They’ll never forgive me.
It was an accident.
I call for an Uber and head down the street toward the communal tennis courts. It’s not a hidden space, if anybody wants to find me they can, easily. If anybody wants to come after me, they can. If anybody wants to call me, they can.
Nobody does. Not even by the time I get into my Uber and head straight to Brett’s.
I cry into his chest and he holds me until I’m done.
The only message I get is from my dad, and it’s not until hours later. Hours after I tell him where I am because I’m just desperate for him to call me and to tell me he still loves me, and to tell me he’s just disappointed in me.
Raven: I’m at Brett’s. I’m not coming home.
Dad: It’s probably best right now, Raven.
“He’s just mad,” Brett whispers, reading over my shoulder.
I start crying again, feeling weak and so tired. “It was just a prank. It was an accident.”
“It wasn’t even your fault, it was mine.” He looks as sad as I feel.
“Don’t you dare blame yourself, I’m the one that chose to do it. Not you. This was my decision.”
He hugs me with one arm again and I rest my head on his shoulder. “They’ll come around.”
“What if they don’t?”
“They will, we graduate next week. They have to.”
I spend the night writing apologies for Travis to send to whoever I sent that stupid photo to. I wish I could go back in time. I attach the original photos and take full blame for manipulating them. I go onto social media where the picture is obviously circulating and I admit to my part in it.
A lot of my friends have my back, defending me from those who turn from harassing Travis and his tiny penis, to harassing me for being an incest-loving queen. Apparently, I want to shag my brother and that’s why I did this. If only they knew I already have.
I’m quickly becoming an online pariah and it feels so unfair.
All I wanted to do was the right thing by Travis and instead… I fucked everything up.
All of this is because I didn’t want to hurt him. Not only have I hurt him, I’ve potentially ruined his future. I’ve hurt my dad, his mom, his family, my family.
All I ever do is hurt them.
“Do I have to attend graduation?” I ask Brett after curling up on his bed.
“Yes, I’m pretty sure you do,” Brett replies, smiling sadly at me. “It’ll be okay.”
Dad spoke to Brett’s parents about letting me stay there for a while because Shonda doesn’t want me home. So, I’ve been here a week now, today is graduation day and it should be a celebration. Instead I’m hiding out from everybody but my girls and Brett.
Brett’s parents haven’t spoken to me about what I did, I think they know I feel bad and I think Brett told them he had a part in it too.
My dad has only called me once, to tell me again how stupid I was and how much trouble I caused. He kept drilling it in until I hung up because I couldn’t take it anymore.
He was right of course, even just sending it to Sierra could have damaged Travis’ reputation, she could have sent it to everybody on her friends list. She could have uploaded it to the internet and we would have been where we’re at anyway.
I wish I could just stay at home and smoke green and drink vodka until I stop feeling everything, but instead I’m forced to don the graduation gown my dad dropped off yesterday without speaking to me, and go to this stupid ceremony where only my classmates cheer for me as I cross the stage to accept my diploma.
The girls who are looking at ways for me to go to New York a couple of months early. Without them. It’ll benefit them, but I’ll be alone.
Hell, I’m alone anyway.
I’ve really fucked up.
Travis graduates, Preston gives a speech, but none of them talk to me. Travis won’t even look at me.
My own dad does little more than congratulate me and give me a one-armed hug, like he can’t bear to touch me. It breaks my heart. How can they all just throw me away like that?
“It’ll be okay,” Cella promises. “Mom said you can come and stay with us until we leave for the city.”
I thank her and put on a braver face as we head to Lake’s for a killer after-party, where I finally get to drink, smoke green, and forget about everything else.
Except I don’t forget. I can’t forget. Because at midnight I walk in on Travis, who wasn’t even at the party earlier, and Sierra, who also wasn’t at the party earlier, making out like fucking porn stars by Travis’ car. Her hand was down his fucking pants!
“Drink, forget, move on,” Cella said, pushing her own drink into my hands.
But I definitely can’t forget that. It won’t stop spiraling in my mind. They’re all I can see. All I want to do is change my reaction and rip her hair from her head. Travis was mine! MINE! And I fucked that up so bad.
At one in the morning, when I’m thoroughly drunk and buzzed on everything I could get my hands on, I head to my house. Because my drunken, drugged-up self has convinced my rational mind that speaking to my dad now is the smart choice.
I bang on the door, stumbling and swaying in the dark. I feel sick, my vision is blurry, but I have to tell them what I think.
“DAD!” I yell, banging on the door again.
The light comes on in the hall, I see it through the glass panels before the door finally clicks open.
“Raven? What the fuck?” Dad hisses, gripping the doorframe as he watches me. “It’s one in the morning!”
“It’s not fair,” I snap. “It’s not fair, Dad!”
“Come on,” he says softly, coaxing me inside but I step back and almost fall. “Jesus, Rave, what have you done to yourself?”
“It was just a stupid mistake,” I explain but even to my own ears my words are slurring. “And now she gets him and not me and it’s not fair. She’s taking him from me. And I didn’t want this to happen. And everyone hates me.”
