by Liz Botts
I felt myself relax. “I still don’t think I’ve changed all that much.”
Josh shrugged. “I can see it. You’ve grown up. I really admire you for it.”
A warm glow spread over me. Then I remembered the other night. My good mood crashed. How could I bring that up? Did I want to bring it up? Did I want to know why he had stopped kissing me right as things heated up?
No. The answer was no. I didn’t want to know why he had stopped, even though I was glad that he had respected me enough to hold me to my standards. What if he didn’t want me anymore? In that way? Even if I wanted to hold off on that part of our relationship for the time being, I’d want it back eventually. When we got married.
My heart stuttered in my chest. I desperately wanted to marry Josh. Not this second, of course. And what if things really had changed?
“Have you changed?” I asked. The words tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them.
Josh glanced over at me, his eyebrows drawn together. “Well, yeah, of course I have. We’ve both changed over the past few months. I’d be worried if we hadn’t.”
I swallowed. “Aren’t you…aren’t you worried that since we haven’t changed together, you know, that’ll cause problems?”
“No,” Josh said. “I’m not worried. We’ve had a rough patch, Han, but it isn’t like we haven’t been talking. Things will smooth out with time.”
I digested his comments as he turned off on an exit ramp for the city of Rock Crest. He really hadn’t given up on us. This whole time that I had been wringing my hands and obsessing over the state of our sex life, Josh had been focusing on the future. He knew that a few months of rockiness didn’t negate the whole of our relationship.
“Do you know how to get to this place?” Josh asked.
“I can get directions. Hang on,” I said as I scooped up my phone. After a few searches and map requests I had decent grasp of where we were headed.
Josh maneuvered through the quiet streets. When we got near the club, traffic picked up. We located the restaurant, and Josh put the car in park. Before I could get out of the car, Josh grabbed my hand. He smiled at me.
“I know you’re worrying about us, Han, but don’t,” Josh said. “Nothing is going to change how I feel about you.”
I gave him a small smile in reply. “We still have a lot to talk about.”
“Do we?” Josh replied. “We don’t have to hash everything out, Han. I accept things the way they are right now. I’ll wait for you.”
“But we need to talk about the future,” I said. That wasn’t quite what I wanted to say, but I couldn’t think of any other way to express it. “You’ve practically earned sainthood this semester dealing with me.”
Josh laughed. “I’m no saint, Han. I’ve been angry with you. Furious. And I’ve had to back off even when all I wanted to do was take you back to bed with me. Nope, not a saint.”
His words gave me pause. As I studied him in the streetlight filtering into the car, I wondered at the differences to our approaches to this situation. I had always prided myself on being smart and levelheaded. Instead of feeling grown up about my choices though, I felt like I had regressed.
“I just never want to end up like Harlow.” As I said the words I acknowledged their truth, yet I cringed at the pettiness.
“Hannah, you’ll never end up like Harlow. You and I are nothing like what happened to her,” Josh said.
“It’s not just that she had Britney too young. I get the feeling that things with that Christian guy were a lot more serious than she let on. She pushed him away. Probably because she got pregnant, but who knows? She could have had a million other reasons. For all these years I thought I didn’t get along with Harlow because we were so different,” I said. “I think the reason we didn’t get along is because we’re actually a lot alike.”
Josh sighed. “Our situation is nothing like Harlow’s,” he repeated. “Come on. We better go get Christy.”
We climbed out of the car with a conversation that felt far from finished, but it gave me hope. I had finally pinpointed what was at the root of all this. I wasn’t just afraid of ending up like Harlow by having a kid too young and giving up on my dreams. I was afraid of ending up like her because we were so very much alike. A fact I had let go unnoticed all these years.
“So where is she?” Josh asked.
“What do you mean?” I replied, joining him by the front window of the family restaurant. A large neon sign proclaimed they were open twenty-four hours, and there were indeed several patrons inside. None of them Christy. “Maybe she’s in the bathroom. Come on. Let’s go in. I can check there.”
Josh and I entered the diner through a kitschy revolving door. Rich greasy smells drifted toward us making my stomach rumble. Apparently I got hungry in the middle of the night. After a quick scan of the room I located the bathrooms along the back wall. With a sense of purpose, I hurried in that direction. She had to be in there. I didn’t want to entertain any other options. Still, as I opened the door to a silent ladies room, a general sense of unease spread over me.
“Christy?” No answer. I walked slowly down the row of stalls pushing each door open as I passed. All empty.
I rejoined Josh in the entryway, panic rising like bile in my throat. “She’s not there.”
Josh exhaled slowly. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s ask someone here.” He approached a waitress leaning on the counter. “Excuse me, did a young girl come in here about an hour ago?”
“She’s really short with blonde hair,” I added.
The waitress tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear and nodded. “She did. Sweet little thing. Ordered pie. Some guys came in and convinced her to go back to that club with them. I heard them promising they could sneak her in. Seems like trouble if you ask me.”
“Thanks,” I said, grabbing Josh’s hand and dragging him out of the restaurant.
Outside on the sidewalk, we both looked at the club across the street. The place was still alive with light and a thumping bass.
