Afterward

by Jennifer Mathieu

  I wonder if when I’m older, I will sound like my mom. For real. I won’t even have to fake it. My voice will just sort of morph into hers and my life will morph into hers, too, and I’ll end up living in Dove Lake, and I’ll marry a really big asshole, too.

  Maybe I deserve it.

  For the past three days that I’ve been cutting class, I’ve been heading to this easement between the public library and a strip mall. There’s a scattering of trees I can hide out in, and if I get hungry, I can always head over to the Stop N Go and get a bag of chips or a Mountain Dew or something.

  Today I curl up on a spot of damp earth in the deepest part of this little forest, and I pull out my phone.

  No texts from anyone.

  Definitely not from Ethan.

  I can’t believe I’ve fucked this up so bad.

  Friday night when I got home, I thought about texting him, but I was so out of it I just got into the shower and tried to get my head straight. After I got out and into my pajamas, I peeked inside my mom and dad’s bedroom and saw my mom and Dylan asleep together in her bed. My dad wasn’t anywhere. Their second epic fight of the day really had made him leave for good.

  I hid in my bedroom and tried to text Ethan, but everything came out sounding stupid. Finally I just texted him the only words I could come up with.

  I’m so sorry. I feel like the biggest jerk

  Nothing. No message saying it was okay he just needed some time. No message saying I was a total bitch and don’t ever bother him again. No message from Ethan’s mom saying I should never contact him again.

  Nothing at all.

  Finally I dozed off and I woke up with my head pounding and I spent all weekend miserable and not hearing from Ethan and when I woke up on Monday I knew I wouldn’t be going to school.

  And now it’s Thursday and I’m still not at school and Ethan still hasn’t texted me back.

  I spend all day in the easement messing around on my phone and reading old magazines and walking over to the Stop N Go to get something to eat when I’m hungry. It’s actually a lot more enjoyable than school, and if I’m going to be honest, I think I’m probably learning a lot more just doing this instead of sitting in English class trying to figure out the theme of a stupid poem. Like poets write to have you figure out a theme. I’m pretty sure they write just to write.

  I keep replaying Friday night by the creek in my mind. The way I pushed myself onto Ethan. The way I could tell he didn’t like it. Wasn’t even sure what to do. What was I even thinking? I squeeze my eyes shut, and my throat seizes up like maybe I’m about to cry, but I don’t. It’s like I’m too numb for it.

  I pull my phone out again.

  Ethan, I’m really sorry. If you want me to stop texting, just tell me. And I will. I’m not sure if I’m being a bigger creep by texting you but I’m so sorry. I just want to say I know what I did was awful. You’re the only friend I’ve had lately and I’ve totally fucked it all up. Part of me wants you to hate me forever because it’s what I deserve. But part of me hopes you don’t because it would suck if we couldn’t hang out again. And I really like hanging out with you.

  I rub my thumbs on the smooth surface of the phone, willing Ethan to write me back. Finally my phone buzzes.

  Hey I need time so please just leave me alone for right now

  I read the message over and over before tossing my phone into my backpack. I stare out at the stretch of easement in front of me, full of empty aluminum cans and plastic bags from the Stop N Go, and I think about the fact that I have no friends. No fake friends like Emma or real ones like I thought I had in Ethan. I mean, sure, if I went to school tomorrow I would have people to sit with at lunch. People would loan me a pencil in class if I needed one. It’s not like I would be mocked openly as I walked down the hallway or anything.

  But I wouldn’t have anyone who I just liked hanging out with. Who I could be myself with. Who I could relax around because I felt like somehow we just got each other. Like it is—like it was—with Ethan.

  At around the time school is about to end, I walk home, scraping my feet along the sidewalk just because it feels good to do it. When I head inside the house, I find my dad sitting at the kitchen table, going through the mail.

  “Hey,” I say, sliding my backpack off and setting it down on the floor. I haven’t seen him in days.

