“Whatever you say,” I mumbled, and picked up my backpack before heading to my room.
•••
“How was soccer?”
Michael hopped in the Jeep looking way too clean and sweat free.
“Stupid. I might as well be the water boy. They had me play backup goalie.”
I shook my head. “Dude, you have to show some effort or they’re gonna keep having you do that kind of shit.”
“I don’t care. Maybe Mom won’t sign me up for it anymore, then.”
I started to say something but shut my mouth. What the hell did I care?
“We going for pizza?” Michael asked. He’d pulled out his DS and was already playing some Mario game.
“Yep.”
“Mom told me Tati Marie got a job.”
“Really?” I asked, throwing my car into first. I’d almost forgotten the conversation when my dad mentioned she was having a hard time. It seemed so long ago.
“Yeah. Dad found it for her. She’s working in a dentist’s office.”
“Huh.” One less thing for my parents to stress about, at least.
We drove the rest of the two miles in silence with the exception of the beeps and bings from Michael’s game. I pulled into the lot and flipped Michael’s DS shut.
“Can we eat here?” he asked.
I was about to nod when I saw Gayle standing at the counter of the pizza place. Guilt sucker punched me. Shit. Would I look like a complete idiot if I put the car in reverse and drove away?
Michael bounded out of the car and pulled my door open. He followed my eyes.
“Who’s that?”
I shrugged and pushed him toward the pizza place entrance. It reeked of grease and pepperoni and my stomach grumbled. Bubblegum pop music was being piped through the speakers and the girl at the register was frantically texting. We walked up to the counter as Gayle fumbled with her wallet. She was wearing one of Ani’s shirts.
“Ben,” she said. “What are you doing here? And who’s this?” She smiled in that preschool teacher way and Michael grinned back at her. At least he understood sucking up.
“This is my brother, Michael. We were just grabbing a pizza for dinner. Our parents are out tonight. Where’s Ani?”
“Well,” she said, and laughed, “she was in the midst of the world’s longest shower when I got home so I decided to grab us dinner on my own. That girl and her showers. I swear it’s gotten worse since she met you.” She looked at me pointedly and I blushed.
“I’m not sure why she’s so worried about smelling nice all the time,” she continued. “You’d think she’d take better care of her room and her clothes if it was that big of a deal.”
Doubt pushed its way into my brain, but I shook it off. Ani had always been into long showers.
“Well, I better go before our dinner gets cold. It was nice seeing you, Ben. And nice to meet you, Michael.” She gave him a little wink and smiled at me. I smiled back and ignored the truth gnawing at me, the desire to put all this on someone else.
We drove home with the music too loud to talk. Michael’s choice, so some classical station. It didn’t matter. It didn’t drown out the questions in my head. Or the memory of Ani’s tears when we had sex.
I wolfed down the pizza and went to my room. Ani’s painting hung slightly tilted on the wall, a reminder and accusation all at once. Ani never painted anymore. She hadn’t stayed after in the school art room since the party. I wanted to ask her about it, but I was afraid to. Afraid of her answer. Afraid that I’d have to add yet another thing to the list of what the rape had taken from her.
I called her, but she didn’t pick up. The minute her voice mail beeped, I babbled into the phone, “That was nice today. Maybe. Was it? Was it okay? I love you. I’m sorry. I hope it was okay. I hope you’re okay. It was nice. I hope things are better now. I love you. Fuck. Sorry. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
17
Ani came to school the next day without the big sweatshirt on. I almost whooped like an asshole when I saw her in a white short-sleeved T-shirt and jeans. She marched up to me and gave me a full-on kiss. Full-on. Nice.
“Whoa,” I said with a dopey grin. “What was that for?”
She smiled and slid herself underneath my arm. “No reason. Just thanking you, I guess. I got your message. It’s okay. It’s good.”
I pulled back and looked at her. She was sort of buzzing, like she’d had too many cups of coffee or hadn’t slept. Her eyes darted past me to the end of the hall, where a bunch of guys were gathered watching us.
“You don’t have to thank me.”
Her hand grazed the back of my head and she tugged on my ear.
“That tickles.” My shoulders lifted and I batted her hand away from my ear.
“Sorry. I’ve missed touching your sexy baldness.”
I smiled. My Ani had been returned to me. Thank Christ for that. If I wasn’t worried she’d get the wrong message, I might have dropped to my knees and said a prayer of gratitude.
Her eyes shifted back to the guys and I followed the movement.
“Do you know them?” I asked.
“Not really,” she said, and kissed me again. She lifted her leg and wrapped it around the back of my thighs, drawing me closer and grinding into me. I didn’t pull back because it felt so good to kiss her again, but we weren’t really a hallway PDA couple so it was kind of weird.
“How come they keep looking at you?” I asked after breaking the kiss.
She shrugged and pulled me in the other direction. I looked back one more time, but the guys had fist-bumped and dispersed.
“Meet me at lunch?” Ani asked, hooking her finger into the waist of my jeans.
“Of course.” I turned toward class and she headed up the stairs. I watched her climb the steps and ignored the weird feeling that curled in my stomach. Why had she worn the supertight jeans?
