Shame

by Fiona Cole

  “Fuck off,” Jane growled. “I’m not some freak like Ana. No wonder Kevin didn’t want to sleep with me,” she said, sneering.

  “Shut. Up.” Kevin’s anger drew everyone’s attention back to him. “I’m not into that. Ana and I are friends, and I would never be into anything like that. I’m not some freak.” His words hit me like a blow to the chest from a sledgehammer. But he wasn’t done. “That’s disgusting.”

  Disgusting. Disgusting. Disgusting.

  It played in my head like a hammer hitting a nail, rattling the cruel words through my body. Everything in me shut down. I felt numb and hollow, yet in so much pain at the same time. I watched his profile as he stared down into his cup like it could save him. My best friend had called me disgusting. The person who stood by me for almost three years through thick and thin, the person I was going to take off on a new adventure with refused to meet my eyes. Refused to stand up for me—stand up for us. I knew he was scared of something getting out because of how they would see him and what it could do to his father. But he was mean and cruel and cutting with his denial.

  And I was done.

  Done with it all. I couldn’t sit there anymore and even bother to defend myself. Who cared? I’d just lost the most important person because he’d denied me in front of everyone. He was wrong. We weren’t just friends. We were nothing.

  “Damn, Kev. Chill. Fine.” Sean lifted his hands, placating Kevin. But he wasn’t done with the joke. “It’s just Ana who’s into the weird shit.” I stood not wanting to hear anymore. “Hey Ana,” he shouted to my retreating back. “Is that why you never let me fuck you? I could do it now—right here. Would that turn you on to have everyone watch?” Josh and Isaac laughed and cheered. Kevin still sat in silence.

  “Shut up, Sean,” Gwen growled, rising to my defense. But it was too late. The damage was done.

  Somehow, I managed to walk to the front door, but as soon as my feet touched the pavement, I ran. I ran the whole way home, gasping for breath as tears streamed down my cheeks and my heart did its best to explode out of my chest.

  I crashed into the house falling against the door in sobs. My mom rose from her spot on the couch and ran to me, holding me in her arms as I fell to the floor.

  On her knees she held me, and I clung to her as the only thing keeping me together when all I wanted to do was sink into the floor and never come out.

  “Baby, shh.” She tried to soothe me as she stroked my hair. “Baby, please. Please stop. Shh.” I could hear the tears clogging her throat. That was my mom, she felt everything with me, and I knew it was hurting her that I was hurt. Not wanting her to fall apart with me, I gathered up the last of my reserves and took deep breaths to slow the tears. “Please, Ana. Please talk to me.”

  My head shook in denial. “I can’t, Mom. I just . . . I can’t. Please don’t make me tonight. I will someday. Just not tonight.” It came out on another sob I couldn’t hold back. She held me through the storm until I could calm myself.

  With her hand stroking up and down my back, I made a decision. It was rash, but it was what I needed to do. “I changed my mind.” I lifted my head from her shoulder. “I want to go to Vanderbilt. Things have been hard this past year and tonight just made me see I need a fresh start. I’m sorry, Mom. I don’t want to leave you, but—”

  “Hush.” She halted my stuttering words and wiped the tears from my cheeks with her thumbs. “I’ll call your father and let him know.” Her firm voice grounded me, letting me know she would take care of it. Of course, she would. She was my mom. “You taking care of yourself is the most important thing, and you know I support you no matter what. I’ll be fine.”

  I licked the salt from my lips and nodded. “I want to leave tomorrow. First thing.”

  “Okay, baby.” Her eyes widened in surprise, but she didn’t question me. She remained solid and supportive of what I needed.

  “I should go pack. I’ll just pack the essentials so I can leave tomorrow and then get the rest of it later.” I stood on shaky legs with her help and made my way to the stairs. At the first step, I turned. “If anyone comes, don’t let them in.”

