In Too Deep

by Amanda Grace

  “I don’t know yet,” I say. “Did you find something?”

  “Yep. It’s a fringed flapper dress. Black.”

  Giggling. She’s different here than she is at school.

  “Can I ask you a question?” I ask, pulling my T-shirt over my head.

  “Sure.”

  “Why’d you want to be one of them?”

  She’s quiet, and for a minute I doubt she heard me. Then, “I don’t know. I just kind of fell into it. I mean, we were always sort of on the outskirts at school, and it always felt like people were judging me, and I guess I was just over it. I wanted to know what it was like on the other side.”

  I slide the shirt over my shoulders, twisting around to zip it up the side. “That’s … very perceptive of you,” I say, searching for the right words.

  “Not really. Just spent a lot of time thinking about it. I’m kind of sick of it, to be honest.”

  “Really?” I step out of the stall and walk to the three-way mirror at the end of the dressing room. The silver beads glimmer from every angle, but only when the light hits them, so it’s not garish or anything. Veronica comes out of her stall as well. “Yeah. I mean, I always thought being on the outside was harder. But once you’re one of them … it’s just a nonstop balancing act. She pauses. “That’s amazing. I’m going to kill you if you don’t get it.”

  I look in the mirror again. “Promise?”

  “That I’ll kill you?” she says, laughing.

  “No, that it looks good.”

  “I mean it. Now put your regular clothes back on so that you can get it. I’m taking this one too. We’ll be the best dressed girls at the senior party,” she says, smiling.

  “Okay, whatever you say.”

  I return to the dressing room, and for the first time, I’m looking forward to the party.

  Eighteen

  In the car on the way to graduation, it’s unpleasantly silent. If I thought I could get away with it, I’d bail at a stop sign, run away, and never look back. Instead I just sink further into my seat, spreading the white robe out around me. I haven’t spoken a word to my dad in twenty-four hours.

  We’re halfway to the ceremony before he finally breaks the silence. “I’m proud of you.” He sits stiffly in the seat beside me as he pulls up at a stop light.

  What? First he’s screaming and now he’s proud of me? “For?” I ask.

  “Graduating,” he says in a terse voice, giving me a look like that was a stupid question.

  “Everyone graduates,” I say, staring at my robe.

  “But you have a great GPA,” he adds gruffly. Pride isn’t quite something he can pull off. It fits as well as an extra small T-shirt on his muscled frame.

  All I can think is too little, too late.

  Where was he ten years ago, when I wanted desperately for him to take me to the father-daughter dance because my classmates’ dads were going? Where was he when I wanted to take ballet, and I showed up and was the only one in sweatpants, when I should have had a bun and a leotard and tights?

  “Cut the crap, Dad.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “My GPA is mediocre at best.”

  He narrows his eyes. “Which is why you should go to CCC, raise your GPA—”

  “I’m not going to CCC!” I explode. I don’t know if it’s my dad or Nick or everything, but suddenly I can’t be contained. “I told you this already! I want to be a writer. I want to go to UW and study English and do something for me for once.”

  His look hardens. “Why are you so angry?”

  “Because—for once—I want a dad like everyone else has! A dad who supports me and is excited about me going to college! Instead I get the one who wants me to stay here forever!”

  He blinks, then turns to look at me; he has the nerve to look as if I’ve hurt him. “I support you.”

  “You have a funny way of showing it.” My voice comes out sharp and angry, spilling out in a way that’s impossible to stop. Even I’m surprised by it.

  My dad blinks. “Sam, I might not always show it—”

  I can’t take this. “Might not always? Give me a break, Dad! When do you ever show it? When do you show

  anything ?! You’re a freakin’ machine or something. Do you know what it’s like to grow up like that? Do you

  even care?”

  My voice comes out as a high-octave screech. Maybe all the craziness as school has turned into something. Into … my ability to tell him the truth. Because a week ago, I went along with everything. I was perfect, obedient Sam. But I don’t want to be that girl anymore.

