by Doyle, S.
My life was finally back to normal.
* * *
Princeton
Marc
Ash: A little bit…
I looked at my phone and grimaced. She was right. It had taken a solid two weeks to understand why I’d been in a bad mood since returning to school. My roommate had mentioned it. The girl I was fucking said she liked the way I anger-fucked her. Which was messed up, but I realized it was true. Coming back to school, I’d wanted to pound someone hard.
The fact that she was blond with curly hair was a bonus, especially when I was drilling into her hard from behind. She didn’t mind how I treated her, but I did. I enjoyed women; I didn’t use them.
Sometimes you did. Sometimes you used them to fuck Ash out of your system.
I threw my phone at my bed to both express anger and ensure I didn’t break the damn thing. I wasn’t stupid enough to blow money like that.
Fuck. She’d gotten under my skin. By week three I’d acknowledged I was missing her…support? Her cheerleader bullshit? Did I need that? Someone to tell me they were proud of me, they were impressed by me, they loved me.
By week four I was pissed at her for making me miss her. Pissed at her for being so freaking honest all the damn time. Pissed at her because when I got hard in the middle of the night, it was to the image of her in that black bikini.
Knowing I couldn’t break and text her first. Not knowing how long she could hold out.
Longer than I could. The minute the douchebag Jeff asked me if it was okay to ask Ash to Homecoming, I had what I needed. An excuse. I must have scared the fuck out of Chris, if I’d been gone for two years and still the threat of me when it came to Ash was alive at Harborview High.
I also wasn’t entirely honest with Ash about what I’d told him, either. I might have texted that I didn’t think it was a good idea. For health reasons. His health. Not that I had any assurances he would listen to me. I was two hours away at school. He and Ash were seniors. She was hot as hell, so why wouldn’t he want to go to the dance with her?
Not that her looks were the best thing about her. No, the best thing about Ash was her unflinching, unending, relentless loyalty.
What the hell was I going to do?
Nothing. For now, things would return to normal and maybe I would stop acting like a lion with a thorn in its paw. I dropped onto my bed and lifted my phone so I could reread our conversation.
She was jealous I was fucking other women. She probably thought she needed to lose her virginity to someone else, if for no other reason than to keep things equal between us.
That made me smile because I knew she wouldn’t do it. I knew she’d wait for me. For a hell of a lot longer than she’d already waited. That didn’t make her less equal. That gave me a necessary advantage.
Because I was starting to understand something else she’d been right about.
I needed her like air.
9
6 months later
Ashleigh
Me: I need you to do something for me.
Marc: No.
I growled at the phone.
Me: Have you forgotten you’ve actually been nice to me for months?
Marc: Define nice.
Me: Returning my texts, being civil when you talk to me, being happy for me when I got accepted to Princeton…nice.
Marc: Yes, but you’re forgetting I went to a buddy’s house for Thanksgiving. I worked over Christmas break, and I refused to come home for George’s birthday party, which you only threw because you wanted to guilt me into showing up.
I frowned at that. It had been months and months since I’d seen him.
Me: It was a big birthday.
Marc: He turned 58.
Me: Fine, you can make up for all of that by doing me a favor.
Marc: Please know I’m wearing my mean face right now when I ask this question, What do you need?
Marc’s version of his mean face was pretty much the face I fell in love with, so it’s not like it intimidated me.
Me: I want you to take me to the prom.
Marc: Ha! That is not going to happen.
I rolled my eyes. That was simply my opening salvo. This was going to be a long, drawn-out campaign. Prom was two months from now, so I had time.
Me: No one else will go with me. Every guy at school thinks we’re a thing so they won’t even look at me.
Marc: Hey, I have an idea. Stop telling people we’re a thing. And stop telling me to threaten any guy who looks at you wrong.
He was missing the obvious here. He lived to threaten guys who looked at me wrong. I considered telling him about Evan.
He’d come for dinner a few times since that first night. Like he’d been the first night, he was always polite. Charming actually. Always interested in my achievements and never once had he done something obviously out of bounds. There was no leering. No innuendo. No romantic interest at all, which of course, would have been weird if there had been, since he was years older than I was.
There was only my gut.
I couldn’t put Marc in a potential situation with a hedge fund manager who could have influence over Marc’s professional future, because of an instinct.
Me: You and I both know you’re going to cave.
Marc: 1000% percent I’m not. I’m a sophomore at Princeton. I’m not going to a high school dance.
Me: Fine. We’ll skip the prom, get a hotel room, and you can take my precious virginity like you’ve been thinking about for months.
No answer. I’d been pushing his buttons for months now by bringing up the subject of sex, and invariably whenever I did, he went quiet. Because it was true? I wasn’t entirely sure. Marc and I were a thing. That would never change. But sometimes I wondered if we were a romantic thing. I liked to believe it would happen someday. But I was going to be eighteen soon and we’d never even kissed.
What if we did and it was weird?