“We have to go in there, huh?” I asked.
“I’m not exactly dressed for clubbing,” Josh said with a chuckle. We both glanced down at his pajama pants and started to laugh.
“Let me try calling Christy first,” I said. Hitting the redial button I listened as the phone went straight to voicemail. “She’s not answering.”
“We’re wasting time,” Josh said with the same urgency that I felt.
By the time we entered the club, it was almost one-thirty. According to the hours posted on the door, this place would be closing down in the next half an hour. The thick throng of people crammed from wall to wall made that fact hard to believe. Josh took my hand, holding it tightly as we threaded our way through the crowd.
The DJ started to blast a dance track from the latest Carter Keller movie. People threw themselves around with the abandon of the blissfully drunk. I gritted my teeth as someone’s bony shoulder connected with the space between my shoulder blades. The force knocked me into Josh, who caught me just before I flailed into someone else.
The more time we spent in this place without finding Christy the worse the knot in my stomach got. If she wasn’t here, then what would we do? I hadn’t even thought of calling her family. Now that we were searching for her, I wished I had. That should have been my first call. I couldn’t screw this up.
“Do you see her?” Josh yelled. I could barely hear him over the din around us.
I craned my neck as I scanned the crowd. The mosh pit-like atmosphere was not conducive to finding anyone. With a shake of my head we continued to move through the crowd, both trying to be alert for the petite blonde head. We reached the opposite wall just as the DJ changed tracks. The smell of beer and vomit wafted over us, and I gagged.
“We have to find her and get out of here,” I said with a gasp.
Josh nodded his agreement as we set off again. A moment later, I caught a glimpse of a bouncing blonde bob a few feet in front of us.
Maneuvering through the mob made it hard to know if it was Christy, but then we stumbled through several people and there she was in front of us. She spun around in a rather daring dance move. When she caught sight of me, her face ran through a complex of emotions from guilt to shock to horror all in slow motion.
I could feel my own face contort in anger. With a quick grab of her wrist, I started to pull her back through the crowd. She followed meekly, head hanging down like a scolded dog. I didn’t stop until the cool night air poured over us.
“What were you thinking?” I asked. My voice sounded weird to me, loud and tinny. I supposed it was from the deafening music in the Rock Club.
Christy chewed on her cheek and wouldn’t look at me as she said, “I wasn’t.”
“That’s right, you weren’t,” I said. “Do you have any idea how worried I was when I couldn’t find you at the restaurant?”
“I’m sorry,” Christy began. She was cut off by a group of arguing guys spilling out the front door.
“There you are,” one of the guys slurred. He reeked of alcohol. “I wondered where you goed.”
My mouth dropped open. This was the guy she had been so infatuated with? Not only was he drunk, but by the look of him he had to be in his late twenties. His scruffy goatee made him look even older. With a glance at Josh, I could tell he was thinking the same thing. Christy looked up then, glancing first at me, then back at the guy.
“I have to go home now,” she said.
“Oh, come on, baby doll. Don’t be that way.” The drunk guy staggered toward Christy, running his hand along her arm when he got close.
“Baby doll? Do you realize she’s fourteen, you perv?” I said, the anger in my voice barely controlled.
The guy took a step back and stared at Christy in horror. He said, “She said she was sixteen.”
“And you are, what, thirty-five?” I snapped.
“Dude, control your chick. I’m only twenty-eight,” the guy said.
Josh raised an eyebrow. “And what difference would that have made? Sixteen isn’t right either, dude.”
The guy raised his hands. “She looked like she’d be a fun time. She’s always hanging around trying to talk to Carter. His groupies are always easy.”
Two red spots appeared on Christy’s cheeks, and her eyes got shiny. I knew she was trying hard not to cry. Even though she had terrible judgment—what fourteen-year-old didn’t?—she deserved to save some dignity. I wrapped my arm around her shoulder, and she leaned her head into me.
“We can just keep this amongst ourselves, right friends?” The guy began to back away and look around for his friends. The other guys he had been hanging with had all fled, obviously not wanting to be associated with the situation.
“Not likely,” Josh said. “Hannah, you take Christy back to the car.”
I wanted to argue, to stay and help defend Christy, but I took the keys from Josh’s outstretched hand. As I guided Christy across the parking lot, the tears started to fall. By the time we got to Josh’s car, she was in full on waterworks mode. I tucked her into the back seat with a package of tissues from my purse. I shut the door to give her a few moments of privacy before we dealt with her stupidity.
Shouts across the parking lot drew my attention. I saw drunk guy lunge at Josh, and a scream escaped my throat. Luckily Josh dodged the punch. He threw one of his own and landed the guy squarely in the jaw. Drunk Guy staggered backward. From a distance, he looked shocked. Josh shook his hand but resumed his fighting stance.
Christy’s little friend hovered for a moment, and then slunk away into the shadows. I expelled a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. Josh walked slowly across the parking lot. I sprinted to him, and threw my arms around him. The feel of his solid frame against my cheek reassured me that he was okay. He pressed a quick kiss into my hair. A quick glance into the car told me Christy’s crying jag was winding down. She mopped at her eyes with a soggy tissue.
