by Jo Ramsey
“Thanks.” Hearing her apologize sucked out some of the anger and frustration I’d felt since Friday. At least she acknowledged she’d been out of line.
“We still need to find another time to meet,” she said. “And with everyone’s schedules being all screwed up the way they are, I think you’re right about needing to pick a certain day of the week. If people can make it, they make it. If not, they don’t, but it’s impossible to find a day and time when everyone can be there.”
“I saw Alyssa and Xan this morning,” I said. “Alyssa says she has something she has to do on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So maybe we should say Wednesday is the meeting day? Does that work?”
“What about a weekend?”
I shook my head. “People work, sometimes there are weekend games, and like Evan said, people might have to go to their other parent’s or something. I think a weekday is better. Sports don’t last forever.”
“True.” She looked thoughtful. “Maybe we could make it like a supper meeting. Whoever’s turn it is could order pizza or something. I mean, we could all chip in, at least the people who can afford to, and that way we can do the meeting a little later so even the people who have practice can make it.”
“That might work.” I picked up another carrot stick. “Assuming people’s parents don’t have a problem with it.”
“Which is another reason it’s good if we each take turns hosting,” she said. “People will miss supper with their families the same night every week, though. I don’t know. Maybe we should try talking to the others about it again and see what they all think. We don’t want to make the decisions for everyone, right?”
“Right.” The problem was figuring out when we’d be able to talk to all of them. “Maybe we should send a group text or something. Then they can all give their opinions and we can discuss it, but we won’t have to all be in the same place. Getting together to talk about it won’t be any easier than getting together for a meeting.”
“Okay. Tonight?”
“Yeah. After supper.” That was the only time I could think of to do it. “Then if enough people can make it tomorrow, we can meet then at my house. I’ll make sure my parents are okay with it.” They would owe me for making me go to a stupid counselor.
“Okay.” She drank some of her water. “Next problem. Your parents are sending you to a counselor. Is it because of the eating thing?”
“Yeah.” I wished we could move to a different subject, but I was the one who’d brought up counseling during my word vomit. “They said I have to go today for some kind of intake thing. After that, maybe the counselor will say I don’t need to be there. My parents pretty much said they’d ground me if I don’t go today, though.”
“Ugh.” She made a face. “Parents suck sometimes. Like my parents keeping me prisoner after I reported Jim so nothing bad would happen to me again. They just didn’t get it.”
“My parents don’t get anything half the time.” I pulled a tiny piece off the chicken and ate it. It tasted pretty good. “Let’s change the subject. I don’t know anything more about the counseling than that I have to go, and I’d rather not think about it.”
“Fair enough. Nathan?”
“Like I said, he thinks people are going to figure out he’s gay if they know you and I are together. I don’t even understand how that makes sense to him.”
“Gay by association, maybe?” She shrugged again. “I don’t know. So what are you going to do? Pretend you aren’t seeing me, or break up with him?”
“That’s the question.” I didn’t want to make a decision about that. I couldn’t make any decisions about anything right then. I was pretty sure I’d said so already. “He said he didn’t want to break up, either. He wanted me to stop hanging out with you so much, at least where people will notice.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s dumb. I know he’s your friend, but he’s being as homophobic as some of the idiot bullies in this school.”
“Yeah.” I paused. “If I break up with him, everyone’s going to wonder why. And if they’re already thinking there’s something going on between you and me, it’s going to give them more reason to wonder.”
“I don’t care about that,” she said. “I’m Chastaine Rollo, remember? School slut and proud of it, rape survivor and proud of that too, even if some morons don’t believe I was raped. Having them find out I’m bi and dating a girl is nothing.”
“I don’t know if I’m ready for anyone to find out about me, though.”
I felt like crap the moment I said it. Chastaine was strong enough not to care what other people thought, and she was willing to let them know she and I were together. But I still wanted to hide it, and that made me feel like I cared more about what other people thought than about her.
“It’s okay if you aren’t,” she said. “I’m not going to give you some big ‘be out and proud’ speech. If you want to keep what’s going on between us to yourself, I’ll back you. But I think you should cut Nathan loose. He’s only making things more complicated for you. And for himself. If anyone judges his sexuality because of you and me, they’re the idiots, and if he lets them get away with it, that doesn’t say much about him, either.”
“I guess.” I wasn’t looking forward to having that discussion with Nathan, but Chastaine was right. Whoever I dated didn’t mean anything about him. He and I had been good friends for a while, but lately, since I’d started seeing Chastaine, Nathan had turned into kind of a jerk. We barely talked to each other. We just put up a front when other people were around.
That needed to stop. Even if I didn’t come out, I didn’t want to keep being dishonest.
“Please eat a little more,” Chastaine said. “Lunch is almost over.”
“If I break up with Nathan, does that mean you aren’t going to see anyone else either?” I didn’t realize I was going to ask until the question kind of fell out of my mouth. Chastaine and I had agreed that if I kept “dating” Nathan, she could see other people too. She’d told me she would only go out with guys, no other girls. That didn’t make it any easier to deal with the idea, especially when I knew she slept with every guy she went out with. Sometimes she didn’t even go out with them. She just slept with them.