“Nobody hates you,” he tries, stepping outside.
“What’s going on?” Shonda asks quietly but I can’t see her. My eyes can only just focus on my dad’s silhouette.
“I don’t know, I can hardy understand what she’s saying.”
“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here!” I scream and lean against the porch rail.
“Calm down,” Shonda snaps at me, stepping out beside my dad.
“Now you’ve got a new family and her and suddenly you don’t love me anymore. And now he’s got her and he doesn’t love me anymore. And nobody loves me anymore. Everybody hates me.”
“Nobody hates you,” Dad tries but Shonda snorts and my anger rises.
“Everybody hates me.”
Shonda rolls her eyes and I don’t quite catch what she says to my dad, but I hear the words her mother and I see red. My vision goes crimson and my body shakes like a blender, slicing up all of my rational feelings.
I lunge for her and grab her hair. My anger peaks to heights I didn’t know myself capable of. She deserves it, she has ruined my family. Dad and I were happy before she came along. Before Travis and everything else!
Arms wrap around my stomach, but I grab and keep grabbing. How dare she speak about my mother? How dare she?
We all yell over each other, but I don’t know what’s being said anymore. I’m not in control of myself anymore.
I’m airborne for a moment and then I hit the ground with a jarring thud that makes my back and ribs ache.
My dad threw me. He fucking threw me and now he stands with Shonda who is sobbing, holding her like I’m the bad guy. He can’t see it. Can’t see that she’s poisoned him against me. She said it. She did this.
He has scratches down his neck and I have blood on my fingernails. Did I do that?
Travis approaches me carefully.
Then crouches in front of me, he holds out his hand and his eyes sparkle in the moonlight. He’s wearing plaid pajamas and sneakers without socks. “L
et’s get you to bed, Raven. Okay? Sleep this off.” He’s talking to me like a baby, like a feral animal. He thinks this is my fault too. “Come on, Raven. Take my hand. Let’s go inside.”
“You abandoned me too,” I say quietly and his brows pull together. “And I needed you.”
“I’m here now. Let me help you.”
“Travis, be careful,” Shonda whispers like I can’t fucking hear her. “You don’t know what she’s taken. Look at her eyes.”
“Fuck you all,” I snarl, climbing to my feet. “I don’t need any of you.”
“Good, then don’t come back,” Shonda shouts after me and I hear my dad hush her.
“Raven,” Travis pleads but he doesn’t follow me either. Not even as I stomp through Shonda’s plants in the yard.
Fuck them.
I go back to Brett’s and try to sleep it off.
But when I wake up, my body aching with remorse and humiliation, all I can think is, fuck me.
I’m poison. Just like my mom.
“I’m not scared about being there alone, but I have to go. Without my dad and Shonda’s financial support, I have no income,” I explain to Brett who nods sadly.
“Things finally seem to be settling down, though.”
“This is the third time I’ve had to change my number,” I point out, raising an eyebrow. “Nothing is settling down and nothing will until I’m gone. There are no summer jobs locally and this place is too small. Dad isn’t talking to me. He blanked me in the grocery store the other day.”
“You didn’t tell me about that.”
“I got so drunk I almost forgot about it.”
We share smiles of sadness and hug tightly. “I’m going to miss you.”
“I’ll be fine. I’ve got a job waiting for me when I get there, I’ve got a room waiting for me…”
“In a stranger’s house.”
“Molly’s cousin’s friend’s place.” We share a look and I giggle, it’s the first time I’ve giggled since that night. “It’ll do until the girls join me in August.”
“If it’s what you want.” He glances around the room I’ve been staying in at his parents’ home and pouts sadly. “What am I going to do without you?”
“Cry a lot?”
He chuckles and punches my arm. “But only when nobody is looking.”
“Of course. Don’t want nobody thinkin’ you a weak-ass bitch!”
“Practicing your Bronx?”
“Duh.”
I say goodbye to his parents and meet Cella out front when she pulls up. The girls are taking me to the airport to say goodbye, but they’re the only ones who are.
I haven’t spoken to anybody about that night. I haven’t spoken to my dad, Shonda, or Travis since that night either. Though my dad has called Brett’s parents, and he has asked to speak to me, I didn’t take the call.
I’m not good for them. They’re their own little family unit now and I’ll only ever bring them down. They’re better off without me.
I don’t verbalize this to anyone either.
The girls think my dad doesn’t want anything to do with me, though I didn’t say that, I haven’t corrected them. It’s better this way, it stops them from telling him things. Not that they would, but if they find out how I acted that night, they might stop loving me too.
I attacked Shonda! I fucking attacked her. While off my head on who knows what because I can’t remember what I took that night. I can’t even remember what I did that night before I attacked them. I try not the think about it because every time I do I just feel so ashamed and so sad.
I just get on that plane after a teary goodbye and go. Leaving California and all the bad memories behind me.
It’s amazing how just one simple choice can cause a chain reaction that alters your entire life as you know it.