What if what I’d felt for him all this time was more brotherly love than lover love?
Nah. No one who fantasized as much as I did about Marc only felt brotherly affection for him. He was probably freaked out, but he was just going to have to get over it.
I waited for a response, but there was nothing.
* * *
3 weeks later
Ashleigh
Me: Let’s trade. You take me to prom and I’ll agree we can elope for our wedding.
Marc: Didn’t I tell you? I’m already married. Her name is Michelle. And yes, we did elope.
Me: Just so you know I’m wearing my mean face. Is there really a Michelle? Wait, don’t tell me. No, tell me. I can accept you having a love life until you’re ready for me. How else are you going to learn to get good at sex? Me, I’m just reading about it.
Marc: I’M GOOD AT SEX!
Me: Good to know.
Marc: There isn’t a Michelle. But I wouldn’t tell you if there was. It would upset you and I’m actually trying not to do that these days.
Me: Then you’ll take me to the prom???
Marc: No! Final word.
* * *
2 weeks later
Ashleigh
Me: If you don’t take me, I won’t go.
Marc: Don’t care.
Me: But this was the dress I was going to wear. Sending pic now.
Marc: Nice dress. Go find someone else to take you.
Me: No, it’s fine. I’ll just stay home. I mean, who cares about prom anyway?
Marc: No one.
Me: You’ve left me with no choice…I’m calling in the big guns.
* * *
1 week later
Group Chat
Ashleigh
George: Marc, why won’t you take Ashleigh to the prom?
Marc: Stay out of this, George.
Me: George, see how awful he’s being? Everything I did for him for all those years.
George: She was there for you at every soccer game. For every win, but more importantly, for every loss.
George: And she was there for you. One prom doesn’t seem like a lot to ask in return.
Marc: FINE! I’ll take her. But I’m not buying her flowers or staying longer than one hour.
Me: Happy dance! Thanks, George. Marc, no screwing this up. This is important to me. It might be my one normal high school event.
* * *
Prom Night
Ashleigh
I stood barefoot in the living room in my dress. The shoes were Vuitton and were going to kill my feet, so I was waiting until the last possible minute to put them on. Just like I’d waited for the last possible moment to put my dress on.
I’d bought two dresses. One I showed my dad, the other I wore tonight. It was a simple, black strapless one that scooped low around my back and fit every curve tightly enough to make me breathe shallow.
My hair was done. My makeup was done. I was so ready.
I checked my phone and it was after seven o’clock. Technically, the event started at seven, but that didn’t mean we had to be on time. Still, he should have been home by now.
Marc had a morning class and he told me he would leave right after that so he would have plenty of time to get here and change into his suit. Only, as of one minute ago, Marc still hadn’t arrived at the carriage house, according to George.
I think George was getting worried. For me or for Marc, I wasn’t sure which.
Marc wasn’t answering texts or his phone. He was twenty minutes late. While I thought a miracle might happen and he would walk through the door any moment now, by eight o’clock I had to accept the facts.
He wasn’t coming.
It sort of sounded right. Marc telling me he would go, then pulling the rug out from under me at the last minute. Except we’d been different since last summer. He had been trying to treat me like I knew how he felt about me.
I wasn’t under any delusions. I didn’t think he was going to see me in my fancy dress and makeup and decide this would be the night we were going to change everything. This was going to be the night he would make love to me.
But I thought we were going to dance. And laugh. I would have a night I could remember. The night Marc took me to prom.
Except he wasn’t going to do that. He was standing me up instead.
I contorted myself in a way to bend down and pick up my shoes, then began the long walk up the stairs to take off the dress and makeup Marc would never see.
The front door opened, and, for a second, I thought everything was going to be okay. Until my father stumbled through the door. It was Friday night. He never came back from the city on Friday nights!
I watched him stumble forward and I dropped my shoes on the stairs and rushed to him to see if he was in pain or hurt. Or possibly having a heart attack.
“Daddy? Are you okay?”
Then he straightened and looked at me. I could see his face was flushed red. Could see his eyes were glassy. I watched his confusion at my appearance turn into anger.
“What the fuck are you wearing?”
I blinked. In my whole life I’d never heard my father swear. He called language like that coarse and classless. Underneath the cursing was the slurring.
He was very drunk.
“I…ah…it was supposed to be prom…but…”
Then with a sudden charge, he rushed toward me, lifted his hand high, and brought it down hard against my face.
I fell to the floor. From the power of the blow certainly, but also because my legs gave out with shock and surprise.
Cupping my face, I felt the throbbing along my cheek and tried to swallow the tears that had immediately sprung to my eyes.
“Go to your room and take off that slut dress. NOW!”
I wasn’t going to be able to stand. I was shaking too hard. My father had never laid a hand on me. He’d been distant. He’d been absent. He’d never been abusive.
“This was your fault,” he hollered. “You lied to me! You deceitful slut.”
