What She Left Behind ✔️

chapter thirty-three

Dumbfounded, I stare at Bowie. I feel like I'm going to be sick again.

"Who's Benson?" Griffin asks, visibly confused.

"Our older brother," I reply. "But, Bowie, th-that's impossible. Benson would never do that. I mean, he's Benson. He would... he would never do that." At this point, I'm trying to convince myself more than Bowie.

And I'm failing miserably.

It makes sense. His lifelong infatuation with my late friend. His new girlfriend, who looks strikingly similar to her. Hell, he called Alyx "Raelyn" during sex. He wasn't just in love; he was obsessed.

But was he so obsessed that he could—?

No. Oh, no. I don't even want to go there. Benson might not be as flawless as everyone—mostly my parents—seems to think, but there's no way he would do that.

Except Bowie says otherwise. To make matters worse, he was supposedly in the room when it happened.

"This is what you were talking about," I murmur, the realization hitting me like a fist to the face. "After we watched the third video, you told me that you knew what Raelyn was referring to, and then you went off the grid for a week before giving me a proper explanation. You meant this, didn't you?"

Bowie nods his head, a solemn expression on his pale face. His blue eyes are filled with sadness, regret, and... remorse?

"Tell me what happened," I say. "Start from the very beginning and tell me what happened."

He begins to pace Griffin's apartment. He runs his fingers through his shaggy hair and clenches his jaw.

"Like Raelyn said, it happened the first week of her junior year," he finally says. "I was in eighth grade. I was thirteen. I... I didn't really understand what was going on."

The pain in my little brother's eyes tears me in two. It's so raw, so genuine.

There's no way he's making this up.

"Mom and Dad were away on a writer's retreat, and Benson was left in charge," he goes on. "He hadn't left for college yet, so we were still sharing a room. It was late at night. I remember him coming in with a girl. They were making a lot of noise. Kissing and stuff. I was angry because I had school the next morning. I was gonna ask him to keep it down when... when I heard the girl's voice."

"Raelyn," I whisper.

"Yeah. She sounded kind of out of it, but I recognized her. She was asking him to stop. She said that you and her had gotten into a fight, and that she wanted to go find you to make amends." Bowie wraps his arms around his torso. "Benson refused. He told her that you could wait."

The hair on my arms rises. I remember that night. Because my parents were away, Raelyn and I decided to get shitfaced on a school night. We ended up doing more arguing than drinking. She told me that she was in love with Marco, and I told her that she was too naive to understand the complexities of being in love. It escalated from there. God, I was such a pompous ass. She stormed out of my room and walked home.

I thought she went home, anyway.

"He thought I was asleep," Bowie says in a quiet, somber tone. "He thought I was asleep, so he pushed Raelyn onto the bed and...." He trails off, rubbing his eyes. "Well, you know the rest."

"So you didn't say anything?" Griffin pipes in. "You just pretended to be asleep while he raped her?"

"I didn't know what to do!" Bowie shouts. "For fuck's sake, I was thirteen! I was literally frozen with fear. I knew something wasn't right, but I didn't know what was happening. I barely understood sex, never mind sexual assault."