I didn’t think she was nasty for doing that, the way most people did. If she had fun and was happy, it wasn’t anyone else’s business. My problem was that if she was my girlfriend, I didn’t like the idea of her having sex with anyone else, no matter what agreement we had.
“I haven’t seen anyone else since we got together,” she said.
I stared at her. Even though I’d been almost positive she wasn’t hooking up with anyone, it still surprised me to hear her say it. “We talked about it.”
“Right. So I’d know what my options were. Not necessarily because I planned to do anything.” She gave me a little smile. “After all the crap I went through between November and last month, and all the guys who used to have fun with me but then didn’t want to even be near me, I wasn’t interested. Enjoying sex doesn’t mean I have to have it all the time. It just means I have fun when I do, and I’m not ashamed of it.”
“Oh.”
“So now that I’ve completely blown your mind, yes, if you break up with Nathan, I’ll promise not to see anyone else.” She touched my hand again. This time, she didn’t look around first. “Do you want me to be there when you talk to him?”
“I don’t know when I’m going to have a chance to talk to him.” I paused. “Maybe in the morning before school. Or would that be cruel of me?”
“It isn’t as if you guys are actually a couple. I don’t think he’ll be too brokenhearted about it.”
She had a point. Knowing Nathan, the only thing that would bother him about us “breaking up” would be what other people might think, and that wasn’t my problem.
“Okay,” I said. “So tomorrow before school. I’ll probably talk to him alone. He’s already pissed about you and me. Having you there might make it worse.”
“You aren’t my mom.” But to make her happy, I ate both a carrot stick and a little more chicken before we had to dump our trays and go back to class.
My headache was gone by the time I walked into my classroom, and I wasn’t as annoyed as I’d been before lunch. I wasn’t happy about what I’d eaten, but it seemed to have helped, so I decided to pretend I hadn’t stuffed my face.
At the end of the day, I almost decided to sneak out one of the side doors of the building so I wouldn’t have to get into Dad’s car. I wasn’t looking forward to meeting this counselor person, and even if I decided to talk to her, I wouldn’t be able to say much with Dad there. I doubted he would leave me alone with the counselor. My parents always wanted to know everything.
But if I didn’t go, I’d be in more trouble than I was willing to deal with, so I trudged out the main door and down to the athletic field. Whenever one of my parents picked me up, they waited there. Almost everyone else picked up their kids in front of the school, and there wasn’t enough room for people to stop. As it was, people were blocking each other’s vehicles, and horns blared as those who’d already gotten their kids tried to get out past the ones who were still waiting.
The town was talking about building a new high school. I hoped if they did, they would make it a whole lot easier to park and to pick up students.
“How was your day?” Dad asked as I sank into the passenger seat.
“It was a day.” I didn’t feel like talking.
Naturally he didn’t take the hint. “That doesn’t tell me much.”
“I’m not trying to tell you much. Can we please go?”
I expected him to tell me to stop being disrespectful, but he didn’t say a word. He just drove away from the school, barely missing a couple of kids who decided all cars should stop for them simply because they existed.
The counseling office was in East Boston, not too far from home. If I had to keep seeing the counselor, I’d be able to take public transportation instead of one of my parents having to drive me. That would be good. I wouldn’t have to deal with Mom or Dad, though they probably wouldn’t trust me to actually go to the appointments.
We parked a couple of blocks away and walked through the freezing wind to the building. Dad still didn’t say anything to me. I hoped he was silent because he’d realized I wasn’t in the mood for conversation, but it made me nervous.
He checked me in at the reception desk, and we went upstairs to wait for the counselor. I’d already forgotten her name. I probably wouldn’t remember it even after she introduced herself. I didn’t care that much. If I had my way, this would be the only day I saw her.
Finally, a woman who looked about my grandmother’s age, with curly black-and-gray hair and rectangular glasses, came out of a door right beside where we were sitting. She looked pleasant enough, but I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of talking to someone so much older than me. She probably wouldn’t remember what being a teenager was like, and she wouldn’t have a clue how to help me.
“Are you Holly?” she asked. Her voice sounded younger; if I’d heard her on the phone, I would have pictured someone around my parents’ age.
“Yeah,” I said.
“I’m Lorraine.” She held out her hand but didn’t seem offended when I didn’t shake it. She looked at Dad. “And you’re her father?”
“Yes.” Dad shook her hand and shot me a glare.
“I’m going to talk to Holly alone,” Lorraine said. “If we need you, I’ll come out to get you, but for now I’d rather hear Holly’s opinions on whether and why she might benefit from counseling.”
I didn’t believe I would benefit from it at all, but I figured saying so in front of Dad wouldn’t help anything, so I kept my mouth shut.
“You don’t need a family history or anything?” Dad asked.
“No, for today I’m only going to talk to Holly.” Lorraine gave him a pleasant smile that had a bit of an edge to it. “As I said, if we need you, I’ll let you know.”
