Face-Slapping14 min read
A Road Trip, a Lie, and the Moment the Mountain Found Out
ButterPicks17 views
I never expected a three-day drive with my boyfriend's college friends to turn the nicest part of my year into the worst memory I would ever keep. I never expected to be the one who survived it, or to be the one who would watch what they did to themselves play out in front of everyone like some terrible, slow film.
"Did you not say it would be just the five of us?" Hudson said the first time I noticed the look.
"You said five," Lucille said with a brow raised like a question mark. She smiled in a way that made her lips look prettier than her eyes.
Francisco tugged my hand. "She's joking, Chana. Come on."
"Joking?" I said. "Why would she—"
Lucille rolled her eyes so casually it felt like a slap. "Seriously? You showed up?" she asked, as if the car I owned and the vacation I agreed to were offenses.
"She's my girlfriend," Francisco said. He sounded embarrassed and stubborn at once. "She is coming."
Lucille scoffed. "You didn't say that. You said five people."
"Lucille," Hudson said through a small laugh, "this is a stupid thing to argue over."
"Then don't argue. Just let us go," I said, and I wanted to walk away.
Francisco grabbed my wrist. "Don't be mad. She's in a mood today, ignore her." He sounded apologetic for me, like trying to console a child.
"I don't want to stay where I'm not wanted," I said, moving my hand away. "Give me the keys."
Francisco didn't move. Lucille stayed planted like she owned the ground. The three men—Edison, Miles, Quincy—watched like it was their own private drama.
"Okay. Fine." Francisco finally said, exasperated. "If you insist, we won't go."
Lucille suddenly ran up and looped her arm through Francisco's. "No, no. We planned this. Come on, don't bail." She pouted so perfectly it should have been illegal.
Francisco pulled free. "Then apologize to my girlfriend."
Lucille hesitated, then did the most ridiculous thing: she acted insulted only to bend and feign apology. "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it," she said, turning to me, the tone dipped like a practiced performance. "Let's go—it's going to be fun."
I swallowed down a bitterness that sat in my throat like sour milk. The rest of them laughed, and the car left with me inside. I told myself I would not let her ruin things. I told myself Francisco and I would be fine. He hummed softly in my ear, a stupid happy song, the way he did when he wanted to lighten a mood.
"Sorry about the performance," he whispered. "She can be like that. She's Hudson's girlfriend; we've been friends for years. Don't make a scene."
"Okay," I said, but my fingers still curled into the leather of the seat. "It's my car, by the way."
"You let me fill it with music?" he joked. "Take it as a small thank-you."
I wanted to trust him. I wanted to believe him when he said Lucille was only a spoiled, ill-mannered third wheel. I wanted to enjoy the blue sky and the hum of our tires on asphalt. But my throat kept tightening, a steady little coil of worry.
That afternoon at a creek, I took pictures because it was what I do. I framed Lucille without meaning to — she squatted by the stream, stirring the water with a stick, her face expressionless. When I lifted my camera to show her, she stood abruptly and walked over.
"You look good by the water," I said. "Want to see the picture?"
Her mouth was a thin line. "Why do you think I should smile? Not everyone is as full of sunshine as you."
I felt the blood leave my face. "I didn't say—"
Lucille ignored me. She went to Hudson and pressed against him, like she owned him, then looked back to flash me a small look that said she had won something. My stomach clenched.
At the picnic table, as they cooked and laughed, I watched the way Edison sat — he kept angling his knee so that it touched Lucille's thigh, the contact casual and ongoing. Hudson sat two seats over, always the center of the group; he talked easily, slipping over the touch like it was nothing.
"She likes the attention," Francisco whispered to me. "Ignore it."
"I can't," I said. "I don't want to be the joke."
"You aren't the joke," he said. "Come on, sit with me."
We ate, but the meal felt thin. Lucille made small, barbed comments. Twice she told me to go back to the high-speed rail and leave them alone. I said, "My car's here. I paid for this," and she sneered, then walked off. The rest of them watched, then returned to their normal chatter like nothing had happened.