  I hated seeing the worry lines in her furrowed brows. “But Kev-”

  “Especially Kevin.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Kevin

  Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  The patio swam in front of me. My stomach churned, mixing with the acrid words I’d spewed. Fuck. I’d panicked.

  “You’re all drunk, and I’m done with this shit,” I growled and got up from my spot. Grasping the door jamb into the house, I had to steady my feet. Apparently, I’d had more drinks than I thought. Maybe that was the reason my brain was acting so slow and the reason the only words that had fallen out of my mouth were panic-induced, lacking all rational thought.

  But I knew. It was all just an excuse, and I put myself first like a dick. I put my family first. But Ana was my family, and I’d left her to the wolves; turned my back on my best friend. Fuck.

  I stumbled out of the house. It felt like it took forever to get home as I focused on keeping the pavement in front of me and not collapsing in the grass. The cool night air began sobering me up and once I reached the house, I stopped and looked up at Ana’s room. I wanted to run over there and tear down her door, demand she listen and forgive me, but the world still swayed beneath my feet and the words that had come so quick earlier in the night began to blur, and I wasn’t even sure what was said anymore. I couldn’t let her mom see me like this. Our parents were understanding, but if I’d drunkenly stumbled to her door past midnight demanding to see Ana, her mom would drag me by my ear over to my house and shove me off for my parents to punish me.

  And I deserved it. Maybe I should’ve let it happen anyway.

  My eyes scrunched up, and I tried to remember exactly how it had all fallen apart. My mind had shut down, going into survival mode. How fucked up was it that survival mode didn’t include saving the best person in my life?

  What the fuck had I done?

  All I knew was that I needed to apologize. Looking around the yard, I searched for a way to get to Ana since going through the front door was off-limits. I spotted the pebbles below her window in the side garden, and I picked up a few up before tossing them at the window. I was an eighties movie come to life.

  Fifteen rocks in and there wasn’t a single bit of movement from her window. My shoulders fell and my heart dropped further knowing I wasn’t getting to her until tomorrow. I dragged my feet up to my room, stumbling on the last step dropping my phone in front of me. Of course, my phone. When I walked into my room, my eyes shot to her window to see if anything had changed, but it remained dark. So, I pulled out my phone and hoped she would at least read my messages.

  Me: Pleas talk o me.

  The letters blurred, but I persisted.

  Me: Imm sory. I panickd.

  Me: Please Ana. Youre my best friend.

  I got nothing and eventually fell into bed wondering how the night had gone so wrong.

  Because you’re a fucking idiot. Would it really have hurt your father’s career? Was it anyone’s business?

  No. It rang through my head an hour too late. Prince fucked up many times before the video incident. Murmurs about me and gossip wouldn’t have made a difference. Hindsight was twenty-twenty and it was giving me a swift kick in the balls for being an idiot. Spinning around alternative responses I could’ve said, I eventually fell asleep trying to decide if the nausea wreaking havoc on my stomach was because of the alcohol or if my body knew I’d already lost before my mind was ready to give in to the inevitable.

  The next time I opened my eyes, bright light spilled in from my window trying to crack my skull open. My head pounded as I lay there against my pillow, trying to put the pieces back from last night.

  Ana.

  I shot up and regretted the fast movement when the thudding increased tenfold. The clock said twelve seventeen and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept so la
te. Hoping I’d be able to talk to Ana, I stumbled from my bed and looked out the window. Maybe she was waiting for me. When I walked over, I froze at seeing her blinds pulled closed. Ana rarely closed her blinds and I couldn’t help but think it meant more than some privacy.

  My heart thundered in my chest as all the implications of what it could mean. Maybe she was changing. Maybe she was blocking out the day because she was just as hungover as me. My lungs worked to catch up with my body moving faster than it should. I thundered down the stairs and ignored my parents calling to me from the living room. I flung the door open and didn’t look back to see if it closed before I jogged across the lawn and began banging on Ana’s door.

