Kate expected Mo to say something. When she didn’t, Kate almost asked if she’d heard what she’d said. But she knew she’d heard and she pushed herself to go on.
“After a month of inpatient treatment, I agreed to weekly meetings. Talking to my therapist helped more than the medication so I quit the meds, but then things got bad again. Worse, actually. I took a bunch of my mom’s sleeping pills and ended up back in the hospital. One therapist told me I’d never be able to stop going to therapy. Or stop the meds. I thought I could control it. Like everything else.”
“How bad did it get?”
“I don’t want to tell you how much I weighed. It was bad. I couldn’t look in a mirror. Have you ever tried putting eyeliner on without a mirror?”
Mo didn’t laugh at the joke. “Do you know what triggered it? I’m probably asking the wrong question…”
“I’ve been in therapy for years. That question’s easy.” Except it wasn’t. She hesitated, searching for the words. “My dad.” It was only part of the answer, and she knew Mo wouldn’t let her stop with that.
“Gary?” Mo seemed genuinely surprised.
“Gary’s my stepdad.” Here came the truth. There was no going back once she’d said what came next. She’d always worried that one question would lead to another. She hadn’t lied and she didn’t want to. But she’d certainly avoided the truth.
“My biological father lives in Amsterdam. He was working in Houston when he met my mom—he’s big in finance and most of his work then was with oil execs.” The basic details were easy. “My parents got divorced when I was three. He went back to Amsterdam and my mom started seeing Gary. It wasn’t long before we moved to Sand Bluff, where Gary was from. I don’t remember much about life in Houston and nothing about the time when my mom and my dad actually lived together… Probably that’s for the best. My mom said they fought all the time.”
“That’s hard.”
“Not if you don’t remember it. Starting when I was six, my mom sent me to Amsterdam every summer to stay with my dad. I don’t think it was his choice to have me there. She said that she needed a break from me.”
Mo reached out her hand, but Kate shook her head. They were only a few feet apart, but she didn’t want any contact. She had to get everything out first. Then she needed to see how Mo looked at her after.
Mo dropped her hand. “What’s your dad’s name?”
“Philip. His last name’s Eriksen. Technically he’s Philip William Eriksen. The third.”
“Sounds like a king.”
“He’s got enough money to be one.” Kate wondered if Mo knew what she was doing. It was the same thing one of her first therapists had done. Ask the easy questions first. She knew the routine, but she wondered if with Mo it was intentional or simply her intuition. “Gary legally adopted me so I got his name. Owens.”
“Philip…did he do something to you?”
That tone was all Mo. Ready to go slay a dragon. She thought of Terri calling Mo a hero, but Kate knew it was too late for someone to save her. “It wasn’t so much what he did as what he didn’t.”
She considered skipping to the punchline like she’d done with some of her past therapists, but she knew Mo would need the whole story. She owed her that. “Philip’s an alcoholic. That’s why my mom left him. But for the most part, he manages his drinking. Or at least he used to…I haven’t seen him since I was thirteen.
“He inherited two houses—one in the city and another on a lake. The lake house is where we’d go most of the time. It was this huge place with a big deck overlooking the lake. There was a rope swing on one of the trees that went out over the water. My dad pretty much ignored me, but it wasn’t an awful place to spend the summer.
“He liked to entertain his friends from work. No kids—just a bunch of old guys. There was this one time…” Kate’s voice echoed in her head as if someone else had taken over telling the story. “I’d gone down to the lake after dinner. I didn’t like to hang around the house when his friends were over, and I didn’t understand much of the conversation anyway—they spoke Dutch except when they talked to me.
“After the sun set, the wind came up and I got cold. I’d forgotten a towel so I went back to the house dripping wet. I was shivering by the time I got to the back porch. There were still a handful of guys sitting around drinking and smoking cigars. One of them stood up and came over to hug me, saying he’d warm me up. I tried pushing him away. But his hand went up and down my chest and then right there with my dad looking on like it was nothing, he slid his hand under my bathing suit.”