  He flinches.

  I clench my jaw, hold onto my anger, will the hurt to stay walled up inside where it belongs. “Was Mom like you? Would she have been such a freakin’ hard-ass all the time?”

  He pulls back as if I slapped him. For a second, I feel bad about it. But I’m tired of feeling bad about everything, feeling guilty, feeling like everything is my fault.

  He turns back to the road, blinks a few times but can’t seem to answer. Instead he pulls over to the curb, underneath a big weeping willow. He shuts the engine off and we sit there, engulfed in the shade of the tree. I don’t know why he pulled over, what he’s thinking, but it can’t be good. If I know anything, I know that conversations with Dad are never good.

  For a long moment, I’m pissed off and I want to rip into him, but I can’t seem to find the courage.

  “You don’t know her. You don’t even really know who she was.”

  Wait … what ?

  “I was never supposed to do this alone.”

  My heart lurches. There’s emotion in his voice. Real emotion … the tiniest tinge of vulnerability that cracks his perfect façade.

  “You just … came out of nowhere,” he says, with a sharp intake of air. I want to believe he’s feeling something, something real, but it’s nothing. It has to be nothing. My father is such a complete and total hard-ass.

  It has to be nothing, I repeat again to myself.

  “I would never undo any of this, but … I didn’t know she would leave, and I’d be left figuring it all out, and doing a horrible job of raising you.”

  Silence engulfs us, confusion coursing through me. What can I possibly say to the man who has never shown me any vulnerability? It’s all I can do to just breathe normally. I’ll get choked up and he’ll just sit there, steady as a rock, totally unaffected.

  He sighs. “She wasn’t like me. She was warm and funny and changed everything just by walking into a room. She had this way of making it seem like life was a game. Like … tomorrow wasn’t a guarantee so we should all live for today.”

  He takes in a jagged breath of air. My own lungs burn. Is he upset about this? Why does he have to hide behind himself?

  “All I ever wanted was for you to be different from her, and be like her at the same time,” he says. “Everyone loved her, loved what she brought to life, and yet I would bet everything I have that she’s unhappy even now, wherever she is. She’s just one of those people that can never find satisfaction in anything. All I ever wanted for you was for you to understand that what we have … it’s not so bad.”

  I blink hard against the tears that crop up from nowhere. My dad’s voice is flat, gravelly. I won’t give him emotion if he won’t give it back. I clear my throat. “But you make me feel trapped here. In Mossyrock forever.”

  “You need to stay here. You’re not mature enough to handle what’s out there. You need to understand … what you and me have, it’s not so bad.”

  “But how could I know that if I never learn anything different? If I stay inside this damned bubble you built

  for me?”

  He turns to look at me, and I almost don’t believe the mist in his eyes. He blinks and it’s gone, and I know I imagined it. Wanted it. Wanted a dad who worried about me, was proud of me, was anything but a jerk.

  “I know I’m doing this whole dad thing wrong, but I don’t know any other way. Your mom took off six month
s after you were born. I guess I never did figure out just what the hell I was doing. And being in this job, it’s too easy to figure the worst, and want to protect you from that, and harden yourself, and a thousand other things. I still don’t know what the hell I’m doing. And now you’re graduating.”

  I turn toward him. “It’s not that difficult. All I ever wanted was for you to tell me you loved me. I wanted you to trust me. To let me be who I wanted to be. I wanted to not feel so alone all the time.”

  “I do love you,” Dad says. “You’re all I have. But you’re also so much like her.”

  I close my eyes, rest my head on the seat and breathe deeply, trying to rein in the spiral of emotions. The hurt, the anger, the confusion. Dad never wants to talks about her, and all of the sudden he’s spilling all of this. More than he ever did before. And he never says ‘I love you,’ and I hate myself for feeling something when he said it.

  Everything swirls together and I just want out of this car. The air is hot and stifling and it’s not enough.

