Beth’s face turns red. My mom laughs uncomfortably and swats at him—it seems playful until I see the desperate sadness in her eyes.
But she doesn’t say a word.
My sister’s hand moves away from the butter and she looks down at her plate. Her long dark hair slips forward, hiding her eyes.
Shame. It works every time.
“Dude, he’s a dick,” I tell Beth after each of these dinners.
“Fuck him,” she says.
“That’s Mom’s job,” I say.
We laugh mean-girl laughs. It’s Us against Them.
But it didn’t matter how much I told Beth to ignore The Giant, how much I made her laugh—his words found a home somewhere deep inside her. First there were the baggy clothes she wore to hide her figure, then there were the skinny limbs, jeans falling off her waist.
Home became a place that wasn’t safe and it’s been like that ever since.
It’s late on a Monday night when the house phone rings. The Giant yells from the living room for me to get it, even though I’m in my bedroom down the hall and he’s a few feet away from the phone. I throw down my AP History book with a huff and head out to where the phone is attached to the dining room wall.
The Giant turns from where he’s watching golf on the couch. He’s maybe the most unattractive man in the world. No, that’s not true. I guess he’s okay-looking, but he’s ugly to me. Thin blond hair, a matching goatee. Give him horns and a pitchfork and he’d be a dead ringer for the devil.
We don’t say a word to each other, just exchange one wary glance before I pass the living room.
I grab the phone and as soon as I say hello, there’s a gravelly, “Hi, honey.”
“Dad.” I can hear the uncertainty in my voice, almost a question. Dad? Is this really you? How many lies are you going to tell me this time?
I wonder what I will tell you about my dad, if you ever ask. The important things first: he joined the Marines after 9/11 and they sent him to Iraq three times and Afghanistan once. By the time he came back from his second tour, he wasn’t my dad anymore. Someone had taken his happy-go-lucky personality and replaced it with a very angry, very sad man. He and Mom got divorced not long after that, when I was about six.
I don’t know what went down during the war, but whatever it was turned my dad into an addict. Whiskey. Cocaine. Heroin. After my dad checked into rehab the first time, I heard the term PTSD: post-traumatic stress disorder. The war fucked me up good, he said once, when I was eight or nine.
We don’t see him much.
“How’s it going, hon?”
“Fine.”
I don’t have lots to say to someone who is little more than a shadow on the periphery of my life. Someone who breaks promises as often as he makes them. He lives in another state, just a voice on the phone: nice enough guy one moment, anxious, furious man-child the next. I wish I didn’t love him, but I do. It’s hard to write off your own flesh and blood, even when they take a jackhammer to your heart.
“Well, good, good,” he says. “Got a new job. Construction. Pays shit, but it’s under the table, so that’s cool.”
“Nice.”
But my heart sinks. His words run together, like he has to get them out fast or they’ll scamper away. I can’t tell if he’s drunk or high this time. I think I know why he’s calling.
“Don’t know about nice. I’ve … got some problems,” he says, “but it’ll be okay.” He pauses. “I don’t have the money right now. For that thing. The drama thing. I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
The tears come hot and fast, but I hold them in. I knew the summer theatre camp at Interlochen was a total pie-in-the-sky dream but my dad, when he heard about it, insisted he could make it come true. I should have known better than to trust him. To trust that he’d be able to stand on his own two feet for longer than a few weeks at a time—long enough to get me to camp.
“What problems?” I ask, already weary. Here we go, I think.
“Well, you know, my doc at the VA gave me these fuckin’ meds. Fuckin’ doc doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing.”
This is normal. He gets angry, fast. A switch flips and then you’ve got a US Fuckin’ Marine, motherfucker on your hands. All I can do is listen until I can pass the phone to my mom so they can argue about child support and then he’ll go off on her until she’s screaming back and one of them hangs up the phone.
