by E. Cleveland
“Born and raised,” she answers. “My dad is a big sports guy. We have a box suite at The Garden. Whenever he isn’t working, he can pretty much be found there. If he wasn’t watching the Knicks, it was the Rangers.”
“Box suite? Sounds amazing.”
“It was a perk of his job. Dad’s a heart surgeon. Apparently he’s really good at it.” She doesn’t sound that impressed by the whole thing. Kind of bored actually. “I guess the hospitals don’t think the scads of cash are enough to keep guys like him, so they throw in extras,” she explains.
“That’s quite the extra. Man, playing hockey at Madison Square is on the bucket list.”
“For the NHL?”
“That’s the dream, yeah. Gotta get scouted first.” I frown, remembering how shitty we’ve been doing this season. Last year, it felt more like a life plan than a dream. We need to fucking fix that.
“Well, if you do, let me know and I’ll go watch your game.” She tucks her fiery hair behind her ear and looks up at me. She looks so sexy, her pouty lips send a bunch of thoughts about how soft they must feel firing through my brain again.
Brrr-ing! Brrr-ing!
Hattie’s phone interrupts the moment, slicing right through it with the annoying ring. She pulls it out from her bra, which does nothing to dampen down those thoughts. It’s none of my business, but I need a fucking distraction, so I look at the name on the screen. Bridezilla. Interesting. She sends the call to voicemail and drops it down on her coffee table where it immediately starts ringing again. If possible, it sounds even more shrill and annoying this time. Hattie screens the call again.
“Sorry about that.” She shakes her head.
“Yeah, no worries.”
Ding!
Ding!
Ding!
Clearly, whoever Bridezilla is, she isn’t taking being ignored very well. Hattie’s phone is blowing up with text messages, one after another being fired off like rounds from a machine gun. She picks it back up, and her eyes go wide as she reads the screen.
“Shit,” she whispers. “Um, just a sec, okay?” She doesn’t wait for me to answer. Hattie jumps up, cell phone in hand, and practically runs away.
“Uh, sure,” I say to no one. Hattie already took off down the hall to her bedroom, leaving me wondering if I should stay or go. This has got to be the strangest fucking date I’ve ever been on.
10
TikTok Sex Videos
Hattie
Bridezilla: answer
Bridezilla: It’s an emergency! about ur bf!!!
Bridezilla: you gotta delete ur SEX VIDEO!!!!
That last text is what sent me running to my bedroom to take this call. I have no idea what Clemmie thinks she saw, but I know a sex video isn’t it. My entire body burns pink just at the thought. Poor Griz! First I made him move an eighteen-ton couch, and now I’m leaving him to fend for himself while I take a personal call. Once my bedroom door clicks shut, I push the green button to accept her call. The word “Hello” doesn’t even get a chance to come out of my mouth before she starts yelling.
“Delete that file! What are you doing with your life?” Clementine’s shrill voice pierces my eardrum.
“What file?” Any lingering worries about how bad of a date I am evaporate as my entire brain does a full-scan to figure out what the hell my sister is talking about. Since she started planning her wedding, I’ve gotten used to her calling me, irritated about one thing or another. Making up sex videos that I know I’ve never made is a new low though. I’m confused, and she’s doing nothing to clear up my confusion.
“That dirty audio file. It’s in our group chat. Get rid of it. Jeez, are you trying to traumatize our parents? Because you’re doing a great job, Hattie. Mom is having a nervous breakdown over here.”
Dirty audio file?
“I never posted anything like that. I’ve never even made anything like that.” I shake my head. She’s not interested in the facts though. Bridezilla is in full-rage mode, and there’s just no explaining anything to her when she gets like this.
“Look, I get that this is like, your first boyfriend or whatever, but no one wants to hear that shit. God, he’s so obviously cramming his dick in your ass…”
“Clementine!” Mom sounds like she might faint.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Now I’m the one yelling. Confused, yelling and being kink-shamed for a kink I’ve never even tried, I pull the phone away from my ear and open the group chat my family set up to interrogate me about Griz. Sure enough, there’s an audio file there. It shows that I posted it about half an hour ago. It says both my sister and mother have “seen” it. Oh dear sweet baby Jesus, what is even happening right now? Was I hacked? Don’t hackers typically try to get your bank information? Why on earth would this be a thing?
