It Happens All the Time: A Novel

For several weeks after I saw Amber at the bar, I spent a lot of time contemplating everything my father had said to me later that night. I went back and forth between agreeing with my dad that Amber was as much to blame as I was, and thinking his explanation of the biological imperative behind male-female sexual interaction was totally insane, a weak rationalization that had allowed him to treat women like shit over the years. But I couldn’t deny it was good to feel like I had someone in my corner, especially one cold evening the first week of November as I climbed out of my truck and headed inside the station to begin my shift. I’d long run out of Valium, and while I knew that I hadn’t taken enough of the medication since swiping the pills from the junkie mother’s stash to be physically addicted, I still craved the chemical peace of mind the drug gave me. I often thought about where I could get more—the doctor, a psychiatrist, or our rig—but no option was ideal. If I talked to a medical professional, a diagnosis of an anxiety disorder would go on my insurance record and I might lose my job. If I slipped a few pills every now and then from the stock we kept for the victims Mason and I treated in the field, my partner would surely notice the discrepancy when he did inventory. The parameters were too tight, so I was basically out of luck. I’d have to find another way to cope.

Now, shivering from the bite of winter in the air, I greeted a few firemen as I entered the garage, where I knew my partner would already be, making sure the ambulance was properly stocked. Sure enough, as I approached the vehicle, I saw the back doors were open, and Mason sat with a clipboard in his lap, making note of what we had.

“Hey,” I said. “Can I help?”

“Thanks, but I’m good,” he said in the same clipped tone he’d been using with me for months.

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” He hung the clipboard in its designated spot behind the driver’s seat, and then looked at me. “You got a minute to go talk with the captain?”

“Uh, sure,” I said, instantly feeling the muscles in my chest tense. “What’s up?”

“I’d rather discuss it with him,” Mason said as he climbed out of the rig and closed the doors. “He’s expecting us.”

“Oh.” This can’t be good, I thought, as I followed him up the stairs to the captain’s office, which was adjacent to the kitchen, where most of the other men and women on shift were hanging out. Did Mason report what had happened at the party? Am I going to get a black mark on my record for conduct unbecoming? Am I going to lose my job?

Mason opened the office door, and Captain Duncan, who was sitting at his large oak desk, welcomed us in. “Have a seat,” he said, fiddling with one thin end of his black handlebar mustache. Other than his eyebrows, it was the only hair on his entire head; the pink skin of his scalp reflected the fluorescent lighting above us. His uniform was perfectly pressed; he’d told us that his wife took pride in making sure his creases were straight as plumb lines.

Mason and I both sat down, and I noticed that my partner inched his chair slightly away from me. In a space so small, the motion seemed significant.

“So, Hicks,” Captain Duncan said. “I need to inform you that Mason has requested a transfer to another station.”

“What?” I said, swinging my gaze to my partner. I knew things were strained between us, but I had assumed that, with time, we’d go back to the way we were.

Mason didn’t look at me; instead, he sat ramrod straight and kept his eyes on the captain.

“I know it’s a hard thing, when a partnership doesn’t work out,” Captain Duncan said, “but it happens, and we all just have to learn how to deal with it.” He looked at Mason. “I hate to lose you, but I’ve made your request official. As soon as an opening comes up, you can make the move.”

“Thank you, sir,” Mason said.

“Wait,” I said. “Do I not get a say in this?”

“No,” Captain Duncan said. “You don’t. Just as Mason wouldn’t have a say if you requested it.” He paused, glancing back and forth between us. “I’m not going to have to deal with any bullshit between you two, am I? You can work together peacefully, for now?”

“Of course, sir,” Mason said.

The captain turned toward me. “Hicks?”

I nodded, feeling the muscles along my jaws working as I clenched my teeth.

“Good,” Captain Duncan said. He opened his mouth, about to speak again, but the radio behind him crackled, requesting units be dispatched to the corner of Eldridge and Meridian, where a traffic accident had occurred. “You heard them,” the captain said, pointing to the doorway. “Get to it.”

Mason and I made our way back down to the garage and climbed into our rig, where he flipped on the lights and siren while I let dispatch know we were on our way to the accident. The air between us was thick and heavy as a rock; I had the futile urge to pick it up and toss it out the window.

“Am I really that bad?” I asked, keeping my eyes straightforward.

“I don’t think we should talk about this right now,” he said.