“Shit.”
“I got away from him and ran into the house, but I could hear him laughing…and my dad saying nothing.”
“God, that’s awful.”
“It shouldn’t have been a big deal.” And if it had ended there, maybe she could have put the memory in a little box and forgotten about it. “He followed me up to my room. Probably made some excuse about going to the bathroom or something. My dad didn’t stop him.”
Kate tried to ignore Mo’s look of concern. She couldn’t handle worrying about her reaction now. “I got him to leave before he’d done much more than feel me up.” She stopped, swallowing back the taste of bile. “After that night, he kept finding excuses to come around the house.
“When my dad wasn’t paying attention, he’d corner me. He was always giving me these compliments—about how I was this perfect woman. I didn’t want to touch him, but I couldn’t get away.” She felt a wave of nausea at the memory of what he’d made her do. “I was only thirteen and he was this big guy… I told my dad that I didn’t want him coming around anymore, but he brushed it off. Said the guy liked me and he was just being friendly.”
She’d cried over all of it too many times. Now her eyes were dry as if there was nothing left. “The thing is, I know a lot of girls go through much worse. But the hardest part was that no one thought it was a big deal.”
“It was a big deal,” Mo started.
“He didn’t rape me, you know, so what was I crying about? I called my mom and asked if I could come home early.”
Instantly she was back in Philip’s house again. She stood in the kitchen, the phone cradled to her ear, her whole body shaking as she begged her mom to hear what she wasn’t saying. Philip had started drinking early that day and she knew his friends were coming over that night.
“She told me that we couldn’t change the tickets,” Kate said, wanting to finish so the nausea would subside. “I tried to tell her what was going on, but I couldn’t make myself tell her everything. I told her about the towel thing and she said men were like that. She told me that I should have brought a towel down to the lake.”
“God, I’m sorry. You must have been so scared. How could your mom not let you come home?”
Kate didn’t have any answers. She knew Mo was trying to wrap her mind around the mess the same way she’d done so many times. What had her parents been thinking? Maybe they simply hadn’t understood. Or maybe they hadn’t cared.
“The next summer I refused to go to Amsterdam and my mom was all put out. Gary and she always planned these big trips when I was gone. From then on I stayed home when they went on their summer vacation. That was my punishment for not being compliant.”
“I knew there was a reason why I hated your mom. Now I hate your dad too. And that mofo who touched you. If I could go back in time and beat up his ass—”
Kate interrupted: “You’d think that something that happened one summer when you’re thirteen wouldn’t mess you up for the rest of your life.”
“You were sexually assaulted.” Mo’s anger was clear. “That was bad enough.”
“It took me years to figure out that the problem wasn’t what happened—it was what didn’t happen. No one stood up for me. No one protected me. I was on my own.”
“I wish I’d known you then.”
“No, you definitely don’t. Things got really bad after that summer. It wasn’t until I ended up
in the hospital that I stopped to think about what could have happened.” Kate closed her eyes, pushing away the memory of waking up with an IV line in her arm and her mother’s lecture that followed. “I went to this place where everyone was on antidepressants and they force-fed you. After a month of that supposedly I was better with the eating thing. I came home and started taking my mom’s pain meds. Gary’s too. They had a stockpile, but when that ran out I found ways to get my own… That landed me in rehab.”
“You were in high school when all this happened?”
Kate nodded.
“All I did in high school was play video games.”
“Well, I was an overachiever.” Kate gave Mo a wry smile. “One of my therapists told me I needed to get out of Sand Bluff. I’d always wanted to see the Golden Gate Bridge—random, I know—so I decided to apply to SF State. But I didn’t figure anything would change. I was wrong. My life started over when I met you and Julia.”
“You’ve always had that thing against pain meds. I never thought about why.”
“I’ve always had a thing against food too.”
Mo smiled sadly. “True.” She reached out her hand again, but Kate still didn’t move to clasp it. Sighing, she set her hand back on the Ping-Pong table. “You went through hell. Thank God you survived.”