  Mrs. Montgomery opened the door and leveled me with a glare that felt like it was going to set me on fire. “What?” she asked sharply. Not a ‘hello’ or ‘how are you’ or ‘let me get Ana.’ Just ‘What.’

  “Is Ana home?” I choked out.

  She stared at me, taking in the way I leaned against the siding for support as I sagged out of breath wearing clothes from yesterday. “I took her to the airport this morning. She left for Nashville where she will be attending Vanderbilt in the fall,” she delivered the words with a hollow voice like she wasn’t shattering my world.

  “What?” It was all I could get out. It was the only thing crashing through my head. What? What? What? Over and over until ‘No’ took over. The vehement denial doing nothing to change the fact.

  No. No. No. No.

  She took in my shaking head and her eyes glossed over. Not in sympathy. No. Her pinched lips let me know how displeased she was with me, and I wondered how much Ana had told her. She knew Ana left because of me and she was hurt that she had lost her daughter because of the scum in front of her.

  “I don’t know what you did to her,” she spat out beneath her breath. “But you better hope she’s okay. That she can recover from the way I saw her last night.”

  And with that she slammed the door in my face. My jaw became unhinged as it hung open in shock. Fire burned the backs of my eyes and pooled. I tried to blink the moisture away, but a couple of tears leaked out. Jesus. I stood on Ana’s porch, having chased her away in a moment of complete and utter panicked idiocy, and cried.

  My hand slipped and just as I turned to go, the door flew open again. Ana’s mom thrust a white envelope at me as she wiped tears from her face. “Here. She left you this.”

  As soon as it touched my fingers, she let go and slammed the door again. I stood looking at the soft cursive font that spelled out my name, listening to the deadbolt click. The sun shined and birds chirped in the trees, mocking me. Swallowing, I gripped the letter in my hand and made my way back to my house. My parents sat in the living room in wide-eyed shock, not saying anything.

  I dropped my eyes feeling too disappointed in myself to look at them, or try and explain what a horrible shit I was. Instead, I went up to my room and crawled onto my bed to open Ana’s letter.

  The envelope tearing seemed to echo with a horrid finality. The slip of paper feeling like the last thing I would have from her. My heart pounded and my fingers shook as part of me chanted to open it, open it, open it, and the other part begged me to leave it, knowing whatever was written would be the final blow.

  I opened it.

  Just leave me be.

  Four words. Four. Simple. Words. When said alone, they were harmless. Nothing. Could mean anything. But put together like that was like a guillotine cutting off the most important part of me. The reality of how bad I’d fucked up stared at me in those four words. There were no excuses or corners to hide behind. I’d fucked up, and I’d hurt her more than I ever could’ve imagined.

  I hated myself more than I ever could’ve imagined.

  I picked up my phone and pulled up her name. One text message. Just one and I would give her the peace she was asking for. I just needed her to know.

  Me: I love you and I’m so sorry.

  Part II

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Kevin

  Four Years Ago

  “Last semester of college, man. I swear, I never thought I would get here,” I said to my friends.

  “After your first year, I wasn’t sure you were going to get here either,” my friend Jason muttered into his beer.

  “Speak for yourselves, assholes,” Will grumbled.

  “Hey, not all of us are overachievers searching for a med degree,” I shot back.

  Will just shrugged it off and took a long pull from his drink. We were only a couple of days into the new year and had decided to go bar hopping with some friends before school picked back up.

  “Got to admit, drinking in a bar feels a hell of a lot better than when we got shit-faced and passed out on the lawn of whatever frat house we were at,” Jason said.

  “Cheers to that,” Will said. We responded by clinking our glasses.

  The bar was more of a pub with the wood interior and Journey playing in the background. We sure as hell had come a long way from the frat parties and then later the clubs and more raucous bars trying to pick up chicks. I mean, we still did that, but tonight was more about hanging out with friends.

  Will and Jason had been my roommates since sophomore year. We’d met in the dorms as freshmen, clicked, and never looked back. They were the friends that watched over me when I lost my mind a little that first year. Going to UC was a constant reminder that I was there without Ana. That I was living my life without her. I had lost a part of me and it took a lot of alcohol and self-hate to get used to missing her.

