"Then tell her to go to the police...charge me with rape, go ahead!" he yelled. Al was out of his chair and flinging his arms in the air, he was so angry. "Dawn, I never touched her. I can't believe you'd think I'd do something like that!"
"Why would she lie?" Dawn yelled back. Now she was out of her seat as well. She marched right up and stared him in the eye. "Huh, tell me, Al, why would she lie?"
"I don't know, babe, but she is, I swear it. Call her; tell her to come on over. Let her accuse me to my face."
"Al, she doesn't want to be anywhere around you and I can't blame her."
"I can't believe you're actually buying into this crap. Dawn, we've known each other for three years. Do you really believe I'd force myself on someone; especially your roommate? Come on, I love you. I want to marry you. How stupid would I have to be to do something like that."
"I don't know, Al, but she has bruises on her wrists from where you held her down. She said she thought you'd been drinking. You came over looking for me and when you saw I wasn't here you forced yourself on her."
"Dawn, I didn't do it! Please, get that through your head. I did not force myself on Shannon or anyone else. God, this is a fucking nightmare! Did she tell this to anyone else or just you?"
"I...I don't know. I think Tom and Betty know about it. I'm not sure about Roy and Janet."
"Great, if she told Betty it'll be all over the campus by Monday. I won't be able to show my face anywhere. I'm going to see a lawyer. Friend or no friend, Dawn, I'm going to sue that bitch."
"I'd think twice about that, Al. If you force her hand she might have to go to the police. You could wind up in prison."
"Oh I doubt very much she'd go to the police. You see it's against the law to file a false police report and it takes more than just her word to convict me of rape, especially since I didn't do it. She'd be the one in trouble."
"Al...she has a witness."
"What? Who?" This just kept getting worse and worse. He couldn't understand how there could be a witness to something that never happened. This had to be a set-up, a conspiracy of some kind.
"I'm not going to tell you. I...I don't trust you anymore, Al. I'm not sure what you're capable of. Someone saw you. That's all I'm going to say."
"Oh this is ridiculous. When—when was this supposed to happen?"
"Al, let's just drop it. I..."
"Drop it? I can't drop something like this, Dawn. I'll be damned if I'm going to stand around while someone labels me a rapist." His heart was pounding. His nerves felt like someone had raked over them with a cheese grater. He tried to calm himself down for a second. "Come on, honey, who is this so-called witness?"
Dawn's eyes glistened from unspent tears. She had loved him with all her heart, now she wondered if she knew him at all. "Al, I...I think under the circumstances we should stop seeing each other."
It was as if she'd reached into his chest and ripped his heart out with her bare hand. How could she profess to love him and not know he wasn't capable of such of thing? Hell, he never even told off-color jokes in mixed company. It pretty much took the fight right out of him.
There was no mistaking the look on his face, it was pain, not the physical kind, the emotional kind, more pain than Dawn could ever remember seeing in anyone. She wiped away some tears that broke free and ran down her lovely cheeks. She loved him so much, or at least she loved the man she thought he was. Seeing his suffering had her head spinning with doubt and uncertainties. She didn't want to believe it and for a split second, questioned her friend's word-but only for a split second. The problem was she'd known Shannon a lot longer than Al and there was no reason in the world for her to lie. They were roommates, best friends; if anyone knew how she felt about him it was Shannon. She would never intentionally hurt her with a lie like that. That left only one other alternative...
"I see," he said. "So you've already tried, convicted, and sentenced me. I can't believe this. An hour ago I was just thinking how lucky I was. I had good friends, a four point grade average, a bright future, but most of all...what was most important was the mutual love I felt with the woman I intended to marry. And with one lie from someone I'm not even supposed to confront, it's all gone. Well, I suppose I should consider myself lucky. I might not have learned how little you really care for me until after we were married."
That was it; the end of a three year romance that both Dawn and Al had been sure would lead to marriage, kids, a white picket fence, and growing old together. Without saying another word, he walked out.
With so much anger clouding his brain, he had no idea where he was going. Outside her door he turned toward the campus and let his feet follow the sidewalk. For the first hundred yards he prayed he'd hear Dawn's voice begging him to come back but it didn't happen. All he heard were the leather souls of his shoes on the pavement.
Her apartment was only five blocks from the college; they were the most secluded and desolate five blocks he'd ever walked. By the time he found himself at the front gate of the campus he knew it was definitely over between them. Obviously she believed that lying bitch over him. That was unforgivable.
Across the street from the campus was a park with weathered green benches that needed sanding and repainting. It was a good thing there was no traffic because Al's mind was so preoccupied he didn't even look before crossing. His legs seemed to give out on him as he started to sit and he almost fell onto the uncomfortable wooden structure.
