by Leigh, Tara
Mom comes back into the kitchen, empty wineglass in hand. “Thanks, hon. It’s nice having you back home.”
I fold the towel Sadie haphazardly tossed onto the counter. “Even when I fight with Sadie?”
A crooked smile wobbles on her lips as she leans back against the cabinets, swaying slightly. “Even then,” she says, refilling her glass. “So, now that she’s gone… Tell me about the boy.”
My mom is usually more interested in reality TV than actual reality. But every once in a while, she is cheerful and animated. An almost perfect replica of a sitcom mom, actively interested in her children.
I frown, not trusting this version of her. “What boy?” I never told her about Gavin, and I’m definitely not telling her about Tucker.
“I overheard you and Sadie.” Her voice is light, almost teasing.
“She’s wrong, Mom. There’s no boy.”
My mother huffs. “Well, hopefully you’ll find someone soon. It would be nice for you to leave there with more than just a degree.”
I think she means a ring on my finger. Or, at the very least, a serious boyfriend.
What I’ll take from Worthington isn’t a pretty bauble or a handsome guy. It’s not something to be envied or admired. It’s an experience I never expected to have, an invisible wound I don’t know how to heal.
Sometimes it takes a while to process trauma like this, and you don’t have to do it alone.
My resolve to keep everything bottled up inside me weakens. What if my mother is strong enough to lift me up, for once? “Well, there is something I wanted to ask you about…”
If I tell my mom what happened to me, if I explain the mess I’ve made of my life—what would happen?
“Yes?”
“Actually, never mind. It’s nothing.”
“Poppy, just say it.”
I’m squeezing the damp dish towel like a stress ball. “I guess… when you were… I mean, years ago, before we came to Sackett—”
She looks up sharply. “You know I don’t like to talk about the past, Poppy.”
“I know, Mom.” The food in my stomach has become a roiling vat of acid. “But, maybe when you were drinking or… Did anything ever happen that you regret?”
My mother stiffens, wineglass halfway to her now pursed lips. “What do you mean by regret?”
“I don’t know exactly,” I lie. Because I do know. Exactly. I just don’t know how to say it.
Setting her glass down on the table, she reaches for my hand. “Well, then—”
I suck in a breath and force the jammed words through my throat and out of my mouth. “I can’t remember, Mom. That’s the problem. I drank too much and I think something happened. Actually, I know something happened. But I just—I can’t remember it. Except that I can’t forget it either.”
“What are you trying to tell me? That you— That he…”
I swallow the heavy lump of shame rising up my throat. “Yes.”
“And something happened. Something you now regret.”
“Yes.”
She levels her gaze at me, lips puckering in distaste. “Blaming someone else for your problems is a dangerous thing. What did you expect, Poppy?”
I shouldn’t have brought this up. My mother has the same opinion now as she did two years ago, when our entire state was in an uproar about a football player and the girl behind the bleachers. A judge found him guilty of rape, but he only served a few months.
Gavin had been disgusted, I remember. But my mother, like most people in town, was upset that the boy’s bright future had been tarnished by a “ridiculous” accusation. She blamed the girl for “making a fuss.”
Was it really so ridiculous? Just because she drank too much, did that give anyone the right to lead her into the shadows, to touch her? Didn’t she have every right to “make a fuss”?
I want to argue with my mother now. To defend a girl I don’t know. To defend myself.
But my brain flashes a warning. Abort, abort, abort. “Y-yeah. I’m sure you’re right.”
Relief sweeps over her features, smoothing out the surface of her skin. In the Whitman household, a certain amount of sibling bickering might be tolerated, but difficult truths are to be avoided at all costs. Her shoulders lower a notch and she begins backing out of the kitchen. “Good, I’m glad that’s settled.”
“Yeah, me too.” Another lie. Nothing is settled.
Chapter 18
Worthington University
Spring Semester, Freshman Year
My mother’s words are still fresh in my mind when I return to Worthington. What did you expect, Poppy?
If I had any doubts about who to blame for that night, my mother cleared them up.
Me. I’m to blame. My own mother thinks so.
And so I take it. I carry the blame. In front of the Worthington University Judicial Administration board, I admit that I drank too much. I say I’m sorry, and that I’m grateful Tucker was with me to get help. That he saved my life. He’s a hero, really.
These are the half-lies and distorted truths that have become my made-up memory.
I drank too much. I’m sorry. I’m grateful Tucker was there to get help. He saved my life.
I wonder how long it will be until I forget they’re not actual memories. That I’m just selling the story everyone wants to hear.
Even me.
The WUJA review process was a streamlined, official affair. They didn’t ask whether a condom was found on my body. Or about the doctor who sat down at my bedside, a pained expression on his face as he spoke to me like I was his daughter, putting a name to what had happened. Asking—no, suggesting—that I consent to a rape kit.
But I wasn’t his daughter. I’m my mother’s daughter.
Whitmans don’t face difficult truths head-on. And we don’t make a fuss.
We make allowances and excuses. We go along to get along.
