Live Through This

by Mindi Scott

  “Me?” I shout, pulling free. “What about you? How can you talk to me like this?”

  Bryan’s face is red and his eyes are wet with tears. He’s looking at me like I’ve lost my mind right before his eyes.

  “I am not the crazy one here!” I scream at the top of my lungs. “Why won’t you go back to Connecticut and leave me alone?”

  “What’s going on?” Tony’s voice thunders from behind me.

  My heart seizes.

  I turn to look at him and I can tell by his confused expression that our voices brought him downstairs, but he didn’t hear the incriminating words. He has no idea about anything, anything, anything. He never has and he never will.

  “She was watching The Sixth Sense.” Bryan wipes his eyes in two quick swipes. He sounds like he’s never been so bored in his life. “I startled her and she freaked out on me.”

  It’s amazing how easily he lies. How easily we lie. I glance at Tony and I can tell that he’s falling for it. And why wouldn’t he? Sure, it’s insane that I would yell at Bryan in the middle of the night because of a movie, but the truth would be a million times harder to grasp.

  I can’t take this anymore. I grab my shoes and stamp my feet into them.

  “We talked about this, Coley,” Tony says. “You need to avoid those movies. They’re not doing anything good for you.”

  I grab a random coat from the closet, punch my arms into it, and push past Tony.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” he calls after me as I run upstairs and out the front door.

  CHAPTER 27

  There are three routes to get to the Valley from my house: the highway, which is the quickest but also the easiest way to get caught if anyone were to come after me; the scenic way, which basically requires trudging through the forest and across the river; or the back way, which runs through a newer neighborhood of mostly condos.

  I pick option three, darting behind trees and cars parked on the street the whole trek down. When I finally get to the abandoned house by Alejandra’s, I feel my way up two flights of stairs. The stuff we stashed up here all those months ago to make our secret hideout more comfortable is still piled in a box in the corner.

  I pull out a lantern-style flashlight and turn it on. The batteries work, so I set it on the floor to illuminate the room while I unroll two dusty sleeping bags across the plywood floor. I take a small pillow from a bag and tuck it behind my head as I crawl into one sleeping bag and layer the other on top.

  The ripped plastic over one of the windows crinkles loudly as the wind whips around outside. This is the perfect setting for a horror movie, but I’m not scared of it. I’m more afraid of having to go home again to face Bryan.

  Everything that he said to me was the truth. The things he’s done to me over the years should have felt awful. I should have hated every single second of it. Why didn’t I? How can I get turned on being touched by my brother, but be scared of my boyfriend? Why am I such a freak?

  I switch off the lantern and am plunged in blackness once again. This isn’t a plan. It isn’t a solution. I’m hiding out in an unfinished house that has no windows, no heat, and no running water. But, for now, it will have to do; I can’t keep my eyes open for another second.

  • • •

  Emma and I are in a dark room, and the windows are boarded up. I’m searching, searching, searching for other ways out—a ceiling vent, a hole in the floor, a hidden passage in the closet—but there’s nothing.

  The locks will break soon; they always break. The door will fly open.

  And then what? What will happen to us?

  Shoes stomp loudly. Someone’s getting closer and closer. Are they coming for me? For Emma? For us both?

  “Coley?”

  For me.

  “Coley, wake up.”

  My eyes flutter open and Alejandra is staring down at me. “What are you doing?” she asks.

  Of all the people to startle me awake, it would just have to be her.

  “What does it look like I’m doing?”

  She takes several steps back and holds up her phone. A light flashes and there’s a soft click.

  I push myself to sit. “What the hell? Did you just take my picture?”

  “Yes.” Peering at the screen, she presses buttons. “And now I’ve sent it to your mom, Ming, Piper, and Noah.”

  “Why would you do that?” I yell.

  “I’m trying to help,” she says, shrugging as if it doesn’t matter if everyone sees me right after I’ve woken up.