His surroundings were nonexistent. He was totally focused on the lie Shannon had told and couldn't understand how anyone could believe such a thing about him, let alone Dawn. He wondered what his future held for him. It was a no-brainer that word would spread throughout the small college. If Dawn believed it there was no reason to think others wouldn't as well. What about after graduation; would this terrible lie follow him into the workforce?
He needed to get away-go home for a while where he could think and talk things over with his parents; although they were never very supportive of him. He never seemed to measure up in their eyes...especially his dad's. Still...
He needed someplace to go and he couldn't think of anywhere else. Al pulled out his phone and tapped the picture taken at his parent's twentieth anniversary party.
He heard his mother's voice as she picked up the house phone. "Hello."
"Hi, mom; it's me."
"Hi honey; this is a surprise. You don't usually call on a Saturday. Don't you usually spend Saturday's with Dawn and your friends?"
"Yeah, well, not today," he lamented.
"What's the matter? You sound a little down. Is everything okay?"
"Ah," he said, taking a deep breath. "Not really. You're not going to believe this. A girlfriend of Dawn's is accusing me of forcing myself on her. I..."
"What!" she shrieked. "You didn't, did you?"
"Mom, how can you even ask me that?" Just then he heard his dad's reaction to his mother's question.
"Didn't do what? What's he done now? Here give me the phone...Al, this is your father. What did you do?"
"Dad, I didn't do anything. A girl on campus has accused me of forcing myself on her but..."
"Forcing yourself; you mean raping her? What the hell is wrong with you? I raised you better than..."
That was it, he'd had enough abuse. It was the last straw. "You know what, screw you too," he yelled before disconnecting. That was it, the preverbal piece of straw. Throughout his entire life he could never figure out what he needed to do to measure up in his father's eyes. He couldn't remember a single time in his entire life when his dad stood by him. He recalled an instance in the fourth grade when he got into a fight on the school playground. The teacher even told his dad the other kid had started the fight—that I was just defending myself, he remembered. "But dad didn't care," he mumbled aloud. "I got punished anyway. Well, fuck him—fuck them all."
A little earlier he'd never been hurt by anyone like he'd been hurt by the woman he loved. Since then the hurt had turned into anger, now it was metastasizing into something else again...bitterness! He'd spent his whole life trying to be the best person he could be and what had it gotten him; parents who couldn't care less whether he lived or died and a girlfriend who thought he was capable of rape.
He stood; "Fuck'em all," he yelled as he threw his phone as far as he could. He turned his back while it was still sailing through the air. He didn't care where it landed. There was no one he wanted to talk to anyway.
Never in his life had Al ever felt so lonely or so depressed. It was as if he was dangling above a dark, bottomless canyon just wondering when the rope would snap. He needed to get away; he needed to get his feet on firm ground again, if that wasn't possible by going home then somewhere else, he didn't much care where.
He looked at his watch. It was only four-thirty. If he hurried he still had time to get to the bank before they closed. He jogged across the campus grounds to his dormitory. Terry, his roommate was sitting in the hall outside the door, plunking on his guitar. He said nothing but just nodded his head as Al quickly stepped past him on his way into their room. A moment later Al came back out with his twenty-one speed road bike over his shoulder.
Terry looked up from his fretboard. "Hey, man, where you going?"
"Out," he answered. He never looked back. If he had, he'd have seen the evil sneer on his roommate's face.
Once outside again, Al hopped on his bike and took off for the mile long trip to the nearest branch of his bank. He had been banking there since he started college more than three years earlier. In addition to a small checking account, he had a secret savings account he started when he met Dawn. It was going to be a surprise so he could buy her a nice engagement ring. There was a little over thirty-one hundred dollars in it. That plus the hundred and fifty he had in the checking would hold him for a little while. He closed out both accounts and said goodbye to the tellers before leaving.
He unlocked his bike and let out a deep sigh as he placed his left foot in the toe strap and pushed off swinging his right leg over the seat and catching the other pedal at its highest point. A ghostly sense of death haunted his wake, the death of those he was leaving behind, not physically of course, but in his mind.
Al had been on the road for half an hour by the time Terry had showered and was on his way to Dawn's apartment. She came to the door when she heard his knock.
"Oh, Terry; come on in. I thought it might have been Al."
"Naw, he took off on his bike a little while ago. He didn't look like he was in a very good mood so I figured you guys must have had it out. I thought I'd come over and see if there's anything I can do."
Dawn had never cared for Terry that much. His parents had big money and he always seemed a little arrogant, but since he witnessed Al leaving the apartment after attacking her roommate...well, he seemed to be a kindred spirit of a kind.
"That's sweet, Terry; thank you. I don't really think there's much you can do. Shannon will be back in a little while. She didn't want to be here when Al came over."
