by Penny Reid
“Ta-da!” Gabby stepped to the side, revealing a coffee table covered in ice cream sundae toppings.
I had to swallow because my mouth was abruptly watering. What time is it? Is it lunchtime?
As though reading my thoughts, Lisa said, “It’s ice cream and storytime,” shoving a bowl at Gabby. “Don’t forget to take your Lactaid.”
“Thanks, mom.” Gabby accepted the bowl and turned to kneel next to the table. “Okay, Mona, let’s hear it. What’s going on with the Redburn front man? Yesterday you were crying at a bus stop over his band’s poster, and today—according to Lisa—he’s kicking in the door and giving you movie kisses. Consider me shook. Last time I heard, he was still a manwhore. Fill in the blanks, please.”
Manwhore?
My gaze drifted to my sister where she was perched on the other side of the sofa, her eyes wide and watchful, biting her lip as though trying her best to hold her tongue.
“Abram isn’t a manwhore.”
Gabby shrugged. “Okay, a goodtime guy.”
“He’s not that either.” I cleared my throat, and then took a sip of the wine. It was nice. Not too dry. Good balance. “And I’m not really sure where to start.”
“I’m sorry!” Lisa’s sudden exclamation drew my attention. “I’m so sorry. I was—I was a complete asshole when he showed up here with Tyler. Tyler makes me so angry! But I—he—I mean, Abram was right. I shouldn’t have talked to you that way. And I’m sorry. So sorry. So, so sorry.”
I stared at my sister, surprised, perplexed, and yet also warmed by her unexpected apology. For Lisa, it was practically gushing.
Gabby cut in, “Assuage your guilt later, Lisa. Let Mona talk.” She then turned to me. “Start with what happened in Aspen. Lisa already told me about your phone call, where you asked her permission to tell him the truth. Did you? What did he do? What did he say? Tell us everything.”
I took a deep breath, and then I took another sip of wine. Well, it had started out like a sip, but it ended up being a gulp.
Licking my lips, I sorted through all the details of our latest week together, the hurt, the misunderstandings, the burned letters, our first kiss, and I blurted, “Do you like to be dominated during sex?”
Both Gabby and Lisa reared back, their eyes wide as they shared a look and I glanced between them, wondering what on earth and the Sagittarius Arm of the Milky Way I had been thinking. Why would you ask them that?
Before I could dial back the random, Gabby said, “Is Abram into that kind of stuff? Does he, I mean, is he, like, a dom?”
Her voice was free of judgment. Even so, I was shaking my head before she’d finished her first question.
“No. That’s not what I mean. I mean, do you like—or I guess, do you think it’s healthy—to like it when a guy holds you down? Or if he’s over you when you do stuff? Even if he’s heavy and physically stronger than you? Do you like that? Or is it wrong to like it?”
Gabby and Lisa shared another look, with Lisa speaking this time, “I don’t have a ton of experience with lots of guys—as you know, there was and has been no one before, during, or after the T-bag—but . . .” Her eyes moved up and to the right, like she was searching her memory. “Are you talking about missionary? I liked that position okay. I thought other positions were better, though. Is that what you’re asking?”
I gathered another deep inhale, trying to figure out what I was asking, when Gabby beat me to it. “Are you worried that liking something you’ve done with Abram—while intimate—makes you somehow screwed up?”
I nodded, because that was a decent approximation of my question.
“Hmm.” Lisa seemed to be considering. “I don’t think sex works like that. I mean, I don’t know for sure. But sex is like, I mean, aren’t we tapping into a different part of ourselves? It’s like, not something you can apply logic to, you know? You like what you like, and as long as it doesn’t hurt someone, or it’s not illegal, then I’m pretty sure anything goes. Don’t you think?”
Gabby didn’t wait for me to respond, instead asking, “First, did he do anything to hurt you?”
Now I shook my head vehemently. “No. Not at all.”
Gabby’s gaze flickered over me, and I got the sense a suspicion was forming in her mind. My heart quickened as a result and I finished the rest of the wine in three large gulps.