  I want to jump up, grab her phone, and stomp on it. It’s too late, though. “What do you want from me?”

  “I don’t want anything,” she says, placing her phone into her coat pocket and crossing her arms over her chest. “But your mom’s calling everyone. She’s saying that Noah dropped you off and then you got into a fight with Bryan and ran away from home. And now you aren’t answering your phone. So she wants you to go home. Everyone else wants to know if you’re okay.”

  “Fine.” I flop onto my stomach, wrapping my arms around the pillow. “Now they all have an ugly picture of me and can see how not okay I am, so your work here is done.”

  “I’m serious, Coley,” she says, using a lecturing tone that makes me want to kick her. “Your mom is freaking out. She says that Tony’s been driving around all night looking for you. And, apparently, Bryan has drunk himself into oblivion.”

  I don’t want to know about this. I don’t want to care. But I do care. “Is he all right?” I ask in a small voice.

  “I’m sure he will be. It sounds like he’s puke-drunk, not comatose or anything.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut as a mix of relief and fury floods through me. Bryan’s face from last night flashes through my mind: the look of concern when he first found me watching the movie, the embarrassment and anger and anguish and confusion during our argument, the indifference when Tony came downstairs.

  Remembering hurts, but it’s his words that make me want to die.

  You like it. No. You love it. . . .

  I know how you want to be touched. . . .

  I know everything that turns you on. . . .

  Other girls don’t come as fast for me as you do. . . .

  Alejandra’s phone interrupts my thoughts and then stops ringing abruptly. When she doesn’t say anything, I realize that she must have silenced it instead of accepting the call. I open my eyes and study the floral-print pillowcase by my face. Daisies and sunflowers—like what Reece and I were making jokes about before I ruined everything. “What in the world is going on with you?” Alejandra asks with irritation in her voice. “You’re not acting like yourself at all.”

  “Maybe this is my real self and no one noticed before. Why does it matter, anyway? You and I called a truce because of the team. I’m not on the team anymore, so whatever.”

  “Oh, come on. Coach Laine didn’t kick you off. She suspended you because you were acting crazy.” Alejandra waves her arms around, encompassing the room. “And look! You’re still acting crazy. With your hair all over the place and your smeary makeup, you look like you’ve been on a meth binge or something.”

  I’d like to see her have a night like mine and wake up looking better.

  “Good-bye, Alejandra.” I pull the sleeping bag back over my head.

  Her words come out in an angry burst. “No! I’m not going anywhere. Not until you tell me why you’re so mad at me! And what happened to you to make you such a complete mess! I want answers.”

  I stay silent, bundled in my warm cocoon. I don’t owe her anything.

  Her footsteps echo, but she isn’t leaving; she’s coming closer. There’s a loud rustle as she yanks the top sleeping bag off of me. The air shifts and then I sense that she’s settling in on the floor.

  “Does this have something to do with Reece Kinsey?” she asks. “Because I saw you at the party, making a big thing about going upstairs with him—”

  I growl and push back the covers to glare at her. �
��I wasn’t ‘making a big thing’!”

  “I saw you running away, too,” she says in a rush. “You looked panicked. I couldn’t help wondering if maybe it was kind of like me and Derrick? That you were totally regretting it?”

  I cannot believe she wants to compare her stupid situation with mine, to make Reece out to be a bad guy like she did her boyfriend.

  “Will you get off this Derrick thing?” I say. “God! I’m so sick of hearing about it.”

  Alejandra’s back is completely straight and she folds her legs into what has to be the least relaxed version of a lotus pose I’ve ever seen. “It isn’t like you’ve even been around me.”

  I roll my eyes. “And yet, I’ve still managed to hear more than enough. Even when you’re not complaining, you’re walking around all pathetic like, ‘Poor me! I used to have a cute, awesome boyfriend, but I had no choice except to be a frigid bitch and dump him. My life is soooooo hard!’ ”

  “Sometimes it is hard,” she snaps.