“I saw Amber at the Royal a few weeks ago,” I told him. “She was making out with some disgusting old guy in a dark hallway.” Mason didn’t say anything, so I went on. “What I can’t figure out is, if she’s the kind of girl who grinds her body against her best friend, who kisses him and goes upstairs to a bedroom at a party with him, and then searches out a stranger at a bar, all while she’s engaged to someone else, how can what happened with us be rape?”

“Dude,” Mason said, shooting an angry glance my way, his dark eyes flashing. “You do not want to have this conversation with me.”

“Yeah, actually,” I said, “I do. Because seriously. How is a guy supposed to let a girl get him all turned on, make him believe that she really wants to have sex with him, and then just be okay with her suddenly changing her mind at the last second? If she’s out at bars now, cheating on Daniel and making out with strangers, she can’t be the girl I thought she was. She can’t be the girl you thought she was.” I felt desperate. If I could just get Mason to agree with me, to concede that Amber was guilty of at least part of what happened that night, I might be able to live with myself.

Mason jerked the steering wheel to get around a long string of cars that weren’t pulling out of our way. “Is that you talking, or your dad?” he asked. “Because you sound like a stupid frat boy, trying to rationalize his way out of taking advantage of a wasted girl. You going to make a video, like those assholes at Yale, chanting, ‘No means yes, yes means anal’?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Google it,” Mason said harshly, as he continued to bob and weave down West Holly. “Stop thinking about yourself for a fucking second and get some education about what rape actually is. And for the record, most of the time it looks exactly like what happened between you and Amber. I don’t give a shit who she’s making out with in a bar or whether she’s engaged to Daniel or not. The fact is that she told you to stop and you had sex with her anyway. That’s the definition of rape. That’s what you’re guilty of, and the fact that you won’t own up to it is why I have to get the fuck away from you. I have a daughter, man. And if some fucker did to her what you did to Amber, I’d do a lot more than punch him in the face. I’d kill him.” He paused, breathing hard, and then spoke again. “You make me sick.”

Tears pricked the backs of my eyes as Mason said these last words, and I looked away, out the passenger side window, blinking quickly to get them to disappear. Outside of Amber, Mason had become my closest friend, and hearing him tear me apart like this now, knowing that I triggered such feelings of disgust in him, made me feel like I was cracking open. Loud thoughts ricocheted inside my head, my dad’s and Mason’s voices, each vying to be heard, each telling me conflicting things. I didn’t know who to believe.

As we approached the scene of the accident, my pulse was already racing, my heart pounding like a jackhammer. We both jumped out of the rig and raced around to the back to grab our gear. I went through the motions of my job, running a line, assessing airway, breathing, and circulation. Luckily, it was only a fender bender and no one was seriously injured; I was too distracted to have handled something like that.

Mason and I got through the rest of our shift, speaking only when we had to, doing our jobs, the fat elephant of what he’d said—you make me sick—still stuck between us. Maybe he was right. Maybe my father was just a womanizing asshole, and I’d been grasping at empty, meaningless straws by asking his advice. Maybe the desire to shift blame onto Amber was the only way I could keep it from clinging to me. Maybe the only way to get my life back was to admit what I did.

But then, a shock of terror pulsed through me as I imagined what would happen next. I imagined talking to the police, being handcuffed, put into an orange jumpsuit, and locked behind bars. I thought about losing my job, losing my reputation—losing everything I had managed to build for myself over the past several years. And I knew that no matter what I’d already lost, no matter that Mason would soon disappear from my life as Amber had, I wasn’t willing to sacrifice myself. I might have doubts, I might share in some of the guilt for what happened that night, but I wasn’t the only one.

Now, as I grabbed my bag from the rig after Mason had already gone home, I headed out the door into the parking lot. It was late, after midnight, and the air was chillier than it had been when I started my shift. I tucked my hands into my coat pockets, and began to make my way across the lot. I looked toward my truck, and suddenly, I stopped short, because Amber was waiting for me. She was standing next to my truck, her hands shoved in her coat pockets, too.

“We need to talk,” she said, and like a hopeful idiot, I nodded, wanting to believe that she had changed her mind and was there to make peace. I wanted to believe this as I walked around to the driver’s side door and climbed inside. I wanted to believe this as she joined me, slamming the passenger door. We’re going to work this out, I thought, still believing that in the end, after everything, our friendship could win out. I believed she still might love me, right up until the moment when she pulled out the gun.