“You accidentally posted some audio file of you and your boyfriend humping,” Clementine explains. “Mom is going to need therapy for this one, Hattie. I hope you’re fucking happy. You finally got the attention back on you,” she starts ranting. “You just couldn’t handle it being on me, could you. Not even for my wedding. Typical.” She sniffs.
Yeah, because that’s how it goes. I roll my eyes. I’m not the attention whore constantly looking for mommy and daddy’s validation. I’m the daughter who went to university out of state to pursue a career her parents didn’t approve of. Meanwhile, Clementine not only dresses like our mother and styles her hair the same way, she’s also a divorce lawyer, just like mom. And she’s marrying a surgeon, just like dad.
“Tell her to delete it. If your father listens to that, he’s going to have a heart attack. I can’t believe Hattie is making those TikTok sex videos,” mom moans dramatically in the background. I can practically hear her hands wringing. Both of them, so dramatic.
“I don’t know what that file is, but I’ve never made anything like that.” I drop my voice.
“Yeah, you did,” Clementine argues with me, and it sends a jolt of irritation down my spine. Her tone changes. “Mom, just relax, will ya? You’re the one who’s going to have a heart attack if you don’t calm down. And TikTok isn’t where people post sex videos.” I can hear the eye-roll in her voice.
“Yes it is. Your father and I watched a whole thing about it on the news.”
I frown. “Trust me, I think I’d know if I had a file or recording or video or whatever.” I can’t hide my testiness. “I can see that something got posted in the group, but I didn’t put it up there. It’s probably some kind of spam hack thingy or something.” I grasp at the only explanation I can muster. The fact is, I have no idea what that is, but I know what it’s not. Since Griz and I have never had sex, and my butt-hole cherry is still fully intact, I’m confident that she’s wrong.
“Then what’s this?” She clicks something and I can hear the damning evidence start to play.
“Fuck, it’s tight.”
Griz’s voice is strained and my face burns up bright when I hear it.
“Ahhh! Oh, God. It’s too much. It won’t fit.”
My whimpery groans sound pretty damning.
“I’ll make it fit.”
Oh, fuck. Why did this happen? How did this happen? “Turn it off,” I whisper, staring at my phone in disbelief. The crack in my screen jogs my memory and almost makes me drop it all over again. When I dropped my phone and shoved it in my bra, I must have pressed open our chat or something. I want to shrivel up into dust and blow away. Even though it’s not what it sounds like, but boy it really does sound like it.
“Griz! It’s in a little. Not much, but it’s something. Let’s keep going.”
“Turn it off!” I yell. For once, Clemmie actually listens, and the audio stops playing.
“She is going to kill her father. Kill him,” Mom wails. “Hattie?” she yells out like she’s trying to communicate from another planet. “Why are you doing sex videos on the TikTok? Do you need money?”
I sigh so hard that it’s all my body can manage to do. I can’t stand. Instead, I fall t
o my bed. I can’t even keep my eyes open. Every part of my body is trying so hard not to die of embarrassment right now that the rest of my functions are shutting off.
“Mom, stop with the TikTok thing. Just because you saw a Dateline special on it, doesn’t mean that’s what this is. This is audio, not video. TikTok is videos,” my sister explains.
So helpful, that one.
I lift my phone away from my ear and try to delete the clip out of our group chat, but of course, it won’t delete. No matter how many times I select the option, it defiantly stays put. Fuck my life.
“I can’t delete it from my phone. I’ve gotta try on my computer. I’ll figure it out. Just don’t let dad go in the group chat until I do. It’s not what it sounds like though. I promise.” I sit back up on my bed and can’t help but wonder if the witness relocation program really is an option. Like, do they have a website I can check out, or…
“Pfft, yeah, okay,” Clemmie cuts in. Again, helpful. Big sister of the year, right here.