  “I don’t feel the least bit sorry for you. So why don’t you go away and be a judgmental prude somewhere else?”

  Her mouth falls open. “How exactly am I being judgmental?”

  “You always are! Like just now. You automatically assumed that I was alone with Reece, so I must have gone all the way with him. You always think the worst of me.”

  “I do not!” she shouts, gripping her knees.

  “Yes, you do! And after you slept with Derrick, you turned it around to try to make me feel like—”

  “I wasn’t trying to make you feel anything. I wanted to talk to my best friend about what I was feeling!”

  Her expression is indignant—like she’s been oh, so very wronged by me—but there is no way I’m backing down from this. “Alejandra, you specifically said, ‘I can’t believe you let Pedro go down on you. I can’t believe you liked it.’ You threw it in my face, like I’m the most disgusting person in the world.”

  I know how you want to be touched. . . .

  You like it. No. You love it. . . .

  “I was upset, okay?” Alejandra’s eyes shine with tears. “The whole time I was with Derrick, I was waiting for him to realize he should have chosen you. I did things I wasn’t ready for because I thought it was the only way he’d stay.” She sniffles and tightens her mouth and cheeks as if it’s taking everything within her to keep from breaking down. “I was fooling myself, though,” she says. “It was never going to work.”

  Part of me wants to grab and shake her, but another part of me hurts for her; she threw it all away for nothing. “Derrick didn’t like me,” I say. “He liked you. Why didn’t you give him a chance to prove it?”

  Tears slide down her cheeks. “Because you’re right about me. I am a prude. I’m a total freak and no guy should ever have to be with me. They should have someone normal. Like you.”

  Other girls don’t come as fast for me as you do. . . .

  I know everything that turns you on. . . .

  “I’m not normal,” I say.

  She tips her face toward her lap, sobbing quietly. “More than I am.”

  “No!” I say, shaking my head. “I’m the freak here. Not you. I’m a screwed-up, disgusting person. I liked it when I never should have, when it was with the wrong, wrong person. And I hate myself for it.”

  Alejandra looks up, frowning. “Are you talking about Pedro? Because, okay. Maybe you shouldn’t have hooked up with someone you didn’t know, but that doesn’t make you—”

  “No. You don’t understand. You don’t understand at all.”

  She throws her hands up. “Then make me understand!”

  “There is no Pedro!”

  She stares at me. I look at the floor.

  What have I done?

  At least thirty seconds of silence go by, and then she sniffs. “What do you mean, ‘there is no Pedro’?”

  “I mean, I made him up.” I meet her gaze for just long enough to see the anger in her eyes. “I lied to you. I lied to everyone.”

  “Why?” she asks.

  I pick at my silver nail polish. “Because I’m a liar.”

  “What are you saying to me?” Her voice is rising. “You’ve never done anything with a guy? All of it was lies?”

  “No. I’ve done stuff, okay? Just not with anyone named Pedro.”

  “Then with who?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Of course it does,” she says in a shaky voice. “You must have lied for a reason. Why did you want to keep it a secret from me?”

  “Because you would hate me if you knew. I hate myself. I hate that I’m so gross and horrible.”

  “Coley, who was it?”

  I shake my head again. “I can’t tell you.”

  I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.

  “Was it someone’s boyfriend?” she asks.

  “No,” I say, even though, yes, sometimes he has been.

  “Was it, like, a teacher?”

  “Worse,” I say.

  “How much worse?”

  “It’s worse than anything.”

  She bites her lip, as if she’s undecided about whether she can handle this. “Someone’s dad?”

  What I need now is for her to let this go; I’ve already told her far more than I ever expected to. “Forget it, okay?”

  “No,” she says. “I promise that I’m not going to hate you. I don’t judge you all the time like you seem to think I do.”

  “But you will this time.” My eyes fill with tears. “You won’t be able to help it.”

  “Coley, please.” She’s watching me, waiting. Her lotus pose is relaxed. She’s ready. She thinks she is, at least. “You can tell me anything.”