Kate wanted to argue that God didn’t have anything to do with it. Her body simply wouldn’t give up. But she respected Mo for her faith and held back those words. What did she know anyway? Maybe she should be thanking God.
“Anyway. Now you know.” Kate didn’t want to look at Mo. She didn’t want to see the judgment in her eyes, if it was there, or the pity, which she knew would be. “I should have told you sooner, but I didn’t want this to change the way you acted with me. I didn’t want to be messed up. You should have taken one look at me and asked for a transfer to a different room.”
“If I’d known all this then, there’s no way I would have asked for a transfer.”
Kate trusted Mo, but she knew if she’d told her everything then, it would have changed the dynamic between them. There was a good chance they still would have become friends. But would Mo have been attracted to her? Did it matter now?
“I kept hoping I’d be normal some day. That I’d get over my issues…” And that Mo would want her anyway. Kate wondered why she’d held onto that hope for all these years. Now she simply felt ashamed for all the times she’d flirted. There was no arguing that she’d wanted Mo’s attention. But she wanted more than that. And if Mo had known the truth…
“I told your mom about the eating thing. And that I’d gone to rehab. I never told her why and she didn’t ask. She just hugged me and said that if I ever got in a bad place again to show up at her doorstep.”
“My mom’s the best.”
“She is. You lucked out.” Kate paused. “I’m sorry I led you on.”
“You didn’t lead me on.”
“Yeah, I did. I knew we’d never be together, but I wanted you to like me anyway.”
“Why couldn’t we have been together?”
“Were you not listening to any of that? I’m way too fucked up.” Kate shook her head. “You deserve someone better than me, Mo.”
“That’s the first time I’ve heard you say the F word. And you’re wrong.”
Minutes passed. Kate thought of leaving but standing up seemed like too much effort. She felt hollowed out. There was nothing left to say and nothing left to risk. The Ping-Pong table creaked and after another minute, Kate felt Mo’s hand touch her shoulder. She didn’t try to hug her or say anything useless like it would get better with time or that she understood. She just stood there. Kate dropped her head so her ear was resting on the back of Mo’s hand.
“I wish I deserved you,” Mo said quietly. “You have no idea how much I wish that. And you are definitely not fucked up.”
For several minutes neither of them said anything. Kate didn’t want to move, didn’t want to end the connection she felt with Mo, the warmth of her hand and the feel of her standing so close. But she had to get over wanting what she couldn’t have. She stood up and Mo’s hand fell off her shoulder.
“I should go…”
Mo looked out at the dark path and then back at Kate. “Don’t go to Julia’s tonight. Come back to my place.”
Now she offers. Kate stopped herself from saying those flippant words aloud. She knew Mo wasn’t offering anything more than comfort. But she couldn’t handle being wrapped in her arms tonight. “You don’t need to worry about me. I’ll be fine.”
“I know you’ll be fine. But I’m asking you to stay with me anyway.”
“As a friend.” Kate shook her head. “I don’t know why I just said that. After everything I told you, obviously you’re asking as a friend.”
“Last night I said things I wish I could take back. But I’m glad I messed up. Otherwise I don’t think you would have told me everything tonight and I’m really glad you did.”
“That makes one of us.” Kate felt the press of tears in her eyes. Telling Mo everything had exhausted her reserves. “I can’t go back to your place tonight. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She started out of the Ping-Pong room without waiting for Mo to say good night. Before she’d gone far, she heard Mo behind her. She looked over her shoulder and Mo’s steps slowed.
“I don’t want to let you go,” Mo said.
“I’ll be fine.”
“I know you will. But I won’t.”
Kate hadn’t noticed how fast she was walking, but now she realized they were nearly to Julia’s bungalow. She turned around and faced Mo. “What would make it easier for you to walk away?”
“Nothing would make it easier. I don’t want to walk away.” Mo’s eyes searched Kate’s. “I couldn’t sleep last night. I kept thinking about how good your lips felt on mine. I didn’t want to stop you. But I didn’t want to lose you as a friend. And now I really don’t.”