  “That’s why you need to stay. That’s why you need to understand my viewpoint. You’re not ready.”

  His breathing is shallow, quick. I wonder, if I opened my eyes, whether I’d see actual emotion on his face.

  “You’re all I have left of her, and I don’t know how I’d manage if something happened to you.”

  His voice cracks and I finally open my eyes, look at him, and the breath disappears from my lungs. His eyes are shimmering. Like maybe, in some alternate reality, he might actually shed a tear.

  I can’t look at him when he’s like this, so different from the only dad I’ve ever known, so I look out the window. It’s starting to fog over from the cool spring air and the warmth of the car. I run a finger through the condensation.

  “I’m trying to understand. I am. But I don’t want to live in a box anymore,” I say, my anger gone. “I’m going to UW.”

  He half sighs, half groans. “I won’t let you.”

  “You have to.”

  “Do I?” he asks.

  “Yes. I’m eighteen. If you don’t give me your blessing, I’m going anyway.”

  He rolls to a stop at the stop sign, but doesn’t move forward. I look in the rearview mirror, only half relieved no one is waiting behind us.

  “I don’t want you to go,” he finally says, quietly.

  I lean back in the seat. “I know. But I’m going.”

  “I don’t think I can support that.”

  “I’m going either way,” I say, my voice choked.

  “So be it,” he says.

  Yes. So be it.

  If it weren’t for my dad’s insistence, I wouldn’t be here right now, standing in the corner of the room, hiding underneath this baggy white gown and silly cap, a gold tassel hanging down in my face. I keep looking for Carter, who would be in a green gown like the rest of the guys, but I haven’t spotted him. Maybe he skipped the ceremony.

  I find a chair and sit down against the wall, watching forty-something kids from my senior class laugh and joke, excited to be taking the next step, nervous to be moving on, worried they’ll miss all their friends.

  I can’t stop thinking about my dad, about how small he looked in the driver’s seat. He hugged me when we got out of the car. I can’t remember the last time he hugged me. It felt … weird. But kind of nice.

  In the end, though, all I feel is a heavy sadness about it all, that the two of us have led such a long life of isolation when it didn’t have to be that way. There’s no resolution in this unsteady peace we’ve made. Just another jagged edge.

  I glance at my watch, stare as the second hand ticks at least a hundred times. Nick and I still haven’t talked. I don’t know what he’s thinking now. I feel more alone than ever as I search the crowd for him. I want to talk to him. I want to know we’re okay. I want him to kiss me again.

  He steps into the room just as someone else walks in and whistles. That’s our cue to line up in alphabetical order. I’m in the middle with the other M’s. Nick gives me a smile and a wave that sends relief flooding through me. It’s so normal, like he’s not mad at me at all. He ends up in line a dozen or so students in front of me.

  I walk out, following the lineup, feeling as if I’m heading out to walk the plank, though I’m not sure why. Twenty-four hours from now, everything about school and my classmates will be behind me. Twenty-four hours.

  I find my seat in the middle of the third row and settle into the creaking folding chair. I reach up to check my hair, patting the loose, salon-made curls I got this morning. I glance back just in time to see Carter dart out from the doors behind us, take the last empty seat near the back. He’s sitting out of order. Trudy Xander and Paul Zimmerman should be after him.

  He waited until the last moment to sit with his

  classmates.

  Someone slides their chair away from him. Just a few inches, but it might as well be the Grand Canyon—

  the message it sends is just as harsh. Carter pretends not to notice, simply slumps into his chair and stares

  straight ahead.

  I twist back around, look up at the parents and family members seated in rows that form a horseshoe around where the students sit. I try to find my dad, but his face is just one in a sea of a couple hundred, so I just twist back around and stare straight ahead, at the tassel dangling from the cap on the guy in front of me.

