CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The next day, Sebastian said he had a surprise for me, so after camp I picked him up. He bounced down his porch steps with his giant shoes and his dimples, a blue backpack on his shoulders.
He looked at me carefully as he got in the car. I was still wearing my Marwood shirt and shorts.
“I didn’t have time to go home and change.”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” he said, smiling. “It would have taken too long, and I couldn’t wait anymore to see you. And besides, you look cute.”
My chest expanded as I stared at him, taking in his beautiful dark brown eyes. My body begged me to kiss him. Instead I smiled and drove as he gave me directions.
“Take the next right,” Sebastian said, after a few minutes.
“Here?” I swerved into the entrance of the park preserve. “What are we doing here?”
I’d been here before with Dad, Scott, and Gavin. We’d gone for hikes, festivals, a few overnight camping trips. Mom would almost always bow out, claiming she wanted us kids to be able to spend some quality time with Dad, but I had always suspected she just wanted time to herself.
“Picnic,” Sebastian said.
“You made us lunch? That’s what’s in the backpack?”
“Knapsack,” he said.
“It’s a backpack.”
“Knapsack,” he said, smiling.
“Whatever. Did you make us lunch?”
On either side of the road there must have been twenty different shades of green on the trees.
“Well, I didn’t so much make lunch as assemble it, but yes, I have lunch for us.”
“Are you trying to charm my pants off?” I asked.
“I have to try? What beautiful girl such as yourself wouldn’t want this?” He gestured from his fuzzy head all the way down to his giant unlaced sneakers and flexed his nearly nonexistent biceps. “Besides, you’re wearing shorts, not pants.”
I giggled. Yes, I giggled.
“Not like you’re available anyway,” he said.
He pointed straight, so I kept driving. But I wasn’t going to let that go; this wasn’t all on me.
“Not just me,” I said. “You’re not available either. That Jacqueline really messed you up, huh?”
I suspected he was still in love with her, and the masochistic part of me wanted to push him to admit it. At the mention of her name, he turned his face toward the window, and I wished I’d kept my mouth shut.
“So, after the bridge, you’ll pull into the parking lot,” he said.
We entered a part of the preserve I’d never been to. The road became a narrow wooden bridge and emptied into a dirt parking lot where there were two cars and a blue porta-john.
I parked, and we walked to a half-grassy, half-mossy clearing with a few picnic tables that faced a shallow stream trickling over rocks. A woman was walking her dog toward a path in the woods.
“This is peaceful,” I said.
“My mom used to bring me here before she met my stepdad.”
Sebastian spread out a red fleece blanket, and we sat by the stream. We stayed quiet for a while, watching the water, listening to the birds. The sun glinted through the leaves and danced on his fingers. We were sitting so close that I could almost feel the hair on his arm against mine. I wanted to jump him—to wrap my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist and hold on tight, press my lips against his and breathe him in. I tried to shake the image by concentrating on a squirrel chasing another up a tree.
“How’s today been?” I asked.
“Better than yesterday. My meeting was good. Hopeful.”
I nodded.
“Okay,” he said. “Give it to me. I’m ready.”
“What?”
“Tell me your stuff now.”
I felt my cheeks get hot.
“You should know by now I’m not letting up,” he said. “You need to talk about it; you said I was helping you figure stuff out. But what stuff? Like why you hate your mom?”
“I don’t hate my mom,” I said.
“Well, you told me she doesn’t notice you. Look, you’ve seen the worst of me now, and I’m still standing.”
He touched my shoulder and looked at me curiously. At the thought of telling him, my heart plunged to my stomach, like when you take a hill too fast in the car. I remembered my excitement when Scott would enter my room, my confused self-disgust when he’d leave, and everything that happened in between.
Sebastian must have seen a change in my face because he said, “What is it?”
Part of me wanted to just open my mouth and let it all spill out, but I couldn’t. Instead I stood and turned toward the parking lot. I walked fast, tears stinging behind my eyes.
“Don’t!” he called after me. “Macy!”
Suddenly he was right behind me, but I just kept walking as fast as I could.
“Why won’t you just leave it alone?” I said.
I wouldn’t look at him but I could hear him breathing. He was staying a slight distance behind me.
I got into my car. I had no plan to leave. I didn’t know why I was being like this.
Sebastian grabbed the door before I could close it. I glared at him, but he just stood there.
“Let go,” I demanded.
“No.” He was calm. Solid.
“Goddammit,” I said, trying to pull the door closed, but it wouldn’t budge with him holding onto it. “I don’t want this. I don’t want to talk to you.” But I also wanted nothing more than to talk to him.
He let go of the door and I slammed it shut. But then he walked around to the passenger door, opened it, and folded himself into the seat. I tried to take a deep breath, but it caught in my throat and made a small choking sound. Sebastian closed his eyes. He waited. I breathed. He waited some more.
“You don’t have to talk, but I’m not going anywhere,” he said.
He didn’t open his eyes, but he reached for my hand and found it. Instinctively, I grasped his hand tight, relieved that he really wouldn’t leave.