At night, in the shabby motel, they all piled into rooms as if we were still in college. Francisco took a shower, then someone banged on the door.
"Fancy a late-night five-player?" Lucille's voice carried through the thin wood.
Francisco opened the door and ended up leaving for hours, laughing. "We'll be back," he told me. "Don't wait up."
He didn't answer his phone when I texted. He didn't pick up when I called. At two in the morning I knocked the adjoining door until someone opened. Lucille answered and shoved me away like I had no right to cross the threshold.
"They're sleeping," she hissed.
"Why are you all sleeping in the same room?" I shouted.
"Mind your business," she snarled.
B — Quincy — stumbled out, yawning. "What's happening?"
"Where's Francisco?" I asked.
"Right here," Quincy mumbled and peered into the room. "He was playing games, fell asleep. Go away."
But later that night, when I woke, the room was empty. My car was gone.
"What the hell?" I said, running to the front desk. "Where did they go?"
"They left at five," the woman said. "Check out was payed."
I had a message from Lucille, a friend request and a photo of my car with her in the passenger seat. "We're driving ahead," she wrote. "Buy your own ticket home."
My phone calls to Francisco went to voicemail and then to dead silence. I told myself I would not be petty. I told myself I would let them have their stunt. They came back hours later, laughing and shoving one another, as if they had not planned to leave me stranded.
"Where's my car?" I said flatly.
"It was only for a few hours," Francisco said, smiling like he didn't owe me anything. "We went to watch the sunrise. I thought you'd like the sleep in."
"So we all planned to leave me?" I asked.
He looked surprised. "What? No. It was Lucille's idea."
"Of course it was," I said. My face felt like someone had poured sand into it.
We drove on. At times, I noticed their eyes flick to one another when they thought I wasn't looking. Once, in the back of the convoy, Hudson and Edison argued about money, about loans. Lucille pretended not to hear, fingers playing with a cheap tent they unpacked later.
At the campsite, a fight broke out about the tent. "You were supposed to bring a good one," Hudson snapped. "This is junk."
"I lent A money," Lucille said, small and defiant. "What does that have to do with the tent?"
Edison snorted. Miles laughed, but the tone was sharp. The men murmured while I tried to peel a sense of normal from the night. Lucille's hand slipped, cutting herself while she chopped. Blood ran, and she wrapped it with my first-aid kit. Her laugh turned strange, and she said, "It's okay. You saved me. Aren't you sweet?"
When night fell and the group drank, talk slid back into college memories. Then Lucille grew quiet, not because she didn't want to talk, but because she kept looking at me like a score she hadn't settled.
I went to bed early and in the middle of the night, someone shook me awake.
"It's on fire!" Lucille screamed.
By the time I stumbled out, the men's tent was a ball of flame. The smell of burning nylon hit me like a slap. I saw a dark shape crawl free from the blaze and another. "They're inside," Lucille said, but her smile was a small, terrible thing.
I tried to run toward the fire. She pulled me back. "I told you," she said. "You were supposed to go back earlier."
Someone shouted behind us. Men were yelling. I watched them stagger from the wreckage, coughing and bleeding. My brain moved like honey: slow, sticky. "You set it?" I said, and the night twisted.
Lucille's voice dropped to a near whisper as she twisted the ignition on the car. "I upped the dosage on the sleeping mix," she said. "I wanted it to be clean. I didn't want them to scream. You weren't supposed to wake up."
She told me, in a steady, calm voice, the reason she had done it: not random rage, but old things, old crimes. She told me they had violated her in college, that there was a video, that some of them had threatened her with it or used it against her. She said she'd forgiven them once, the way many of us forgive when shame makes us small.
"They promised to be friends forever," she said. "They broke their promise."
I tried to think of police and justice. "Call the police," I said.
"Police?" Lucille barked. "They'll take away what I can still control. You don't understand. The law won't give me the choice I need. I want them to feel what they made me feel."