  Mr. Paulson walks to the front and gives a dry, boring speech. He tells us that we’ll gather our diplomas and then the valedictorian, a mousy girl I’ve shared a class or two with, will give her speech. Technically, she and Nick are both valedictorians, the only students in this school with a perfect 4.0 for four years running. But he’s given plenty of speeches, and this will mean something to her.

  It takes longer than it should, reading forty-five names. I wonder what it’s like to go to high school with four hundred classmates instead of forty. I shift uncomfortably in my chair until my row is ready, then get up and follow the line until I’m the one standing at the podium, shaking the principal’s hand as I accept my diploma.

  A loud screeching whistle dwarfs the gentle clapping. I twist around to see my father. I recognize that whistle—he uses it all the time as a cop.

  Unintentionally, I smile at him, feeling a tiny bit of the ice wall between us thaw. Then I turn and follow my classmates until I’m sitting in my chair again, and the rows behind me stand to take their turn walking down the aisle, student after student, flashbulb after flashbulb, cheers and clapping.

  I’m leaning back against my folding chair, spacing out, when I hear, “Carter Wellesley.”

  I blink and look up, and the gentle, consistent clapping turns to a trickle, so that the loud cheering coming from his own family is obvious against the near silence. It’s like screaming in the middle of an SAT session.

  And then I know. The rumor has traveled beyond our high school. It’s engulfed the town. If the adults know about it, how does my dad not know?

  Carter grabs his diploma without shaking the principal’s hand. Then another name is announced, and the clapping returns, and it’s the difference between a bucket of water and the ocean.

  I twist around to look at where the sounds of Carter’s family came from, and I can see their heads ducked; they’re whispering to each other, confused.

  It must be his mom, with her golden-blond hair, and his sister and brother, both less than ten years old by the looks of it.

  My stomach sinks.

  Nineteen

  I pivot in front of the mirror, staring down at my silver-beaded dress, adjusting my plain black headband. Everyone gets dressed up for these things, so it’s not like I’m dressed strangely, but I’m nervous about being so … visible. I’d convinced myself, while still in the store with Veronica pushing me, that I could pull it off.

  But now it seems crazy bold. Shiny, shimmery, completely not me. I’ve got on matching silver, strappy heels I borrowed from Veronica. They rub the back of my fe
et a little. They’re only an inch and a half high, but I’ve never really worn heels before, except for that disastrous night with Carter.

  My hair hasn’t changed since the graduation ceremony ended twenty minutes ago, but it looks nicer with the glittery beaded dress.

  I chew on my lip and stare down at my silhouette, glad none of my classmates have wandered into the bathroom. Nick is waiting for me, I know that, but I find it hard to leave the bathroom. I suppose I look good. And if Nick and I were together like this without the secret hanging over me, I’d feel happy. Maybe excited, like I was on the verge of something other than tears.

  Instead I’m standing here knowing how many pairs of eyes are going to stare me down. How many people are going to be watching me, waiting for me to fall to pieces because supposedly, just a week ago, Carter went too far.

  If I so much as trip, I’m screwed.

  This could have been different. I never had to act like I was going after Carter in the first place. Nick kissed me at the humane society because he wanted to; Reyna dumped him because he couldn’t stop talking about me. If I’d thought things through—if I had, just once, put myself out there—maybe we could have been something.

  But school’s over. Graduation is done. This is the last time I really have to see any of my classmates. It worked out just like Tracey and Macy said. Everyone believed the lie, believed everything. Carter “got what he deserved,” and next week he leaves for California.

  It tastes bitter, this victory. Like I sucked on a rotten lemon, and now it’s ruined me for everything else. I got away with it. Carter’s been punished, and everyone believes me.

  But I don’t want it any more. I have everything I thought I wanted, but it’s no longer worth the price.

  I’m going to tell Nick, tonight. He’ll be the first one. And then somehow I’ll tell everyone else. I can’t keep lying to him. I can’t keep destroying Carter. He maybe an asshole. He may be a lot of things. But he’s not a rapist.

  Somehow I’ll make everyone believe, everyone know the truth.