That night at Rebecca’s had launched a sea change in me. I’d begun to look at my life through fresh eyes, through Sebastian’s eyes. It was like he knew, like he’d always known, and was trying to get me to tell him so he could help me see that it was wrong. So long ago, I’d stuffed my dusty memories and feelings into a neat little lockbox in my gut, coated it with numbing anesthesia, added a touch of self-deceit, and thrown away the key. The result was denial … and emptiness. Whenever I thought about what happened with Scott, that lockbox swallowed the truth and spat out lies, making me believe that it all was no big deal, that it was normal. But now, it was like Sebastian had taken a box knife to that package. And I knew it was time to tell someone. To tell him.
“I’ve never told anyone,” I said quietly. “But since that night at Rebecca’s, I haven’t been able to fake myself out as well as I used to. I know that things I’ve always tried to pretend were nothing, were actually something.”
He squeezed my hand gently and stayed quiet.
“My cousin Scott, you know, the asshole-slash-not-asshole.”
“Mmmhmm?”
My heart beat faster than it had when we’d gone running. Was I really going to do this?
I took a shaky breath and tried to find the words.
“Macy, I was in the psych ward. I heard a lot of shit. Nothing you say will shock me.”
I couldn’t say it. I didn’t even know how to say it.
“Is it what I think it is?” he asked quietly.
“Probably.”
He said “shit” under his breath. He let go of my hand, grabbed the back of his head, and rubbed. Then he put his face right in front of mine and made me look at him. His eyes were wild, frantic, trying to get into mine.
“He sexually abused you?”
The way he said it so clinically, like it was a diagnosis, made me feel sick to my stomach.
“It wasn’t abuse,” I said.
“What wa
s it then?”
“I don’t know.”
He stared at me.
“I don’t know,” I said again. “I thought it wasn’t a big deal. I wanted to be with him. I thought that maybe something was wrong with me, but not him. But now, since I met you, since visiting you there and stuff, seeing these little kids at camp, it seems to matter more. I think I’m confused.”
“Let’s get out of the car,” he said gently. “Come on.”
He came around to my side and opened my door. We walked back to the blanket.
I could feel my eyes burning like they wanted to cry, but nothing was coming out. We sat on the blanket, keeping about a foot between us. For a second, I worried that he was keeping his distance because he was disgusted by what I’d said. But I knew he was probably just trying to give me space.
“Tell me about it,” he said. “Tell me what happened.”
I didn’t even know if my voice would work.
“Tell me how it started,” he said quietly.
I thought of the day Scott taught me about football when I was seven. How he had me sit on his lap, then moved his legs up and down faster and faster, and I figured he was just excited about the football game. Deep down, I’d known there was something else happening that I couldn’t quite figure out.
“I’ll tell you about the day it ended,” I said. “I almost drowned. It’s why I don’t swim anymore.”
I stared at a tree branch waving delicately in the breeze. It reminded me of my oak tree and I felt calmer.
“I was twelve, so Scott was nineteen. He always treated me like I was more grown up than I was. He told me I was so mature and that I really understood him. He said he wished there were more girls like me his age.
“This one day he wanted to hang out—that’s what he always called it—‘hanging out.’ I was in the pool and he got out and sat on the edge so I could, um—”
My face suddenly felt hot. I didn’t want to go on. The shame rose up in me—I was disgusting, a girl willing to give her own cousin a hand job without even questioning it. I was the only girl I knew who did that. Anyone else would have had more respect for herself, would have known to keep her innocence. Anyone else would have said no. So why didn’t I?
“Go on,” Sebastian said. “It’s okay.”
The soothing tone in his voice made me keep talking.
“Then I felt a shadow, and I looked up and saw my dad standing there, blocking the sun. I remember thinking he looked like a giant. But I could see his face and it was filled with disgust. He yelled something, but everything was a blur. All I could see was his revulsion. And then thoughts started crowding my head. That we got caught. That I was a horrible person. That I was the biggest disappointment. That my dad was repulsed by me.
“I hated knowing that, and I didn’t know what to do. I don’t know what happened next because my mind went blank. I was in the deep end of the pool, and I couldn’t keep my head above the water anymore. I went under and breathed in, and the water filled my mouth and nose. I sank. But then I guess I understood what was happening and I started pushing myself up, choking and freaking out. And then I blacked out.”
Sebastian stayed quiet.
“When I woke up, I realized Scott had pulled me out of the pool.”
I could still smell the chlorinated water in my nose, the way my throat burned from the choking and coughing.
I turned toward Sebastian. I watched his long eyelashes moving up and down as he blinked.
“No wonder you don’t swim anymore,” he said.
I nodded, but I realized that I wasn’t afraid of drowning like I’d always thought; I was afraid I might want to drown. I didn’t want him to see my face. I was afraid he’d know what I’d just figured out.
“My dad cried and kept hugging me,” I continued. “It was terrible to see him cry. He asked me a thousand times if I was okay, and I just kept saying yes. It wasn’t a lie, I guess, because I was alive. Later that day when my mom got home, she got all dramatic. She blamed herself for not being home. She wanted to fill in the pool. She promised to always protect me, blah, blah, blah.”
