by Sam Mariano
My heart must be in my eyes when I look back at him, because his features suddenly darken and he snaps, “Don’t feel sorry for me.”
“I’m not,” I say quickly, shaking my head.
“I’m fine,” he says, scowling.
“I know. I’m not feeling sorry for you, I just… I’m just mad. I’m mad that this happened. And yes, sad, but it’s not like that.”
Hunter sighs and looks off to the side in aggravation, then he grabs his T-shirt. “He’s such a prick. I hate that asshole.”
“So do I,” I assure him, watching as he starts to pull his shirt back on. “Wait. Why don’t you let me take pictures so you have proof? Just in case you ever need them. I have a phone now, I can take pictures and text them to you so you’ll have them. And if you ever need someone to testify on your behalf…”
He looks at me, a little guarded, but doesn’t say anything. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do yet, but remember, Riley, you said you wouldn’t tell anyone.”
I did say that. It was the dumbest thing I have ever said, but I also said it when things were less perilous than they are now.
I don’t say that, though. I don’t want to fight with him, and I won’t be able to keep from getting angry if he protects his stupid mom again right now.
Nothing has to be decided tonight, but I do want to take the pictures. Tomorrow, when the angry red marks have turned to bruises, he can take more if he wants to, but we need to start a record that this abuse is happening. Even if he refuses to speak up right now, I want there to be evidence of this assault for him to use later if he changes his mind.
“You don’t have to use them right now,” I reiterate. “But I think it would be smart to have them in case you ever need to.”
He knows I’m right. He doesn’t look happy about it, but he drops his shirt on the ground and walks around the bed so he’s over by me again. “All right.”
My hands shake a little as I take my phone off charge. I open the camera app and photograph every mark on his upper body. They’re angry red marks, literal fingerprints from where his stepfather grabbed him and pushed him around. I take a picture of his face and then another picture closer up of the gash by his temple.
My sadness is renewed by the time I’m done with that dreadful photo shoot. I want to cry again, but I don’t this time. I’m just so sad that this happened, sad that his mom lets it happen. However she feels for the jerk who did this to him, she should love Hunter enough to put a stop to it. I don’t want to let him go back to his house. I want to keep him here and protect him.
He can see I’m distressed, so without even bothering to pull his shirts back on, he walks over and turns the lights back off, then he comes over and stops in front of me. He reaches down and takes my hand, twining our fingers together in the dark. “I can stay for a bit longer if you want me to.”
“I do,” I tell him, giving his hand a little squeeze.
This time he doesn’t kiss me, but we still climb on my bed together. I still curl up next to him and wrap my arm around his waist, only this time it’s bare.
I am curious about his body. I’ve never been alone with a boy like this, after all. I don’t want to do anything, though, so I just rest my head on his shoulder and cuddle with him.
Despite the horrible circumstances, it’s amazing. I never dreamed I could feel so comfortable with a guy in a situation like this. Only the thin fabric of my tank top prevents us from lying here with no clothing between our upper bodies. But I am comfortable. I feel like I’m right where I belong.
“I can’t believe I was mad at you earlier,” I tell him, mildly annoyed with myself. “It never even crossed my mind that something like this could have happened to you.”
At least he sounds lightly amused and not offended. “I wouldn’t expect it to. Besides, I still disappointed you. I didn’t mean to, didn’t want to, but… I did.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” I tell him, tilting my head back to look up at him.
“So am I.”
“You don’t have to be,” I argue.
“Neither do you.”
I smile, snuggling him close again. “I like you.”
He chuckles. “I like you, too.”
I close my eyes and soak up the moment, knowing it can’t last and not knowing where any of this will go. The obstacles we both face won’t disappear with the morning light just because our bond grew tonight. Tomorrow I’ll wake up to a mother who not only refuses to let me date him, but who thinks he stood me up tonight and who won’t understand—or believe—that he had a good reason. When we’re done cuddling here in the safety of my room, Hunter will have to cover up his injuries and head back to his house where he doesn’t have even the most basic assurance of safety.
There are big issues at play here, big obstacles that will make this hard, but I don’t care about any of that right now. All I care about is the feeling of his arms wrapped around me, the reassuring beat of his heart. The comfort we can draw from each other here and now that will help us get through it all.
Chapter Ten
“What the fuck?”
I fade in and out of consciousness as the world shifts beneath me. I’m groggy, struggling to separate myself from the dream I was just lost in. My sudden, jarring ascent back to reality has me momentarily disoriented.
What is happening?
My mom’s voice again, louder this time. “Get out of my house!”
“Shit.”
My mom screaming didn’t entirely make sense, but my blood runs cold at the sound of Hunter’s voice. Hunter and my mom in the same room. My bedroom.
Oh crap.
Oh my God, we fell asleep.
“Mom,” I slur, shaking my head as I sit up, trying to pull it together.
“You, not a word,” she says, pointing at me, her eyes flashing with anger. “You.” She points at Hunter, even as he stumbles over and grabs his clothing. “Get out of my house and don’t come back.”
“Mom, it’s not what it looks like.”
“He’s not wearing clothes!”