“Mona.”
“Gabby,” I rasped, my throat tight, experiencing one of those odd moments where you know what’s going to happen, what another person is going to say, but you’re powerless to stop it.
“Is this about that thing that happened when you were fifteen?”
Our gazes locked, her green eyes intense. Mine were probably cagey.
“Is there any more wine?” I asked. Now my heart was hammering.
“You should slow down.” Gabby motioned to the bowl beside me, her tone firm. “Eat your ice cream and answer the question.”
“What am I missing?” Lisa sat forward on the couch, reaching for a spoon and dusting her chocolate ice cream with peanuts. “What happened when Mona was fifteen?”
Gabby made a choking sound. “You never told Lisa?”
I had to clear my throat. “I told you, nothing—”
“Holy shit, you still believe nothing happened? I swear to God, Mona. Get a fucking grip. You were assaulted!”
“What?” Lisa whisper-shrieked, dropping the peanut spoon with a clatter.
I stood up, setting my bowl on the table, turning toward the kitchen first, then the front door, and then the bathroom. “I have to—”
“No, you don’t.” Gabby also stood, placing herself in my path and grabbing my shoulders. “Tell your sister. Tell her. Or don’t but tell someone! Why do you insist on carrying this trauma around? As my therapist always says, you have to confront trauma or else you’ll never be able to move past it.”
“Okay.” I nodded, not really hearing her, my mind in disorder, my hands trembling, but my voice was perfectly calm as I said, “But first I need to pee.”
Gabby released me, shaking her head and lifting her arm toward the bathroom. “Go, then.”
I sprinted toward the bathroom, catching the first part of Lisa’s whispered, “You need to tell me what the hell happened before I . . .”
Once I was safely closed within the small rectangular space, I leaned my back against the door, gulping in wine-flavored air, and fought a fresh wave of tears. My hands were still trembling. I was sweating. My heart was still racing.
And this time, inexplicably, for whatever reason, when I repeated to myself that nothing actually happened, the words felt like a lie.
“Mona?”
I stirred, my back straightening at the sound of Lisa’s voice. I had no idea what time it was, just that I’d been sitting on the closed toilet lid for such an extended period, I’d passed the excuse “needs to pee” a long while ago and firmly entered “may require serious medical attention.”
“Open up,” she said.
Staring at the closed door, I debated my options. I’d heard Lisa and Gabby’s murmuring voices, and then I’d heard the front door open and close. And now, some minutes later, Lisa was standing outside, and I was extremely reluctant to let her in.
“Mona.” Her voice was gentle, and I thought I heard her place something on the door between us, maybe her hand. “Gabby told me what happened at school, when—when you were fifteen. Open the door.”
Those tears I’d fought so hard to dispel threatened another appearance. I swallowed convulsively, blinking, fighting the stinging behind my eyes, and stood. I didn’t want to cry. With Abram I would. But with Lisa? She’d said they made me weak. Therefore, no. I didn’t want to cry with her. I needed to get a handle on these zany feelings before I could face her.
Then she said, “You know that you’re not to blame, right?”
I covered my mouth with my hand, breathing in through my nose, waiting for the wave of emotion entropy to pass.
“You’re allowe
d to be mad,” she continued, her voice quiet yet firm. “You’re allowed to call it an assault, you’re allowed to say you were terrified, and you’re allowed to admit that it—what he did—had an impact on you. Admitting the truth doesn’t give him power over you.” She sounded like she was quoting someone, which made me wonder if Gabby had coached her.
Lisa made a soft sound. “Mona, open the door.”
Letting my hand drop, I shook my head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Come on, Mona. Why not?”
Try being honest. Abram’s voice, the ghost of Aspen past, filled my ears, spurring me to confess. “Because I don’t want to cry.”
She paused, as though considering this, and then said, “I won’t make you talk. But how about, if you open the door, I will teach you a trick that will help you not cry.”
That had my attention.