  “Hey,” he says, barely looking up at me. He just leans forward and puts his head down and scratches at the top of his balding scalp with his big, thick hands. His football player hands. Back when he went to Dove Lake High he was quarterback and king of the school. He and my mom got together during their senior year, and in their senior yearbook there’s a picture of them being crowned Prom King and Queen. They were each grinning like they’d won a contest and the prize was each other. They were thinner. Prettier. Handsomer. Like two different people.

  And then my dad never got a college scholarship and I was born a girl and my brother was born not normal. And everything I guess fell apart.

  “So you’re back?” I ask, opening the refrigerator to see if there’s anything I want.

  “Caroline, let’s just be cool, okay?” His voice is tired. Irritated.

  “Okay, Dad. I’ll be cool.”

  I wish it were true that things weren’t always like this. I wish that in the family albums there are pictures of my dad carrying me on his shoulders or pushing me on my first two wheeler. But there aren’t. I wish that when I was younger my dad tucked me in at night and sang me lullabies. But he didn’t.

  We’ve just lived in the same house together for sixteen years, and I’m pretty sure he’s been miserable for most of them.

  I take a beer from the refrigerator just to see if he’ll notice, which he doesn’t, and I head back to my room. When I get there I drink half of it until I start to feel like a cautionary tale from one of the terrible and hilarious movies we had to watch in health class sophomore year where everything was set in the nineties and nobody had a cell phone. So I pour out the rest of the beer in the bathroom sink and hide the empty can at the back of my closet. Then I crawl under the covers and try to imagine myself melting away into nothing.

  ETHAN—233 DAYS AFTERWARD

  It’s raining, so even though I want to sit on the porch with Dr. Greenberg, we’re in his office. Groovy is there with us, this time curling up on top of my feet.

  “He’s your own personal foot warmer,” Dr. Greenberg says, grinning.

  I nod and try to laugh. But I feel the weight of Caroline and everything else on my shoulders and it’s so heavy. I know talking with Dr. Greenberg can help, but sometimes it’s just so tiring to try.

  “How’s your week been going?” he asks.

  I shrug. Silence. I don’t know what there is to say. Dr. Greenberg doesn’t say anything.

  On Wednesday I’d squeezed my hands together to work up the courage to tell Dr. Greenberg what had happened with Caroline. I told him about drinking with Caroline and about her taking off her shirt. About Caroline kissing me and about me kissing her back. About my brain being invaded with the worst kinds of memories. Of pain and fear and hands groping for me. Hurting me.

  I expected Dr. Greenberg to be totally weirded out or shocked. But he’d just nodded, like he was listening really hard.

  Suddenly, I didn’t want to talk about it anymore, and when I asked Dr. Greenberg if we could stop, he said of course.

  After that session on Wednesday, I came home and did my homework. Caroline had texted me once, right after, saying she was sorry and a jerk, but I had just ignored it. Because I didn’t know what to say. And I was mad at her.

  But also, I missed her.

  I didn’t play the drums on Wednesday night. I just sat with my parents and watched television with them. I wasn’t even paying attention to what we were watching. When my mom and dad laughed a little, I laughed, too.

  On Thursday morning she texted me again. A long text where she said she was sorry again and she understood if I never want
ed to see her again but if I didn’t she would be sad.

  Reading that text made my stomach hurt. So I told her that I needed her to leave me alone for a little while.

  On Thursday, I didn’t play the drums either.

  And here it is, Friday, and I’m back with Dr. Greenberg. Pretty much everything sucks.

  I’m just staring out the window when Dr. Greenberg asks, “Have you spoken to Caroline since our last session?”

  He’s so direct I answer before I realize I’m doing it. “No,” I say, “but she texted me that she feels bad about everything, so I texted her back that I need some time and to please leave me alone.”

  Dr. Greenberg’s big bushy beard cracks a small smile. “I think that’s good,” he says. “You’re making those healthy boundaries.”

  I think about sitting in a circle of fruits and vegetables again. I could really stand to never hear that phrase “healthy boundaries” again, to be honest.

