Hail Santa! by Cohen Sullivan

Author:Cohen, Sullivan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

When I came out, Mom and Dad were back. I had fallen asleep, and felt even worse about myself after that.

I heard Mom’s voice as I walked down the hall, and could see Dad leaning on the wall with his head in his hand.

“I know you don’t want to go to the hospital but Lorrie, please. You could end up regretting this for the rest of your life if you don’t prosecute him.”

“It was my fault!” Lorrie shouted, voice still stained with tears.

A voice I did not expect to still be here was Alan’s. “None of this was your fault, Lorrie. Men are not animals, nothing you did tonight justifies what he chose to do, nothing.”

“He said he couldn’t resist, that I was too beautiful, that he was sorry.”

My dad finally chimed in. “I’m going to call some elders over, Lorrie. We are going to come together and make this right for you, sweetheart.”

Elders. Because surely what Lorrie needs after being taken advantage of by a man is more men around.

I stood at the hallway entrance, being ignored by all eyes except Alan’s for at least a moment or more.

“Why don’t we just call the police? What he did was a crime.” I chimed in. Mom, newly aware of my presence, shot daggers in my direction.

“Where have you been? Why haven’t you been here with your sister?”

“I, I wanted to be, Mom, I just-”

“Brother Loveland? … Yes, this is Brother Whitman, I’m sorry to wake you but we’ve had an incident and I’m wondering if you could rally the others and come over…” he said it with a straight face, almost a smile at how relieved he was in the expected success of his attempt to comfort Lorrie. He was far too sure that the elders would fix her right up and send her on her way. “... It’s my daughter, Lorrie. She and Brother Tuppin went out together and, well, it looks like things got out of hand.”

“Out of hand?” I cut in despite the warning finger wag of my dad. “She was raped! Tell him she was raped!”

Mom shot me a nasty look. “Kai! Go back to your room if you’re not going to be constructive here!”

“Lorrie, you were raped! And it wasn’t your fault! And I don’t think I’m being deconstructive for pointing that out!”

“I’m warning you, Kai!”

I balled my hands into fists and walked away, slamming my door and sending the shock through the house, momentarily lifting pictures off the paint before slamming them back down against the hollow walls.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.