Eying the doorknob, I quickly unlocked it, hesitated, and then twisted it to open the door a centimeter. I then stepped back and crossed my arms. My sister peeked inside, her gaze wary, and she gave me a little smile.
“Hey.”
I was busy pressing my lips together—because I was now a crier—and said nothing.
Stepping completely inside, Lisa’s stare moved over me, as though I were somehow different, or she was searching for visible bruises. She then bent down to open the cabinet beneath the sink and extracted a black rectangular bag.
“Sit down,” she said, motioning to the closed toilet lid and unfastening the gold-toned zipper of the bag.
“Where’s Gabby?” I asked once I was seated.
“She left.”
I nodded faintly, watching as she pulled a brush from the black case. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to do your makeup.”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t want to cry.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “And makeup will stop me from crying?”
“It’s a great deterrent. If you have makeup on, crying will ruin it. It’s helped me keep my shit together.” She lowered her eyes, took a deep breath, and finally finished, “It’s helped me a few times.”
I stared at my typically prickly sister, sensing that she considered this statement a secret, a valuable weapon that might be used against her. It was a window—albeit, a closed window—into a softer, gentler core than she showed the world.
Nodding, I uncrossed my arms and said, “Okay.”
Lisa’s gaze cut back to mine, her eyebrows jumping. “Really?”
“Yes.”
“Are you serious right now?”
“Yes.”
“You’re actually okay with me doing your makeup?”
“Sure.” I shrugged, admitting the truth, “It actually sounds fun.” Compared to talking about the incident, everything sounded fun. Even a colonoscopy. Even a mammogram. Even a root canal. Even all three occurring at the same time.
“Who are you and what did you do with my sister?” Lisa gave me a smile I suspected was supposed to be teasing.
“I wear makeup.”
“But you don’t wear it often.” She shifted her attention to the contents of the bag. “And you don’t wear much.”
“True. But that’s only because it’s not high on my list of priorities. Like, eating zucchini isn’t high on my priority list, but that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy a good stuffed zucchini every once in a while.”
“Are you pulling my leg?” She scrunched one of her eyes, making a face. “I thought you hated makeup.”
“No. I didn’t—okay, I don’t. I never hated it, but—admittedly—I used to judge people who wore a lot of it all the time as being superfluous. Now I don’t.”
“Why not? Here, close your eyes.” She approached me holding a brush she’d dabbed in eyeshadow. “What changed?”
“I guess.” I did as instructed and closed my eyes, feeling the gentle swiping over my closed lid. “I guess it happened when I was pretending to be you. I had to wear eye makeup, and then I began looking up tutorials because I wanted to make sure I was doing it right. And then I found I actually liked it.”
“And yet you still don’t wear makeup.”
“It’s an expensive habit.”
She snorted. “Yes. Very.”
“Plus,” I debated whether or not to continue. Ultimately, I decided on honesty. It had served me well recently and I fully committed to it. “If you want to know the truth, there have been a few times where I get one eye done and then I get distracted, forget, and show up to work with makeup on just one eye.”
“No, you don’t.” I heard the smile in Lisa’s voice as she switched to my other lid.
“I do. At least four times that I know about.”
“Oh my God, Mona! You crack me up!” The eyeshadow brush stopped moving, so I opened my eyes, watching my sister hold her stomach as she laughed. “You are so cute sometimes, I can’t stand it.”
I felt a smile tug at my lips. “And the worst part is, no one says anything to me except my friend Poe. Everyone just lets me walk around with one eye done. It’s infuriating.”
“Maybe they think you’re making a fashion statement?” She dabbed at the corners of her eyes with the back of her hand, sniffling.
“No. They’re just cowards.”
“Ha! Cowards. I love it.”
“Think about it. If you see someone with spinach in their teeth, you tell them. If you see someone with yogurt on their face, you tell them. If you see a person with eye makeup just on one eye, you tell them.”
“See, now, I would tell someone if they had yogurt or spinach, but not the eye makeup. I would assume it was purposeful and move on.”