“It’s not. Griz and I were moving a sofa into the apartment. We had a hard time getting it in the elevator. That’s all.”
Silence. In fact, the call goes so silent I pull the phone away from my ear to check if we’re still connected. We are.
“He’s moving furniture into the apartment?” Mom sounds stunned like she just snapped back to reality after being zapped-by-a-taser stunned. “Are… wait. Is he living with you, Hattie?”
I don’t even get a chance to deflect or deny because my sister jumps right back in.
“No, come on, mom,” she scoffs.
“What?” Mom answers.
“He’s on the Westbury hockey team.” Her voice gets muffled, and I can almost see her pushing it against her chest to block out her words, but I can still make them out.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Mom hasn’t clued into the point that, in my gut, I know my sister is trying to make. I don’t need to keep pressing my ear into my phone to hear her words to understand her meaning. I still do though.
“Guys like that don’t move in with girls like Hattie.” She puts it out there. Like the dull end of an axe being smashed into the back of my head, it’s blunt and painful. She says it like it shouldn’t need explaining. She says it like there’s zero chance that could happen. She says it like she’s just so fucking sure a guy like Griz could never want more than to fuck around with a girl like me…whatever a girl like me even means.
I know what she means. She means a fat girl. Clemmie might not use those words, but her meaning is clear. A hot jock could never fall for the fat girl, right? Anger boils up inside me so that it heats up my insides and burns up my throat.
I want to smack my sister. I want to smack that smugness out of her voice. However, I was born in a generation where we were taught to “use our words” not our hands to solve things. So, I will use my words.
To smack her.
Hard.
“Well, you’re wrong, Clemmie,” I interrupt, and she gasps. Audibly gasps.
“What?” Her disbelief is so obvious I almost hate her for it.
“You are living together?” My mother cuts in.
“Yes.” There’s still so much edge to my voice, even though the realization of how much deeper I’m making this hole for myself is starting to hit me.
“Since when?” The hurt in mom’s tone makes me cringe.
My family and I aren’t perfect, but we’re close enough that keeping a boyfriend a secret is bad. A boyfriend who lives with me? That’s a whole other level of betrayal.
“Only a couple weeks.” I’m surprised at my own lie. I don’t remember even thinking that answer through. It just fell out of my mouth. “I was going to tell you.” I look up at my closed bedroom door, knowing that Griz is just on the other side of it, waiting for me down the hall. What am I doing? I can’t handle what I’m getting myself into. “I wanted to wait until after the wedding though.”
The silence is back. That lack of noise hurts almost as much as my sister’s words. Almost.
“I guess I can understand that.” My mother sounds slightly less hurt. “You didn’t want to overshadow your sister’s big day.” She comes to terms with my lies.
So many lies.
My gut twists with guilt and stress. I’m so far down in this hole I’ve dug, I can barely see sunlight. I’d rather die than let my sister know she’s right. I’m perfectly aware that guys like Griz don’t fall for girls like me. The only jock that ever showed any interest in me was in high school. Ted. That fucking prick. He suggested I could be his hook-up girl on the low. He actually thought his proposal of meeting up with him to give him secret blowjobs was going to have me falling on my knees in gratitude.
Pig.
I blink back the sting of tears that a guy like Ted never deserved. There’s no time for shitty trips down memory lane. There’s no time for this phone call either. I need to get that file deleted.
“I’ve gotta go.” My voice is flat and abrupt.
“Hattie, I really think we should talk about your boyfriend. Your father and I don’t know the first thing about him, and you’re living together? I just think you’re taking this thing too fast,” mom worries.
“We’ll talk about it later, mom. I’ve gotta go.” I hang up, not waiting for any more of this toxic phone call from hell.
Deep breaths, Hattie. Deep breaths.