She tied me inside the car because she thought I might call. She kept my phone. For a while, she listened as Francisco and the others rang her, pleading, begging, promising. Hudson's voice was calm, then sharp. "Lucille, where are you? This is insane."
"Edison: 'We can talk it out. We were stupid, we were drunk—'"
"Wrong," she said into the car. "No. You don't get to be drunk and have that be an excuse."
They tried to plead with her. Doubled-back apologies, promises, manipulative softness. "We were there for you," Hudson said. "We helped you. We loved you—"
They kept saying "friends" like armor. Lucille listened, then hung up. Finally, she drove us to the mountain where the trip was supposed to end, where the cliff edges were dramatic and remote.
When we reached the trail, they were waiting. They stepped out of their cars as if nothing terrible had happened. Lucille stepped out, took my hand, and walked toward them like a bride approaching an altar.
"Let me go," I said, my throat a dry cavern.
She smiled. "For a while, watch."
Hudson came forward with a look of practiced regret. "Lucille," he said, voice trembling, "please—"
"You," Lucille said. "You let them drink me into forgetting. You let them treat me like an object. You filmed it." She pointed at Edison. "You told me you'd help. You sold me."
Edison laughed, a quick, defensive sound. "That's not—"
"You think you can say 'not' and erase it?" she asked.
"Lucille, we were stupid that night," Quincy said slowly. "We were stupid."
"You were also cruel." She took a step closer to Hudson. "You were careful to be nice. You were the one who told me to keep quiet. You made me small."
Francisco tried to reach for me. "Chana—"
I cut him off before he could touch me. I had spent hours wondering if he had been complicit. "Did you know about the video?" I asked. "Did you know they recorded her?"
He looked at the ground, then up like a man trapped at sea. "I didn't want to know."
"That's a convenient place to be," Lucille said.
Hudson's face tightened. "We can talk here. Let's not make a scene."
Quincy pushed forward. "We can—"
"Don't speak for me," Lucille snapped. "You never had the right."
Then it began. The punishment she had built was not a quick spectacle, but a long, public unmasking. Bystanders had gathered by the trail—hikers, guide drivers, even a couple near the parking lot with their dog. The park ranger showed up because someone called in. The phones came out; people saw what was happening and stayed.
Lucille pulled a small flash drive from her pocket. "You all remember college," she said. "You all remember the night you think is buried. You buried it with me. But someone kept a copy."
Edison looked stunned. "Who—"
"Doesn't matter," she said. "What matters is you did it."
She plugged the drive into a speaker and pressed play. The video that came out of that small device made the air cold. Faces that had smiled all weekend reddened. Some people averted their eyes. Others kept watching like they had been sucked into a train wreck.
Francisco covered his ears and dropped to his knees. "Stop," he begged. "Stop, please."
Lucille turned the volume up. The mountain echoed with the ugly truth, and the hikers around us shifted. Their polite curiosity turned to outrage.
"How could you?" one woman whispered.
"You're monsters," a man said, anger raw.
The ranger, a short man with a stern face, walked toward the group. "What's going on here?" he called.
"These men filmed and hurt a woman," Lucille said. "They kept the video. They threatened her. They used her. I am not the one to ask for pity. I'm the one to demand they face it."
Guests started to pull out their phones and stream. "They're admitting it," someone shouted.
"I did nothing of the sort!" Hudson finally yelled, hysterical. "This is slander!"
"Watch the footage, Hudson," Lucille said quietly. "Or are you asking me to show the world your hands?"
The ranger, now joined by two hikers, looked at the faces on the hill and then at the glowing screens in people's hands. He radioed the station.
"Please don't do this here," Quincy cried. His voice had the edges of shame in it and hunger and fear. He was shaking.
"I want you to feel small," Lucille said. "I want everyone to look at you and know."
"You're insane," Edison said. Tears were leaking now. "You can't—"
"Why not?" Lucille asked. "Why not? You have built lives on my silence. Now I'm not quiet."