“Coward.”
“No.” She grinned at me. “Not a coward. Shut your eyes again so I can finish the other side.”
I did, and she continued thoughtfully, “I’m giving people the space to be themselves. When is the last time you asked someone about their makeup? I mean, if you noticed something strange.”
“I’ve never noticed something strange, but if I did, I would tell them.”
Lisa was quiet for a few seconds, and then asked, “Don’t you think that’s because you never notice people?”
“What? That’s not true.”
“It is true. You never recognize people, even if you’ve met them a hundred times.”
“You suffer from gross exaggeration syndrome.”
She chuckled. “Fine. Maybe not a hundred times. But I’ve introduced you to people more than once and you never recognize them the next time you meet them.”
“Like who?”
“Like my friend from boarding school who helped me play that prank on you during your graduation.”
A stunned jolt had me reaching out blindly, my fingers connecting with her wrist and moving her hand away so I could open my eyes. “Wait, what?”
“Yeah. Evelyn? From the newspaper? You’d met her three times before she called you to confirm the “details” of the interview. She was so worried you’d recognize her voice and figure it out, but you didn’t.”
I stared at Lisa, incredulous. “So, you knew her? And she was in on it? The whole time?”
“Of course. What did you think? That I actually pretended to be you and gave an interview to your university paper saying those crazy things?” Lisa smirked, dabbing her brush in the eyeshadow palette again.
But when I said nothing, she glanced at me. She blinked, flinching back, comprehension sharpening her stare. “Oh my God, you did. That’s what you thought.”
“It’s not important.” I twisted my lips to the side.
“Like hell it’s not.” Lisa snapped shut the eyeshadow palette, tossed it to the black case, and placed her hands on her hips, her gaze darting over me. “How could you think I would do that? That would’ve been hugely damaging to your reputation, made you look like a fool.”
I swallowed, but said nothing, sorting through all the assumptions I’d made about my sister.
“Mona, yo
u—” She huffed, glanced over my head, then shook hers.
“What?”
“You are intensely frustrating sometimes.”
“Thank you.”
Lisa made a short growling sound. “Why are you thanking me?”
“I don’t know. I feel like I need to say something and I can’t say, in this economy? It doesn’t make enough sense in this context.”
A reluctant laugh tumbled from her lips and she sat on the edge of the bathtub, her gaze moving over me. “What can I do to make this happen?”
“Make what happen?”
“Prove to you that I love you?”
I bit my bottom lip, reminding myself that I couldn’t cry because I was wearing eye makeup. Surprisingly, it worked, and one of Abram’s statements from earlier floated into my brain.
Cry if you need to, but don’t ignore what the tears are about.
Gathering a deep breath, I cleared my throat, and said, “I don’t want you to prove that you love me.”
“Then what do you want?”
“I want—”
“What can I do?”
“I—I want—why didn’t you ever tell me what happened with Abram? In Chicago? That morning after I left.” Whoa. Where had that come from?
“What do you mean?” She gave her had a subtle shake.
“He told you that he loved me.” I didn’t mean for the words to sound like an accusation, but they did.
Lisa met my stare for a protracted moment. “Mona, if you remember, you didn’t want to talk about it. Every time I brought him up, you said you didn’t want to discuss it and would sing “Bohemian Rhapsody” until I changed the subject.”
“But I didn’t know that he told you he loved me!”
Her eyes clouded with remorse. “For what it’s worth, I did try to tell you, a few times. But, you’re right, I should’ve made you listen. I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to do. I was such a mess back then. And I honestly didn’t believe him at the time. I truly, truly didn’t. And when he seemed to move on so quickly, I took it as proof that I was right not to believe him.”
My stomach sank, remembering the pictures of Abram and other women I’d found during my initial online searches after Chicago. I rubbed the ache at my sternum. He’d already explained, but still. I was never going to be able to think about Abram with someone else and feel “okay” about it. I wasn’t like my parents that way. I never would be.
