She’s convinced her life’s over. She’s always known she wanted to work in fashion—since she was a kid, she’s known what she wanted to do…this job, is career making…but she’s just given up on it all now. She can’t even think past the shame of everyone she knows seeing that video. I don’t know how stable she is right now. If that video gets put out there…”She couldn’t even voice what she was certain would happen to her friend.

“We need to talk to her and see what she wants us to do.”

“She’s not going to be happy,” Whisky said quietly.

“By
she,
do you mean
me,
by any chance?” Bella asked, coming into the kitchen.