  “You don’t agree?” Dr. Greenberg asks. I guess I must be frowning.

  I don’t want to be a jerk to Dr. Greenberg. But I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. And there’s this weight in my stomach. I mean, I think there’s always a weight in my stomach, but this weight that’s been sitting inside of me feels new. And it doesn’t even have anything to do with Caroline and me and our friendship. Or maybe it does, I don’t know. But it’s a weight that hurts. That’s been making itself known more and more since last Friday.

  I keep hoping for it to disappear, and it doesn’t.

  I reach out for Groovy’s soft fur. Dr. Greenbeg waits. I hear the sound of the house’s old furnance churn on, and a gust of warm breath slips out from the grate above my head. Dr. Greenberg waits.

  I’ve been meeting with Dr. Greenberg for almost nine months, and I’ve never talked about anything having to do with sex or anything like that. He’s never pushed it, but it’s like it’s always there with us in the room, only he isn’t going to bring it up unless I do.

  I can’t talk about the details. It’s like the worst details are erased from my mind. Sometimes I remember just a rush of sounds and smells and phrases. Snippets of darkness. Pieces of awful.

  But since that night at the creek …

  I cough a little and close my eyes for a moment, working up the nerve.

  “Caroline is the first girl I ever kissed,” I say.

  “Okay,” says Dr. Greenberg, nodding.

  I feel my face flushing. I look down at Groovy but my cheeks are still on fire.

  “It’s awkward talking about this, isn’t it?” Dr. Greenberg asks.

  “Yeah,” I say, grateful he’s named the problem out loud.

  “What could make it easier to talk about it?” he says. “Would you rather write it down, maybe?”

  I think about it. “Could you maybe, like, stand over there by the window? Stare out the window so we can talk and you can hear me but maybe I’m not having to look at you when we talk about it? I mean, no offense.”

  “None taken,” Dr. Greenberg says, and he walks over to the window and stares out at the pecan tree and blue slice of sky above it. He slips his hands into his back pockets. I can only see the back of his gray head and the two skinny shoulder blades that pop out from under his worn out blue button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up. I notice he missed a belt loop, and for some reason this makes me feel more relaxed. Makes talking easier.

  “When Caroline and I kissed, my body, like … it felt … it … uh…”

  I pause. I can’t say erection in front of Dr. Greenberg. I really can’t.

  “Your body responded?” he says to the window.

  “Yeah,” I say, thankful.

  “Okay,” he says.

  “But then when it got weird it didn’t,” I say. “And when I thought later about kissing her, it didn’t either.”

  “The way our bodies respond to sexual situations is complicated,” says Dr. Greenberg.

  Well that doesn’t help me very much. But Dr. Greenberg doesn’t say anything else, so I keep talking.

  “The thing is…” I pause. I take a deep breath. If I say it, then it’s out there and I can’t take it back. “When I was with him, sometimes my body responded then, too. Even though I hated what was happening.”

  I push myself back into Dr. Greenberg’s couch, and I want to evaporate I’m so embarrassed. I’m so thankful Dr. Greenberg isn’t sitting across from me.

  “This comes up a lot with people who’ve been the victims of sexual abuse,” Dr. Greenberg says, his voice soft and a little bit sad, even. “Their bodies respond to the abuse, and they get very worried about what it means.”

  “So I’m not the only one?”

  “No, not at all,” Dr. Greenberg says. My shoulders sink with relief, and suddenly I actually want to talk about this. But I’m not sure about the right words to use.

  “But because my body … responded, I … I just…,” I struggle, then give up.

  “Let me give you this comparison,” Dr. Greenberg says. “Imagine I burned myself on the stove. I don’t want it to hurt, but it does, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Just because I don’t want to feel the pain of the burn doesn’t mean that my body is going to listen and respond the way I want it to. Even if your body responded to the abuse, even if what happened to you physically felt good sometimes, that doesn’t mean it was okay or that you wanted it or that you were somehow complicit in it. You weren’t, Ethan. Not at all.”