“I can’t go back to being friends with you, Mo,” Kate said, her voice cracking. “Maybe you can pretend nothing’s going on between us, but I can’t. Every time you kiss someone else I’m going to wish it was me. After what you heard tonight I know you aren’t interested, but I can’t help how I feel.”
“Tonight only made me love you more.” Mo took a step closer to Kate but didn’t move to touch her. “But I never wanted to risk our friendship by dating. We have too much going to chance it, you know. And if this were sixteen years ago this all would be a lot easier, but—”
“Would it be easier?” Kate shook her head. “Whatever. We can say it’s that I’m too late. For future reference, don’t tell someone you love them and then follow it with ‘but.’ It only makes it hurt more.” It wasn’t the first time that Mo had told her that she loved her. Mo was generous with her love. But Kate couldn’t hear the words now.
Kate turned and walked away. She swiped the tears off her face, more angry than ever that she couldn’t control that one small thing. They’d both screwed up. Again.
When she reached Reed and Julia’s porch, Kate looked over her shoulder and saw Mo a few steps behind her. Kate thought of ignoring her and going inside without another word. Julia had given her a key, so she didn’t need to knock. But she turned to face Mo. “What? Did you come up with another way to tell me I missed my chance with you?”
Mo stepped forward and kissed her. There was no question on her lips, no hesitation. There was no wondering if this was something Mo was going to regret. She knew exactly what she was doing, and Kate didn’t stop her body from responding. It felt too good. Too right. She let her lips part, allowing Mo to deepen the kiss, and the thought crossed her mind that yesterday had only been testing the waters. This was Mo showing her exactly what she was capable of.
Kate stepped back, breaking off the kiss. “Dammit, Mo.” She shook her head. “Why’d you do that?”
Mo looked taken aback by the question. She stammered for an apology.
“I don’t want you to say s
orry,” Kate said, stopping her. “This isn’t a game. You can’t tell me that you don’t want me and then kiss me like that.”
“I never said I didn’t want you. I want you so much I can’t think of anything else.”
“You’re the smartest person I know. If you want me so much, Math Whiz, I need you to start thinking.” When Mo didn’t respond, Kate continued, “But if you were only trying to prove that you’re a good kisser, you made your point.”
“I’m not trying to prove anything. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that I loved you, but it’s the truth. And you didn’t let me finish earlier. What I was going to say was that if this were sixteen years ago it would be a lot easier to ask you out on a date. Now I know exactly how much I’m risking. But I want to ask you out anyway.”
Kate didn’t know what to say. “You have terrible timing, you know that? Now if I say yes I don’t know if you only asked me because you don’t want to lose our friendship or if you really want a relationship. Or maybe you only feel sorry for me. That I really don’t need.”
“You have no idea how many times I’ve wanted to ask you out,” Mo said. “But it never seemed like the right time. I kept coming up with excuses for why you’d turn me down. First it was because you only dated guys. Then it was because we were too different. Then it was because we were too close. Then it was because we’d been friends for too long. It was always too big a risk. But I know now that I can’t keep making excuses for why it wouldn’t work when the truth is I’m just scared of losing you. Nothing you told me tonight changes how I feel about you.”
Kate considered Mo’s words. “I still don’t know if you want to date me or if you don’t want to lose me as your friend.”
“I’m in love with you.” Mo’s eyes never faltered from Kate’s. “I won’t try to kiss you again if you don’t want that yet—or if I need to prove something to you first—but I want to be with you. And not only as a friend.”
Wasn’t that all she needed to hear? Doubt held her back. Kate knew that Mo’s concerns, even if she called them excuses, weren’t unfounded. Maybe differences that had never been a problem before would be an issue when they tried to date. What would happen when things got hard for all the reasons Mo had brought up? Would Mo feel like she’d been pushed into the relationship and regret it?
All the Reasons I Need Page 18