  Over the past three years, I’d tried to look her up on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or any of the other thousand social media platforms everyone was on. But I never found her. It was for the best. Her letter haunted me. And I wasn’t sure I would have been able to abide by her request if I’d found a link to her.

  So, I’d moved on and struggled through my first year, slowly making friends and accepting what had happened. After freshman year, I switched from undecided to a marketing major that focused on sports. I never did go back to playing soccer, which frustrated my parents to no end, but they eventually accepted it. Especially after my dad completed his final term as senator. He decided to take a break and took my mom traveling around the world.

  I tried to get home whenever they were there too, hoping I’d see Ana if she ever came back to visit. But even after all that time, I’d never run into her. In the first year, her mom hesitantly let me know she was okay. Sometimes it was little more than a nod across the lawn. If I was lucky, she’d actually speak to me. When she told me Ana was doing better, my heart expanded in relief and pinched in pain, knowing what she must have been going through. Knowing she was getting better was the biggest deterrent from hunting her down in Nashville. I didn’t want to cause her any more pain than I already had.

  It didn’t mean I didn’t lay in bed at night and think about what I’d say to her, given the chance. Mostly, I imagined myself on my knees apologizing, begging for forgiveness. As soon as the thoughts started, it became a chain reaction. It led me to remember our intimate moments. On particularly rough nights, I would convince myself that it was all my fault. That I’d dragged her into it all. Into the sadism and rough sex. Sometimes the more rational part of my mind would tell me I was wrong, but the poison festered despite trying to put it out.

  “Hey, stud,” a soft voice whispered in my ear as arms slipped around my waist. “You taking me home tonight?” I looked down into Katelyn’s large gray eyes. She pressed her body into mine and I took in her pixie face and full lips, trying to decide if I wanted to. Katelyn and I met a couple of years ago and didn’t really date as much as slept with each other when it was convenient. She didn’t mind the rougher sex, so I never felt the need to turn her down. She didn’t know the full extent of my desires to hurt while fucking since I’d decided to keep it to myself. Instead, I’d close my eyes and imagine everything I wanted to do.

  Most of the time it was easier to simply abstain th
an try to determine if a girl could take it harder and still like it. Katelyn did, so it worked for us. She could be a little clingy, but I’d made myself clear on what we were and what we weren’t. I wanted to believe she accepted it, but as graduation came closer, she seemed to be getting more attached.

  “Hey, Katelyn.” I leaned down and dropped a kiss on her forehead. She stood almost a foot shorter than me and I couldn’t deny that she felt nice tucked up on my side. I wrapped an arm around her and leaned down to her ear. “Maybe if you’re a good girl.”

  “And if I’m not?” she taunted before biting her lip, her eyes glowing in excitement. We played this game often.

  I didn’t respond, but instead slapped my hand hard against her ass. She yelped, but her slanted lips let me know she liked it. Standing on her tiptoes, she placed a soft kiss to my neck whispering, “I’m going to get a drink,” and walked away.

  We stayed in the pub until Will got a call from another friend asking us to meet him at another bar that had a band playing that night. We downed our drinks and headed out.

  “Let’s do another round of shots on me,” Jason shouted an hour later. I’d lost count of how many we’d done by that point. But the night was still young and I dutifully picked up my glass and downed the amber liquid. Looking up above the bar, the clock blurred, but I managed to see it was a little after midnight. I needed to slow down on the shots if I wanted to make it home, so I ordered a beer and water.

  “Pussy,” Jason shouted, pointing at my water.

  “Takes one to know one.”

  He flipped me off and turned back to the girl on the other side of him. Our group formed a large crowd in the corner around the bar top. I leaned my elbows back and took it all in. Some played darts and others laughed at stories of Christmas break. It was good. I was good. It took me a long time to get there, but I was good. Finally.