  I exhale. A big, shaky exhale. I work Dr. Greenberg’s words over in my mind.

  “But I still wonder … I mean … like … if you’ve worked with other guys who were, you know … molested by guys? And their bodies … responded … or whatever? Do they wonder if that means they’re gay?”

  The back of Dr. Greenberg’s head nods. “Yes,” he answers. “That’s a question I get a lot. And the answer is that being molested by someone of the same sex doesn’t make you gay.”

  “I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with being gay or whatever,” I say, blushing again. I know this is the right thing to say. I feel sort of bad about being worried about being gay.

  “I know you don’t mean anything hurtful,” says Dr. Greenberg. “But just so you know, many men who were molested by other men when they were boys go on to have fulfilling sexual relationships with women.”

  The words fulfilling sexual relationships make me think about people making out in a room full of candles with terrible jazz music playing. Suddenly, I don’t want to talk about any of this anymore.

  “This conversation is really exhausting,” I say. “Can we stop for a while?”

  “Sure,” says Dr. Greenberg.

  “Okay,” I say.

  “Should I turn around from the window?” he asks, and it suddenly strikes me as sort of ridiculous that I’ve been talking to his back this entire time.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  He turns around and sits back down. “I just realized I really need to wash my windows. They’re filthy.”

  I grin a little.

  “Is that funny?” Dr. Greenberg says, but he’s smiling, too.

  “Do you ever think how totally weird some of these sessions are?” I ask. “Everything we’re talking about and then we’re talking about washing windows.”

  “Sometimes we need a little humor at just the right time,” Dr. Greenberg says. “Just a pause in the intensity. One time during a very difficult session with a client just when we needed a break, Groovy passed gas. It was so loud and very foul.”

  “Jesus!” I say, and Groovy looks up at us like he knows we’re talking about him, which makes me actually laugh some.

  But then when I stop laughing, I realize that even though I feel better about one thing, I still feel horrible about a million other things.

  “I’m still not sure what to do about Caroline,” I say.

  Dr. Greenberg nods. “From her actions, it sounds like Caroline is hurting.”

  �
��Yeah,” I say. My mind thinks about Caroline’s family and how screwed up it sounds, but I don’t let my head go there too much, because it makes me think about Dylan. And thinking too much about Dylan scares me because I don’t know what kind of memories it might bring up.

  “I can see why Caroline would want to reach out to you,” says Dr. Greenberg. “But sometimes when we’re going through something difficult, we become reckless without meaning to be. And we can hurt others.”

  “Yeah,” I say. Caroline told me in her text I was the only friend she had. Sometimes I wonder if that’s the truth for me, too. I mean, Jesse still comes over once in a while and we just play video games and barely talk. But it’s not like how it is—was—with Caroline.

  Soon our time is up, and Dr. Greenberg walks me out. On the way home, I close my eyes and try to clear my mind. But I can’t stop thinking about Caroline, so I open them again and count the brightly colored billboards for churches and truck stops and lawyers who specialize in personal injury.

  When we get home, I get out of the car and pause in the driveway. I glance at the garage, the door shut tight, my drums trapped behind it. I imagine Caroline zipping up on her bike, her ponytail flying behind her head like Superman’s cape, ready to play. I can almost feel my drumsticks in my hands. I can almost hear the sloppy whine of her Fender getting in tune.

  “I’m going to play some video games,” I tell my mom, and I head inside the house. Soon I’m numbed out with a plastic controller stuck in my hands, the blips and beeps riding in and out of my ears like bugs on some mindless journey.

  CAROLINE—238 DAYS AFTERWARD

  Either the attendance clerk must have grown a brain or someone at Dove Lake High got wise to me, but after a week off I’m back at school. Back at the dull, beige grind of graffiti-covered desks and teacher handouts and lockers slamming shut over and over again.

  My vacation was nice while it lasted.