•••
Ani had her hand on my lap for most of lunch. I couldn’t really figure out what was behind her need to constantly touch me, but I wasn’t going to call her on it after she finally seemed to be moving past the rape.
Kevin came over and smiled approvingly at Ani’s appearance. I raised an eyebrow at him but he lifted a shoulder. I couldn’t really blame him, she’d been wearing the big sweatshirt for too long.
“When are you all out on parole?” he asked, sliding into the seat across from us and looking from me to Ani.
“My mom caved and gave me my walking papers, but Beez may be in for life,” Ani answered. I dropped my hand to hers and she curled her fingers around mine. Soft fingers, shaking, but maybe with the same excitement I was feeling.
“Yeah, even on good behavior, I’m grounded for at least two more weeks.”
Kevin shook his head. “Sucks to be you, dude. Massive party at Watson’s house this weekend.”
I tensed and glanced at Ani. Her eyes had gotten a bit buzzier, but she didn’t react otherwise. Just squeezed my hand tighter.
“Looks like you’ll have to go solo on that one,” I said to Kevin.
“I’ll go,” Kate chimed in from the end of the table. She had been frantically studying for a trig test and I didn’t realize she was even listening. Her hair curtained over her face and she bit the skin on the edge of her thumb.
“Me too,” Ani said.
Kevin’s head whipped up and I opened my mouth to say something, but Ani put her free hand over my lips.
“I’m not going to hide away for the rest of high school because of some crazy shit that happened at a party. You said yourself that I needed to start moving past this.”
“Not by going to another party,” I argued.
“I’ll be fine. I won’t drink and I’ll stay by Kevin the whole night.”
I looked at Kevin. He let out a loud breath and raised h
is shoulders.
“I won’t let anything happen to her. You know I’ll keep my eye on her.”
I snorted. “Yeah, I’ll bet.” I switched my focus to Ani. “I don’t think this is a good idea. Are you sure you want to go? You don’t have to prove anything to us.”
She released my hand and let hers slide up my thigh. Whoa, was she going to grope me in front of everyone? I grabbed her hand and stilled it.
She leaned into me and whispered, “Yes, I want to do this.”
I shifted in my suddenly uncomfortable jeans. “I’m going with you.”
She shook her head. “You’re grounded. Your mom won’t let you out.”
“I’ll figure out a way to sneak out. When do you want to meet?”
Kevin shrugged but didn’t offer any more opinions. “Party starts at nine. We’ll probably head around ten. Want me to pick the girls up?”
I nodded. “Yeah and don’t let either of them drink. And don’t go getting wasted yourself. They are your responsibility until I get there.”
I thought the girls might argue, but neither Kate nor Ani said anything. Ani started to pick at her lunch and Kate returned to her trig cramming. I gave Kevin one last look and choked down the rest of my sandwich.
18
On the drive home from school, I asked Ani if she wanted to come over. I was already late for swim practice, and I didn’t care if I skipped it again if it meant spending time with her. She told me she had too much stuff to do. If she hadn’t hopped in my lap and tried to dry hump me in front of her place, I might have thought she was blowing me off. As it was, I had to pull around the corner so we weren’t completely on display.
“What’s going on with all the touching?” I asked, trying to pry her hands away from the button of my jeans while she nibbled on my neck.
“It’s like you said, I need to be loved. It’s comforting having your hands on me.”
I traced my fingers along her jaw and tilted her face toward mine. Her eyes still looked weird.
“You’re sort of going from zero to sixty here. I’m not really a PDA kind of guy, and I didn’t think you were a PDA kind of girl either. I mean, we weren’t . . . before.”
She stilled for a second and then started to pull herself off my lap. I held her hips so she couldn’t leave. Her eyes squeezed shut and she took a slow breath.
“Maybe I’m more of a PDA girl than you think. I did make out with a guy at a party full of people. And if rumors are correct, I screwed a lighter in front of a bunch of guys as well.”
“You were wasted,” I retorted, gripping her hips tighter. “And you didn’t screw a lighter. Those pricks left a lighter inside of you. Why are you turning this on yourself ?”
She shook her head back and forth. “I’m not getting into this again with you. We said we were going to move past it.”
She dug her nails into my hands so I had to release her.
“What do you want from me?” I asked. I tried to hide the anguish in my voice, but she must have heard it. Her hand rubbed my cheek.
“Nothing, Beez. I don’t want anything from you.”
“Ani . . .” I started, but she turned away and opened the door to get out. A cold wind rushed across my face.
“I’ll call you later,” she said, and waved me off. “Have a good practice.”
I knew she wouldn’t call, and it took everything I had not to go after her and shake her.
I went back to school and got reamed by Coach for being late again. He made me swim an extra hour and told me I better pull my shit together because my times were worse than ever. He threatened to kick me off the team and I almost didn’t care.
A message from Beth, the rape counselor, was on my phone when I got out of practice. I ignored it and drove home too fast, listening to music too loud. Hard, fast guitar, pounding drums, and lots of screeching.
In my room, I stared at my homework for an hour without doing one thing. My body hurt, but I couldn’t rest because different thoughts kept zinging through my head.