Then he kicked me in the stomach. Not so hard, but again the shock of it had me gagging. He’d hit me. He was kicking me. The reality of what was happening was starting to penetrate my brain and I began to crawl away from him.
The second I put some distance between us, I forced myself to my feet. I could hear the dress rip, could hear the sobs from my father, now blubbering about how sorry he was.
“You’re my little girl. You need to stay my little girl,” he cried. “Ashleigh, my Ashleigh, honey, I’m so sorry.”
I didn’t acknowledge it. Instead, I ran upstairs to my room as fast as I could. Once there, I locked the door behind me. Sitting on my bed, I tried to think about what I needed to do.
Tell George.
No, I couldn’t let him know what my father had done. What if George tried to confront my father? What if my father fired him?
There was no good outcome if George knew. Which meant he wasn’t going to know.
Marc. I couldn’t process how I felt about what he’d done. He’d lied. He’d, once again, deliberately set me up to be hurt emotionally. Because of his actions, he’d set me up to be physically hurt, too. I wouldn’t have been home when Daddy showed up, if only Marc hadn’t stood me up.
I didn’t want to see him. I didn’t want to talk to him. While at the same time, I wanted to scratch his eyes out. I wanted scream at him about how much he’d failed me.
Carefully, I got up and went to my en suite bathroom. I took off the dress and the makeup. I put a cold washcloth on my cheek, laid on my bed and focused on each and every breath. Not letting a single one get away from me. Not falling into the trap I’d fallen into before when I’d let my emotions overcome my body.
One breath, then another. Until, eventually, I fell asleep.
That was how my prom night ended.
10
Prom Night
Marc
She was never going to believe me. I sat on the metal bench staring at the bars in front of me, and all I could think of was what she’d texted me when I agreed to this.
Marc, no screwing this up. This is important to me.
This was pretty much the definition of screwing it up.
“Campbell,” the officer called out, as he entered the area that contained the holding cell where I’d spent the night.
I stood and walked to the front of the cell, careful to keep my hands behind my back because the urge to choke this motherfucker was real.
“We got confirmation you borrowed the car from a friend, so the charges of car theft will be dropped. But you’re still going to have to report to court for resisting arrest.”
“I didn’t…” I stopped myself immediately as soon as the guy snapped his head up from where he’d been opening the door. “I’m sorry. Of course, I will appear in court to address the matter.”
I needed to shut my mouth, call George to come get me, then find a way to explain this to Ash.
Did she go to the prom? Maybe find someone there who she could hang out and dance with? See, this was the problem, this was why I never should have said yes in the first place. I wasn’t supposed to drop everything and coming running for a stupid high school dance. She was supposed to find someone in her class who would take her and do it up right.
Flowers, a corsage, pictures. All that bullshit.
Instead, she wanted me. Irascible, moody me. Who she probably thought stood her up on purpose just to be that asshole guy who would use yet another tool to hurt her.
The dickhead officer, who I thought had been unnecessarily rough, which prompted me to throw him off as he tried to handcuff me, which resulted in my resisting-arrest charge, opened the cell door and let me out.
I kept my head down, said nothing, and collected my phone which had died on me, much like the car had. Of course. So I hadn’t even been able to let Ash know what was happening. I asked the woman handling the front desk if she had an extra charger. She took pity on me, plugged my phone in w
ith her charger, and twenty minutes later I had enough juice to call George.
I saw the text indicator, the missed call indicator, but I didn’t have time to deal with that now.
George picked up on the first ring and I had to get through the you sonofabitch, do you know how fucking disappointed I am in you right now? How could you do something like that, to her of all people? before cutting him off with the news I was in jail.
At least that stopped the diatribe.
“Just come get me,” I said, weary now from a night of not sleeping. “I’m at the Harborview Police Station. I’ll explain everything when you get here. My phone’s about to die again so there’s no point in trying to talk to Ash now. I’ll talk to her as soon as I get there, and apologize.”
“I’ll be there. But this sucks, Marc.”
George hung up and I nodded in total agreement. This did suck.
Twenty minutes later, George pulled up in front of the police station where I’d been waiting outside, despite it being a relatively hot and muggy day in June. I didn’t want to look at the cops, talk to the cops. Hell, I didn’t even want to smell the cops.
It was cops who had come to pull me out of my mom’s apartment. Cops who had arrested her and sent me to CPS. Cops who all thought they’d been doing the right thing by me when I’d been sure, if I had some more time, I could have convinced my mom to get clean.
I pushed them out of my head, as well as the fact I had to go to court to address the resisting arrest charge, which would most likely result in a pretty hefty fine along with community service.
“What happened?” George asked wearily.
I glanced at him and saw he looked as tired as I felt. I’d joked about his birthday with Ash, but the truth was, he was still doing a lot of manual labor for a man his age. My window to graduate from Princeton, get a job at a bank or brokerage firm, start making serious money so I could take care of him, was tight. I would do it, though. Nothing was going to stop that future.