What makes it worse, is a month later, after touching down in the Big Apple, starting work at a local cab firm, and making a few decent friends, my girls call and one by one they drop out. One by one they leave me alone. One by one, I’m left with nothing. The closer it got to the date that they’d have to leave everything behind, the more scared they got.
They all backed out, they all left me.
“You can always stay here,” Roma says, smiling at me. She’s Molly’s cousin’s friend, the young woman that took me in to begin with. “Truth be told, your money has been a massive help and I might not get somebody as trustworthy as you to live with.”
“Somebody who doesn’t sniff your panties and watch you while you sleep, you mean,” I jest as tears burn my eyes.
She squeezes my shoulder. “I’ll go get the ice cream.”
I’ve never been a good person, I’ve always been selfish, and my karma is this. I deserve this.
I deserve it until I can prove that I can be a good person and I can do good things. I deserve it until I can be more forgiving and forgive my friends for abandoning me.
For them and this path, I left Travis. For them and this path, my life ended. For them and this path… I fucked up everything.
“I never want to see any of them again,” I whisper and bury my face in my hands.
“Shit,” Roma mutters. “I’ll get the vodka.”
I understand Brett a little bit more now. I understand why he did what he did because I am so close to doing it myself. It would be so easy right now to find a tall building and jump off. Nobody needs me anyway, nobody wants me.
It’s only out of spite that I don’t make that choice.
It’s only out of competitiveness that I keep going.
I won’t be like my mother, I won’t be what they think I am.
I can be forgiving, I can ask for forgiveness without losing my integrity, I can be a good person.
I can do this… eventually.
Ten years later
“Say, ahhhhhhhh.” I stick out my tongue comically, making the little boy in the large-looking hospital bed giggle. “No, don’t laugh! You say… AHHHHHHHH.”
He finally copies, making his mother laugh this time and look at me with appreciation. It doesn’t take much to make the little ones feel happy and safe. I used to hate boring doctors when I was a child.
I ruffle his hair, smiling warmly at him after assessing the back of his throat.
“Is he okay?” his mother asks.
I nod and look at the student doctor who already kind of confirmed this but wanted my opinion. “He’s good for surgery. Which means…” My first-year resident pulls out a roll of stickers. “You get the magical sticker of mystical voodoo protection!”
The little boy hollers and chooses one with a firetruck on it.
His mother thanks me and I leave the room with my residents hot on my heels. They’re like annoying shadows. Brilliant, yet annoying shadows. They ask too many questions. Questions they should ask, but still, it’s annoying.
“Your phone keeps ringing,” I’m told, so I hold out my hand and it’s placed into my palm.
I look at my phone, it’s not a number I recognize but I get a lot of those so I put it to my ear.
“Hello?” I ask as I hit the bustle of the ward. It’s visiting hours, always a manic hour, and always my time for coffee.
“Raven?”
My heart stops flat. I think I might need cardiac resuscitation. “Nobody has called me that for a long time.”
“So this is Raven? Raven Kendrick?”
I duck into a quieter room and press my hand to my chest. I know who it is, I almost want to hang up but I can’t seem to move.
None of them have tried to get in touch since they filed a missing person’s report nine years ago. I told the police I was safe and to tell them to stop contacting me, they did. They never tried again. I never tried again.
The more time that passed, the harder it was to call, the easier it was to stay away. I took on my middle name as my first name, and my friends and I played a game of pick the name from the hat to decide my surname my second year of college when I sent an email to Sho
nda to apologize and she never replied.
It was petty but it made me feel new. It helped me get over that sting.
I ended up legally registered under the alias Isla Riddle. Apparently, we had some big Harry Potter fans there for the hat draw because Voldemort, Marvolo, Potter, Weasley, and Granger were all in the hat too.
“Hi, Dad,” I whisper, feeling and sounding like the eighteen-year-old girl I was the last time I saw him.
He makes a choking sound. “I thought… I mean… I’m forgetting my words. How are you? What have you been doing? Where do I start?”
“How did you get my number?” Apart from Brett and Molly, I don’t really speak to anybody from my past, and even then it’s mostly through email. I don’t have an obvious social media because my bosses don’t allow it. That and it’s not safe for us. It’s against the hospital’s policy.
“Does it matter? Talk to me, tell me everything.”
I wipe away my silent tears. “Well, what do you want to know?”
“Everything. Are you safe?”
I look at the blank white walls of the empty room and smile. “I’m very safe. How are you?”
“Better now that I’m finally hearing your voice, kid.”
“I’m not exactly a kid anymore.”
He sniffs and I wonder if he’s crying too. That makes my heart clench painfully. It makes more tears fall. “No, that’s true.”
The door opens behind me. “Dr. Riddle, Leo is ready and waiting.”
“Dad, I have to go. I have a patient waiting.”
He pauses. “A patient?”
“Can I call you back later? It’ll only take me a few hours.”
“I don’t understand, are you pranking me?”
I frown. “Pranking you? You called me.”
“I know but… what do you mean by patient? As in you’re being patient?” He sounds so confused, his voice has hardly changed at all. It’s still so deep and comforting in a way only fathers’ voices are.
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