No matter how many I take, I can’t seem to calm down. My hands are shaking, more from anger than worrying about my father listening to that file. Scratch that, it’s about fifty-fifty. Phone clutched in hand, I head back out to my living room where Griz is looking like a Herculean Greek statue, chiseled to perfection on my new couch.
I can’t even look at him. It just makes my sister’s words hurt more. Guys like that don’t move in with girls like Hattie. I don’t want to hate her, but right now I’m failing.
“How’s Bridezilla?” His smirk catches me off guard almost as much as his words.
Does he know? Fear and embarrassment and anger, they all twist up in a braided rope inside my guts. And then that rope ties into knots. It’s too much. I don’t even know what to say. I don’t even know where to begin. I’m so deep in this thing that I have no idea how to get out with anything resembling a shred of dignity still intact.
First things first, delete the file. I grab my laptop and try to avoid his eyes. “She’s freaking out. She thinks I put an audio file of you and me having sex in my family group chat,” I explain, flinging my screen up on my computer.
“What? Why would anyone do that?” He laughs, but stops when he sees how upset I am. I can barely hold back my tears.
“No one would,” I answer. “When I dropped my phone I must have accidentally recorded us pushing the sofa into the elevator and…”
“Oh, shit.” He laughs again.
I click the family chat and manage to delete the file. Finally. I should feel relieved, right? Instead, the tears burst free like water breaking a dam. The Hoover Dam. I don’t mean for the words to come out with them, but they just sort of blubber out of me in a sobbing confession.
“I told them I have a boyfriend. You, actually. I didn’t want to go to my sister’s wedding without a date. The perfect girl. That’s what she’s always been. And I’ve always been the red-headed freaking potato.” I clench my fists, saying the words out loud that I’ve felt for so many years. In my family of skinny, perfect, professional blondes, I’m the human potato with red clown hair.
This is a lot to dump out, but Griz is just listening. I’m not sure why. Maybe I just can’t carry this all around on my soul anymore. I keep talking, against my better judgement. Honestly, I don’t think I can stop the words from coming out now.
“So, I lied,” I continue. “I got sick of her assuming I could never need a plus-one, and I lied. I told them you would be my plus one, and then I put that stupid bid on you.” The tears and words both compete for what can come out of my face the fastest. I’m not su
re what Griz is doing anymore. I can’t see anything when I’m crying this much. I drop my head, and the tears fall down onto my jeans, even as I try to wipe them away with my fingertips.
“But I couldn’t tell you, of course,” I sniffle. “Because, who does that? Who’s like, ‘Oh, you know that charity date? Well, it’s actually to be my plus-one at my sister’s wedding in New York. Oh and by the way, do you mind being my fake boyfriend while we’re there?’ So, I bought that ugly, stupid sofa just to cover my ass and not look like the insane person I’m starting to wonder if I am. And then what do I do? Double down. Double the fuck down on this whole stupid thing and tell my mom that we live together. What is wrong with me?” I choke out the last question.
I can’t look at him. I’ll never be able to look at him again after this. “Clemmie’s right. Guys like you don’t move in with girls like me.”
Through the blur of my tears, I see his face transform. He sets his jaw. His eyes narrow and flash with something that looks like anger, but is probably concern that I’m a psycho. Cue his exit in three… two…
Griz doesn’t run. He doesn’t jump out the window. He gets off the sofa and walks over to me. His hands are so big, but his touch is so gentle as his palm slides over my shoulder. It’s comforting and warm.
“When’s the wedding?”
Not the question I was expecting. I definitely thought this was going to go in a more “can I get your full name and address for my restraining order” direction.
“During spring break. Not that it matters. None of it matters,” I sniffle. “I swear I’m not normally so irrational. Normally I’ve got my shit together. It’s just, my sister has been going on and on about my weight. All these subtle jabs about getting my dress let out or wearing a corset, and, I don’t know, when she just figured there’s no way I’d need a plus-one, I guess I flipped. I wanted to make her eat her words. But she’s right.” The lump in my throat grows about ten sizes. “She’s right.”
“I’ll go,” he says it at a normal volume, but I don’t trust my ears.