Dad nodded. Surprised he hadn’t argued, I got up and followed Lorraine into her office.
I wasn’t too impressed with the room. There was no window, for one thing, and the place smelled like someone’s attic. But she had an overstuffed armchair beside her desk. When I sat there, it was so comfortable I wanted to take a nap.
She sat at her desk and opened a file folder. “How was your day today, Holly?”
I shrugged. “I had school. It was a typical school day.”
“And what does a typical day look like for you?” She picked up a pen.
“Are you going to write down everything I say?” The possibility didn’t please me.
“Only enough to help me remember what you tell me,” she said. “If you and I work together, I’d rather not have to keep asking you things like the name of your school or who your friends are, for example.”
“What if we don’t work together?”
“Then the information will stay in your file, and your file will stay with our other inactive files for a few years. We get rid of inactive files after three years; we keep them that long in case someone decides to start coming to counseling again.” She glanced at something in the folder then looked at me. “Does it bother you if I write things down?”
“I don’t care.” It did bother me, but I wouldn’t have been able to explain why.
“So do you mind telling me about your ‘typical day’?”
I couldn’t think of a good reason to refuse, so I shrugged again and rattled off my usual weekday routine. “I get up, shower, get dressed, meet my friends at the donut shop between my house and school, go to school, go to classes, go to lunch, go to more classes, go home. Unless there’s a drama club meeting. Then I go to that before I go home.”
“You’re in drama club?” She wrote something down. “Do you do any other activities?”
I thought about it. The adults at school weren’t supposed to know about the support group, but Lorraine didn’t have anything to do with school. And maybe hearing that I was helping other people would convince her there wasn’t anything wrong with me. “Sort of. Some friends and I are running a support group. A lot of them have been molested and stuff, and they feel like they don’t have anyone to talk to except their counselors. And a couple of them aren’t even in counseling.”
She frowned. “If it’s you and friends your age doing this, I have to admit I’m concerned. If there’s no one there who’s trained in working with survivors, you might run into triggers or other issues.”
“I know,” I snapped. “Just because we’re teenagers doesn’t mean we’re ignorant. We’ve only had one meeting, and we made a bunch of rules so people won’t be as likely to get triggered. Plus everyone told the group how to help them if they are triggered. Besides, it isn’t exactly a counseling thing. It’s so people can talk to others who’ve been there and know they aren’t alone.”
“It’s an admirable idea.” She made another note in the folder. “I hope you’ll be cautious, that’s all. It does sound like you’ve done some work to make sure it’s a positive experience for the members.”
“Yeah.” I was too annoyed that she would think otherwise to say much more than that.
“So drama club and this support group. Is that it for activities?”
“Yeah,” I said again.
She nodded. “We don’t have much time today. Our intake appointments only last fifteen minutes, and from what we talk about, I’ll make a decision as to whether counseling would benefit you. We’ll establish that before you leave.”
“Cool.”
“Why do you think you need to be here?”
“I don’t.” I leaned back and folded my arms. “My parents do. I guess they think I have an eating disorder or something stupid, which I don’t. I’ve been trying t
o lose weight. They keep telling me I don’t eat enough and I’m making myself sick. I’ve lost weight, and I need to lose more. If I eat as much as they want me to, I’ll gain back what I lost.”
“You know there are healthy and unhealthy ways to lose weight?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
She made another note. “Do you eat enough?”
I had no clue how she expected me to answer that. “As far as I’m concerned, yeah.”
“Why do you want to lose weight?”
“So I’m not fat. Why do you think?” I rolled my eyes. “I’ve always been fat. I finally got tired of it and decided to do something about it. My parents and some of my friends keep getting on my case for not eating, but they don’t get that I’m only trying to be healthy.”
“If you aren’t eating, is that healthy?”
“I don’t know.” I bit my lip so I wouldn’t say something I’d regret. Like calling her a moron. “Maybe not. I get headaches. When I eat, they go away. I get tired, but I’m not as tired if I eat. But I’d rather be tired than fat.”
“I see.” She wrote that down too. “Has anyone pressured you to lose weight?”
I shook my head. “Everyone says I look fine. My girlfriend says she likes my curves.”
“Girlfriend?”
Shit. I’d been so busy trying to convince her there wasn’t anything wrong with the way I ate that I hadn’t thought about what I was saying. Now I had to explain to a total stranger that I was dating a girl. And with my luck, she would tell my dad.
“You look scared,” she said. “Anything you tell me in here is 100 percent confidential, Holly. I can’t even tell your parents anything unless you’re present and we tell them together, or you give me written consent.”
“So you won’t tell my dad anything?” My voice shook a little.
“You have my word.”
I took a deep breath. “My cousin Evan is gay. He came out when he was ten. Everyone hassles him, and his mom and dad fight about it all the time. They’re divorced. My parents had trouble with it too. So I don’t want anyone to know about me. I mean the adults. Evan knows, and some of my other friends, and obviously my girlfriend.”