Even when, inside, we’re falling apart.
Even when every lie, every allowance, and every excuse that leaves our tongues sends another drop of poison sliding down our throats.
A few days later, at my required student counseling session, I am escorted into a small office with barely enough room for a desk and two chairs. “My name is Johanna Gregory. I’m a graduate student here at Worthington.”
I take a seat, concerned that in this tiny space, I won’t have the luxury of hiding behind my made-up answers. That this will be a more intimate exploration of my actions. That Johanna Gregory won’t buy the story I’m selling.
After she gives me the broad strokes of her biography and responsibilities at WU’s student counseling service, she flashes an overly bright smile that I’m guessing she thinks is reassuring. It’s not. “So, now that you know a little about me, let’s talk about you, Poppy.”
“There’s not much to tell. I’m a freshman, I made bad choices and wound up in the hospital.” I don’t want this intimacy. I resent this forced vulnerability, this unwanted intrusion. And I want her to know it. So I add, “I’m here today because I have to be.”
Her only reaction is to make a note on the yellow legal pad balanced over her crossed legs. “Have you ever been in therapy?”
“Not therapy, exactly. But I have met with counselors and psychologists before.”
“Oh? Tell me about that.”
I outline my family history as if I’m reading from a résumé. Dates and places with one or two bullet points. She fills up the first page and flips to another. Then another. “And would you say your life stabilized with the move to Sackett at thirteen?”
“Yes. I guess so.”
“Does your mother still engage in any of the activities that made her incapable of caring for you and your sister prior to your move?”
“She drinks wine occasionally, but that’s all.”
“Occasionally,” she repeats. “Can you be more specific?”
“Well, after work. Or weekends. Afternoons.”
“Every afternoon?”
“No. Not every afternoon.” I can’t remember a day without the tap of her bottle on the edge of her coffee mug, but I’m sure there must have been a few.
“Once or twice a week… Every other afternoon… More, less?”
The vent behind me is blowing dry, heated air that smells vaguely of burned toast. I shift in my chair, trying and failing to find a comfortable position. “Maybe every other.”
“And are we talking about a glass, two glasses, the bottle, more than that?”
I bite off a ragged cuticle, suck out the blood that wells up in the gauge beside my nail bed. “I really don’t keep track of my mother’s drinking.”
“Okay. Well, on those afternoons, what did you do?”
“What did I do?”
“Yes. Did you sit with her, talk to her, take some wine for yourself, hide in your room… ?”
“What does it matter?”
She tilts her head to the side. “Humor me.”
I sigh. “I went to my room, I guess. Did my homework. If the weather was nice, I’d go outside.”
“To play with friends in the neighborhood?”
“Ah, yeah.”
“Did you hang out at their houses?”
“N—Why?”
“I’m curious if you had other parental role models.”
“Oh.”
“Well, did you?”
“I mostly hung out in the woods. A nature preserve behind our house.”
“Ah.” She tries for a conspiratorial grin this time, though it drops when I don’t return it. “A parent-free zone.”
“I guess.” Please don’t ask who I was with. If I have to talk about Gavin, I might lose it.
“Did you drink too?”
“No,” I say immediately, before correcting myself. “Well, only a few times.”
“A few times a week?”
“No, a few times in total. Not until the end of my senior year.”
“And what precipitated that?”
“What pre… ? Nothing. I just started, I guess.”
“So, you were around your mother’s drinking for years and you just started one day, out of the blue.”
I shrink lower in my chair. “Yeah.”
“What about with your friends?”
“What do you mean?”
“Before coming to Worthington, did you drink with your friends? Or with your sister?”
“No.” I shake my head. “I only drank a few times before coming here. I poured myself a glass and went to my room.” Drinking and crying and looking through the photos Gavin left for me.
She pauses to underline something on her page and then flips to a fresh one. “Okay. That gives me a feel for your life before you came here. Let’s talk about what your life has been like at Worthington. It’s a big adjustment, going from living with your family to a freshmen dorm. How is your roommate?”
“She’s fine.”
Johanna waits for me to expand on my answer. When I don’t, she reaches for a folder on her desk and opens it. “And your classes? I see you have a three point one GPA for your first semester.”
My scholarship requires that I maintain a 3.0 average. I barely squeaked by and I know it. “They’re fine. Harder than high school but I’ll get used to it.”
She nods in understanding, then pulls a pamphlet out of a drawer and hands it to me. “There is a student tutoring service you might want to look into.”
I accept the glossy folded paper with two smiling students beaming from the front, my stomach clenching as we work closer to that night. “Thank you.”
“Let’s get a little more specific, regarding your alcohol use here on campus. Prior to the incident, had you been drinking on other occasions?”
“No.”
“No? Are you sure? Because you won’t get in trouble for telling the truth. My role in this process isn’t punitive, Poppy. The reason we’re talking is to evaluate the extent that alcohol has affected your life at Worth U, and ensure you have the best chances for a safe and successful future here.”
Safe and successful. I wonder what she would say if I told her I’ve already failed on both counts.