“Are you okay?” I asked when Josh got close.
He glanced down at the knuckles on his hand. The corner of his mouth lifted into a wry grin. “He’s worse off than I am.”
“What happened?”
Josh shook his head. “Not important. He won’t be bothering Christy again, but I really think we need to report him to the production people. The guy shouldn’t be around young girls.”
We got into the car. I glanced back at Christy who gave me a mournful kicked puppy look. I felt bad for a moment before remembering how much trouble she could have been in from her bad choices. My whole vision of my future as a high school counselor wavered in front of my eyes. As it threatened to crumble, Josh started the car.
Finding my voice, I asked calmly, “What were you thinking, Christy?”
The silence from the backseat stretched wide and deep and tall through the car. Finally Christy sniffled. “I don’t know,” she said in a quavering voice. “I wasn’t. Jim, that guy, has been hanging around the restaurant a lot ‘cuz he’s part of the crew, you know?”
“Did you know he was twenty-eight?” I asked.
“No, I swear I didn’t know he was that old. He seemed like he was my brother’s age,” Christy said.
I tried to remember how old her brother was. Maybe twenty? It took everything in me not to turn around and yell at her for this. Instead, I took a deep breath. “That’s still too old for you,” I said. With a sidelong glance at Josh, I noticed that his mouth was drawn into a tight frown. I half-turned in my seat, so I could look at Christy. I said, “We can talk about this at our next session.”
Christy’s eyes flitted toward Josh. She shook her head. “No, we can talk about this now. I need to. I want to,” she replied. “Josh stuck up for me. I saw him knock Jim back.”
I turned back in my seat. Now I wasn’t sure what to ask her or how to proceed. At peer counseling my guidance came easily, our conversation flowed naturally, and we kept everything private. Here Josh was listening. What if I screwed this up? I felt like I already had, or else why would she have done something like this?
No, that was the wrong way of thinking. Obviously the most I could do was give her good advice, and hope that she would follow it. More than that, I had to hope that she would take my advice and then make her own good choices.
“Christy, I can’t tell you what to do,” I said. This new tact might work, I thought. I needed to take things slowly though, choose my words carefully. “I can tell you though, that you being with that guy is illegal, and really? Just plain gross.”
With a sniffle, Christy said, “I know. I know. I know. I just, I don’t know. He made me feel special.”
“You are special,” I said softly, turning back to face her. The seatbelt tightened as I moved, limiting my ability to look directly at her. “I promise you don’t need to be with a guy to make you feel special. I know it’s easy for me to say that, but when you find out what you love about yourself, things that you are good at, stuff like that, you’ll feel even more special.”
The waterworks started again. Christy swiped at her eyes with the soggy tissue. “I feel so stupid,” she said between sniffles. “I was…I was going to…tonight.”
Icy tingles of fear swept over me followed by the burning of disappointment, but I couldn’t say anything to that effect. Instead I said, “You made a good decision calling me. We should call your family now. I’m sure they're worried about you.”
Christy sniffed. “I already let my grandpa know where I am. He was staying with us tonight while my dad is out of town. I tried calling Vanessa before I called you, but her phone went straight to voicemail. And my brother sounded drunk. Not the best choice of responsible adult.”
I took a deep breath. She had called her family first. That was good. It showed that her judgment wasn’t as off as I had feared. Dealing with this thing with Jim would be best dealt with in the privacy of our sessions. Josh had already heard enough. My heart swelled with pride at how Josh had stuck up for Christy. He’d defended her honor, so to
speak.
“You should wait,” Josh said. I glanced at him, startled that he had spoken. He had been quiet for so long, concentrating on the drive, that I had wondered what he was thinking. “I think that until you find a person who truly loves you, you should wait. And Christy? When you find that person it becomes…the most special thing in the world.”
I looked back at Christy. She seemed mesmerized by what Josh had said. Either that or the night was finally catching up with her. With a shuddery breath, she leaned back in her seat and turned her attention out the window. Satisfied that she was okay, I turned my attention to Josh. He gave me a little sideways glance, and then focused back on the road. A small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
****
“That’s a crazy story,” Angela said blowing on the cup of hot chocolate in front of her.
We were sitting in the student union rehashing the general events of the weekend. Christy had grounded herself, but she had come to our Monday session of peer counseling and we had talked through some of her issues, like why she felt the need to seek attention from a man way too old for her.
“I talked to Molly when we got back. She’s never had a situation like this, but she told me I handled it well,” I said. “I don’t think I did, though. I mean, I didn’t even think to call her family until after we got there.”
Angela took a sip of her drink, and glanced around at the hustle and bustle near the coffee shop. “You did the best you could. Especially given that it was twelve-thirty in the morning.”
I tore my straw wrapper into neat little pieces and started to stack them. “I guess. I mean, the whole thing with Christy has definitely changed my life. Did I tell you I got accepted to the counseling program?”
Angela let out a squeal and jumped out of her chair to hug me. “When did you hear?”
“Yesterday afternoon,” I said with a grin. “You’re the first person I’ve told.”
She beamed at me as we sat back down. “I’m so glad you’ve found something so exciting to do.”