  Can I?

  My heart pummels my chest.

  I take a shaky breath and let it out slowly. I breathe again. And again. And one more time. I open my mouth. Somehow, I speak. “Alejandra, it’s Bryan.”

  For a split second, she stares at me with what appears to be 100 percent incomprehension. Then she gasps. “You mean, your brother Bryan?”

  “Yes,” I whisper.

  Her eyes are open wide. “Oh, my God!”

  What have I done? What have I done? What have I done?

  Clutching my stomach, I double over and lower my forehead onto the sleeping bag in front of me. Crying is literally painful right now—the muscles in my forehead, jaw, and stomach are sore from so much sobbing last night—and I’m doing it again. I’m powerless to fight it.

  I shouldn’t have said that to her. Why did I say it?

  My sobs come from somewhere deep within and grow louder and louder. My shoulders heave violently and my tears and snot pour all over while I howl.

  This was a mistake. The biggest mistake of my life. I want to take it back. I have to take it back.

  I wipe my nose on the sleeping bag and push myself to sit back up. My throat makes horrible squeaking sounds as I struggle to catch my breath. But before I can even attempt to get words out, Alejandra moves closer. She wraps her arms around me, and together, we cry.

  • • •

  A half an hour later, Alejandra and I are on her sleeping bag together because we’ve been blowing our noses on mine. I can hardly believe that she knows the secret I’ve been keeping for so long—the worst thing there is to know about my life—and she doesn’t despise me.

  I’ve filled her in on everything: how and when things started with Bryan, my fears about Emma, me freaking out on Reece and Noah, and the argument last night that brought me here.

  “You must hate Bryan so much,” she says.

  I shake my head. “I don’t. I love him. And I know he loves me, too. It’s my fault that it turned into this big, awful thing.”

  “Coley, no. It isn’t your fault.”

  This is the part that she doesn’t want to hear, and that I don’t want to admit to. But I feel guilty, letting her blame him.

  “All this time,” I say, “I wanted him to stop, but I never
said anything. I was scared of hurting his feelings, and I was too embarrassed to talk about it. I let it keep happening, and now he thinks that I wanted it. And I don’t know. Maybe he’s right.”

  “No! You never asked for any of that. He took advantage of you, and what he did is abuse.”

  Tears spring to my eyes, at the very idea of Bryan abusing me. “He’s never hurt me. Most of the time, what he did. It felt . . . good.”

  “Maybe to Bryan it did.”

  “No,” I say. “To me.”

  “I don’t understand,” she says, shaking her head. “I just watched you sobbing over this. I can tell how upset you are. There’s no way you actually liked what he did.”

  She’s both right and wrong about that.

  “Remember what I told you during Truth or Dare?” I ask. “It was like that in a lot of ways. The way he touched me and everything. It turned me on. And he even made me . . . I mean, I had . . . you know?”

  Her eyes open wide again. “Oh! I didn’t realize that that would be possible.”

  I cringe. “I wish it hadn’t been. But that’s the thing, it did happen. And after what Bryan said last night, I’m feeling like, if I truly hadn’t wanted him to do it, I wouldn’t have been able to—I would have hated it more, right?”

  She looks at her lap, not speaking for an agonizing moment. But then she says, “Coley, I know you said that you’re tired of hearing about this, but I wonder if it’s sort of like the opposite of what happened to me with Derrick. Our bodies aren’t reacting the way we think they should, or the way we wish they would.”

  “Maybe?”

  She takes my hand. “I think, definitely. So you shouldn’t put the blame on yourself or think that you wanted it just because your body reacted to what Bryan was doing. What if it happened to Emma like that? Would you hold her responsible?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Well, see?”

  I do. I get what she’s saying. I just can’t make this feeling go away.

  We sit in silence, our hands still clasped together. It’s kind of strange because we were friends for so long, but we never felt the need to do this before. It’s nice, though, having her to hold on to.