“That was the only time I had anything to drink on campus.”
One eyebrow tics upward, and I sense her skepticism. “So you’re saying that this was a one-time event, that it won’t happen again?”
The thought of going through this again sends a wave of nausea crashing into me. “Yes.”
Her eyes flick to the clock on her desk. “We have a few more minutes. I’d like to ask about the student you were with, Tucker Stockton.”
The way she says his name makes me think that she’s been told to tread lightly here. That further revelations concerning him will not be appreciated.
I don’t say anything, waiting for an actual question.
“Is there anything that happened in Tucker’s room, prior to him seeking out your resident advisor for help, that you were uncomfortable with?”
“Uncomfortable…” My throat feels like it’s been reduced to the width of a straw, and I have to force the syllables out. “No. We were just hanging out.”
“And have you spent time together since then?”
“Not—not really,” I stammer. “He’s mostly my roommate’s friend.”
Johanna pauses, rolling her pen over her knuckles. “When someone, especially someone who isn’t family or a close friend, does something selfless, such as risking disciplinary action to get help for a friend with whom he’d been drinking, it often leads to feelings of indebtedness or discomfort around that person. Would you say that’s been the case for you?”
I shake my head. “N-no.”
Uncrossing her legs, Johanna leans forward in her chair as if she’s going to get up but then hesitates. Her eyes hold mine, more gently than before. “Can you describe your feelings then?”
“My feelings for Tucker?” The air in my lungs evaporates, the synapses in my brain screeching to a halt. I hadn’t anticipated this question. And I have no idea how to answer it—because I can’t begin to put my feelings for Tucker into words. They are an assembly of emotions that attack me like overzealous wasps, stinging over and over with relentless, unerring accuracy.
Fear. Anger. Regret. Grief. Confusion. Shame.
“I, um.” I notice her looking at my hands, which are curled into fists, my nails digging into my palms. Awareness flickers on her face, sympathy warming her gaze. But there is something else, too. Reluctance. If I tell her what really happened, if I confirm her suspicions, then she’ll have to do something about it. She’ll have to take my story to people only interested in accolades about a Stockton. Make a case against Tucker on behalf of a drunken scholarship student who refused a rape kit and hasn’t told anyone the truth of what happened. Has actively lied about it to everyone who’s asked.
Johanna Gregory is just a grad student. She has her whole career to consider. Why would she throw it away for me? I’m nobody.
I quickly unclench my fists and slide my fingers beneath my thighs, saving her the trouble. “I’m just grateful Tucker went for help. He saved my life.”
What I see next on Johanna’s face is relief.
I don’t blame her. If I won’t fight for myself, why should anyone else?
Chapter 19
Worthington University
Spring Semester, Freshman Year
“Hi, I have a—”
The upperclassman sitting at the reception desk of the Student Services office taps the clipboard facing me on her desk. “Sign in right there and someone will be with you in a minute.”
“Great.” I pick up the pencil attached to the metal clasp by a rubber band and write my name. “Thanks.”
I’m early. My appointment with the Dean of Student Affairs isn’t for another ten minutes, so I find a seat and pull a textbook out of my bag.
I received an email with the findings of Johanna Gregory and the WUJA just before heading home for Christmas break. In addition to my
schoolwork and work study hours this semester, I will have to fit in thirty hours of community service and ten alcohol education classes.
I don’t know where I’m going to find a spare thirty hours this semester, but I want to get it over with. Once freshman year is behind me, I don’t want to think about that night, or Tucker Stockton, ever again.
“Poppy Whitman?” A gray-haired, African-American man in khakis and a tweed sport coat rests his elbow on the front desk and scans the students slumped around the room in various poses.
“That’s me,” I say, picking up my backpack and slinging it over my shoulder.
“Come on back.” He holds open the door to a hallway. I walk through it, but he doesn’t let it close behind me. “We’re just waiting on one more.”
The hair at the back of my neck rises, my heartbeat suddenly accelerating. No.
I don’t need to hear the dean say it, I already know who will be joining us.
“Tucker.” He elongates the word so that it sounds like there are three r’s on the end, not just one, then follows it up with a combination shoulder clap and squeeze, just in case I was in any doubt about the relationship between them. “Good to see you again, son.”
Tucker Stockton, the dark-haired golden boy of Worth U. Barf.
According to Wren, because beer was present in Tucker’s room, he’s been assigned ten hours of community service and one alcohol education class.
“Hey, Dean Johnson.” The hallway is narrow, and I have to make a distinct effort not to shrink away from Tucker. This is the first time I’ve seen him since last semester.
The dean’s office is bigger than Johanna Gregory’s, but not by much. He takes a seat in the room’s only chair, motioning us toward a couch pushed up against the far wall. I sit down at the very edge and instead of putting my backpack on the floor, I set it on the seam between the two cushions to create a barrier between Tucker and me.
“I don’t always see students together, but after reading your intake forms I thought it would make the most sense.”
My tongue is the consistency of cardboard. “Intake forms?”
“The questionnaire I emailed you. About your—”