Twenty minutes into my dad’s rant about the VA, I start daydreaming. I’m in New York, walking through Washington Square Park. I’m a student at NYU and I’m on my way to acting class.… You’re there, holding my hand. You lean down and kiss me, soft, like—
“Making me fall asleep,” Dad’s saying.
Did you mean it when you said you didn’t love Summer anymore, that you aren’t even sure if it was ever real, true love? Because—
“Hello!” Dad yells.
“Sorry,” I say. “What?”
“I said the fuckin’ medicine is making me fall asleep on the fuckin’ job and I—”
“Dad,” I say, serious. “You have to stop taking that medicine. Or at least take it at night, so you can sleep.”
“Yeah, yeah. Maybe. Hey, your mother keeps nagging me for child support.” Dad does this—he’s all over the place when we talk. “Think you can get her off my back?”
I’ve gotten so used to this. One parent says this, one says that. I have to give my mom credit, though: she doesn’t badmouth him or try to put me in the middle. That’s classy. And probably takes a crapload of restraint. I wonder if it’s because a little, very hidden part of her still loves him. Or maybe she just feels bad for him. They got married so young and it’s like she’s the only one of them who ever learned to be an adult.
“We’re kinda broke, Dad. I mean, that’s why she’s asking for it,” I say.
Never mind that a father is supposed to provide for his kids. That ship sailed, like, a million years ago.
“You got a boyfriend?” he asks, out of the blue.
You take my hand and turn it over. Kiss the palm.
“Nope. No boyfriend.”
And I don’t. Have one, that is. Unfortunately.
“Well, let me tell you something, honey. All a boy wants is for you to give him a blowjob. Better than sex.”
My stomach turns. Why does he tell me this stuff? This is sick.
“Dad…”
He laughs. “I’m serious!”
What the hell is he on?
“Dad! Eww, stop.”
“You need to know about these things. All boys care about are tits and fucking.”
“No, actually, they don’t. Not all of them.”
I think about you sitting backstage with your black notebook, writing songs, your lips moving slightly. Or how you’ll give me one of your earbuds so that we can listen to a song together. The way you exaggerate choreography to make everyone laugh, your perfectionism when it comes to music.
“Yeah, they do, honey. You ask ’em. Tits and fucking, all day, every day.”
“Dad. Seriously, I don’t want to talk about this. It’s, like, totally inappropriate?”
He just laughs.
I have four vivid memories of my dad and here they are:
When I was a little girl, maybe seven years old, he had me for the weekend. He lived in San Diego at the time, near the Marine Corps base. We went to the beach and we were there all day because the beach is my dad’s version of heaven. I had a blast. But then we got home and I realized I hurt so bad all over. My pale skin had turned a fiery red everywhere. Some blisters had developed over the burns. I cried all night. Dad had forgotten the sunscreen, but not the cooler full of beer.
When I was in sixth grade, my dad went to Afghanistan again. Before he left, I got to see him walking into a roomful of Marines and all of them stood and saluted him. Pride filled my chest. We got ice cream after—mint chocolate chip.
I remember how later that day, my mom dragged me onto the tarmac where rows of men st
ood. Where is the money? she yelled. You don’t just get to go and leave these girls stranded. This was in the desert—29 Palms. It gets cold there at night and you can see thousands of stars in the sky. There are snakes that hide under the sand. If you aren’t careful, their fangs will latch onto your skin, fast as lightning.
My most recent memory of my dad was when I went to visit him over the summer when I was in junior high—seventh grade, going into eighth. He’d had a lot to drink and we were sitting in the living room of his bachelor pad. He sat in a beach chair because that was all he could afford.
I killed people—bad guys. They were planting bombs next to the road, killing our guys left and right, fucking us up, he said, his eyes glassy, his whole face zeroed in on people and places that I couldn’t see. I saw a lot of my friends die. They’re just … gone.
Mom walks into the kitchen and I put my hand over the phone.
“It’s Dad,” I say, my eyes begging her to let me off the hook.