“Yes he is, he’s just not wearing a shirt…” I trail off, looking over at him. He is wearing clothes now. He got the T-shirt on in record time, but instead of looking at me, he’s looking at my mom, his expression guarded.
“Get out,” she says again, her eyes wide.
Hunter spares me a glance, but he doesn’t stick around to defend himself. He darts past my mom without a word.
I feel bad, but I know he probably has to get home, too. When I get in trouble, my mom says stern things to me. When he gets in trouble, it’s much worse.
Oh, no. How mad will his mom and stepdad be? Surely after what happened last night, Hunter should be safe today… right?
Oh God, what if he’s not? What if he gets in so much trouble for not coming home last night that something bad happens?
Not even taking into account the fact that my harmless mother is about to blow up, I grab my phone and quickly type out a text to Hunter asking him to let me know that everything is all right after he gets home.
“What are you thinking?” Mom demands, staring at me like I’m an unfathomable creature instead of the daughter she raised. “He stood you up last night, Riley. He couldn’t even be bothered to show up for a movie date and you jump into bed with—” She cuts herself off, running her fingers through her dark hair in aggravation. “Please, please tell me you were at least safe. I cannot believe I have to say this to my 14-year-old daughter. My God, I have failed. I have failed as a mother.”
“Mom, stop.” I’m so uncomfortable I want to flee the room, but I understand why she’s jumping to the wrong conclusions. “Nothing happened. I know how it looked, but trust me, it wasn’t—”
She holds up a hand to stop me. “Don’t even try it, missy. I need coffee before I can deal with this. Come to the living room. We’re going to have a serious talk.”
“Mom, we don’t need to have a talk. Not about this. Please, I am literally
begging you—”
“Nope. You are not getting pregnant. We are talking about this.”
I sigh heavily as my eyes roll back into my head. “I told you, nothing happened!”
“I told my mom that, too, and nine months later you were born. Living room. Couch. Now.”
I huff, flinging myself off the bed and stomping down the hall to the living room.
I can’t believe she won’t even let me talk, but I tell myself brewing a pot of coffee will give her time to cool down. It could just as easily go the other way, though. It could give her more time to stress out about something that didn’t even happen.
Mercifully, by the time she comes in she seems to have calmed herself down a little. She stands in front of the couch and looks down at me as she grips her mug of coffee.
“I was 15 the first time I had sex.”
I sigh, sinking back into the couch. “Oh. Okay, we’re going to have this conversation.”
“It was with a boy I had been making out with in a stairwell at a party. I had only met him a couple times before. That night was the first night we had even spoken to each other. It was extremely unspecial. That is not what I wanted for you,” she says, sitting down beside me and placing one hand over mine. “You deserve special, sweetie. You deserve for your first time to be with someone who loves and respects you.”
“Mom, we weren’t—I’m not—it wasn’t like that. Nothing happened.”
She stares at me hard, wordlessly expressing she doesn’t appreciate my sad attempt to lie to her. “Honey, he was half undressed. A boy you like, a boy who snuck into your bedroom in the middle of the night, was lying in your bed with his shirt off and you in his arms.”
I push out a breath. “I know. I get how it looked, but you have to believe me. We fell asleep in my bed, yes, but we didn’t do anything before that. I didn’t have sex last night. Don’t you trust me? You know I’m not a liar. You know I’m responsible and I make good choices.”
She nods once, not arguing that. “I absolutely do. I also know that sometimes even the smartest, best, most responsible girls in the world make really bad decisions for a boy they really like. Especially a very persuasive boy who talks them into breaking rules and sneaking out and doing all these things those great, smart, responsible girls know they are not allowed to do.”
My shoulders sag. “I get that those things have not helped my case, but you need to trust me on this. There was a good reason he took his shirt off, I just can’t tell you what it is. He didn’t mean to leave it off, we just... I don’t know, we were laying there talking and we were tired and we fell asleep, but I swear nothing happened.”
She looks over at me, weighing my words, but she doesn’t say anything for a long moment. She eyes me as she takes a slow sip from her mug, then she lowers it and says, “All right, then tell me about this good reason.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I promised him I wouldn’t,” I say, dread flooding me as I think about that promise. “Just know that it was innocent.”
Mom frowns at me, probably frustrated that I’m not being forthcoming. “Just answer me this. If you were to have sex—”
“Oh my God.” I close my eyes and hide my face just for good measure.
Going on a little more assertively, she says, “If you were to have sex, you would use protection, right? Since you’re not on birth control—unless you’ve done that behind my back somehow, too—then you would use a condom? You would not be reckless enough to have unprotected sex, right?”
I want the floor to open up and swallow the couch so I don’t have to endure this conversation any longer. “Right.”
Mom nods. “Okay.”
I frown at her as she leans forward and puts her mug down on the coffee table, then she stands and heads toward my room. “What are you doing?”
“I’ll be right back and we’ll continue this conversation.”
“Mom,” I say, pushing off the couch and running down the hall after her.
This time I’m the one standing in the doorway and she’s in my room. She walks over to my bed, checking the nightstand and the floor beside it.
“What are you doing?” I demand.