The crowd murmured. "They did it? Oh my God," someone said.
"You should be put in prison," another voice called.
Francisco got up, stumbling. "Lucille—please—"
"Francisco," she said, and the name sounded like a razor. "You protected them."
He dropped to his knees in the dirt and started to beg. "Please. I'm sorry. I didn't— I didn't know."
"Too late," she said. "Go to the police and watch them tell you they can't help."
The ranger had listened in silence until now. He stepped forward and put his hand on Hudson's shoulder.
"Stay right here," he said. "Don't leave the trail."
"You're arresting us?" Hudson demanded.
"We're not arresting, yet," the ranger said. "But you are not leaving."
The crowd grew louder. Phones recorded every face. For the first time, the men looked like what they were: frightened and small. The shift was visible as a muscle under tense skin. Their defiance dissolved into sputtering denials, then into name-calling turned to pleading.
"Lucille, please, you promised," Hudson said finally, voice cracked. "We were college kids."
"You promised me when you were my friend," she said. "You promised me safety. You promised me you would never use me. You lied."
Quincy collapsed to his knees and pressed his face to the rocks. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm sorry." He seemed ready to melt.
A woman from the crowd pushed forward. She had children with her and she looked furious. "How could you do that to someone?" she said. "How could anyone be so cruel?"
Edison tried to speak. "It was consensual—"
"Stop," Lucille said, voice flat as slate. "It wasn't."
"There's the video," the ranger said into his radio. "We need units up here now."
The men began to break. Hudson's jaw worked like he'd forgotten how to swallow. Edison leaned against a tree and wrapped his arms around his head. Miles tried to walk away, but bystanders closed ranks. "Who's going to believe me?" he asked aloud, in a small voice.
"People are believing you now because they're seeing you," someone replied. "Look at your faces."
A few people started whispering, then pointing. Children watched with wide eyes. An older man spat a string of curses at them. Phones continued to stream.
"You're trying to make me a monster," Hudson said, voice hoarse. "You were part of it. You could have told. Why didn't you tell?"
"Because they threatened me," Lucille said. "Because I was younger and ashamed and hoped they'd protect me."
"You could have left," Quincy said, suddenly furious and self-flagellating at once. "You could have cried out."
"I did," Lucille said. "You just ignored it."
A roar went up when the ranger's radio crackled and someone said, "Unit, we have a complaint of assault and evidence being shown on site. Please respond."
The men went through motion after motion. Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Hudson's bluff broke when a dozen phones pointed at him like verdicts. "I'm sorry," he whispered, then louder: "I'm sorry!" It didn't sound real.
Quincy got sick and vomited on the trail, then started to sob. "Forgive me," he said to Lucille and to no one.
The public reaction changed from curiosity to judgment. One hiker recorded Evan, then Edison, as they trembled. Two women in the crowd compared notes, then marched to the ranger.
"We have to keep them here," one said. "They can't just walk away."
By the time two county officers clambered up, dragging cuffs, the damage had been done. The officers listened to Lucille, then to the ranger, then to the crowd. They asked if the men had been violent that day. They asked for names and pulled up the footage from the streaming phones.
"You're under investigation," one officer told Hudson and the others, and slammed a pair of cuffs on Hudson's wrists.
"No!" Hudson screamed. "No, you can't—"
"You're a disgrace," a stranger shouted. "You make me sick."
The officers shook their heads and read rights. Hudson flailed and tried to beg. "I had a child," he cried. "We had a life. I'm not a monster."
"A monster is what you were when you thought a woman's silence was a thing to own," Lucille said. "You're not victims; you're perpetrators."
Quincy's face folded like paper. Edison begged, then pleaded, then tried to explain away every action. The crowd offered no comfort. Someone stepped forward, smacked him in the face, and then pulled back. Children started to cry. People recorded the scene and uploaded it. The comments section filled with in-the-moment fury.