She sighs and holds out her hand for the phone and I pass him to her mid-rant (now he’s onto politics) and then I run to the backyard and find a hidden corner to cry in.
Tradition.
I want to call you so bad, tell you about Interlochen and my dad. I want to hear your voice telling me it’s going to be okay. But would my family situation make you less into me? Would it make you run in the other direction? I know my family isn’t normal. We’re fucked up. I’m sure there are lots of non-fucked-up girls who could make you happy.
I sit on a patch of grass and pull up the blades as I think. My mind plays hopscotch, jumping from you to Dad and back again. Instead of the trip I was supposed to take, I think about how you come up behind me in the hallways at school and wrap your arms around me. I think about how you hold my hand backstage, secretly so no one can see. You belong to a different world from the one at home. A place where I’m seen, where there’s gentleness. Hearts that beat in time.
I take a risk and call you. You answer on the first ring.
“How’s my favorite girl in the world?” you ask.
“Whoa,” I say. “My status has been seriously elevated since last we talked.”
“Since last we talked? Nuh-uh. You’ve been my favorite girl for a while now.”
“Is that so?” I say.
“It is so.”
I break down crying. I can’t keep the sobs in. You ask me what’s wrong and when I tell you everything—about my dad and Interlochen and how fucked-up everything is—all you want to do is come over. But you can’t.
“It’s a school night,” I say. “My mom has this rule—”
“What is up with these rules?” you growl.
Since you can’t come over, you do the next best thing. You grab your guitar and sing me “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” putting your own Kurt Cobain angst twist on it. I can’t get over the fact that Gavin Davis is serenading me over the phone. That you’re upset because you can’t see me. That I’m your favorite girl in the world.
“Feeling any better?” you ask after you finish the song.
“I’m perfect. Great. You’re amazing.”
You laugh softly. “You bring it out in me. You bring all the best things out of me.” You pause. “I want us to be together, you know that, right?”
There are fireworks inside me. I press my phone closer to my ear, as if that could somehow make you less far away.
“Do you?” I breathe.
“Yes, hell yes,” you say. “I just don’t want to go too fast and fuck it up, you know?”
“Yeah,” I say softly, “I know.”
We talk for another hour while I stay in the backyard, huddled on Sam’s jungle gym. You tell me corny jokes and secrets and all the unhappiness in me seems to get whisked away, as though the sound of your voice has the power to banish badness.
We hang up when my mom calls me inside, but just before I’m about to go to bed, you call me back.
“I know you,” you say. “You’re going to lie in bed and think about Interlochen all night. Am I right?”
I grudgingly admit that you are.
“Not on my watch,” you say. I hear you strum your guitar.
My life has become a fairy tale. Evil stepfather, prince in disguise.
I keep my phone against my ear and let you play me song after song until finally I fall asleep to the sound of your voice, to words that say everything you can’t yet say to me.
ELEVEN
Two weeks later:
There’s a tap at my bedroom window and I wake up, scared. But it’s you. You point in the direction of the sliding glass door. It’s three in the morning. All I’m wearing is a tiny pair of shorts and a cotton tank top. No bra. I should get decent, but I don’t.
I listen for my mom. For The Giant. But they’re sound asleep. The door slides silently open and your eyes travel from my feet to my knees, to my thighs, to the way my nipples press against the thin cotton tank. You lean against the doorway.
“You’re torturing me. On purpose.”
I smile. Bite my lip. Lean closer. (Who IS this girl?) “Is it working?” I murmur.
“Yes,” you breathe. Your lips are close, but you don’t lean in. We haven’t kissed, not yet.
“Want an adventure?” you ask, eyes sparkling.
I nod. Because I’m pretty sure it’ll involve kissing, it has to.
But it will also involve lying and sneaking. I still remember the first time I lied when I was a little girl—the shame and fear over one measly cookie. Worrying about getting caught—and then getting caught—was so not worth that Oreo. I logically concluded that it wasn’t in my best interest to lie.