“Checking for a condom wrapper,” she tells me.
“I told you, we didn’t have sex!”
“Then you won’t mind if I double check to make sure.”
I huff in annoyance. “You won’t find anything. I have no idea if he would even have a condom with him, but I certainly didn’t. That is not what he came over for.”
Mom has stopped patting down my bed. She’s facing the foot of the bed now, staring at the bundle of cloths and towels I forgot about. My stomach sinks and I step inside the room, seeing the bloody one on top—the one she’s staring at.
“What the hell is this, Riley?” she demands, her tone more serious than I’ve heard it before.
I swallow, my voice stuck in my throat.
Mom’s gaze snaps to mine, fire in her eyes. “Did he hurt you?”
“No!”
Despite my quick objection, her gaze travels up and down my body and she comes over, grabbing my shoulders and looking me up and down. “Did he… did he touch you? I need to understand where this blood came from, Riley. I’m starting to freak out.”
“It’s not from me,” I tell her, pleading with my eyes for her to drop it.
That only causes her frown to deepen with confusion. “I—I don’t understand.”
I look past my mom at the pile of cloth on the foot of my bed. “The blood is his,” I say softly, my heart threatening to beat its way out of my chest. I swallow before I go on, trying to figure out how to say it as I go. “He had a cut on his head and a split lip and a black eye. He showed up here last night because he didn’t have anywhere else to go. I’m the only one who knows…”
My mom tries to cover up her alarm, but she’s not doing a great job. Despite the clear concern etched across her face, she manages to keep her tone even when she asks, “Knows what, Riley?”
Tummy twisting into knots, I don’t know what to do. I’ve come this far and Mom knows something is wrong. I know she won’t let it go until I tell her, but once I tell her… I don’t know what will happen.
“Riley?”
I look up at her. “His stepfather is violent. He doesn’t like Hunter, and they butt heads a lot, especially when he starts fighting with Hunter’s mom and Hunter tries to protect her. Sometimes…” I pause, unsure how to finish this sentence. After a few unsteady breaths, I tell her, “Sometimes he hits him. He did last night, and it was really bad, that’s why Hunter didn’t meet me for the movie. He couldn’t.”
Mom looks like I’ve dropped the weight of the world on her shoulders. I didn’t mean to, that’s why I tried to avoid this. “What do you mean, he couldn’t?”
“He was unconscious,” I whisper, looking down at the ground. “He and his mom got in a fight after he came to because Hunter keeps thinking she’s going to make Dennis leave, but she doesn’t. I think he finally realized last night she’s not going to. Her husband smashed Hunter’s head against a sink, Mom. He was unconscious on the bathroom floor and she didn’t even call an ambulance because she was too worried what it would mean for her husband.”
Covering her mouth in horror, Mom says, “Oh my God, honey. You’ve been dealing with this all on your own?”
I shrug helplessly. “I didn’t know what else to do. Hunter swore me to secrecy and he told me his mom was handling it. When he had the black eye, he said it hadn’t even happened before, but I’m trying to rationalize how this could escalate from a black eye to what he described last night, and… I don’t know if he’s being honest about that. That seems like a really dramatic escalation. He’s so worried about protecting his stupid mom that he’s not protecting himself and I don’t know what to do. I’m terrified something will happen to him,” I say, bursting into tears.
“Oh, honey.” Mom comes over and wraps her
arms around me, pulling me in for a hug. “You should have told me sooner. I’m so proud of you for trying to help your friend, but this… this is serious.”
“I know it is.” I sniffle, holding on a little tighter. “I asked him to take his shirt off last night so I could take pictures of all the welts on his body with my cell phone. I thought in case he wanted to report Dennis, he’d need evidence.”
Mom sighs, calmly petting my hair. “That was good thinking.”
“He made me promise not to tell anyone.”
“I know,” she murmurs reassuringly. “You had to, though. A secret like this can’t be kept. When someone’s getting hurt…” She shakes her head. “You did the right thing, honey. I wish you had told me sooner, but… I’m glad you told me now.”
Chapter Eleven
Hunter isn’t at school the next day, but I’m not surprised. Now that we can text each other, he told me his face is too fucked up right now to come to school. His mom told the principal they had to go out of town this week, so he sent schoolwork home so Hunter wouldn’t fall behind.
Hunter was in such a hurry when he left my house that he left behind his gray wrestling hoodie. I asked if he wanted me to bring it over one day after school, but he said he doesn’t want me to come to his house right now. He told me he has others, so I can just keep it.
Under normal circumstances, I would be pretty happy about the prospect of wearing Hunter’s hoodie around my house, but my heart is so heavy right now, there’s no joy to be found in it.
The talk Mom wanted to have with me definitely changed once she learned about what has really been going on with Hunter. Maybe her opinion of him changed a little, too, but I can’t tell if it did or she just feels for him. No kid should have to go through this, and it shouldn’t be my mom willing to fight for him—it should be his.
Mom made an appointment with the principal and the guidance counselor on Wednesday to talk to them about it. She wanted to get in as soon as possible, but she had to work Tuesday and couldn’t afford to call off.