"Please," Francisco said to me, voice breaking. "Chana, please—"
"Stay away," I said. For once, I could not hear any love in his voice. He had been a complicitor by ignorance and cowardice. "Stay away."
The officers led them down the trail, past the people who had festivals of disgrace in their faces. A dozen phones captured the same expressions: shock, anger, pity for Lucille, shame for the men. The ranger watched them go without saying much more.
"Get in the cars," the officer told them. "We'll handle statements."
Hudson begged as they walked him to the vehicle. "I didn't—"
"You're going to have to answer for that," the officer said.
As they were driven away, the mountain seemed to release a long, slow exhale. The crowd dispersed in small clusters, still whispering. Lucille sat down and put her head in her hands. Her shoulders shook when she started to cry.
Later, at the station, the footage was evidence. When they were charged, the town watched every hearing like a grim, endless episode. Friends and family turned away. The narrative had shifted. No more jokes about "boys will be boys." The cameras recorded a different vocabulary: consent, coercion, threats, videos used like currency.
The public punishment wasn't just handcuffs; it was the unraveling of character in full view. They had to face each other in front of lawyers, in front of victims' advocates, in front of the press. Their partners left. Hudson's sister stood by the courthouse in sullen disbelief, then turned and walked away. Edison received a text from his mother that she couldn't see him anymore.
The worst was the way their faces changed in front of others. They went from practiced smiles to raw, tremoring men. The transition was the punishment. People saw them. They had to stand under the microscope of those who chose to look. They had to hear Lucille tell her story again and again, and for the men, each retelling added weight.
At one public hearing, the gallery was full. Lucille spoke with calm precision. I sat in the back, holding my bag. Francisco sat next to me, not holding my hand.
"You were there," Lucille said, facing Hudson across the room. "You watched. You are not innocent."
Hudson's face collapsed. "I'm sorry," he said. "I am so, so sorry."
"You should be," Lucille said. "You should be sorry forever."
The judge's gavel hit with a sound like a small bell in a large room. "Given the evidence," he said, "we find probable cause for indictment."
The cameras flashed. The newspapers printed the faces on their front pages. People who had once called them friends now called them criminals. Friends who had shielded them during youth turned away. The very community that had once given them warmth now turned its back. That was the slow, public thing I had been waiting for — the world around them turning away like daylight fading.
Months later, the trial delivered sentences. Quincy confessed in court and gave testimony that led to others' convictions. The terrible irony was that when the law did its work, the men did not die, but they lost everything that had ever been built on their lies. They became cautionary tales.
When Quincy was given the heaviest punishment, he broke in the courtroom. He shouted at Lucille, then fell silent, hands shaking. People cried in the gallery. There was no cheering—only a hollow sense that justice had been done, and that justice had a face like any other: plain, uncomfortable, and necessary.
The last time I saw Lucille was at the station after the hearings. She came to find me. "You know why Francisco helped me?" she said, and I waited.
"Because Quincy told him that if he didn't protect me by siding against the others, they'd ruin him," she said. "He thought he was helping. But help without truth is cowardice."
"Will you forgive him?" I asked.
She laughed, a small, tired sound. "No. Forgiving him would be for his benefit. I have no such motion left."
Quincy would disappear and be tried. Hudson and Edison and Miles would be convicted in turn. The public shaming and the courtroom scenes had stripped them of their comfortable corners. Where they had once been protected by silence, now the world had spoken.
I walked away from the town with Lucille later that year. We did not exchange many words. She had been the instrument of revenge, the woman who burned a tent to stop years of being silenced. Some called her monstrous. Some called her brave. I called her honest in the only way that mattered: she did not pretend.
At times I still think about Francisco. He tried to be kind in small ways, but kindness is no shield against knowing better. He had been spared the worst for a while, but the truth finds all its cracks.
I promised myself I would not forget the way the mountain watched. The mountain was witness and jury, with hikers for witnesses and the sky as a quiet roof. It is a place that keeps its silence unless someone makes it speak. Lucille spoke, and the mountain spoke back.
The End
— Thank you for reading —