The one time The Giant caught me in a lie—I said there was a meeting after school for drama, but I was really getting Pepsi Freezes with the girls—I was grounded for a solid month. So I just … didn’t lie. Pretty much ever. And then you came along. Lately, I catch myself lying all the time, little fibs that buy me extra minutes with you. Instead of feeling bad about it, I feel liberated. Being a good kid hasn’t been working out for me. So I let the bad girl in. Each lie is something that’s mine, that my mom and The Giant can’t take away from me. Each lie reminds me I’m an actual person with rights and desires and the ability to make choices on her own. Each lie is power—control over my life.
So I sneak out, chasing that power, chasing you, wearing next to nothing. You grab my hand and we sprint down the street, to where you parked your car well away from my house.
“Don’t distract me while I’m driving, you minx.”
I hold up my hand. “Scout’s honor.”
The streets are empty. The night is ours. You turn into one of the new housing developments and stop in front of the skeleton of a half-finished house. You grab a blanket and pull me inside. You lay the blanket in a dark corner, where the moonlight can’t touch. Above us, the sky. Just rafters where the roof of this house will one day be. You pull me down onto the blanket and there is no space between us, not even a centimeter. You want me, I can feel it. You’re hard and you press against me and I bite my lip and you groan.
“You better lie next to me,” you say.
I love that I’m torturing you.
“And why is that?” I press closer and you close your eyes for a second.
“Because I’m about two seconds away from ravishing you,” you say.
I actually have no problem with this, but I laugh and slide off you. We lie on our backs, staring at the constellations. And then—a shooting star. We gasp at the same time and you reach out and grip my hand.
“I’ve never seen one before,” I say.
You smile. “It’s a sign.”
“Of what?”
“That we’re meant to be together.”
You bring my knuckles to your lips and your mouth moves across my skin. You keep your eyes on me as you kiss each finger. You drop my hand, your mouth moving closer to mine. I can’t breathe. You put your fingers on my lips and lean over me, studying them.
“You better fucking kiss me, Gavin Davis.”
The corner of your mouth turns up. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
You laugh softly and rest your weight on your elbows, eyes roving over my face. I am dying. I want to scream. You smile.
“This is the best part,” you whisper, nuzzling me.
“What?” I say.
“The before.”
You bring your lips to my ear. “Are you sure you want this?”
“Yes.” There isn’t the slightest hesitation in my voice.
Your lips brush my earlobe, snake across my jaw, and when they finally fall onto my own we are hungry and want more, more, more. You crush your lips against mine and I open my mouth to let you in. You taste so good, like cinnamon. We roll around and now I’m on top of you, kissing you like it’s the only chance I’ll ever have to feel your lips against mine. Your hands slide up my thighs, under my shirt.
“Tell me when to stop,” you whisper as you pull the tank top over my head, then pull off your own shirt.
I don’t want to stop, not ever.
I forget about parents and rules and all our empty promises to each other to take it slow and I can’t think, I’m dizzy. Your hands are everywhere and I’m a door that’s thrown wide open and I let you in. We kiss and we kiss and we kiss.
“Fuck,” you whisper, “I left the condoms in the car.”
I shiver, hold you closer. “We shouldn’t, anyway. Until … until we figure out what we are.”
I’m not losing my virginity to a guy who isn’t my boyfriend. I don’t care how much I like you. Also, WHY AREN’T YOU MY BOYFRIEND?
“Voice of Reason,” you murmur, your lips finding mine again.
All that want of the past few weeks washes over us, drenching. This is something else I will learn while I am with you—not now, but later: there are so many ways to drown.
* * *
IT’S LUNCH AND we’re in the drama room. You’re about to go off-campus—only the seniors get to do that—and Lys has caught you kissing my cheek, whispering sweet nothings in my ear.
“Oh, hell no,” Nat says from where she lies sprawled on the floor, using her backpack as a pillow.
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