I choked down a warmed-up bowl of soup and listened to Michael’s latest clarinet piece, but nothing stopped my toxic thoughts. I finally called Beth back on the cell number she’d left.
“Ben?” she asked. She sounded tired.
“Sorry. I should have called back during your work hours.”
“It’s okay,” she answered. “I was just calling because I wanted to check in. It’s sort of protocol for us. And I couldn’t get through to Ani.”
“Oh. Okay. I’m good, thanks.”
“So, is everything okay with Ani?”
“I don’t know. She’s better, I think. I don’t know. She’s a little weird right now.”
“A little weird is probably normal for rape survivors,” Beth said, and I heard her switch into counselor mode. “Rape trauma syndrome can look really different for different people.”
“Oh. Okay.” Why had I bothered calling her back? Everything she said was textbook bullshit.
“So did you want to talk about it? Or anything else you might have questions about?”
“Well, I don’t know. I guess things are just a little weird, that’s all.” I should have hung up. I knew it. But it was like the phone was glued to the side of my head and her voice on the other end seemed so full of answers.
“What’s weird? What are you seeing?”
Did I want to get into this with her? Crap. I didn’t really have anyone else. God, Ani had boxed me. Boxed us both in.
“Well,” I said, sitting back against my pillows. “She seems to have gotten over the whole shutting-down thing, but now . . . I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. She seems kind of off.”
“How so?”
“She’s really touchy,” I blurted out. What the hell kind of complaint was that? I sounded like a frickin’ baby.
“Touchy like prickly?” Beth asked.
“No,” I mumbled, “more like she can’t keep her hands off me.”
“Oh. Well, that can happen,” Beth said, and somehow her tone of voice made me feel like it actually was normal. It wasn’t her usual rape counselor tone, more like a friend. Or maybe I just wanted that from her so now I couldn’t tell the difference. “Some survivors become clingy to the people they love. It’s like they’re grieving over almost losing them, especially with violent sexual assault. In Ani’s case, she might be clinging to you because you represent a normal life for her.”
“I’m not so sure this is us being normal,” I said.
“If she still has so many holes in her memory, you are constant and solid for her and she needs that right now. Clingy is really normal.”
“Well, yeah, I guess you’d call it clingy. But it’s sort of more than that,” I started. How was I going to explain my fears to Beth?
“More?”
“Yeah, like she wants me to be with her . . . intimately . . . if you get what I mean.” I was like a fricking Dr. Phil head case. Crybaby chump. My thumb moved to the off button, but I waited to press it, wincing in anticipation of her rape counselor tone clicking back into place.
“Oh,” she said.
“ ‘Oh’? That’s all you got? ‘Oh’? Are they paying you the big bucks for these responses?” I joked. It was the only way to brush off the fact that I was a total dumb ass complaining about my girlfriend being unable to keep her hands off me.
Beth chuckled a little. “Sorry, I didn’t think that’s where you were going with this conversation. But it is pretty common, too. For Ani, maybe being intimate with you is empowering to her.”
“Will you stop with the counselor speak already? And stop telling me everything is normal or common? What does that even mean?”
Beth sighed. “Maybe Ani feels safe because she’s the one in control, deciding who to be with and how far she wants to go. You are a safe person for her to be
with. You’re not going to hurt her.”
“Huh. I hadn’t thought of it like that. I guess that makes sense. But what am I supposed to do about it?”
“Does being with her like that make you uncomfortable because of the assault?” she asked in a soft voice.
“No, of course not. I just . . . I mean, it’s really different for me. Ani and I had been together before, but I’m not really used to her being all over me. Not in front of everyone. I’m not against it, but I feel like it’s weird for her. She wasn’t like that before. Or at least not so much.”
“Okay, well, here’s my counselor take on it: I’d recommend trying to talk to her about it in a way that isn’t judgmental, but more just points out that it’s different for you guys. You also need to make clear that you respect her choices and want to empower her in any way that you can. You don’t have to call it empowering her, but let her know that she’s the boss of her own body. If you’re not comfortable with the intimacy, establish some boundaries with her, but make sure she doesn’t feel like you’re rejecting her because of the rape.”
“Um, okay,” I said. How the hell was I supposed to do all that?
“And please encourage her to join one of our support groups or, at the very least, contact someone on the hotline number I gave her.”
“Okay, I’ll try. Thanks.”
“Ben?”
“Yeah?”
“You can call me again too. You’ve got my cell number.”
“Okay.”
I hung up and looked at my ceiling. Ani wasn’t going to call a hotline or join a support group. She’d barely talked to me about what happened and she was dating me. She wasn’t about to talk to a roomful of strangers about something she couldn’t remember. I sighed and tried to call her. No answer. My head started to ache. Why did everything have to be so hard?
19
I was late for Watson’s party, of course. I had to wait forever for my parents to go to bed so I could sneak out. They decided to stay up to watch the local news. I sat on the edge of my bed, tapping my toes and texting Kevin to remind him to keep an eye on Ani. After my third text, he messaged back: Chill the fuck out. I’ve got her. She’s fine.
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