“Your mom knows,” Sebastian said. “That’s good.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t make a difference. I mean, Scott never touched me again. But nobody ever mentioned it again either.”
“What? They never did anything or talked about it?”
“Nothing. Never.”
“Well, what did your mom say when you told her about what had been going on?” he asked.
“I didn’t want to tell her what happened. I was so embarrassed, and she just always doted on Scott, you know? I thought she would blame me because he was so perfect. But my dad said she had to know, so he said he would tell her himself when she got home. And then, I guess because I knew she knew, I just kept waiting for her to say something and like, act like a mom, but she never did. I think she was so disgusted with me, she just wanted it to go away.”
Sebastian looked at me for a long time, his eyes sad.
“I’m sorry, Macy.”
I’d always felt that I may as well have drowned that day—because no one heard, no one cared. And if everyone acted like what happened wasn’t a big deal, then I just had to believe them. I was twelve; what the hell did I know? Since then, I’d always thought I was okay, that I was tough, that I could swim my way through life. But maybe I had just been surviving. Just floating. Not swimming.
“And you know what the thing is?” I said.
“Hmmm?”
“She still worships Scott.”
“It’s so wrong,” he said.
“I never did anything about it, though. I almost looked forward to our time together. Isn’t that disgusting and pathetic?”
After all I’d told him, this was almost the worst. I’d wanted Scott to want me, to love me.
Sebastian squinted at me in the sun.
“He took advantage of you. He took your innocence.”
“I wanted it too.” I choked a little on the last word.
“You were too young to get it,” he said. “And he was old enough to know better.”
My eyes burned.
“And your parents never even dealt with it. Really, not a word?”
“No, my mom’s never said anything other than ‘that day’ references, and stuff about my pool phobia. My dad always asked me if I was okay, big sympathetic hugs, that kind of thing, and he and Scott never really got along well afterward, but he’s never actually mentioned it. I think it’s his way of pretending that he didn’t see what he saw. I mean, no father should see his daughter doing that.”
“I’m so sorry,” Sebastian said.
I felt the tears wanting to come again. But I’d let it all out and now I was done.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m fine now. Ancient history. As far as I’m concerned, it was some other girl.”
“But it wasn’t some other girl, Macy. It was you.”
Now I was ready to shut this thing down.
“I’m done talking about it now,” I said, my voice cold. Sebastian looked stunned, but he recovered quickly and played along.
“Okay. I get it.”
He lay down on his back and looked up at the sky.
“There’s an elephant.” He pointed at a cloud that definitely had a trunk-looking thing.
I lay down next to him. I rubbed my eyes.
“Tulip,” I said, pointing to another cloud.
Sebastian reached up and took my hand, interlaced his fingers in mine, and then put our joined hands down between us on the blanket.
I leaned my head right up against him, his shoulder touching my eyebrow. I closed my eyes and drifted into a perfect dreamless nap.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Six hours later, I stood in front of the mirror trying to apply black eyeliner.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I said under my breath. The simple task of putting on eyeliner seemed impossible—it was going all over the place. I’d thought telling Sebasti
an would make the memories stop haunting me. But it was the opposite—my secrets, memories, feelings—were all out, roaming free, swirling all around. After being pushed aside for years, they’d taken center stage.
Through my open door, I could hear the water running in Gavin’s bathroom while he shaved. Tap tap tap. I kicked my door shut, but I could still hear the sound in my head.
Tap tap tap. Scott brought the razor to his face and slid it down his white foam-covered cheek, making a clean line like a plowed row in a field.
“So, what’cha reading?” he asked.
“Oh, um, it’s about surviving a nuclear bomb.” I showed him the book in my hand—an ominous mushroom cloud on the cover.
“Sounds uplifting,” he said.
Scott never invited me into his room. I waited patiently to see what he wanted from me, but so far, nothing. Maybe I was getting old enough and interesting enough that he really just wanted to talk.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“To the city with some of the guys from school. Try to get into some clubs.” He was home for the weekend from boarding school. He went there after he got kicked out of public school for smoking pot in the bathroom.
“So, how’s fourth grade going?”
“Fifth,” I said.
“You got a boyfriend?” He finished shaving and then wiped his face with a towel.
“No.”
“What about that kid you’re always with,” he said. “The chubster down the street.”
“Chris. He’s my friend.” It normally infuriated me when people made fun of Chris’s weight, but I didn’t bother calling Scott on it.
“Yeah, right,” Scott said and winked at me. He went into his room then and pulled jeans and two shirts out of his closet.
“Which one?” He held up a black T-shirt and a yellow and green striped polo.
“That one,” I said, pointing at the yellow and green.
“Hmmm. I think the black one’s cooler.” He threw the yellow one on the bed. He let the towel drop from around his waist and stood naked. I turned away. He got dressed, brushed his hair.
“Have fun,” I said and started to leave his room.
“Wait. Let’s hang out a little.”
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