The Last Confession of Autumn Casterly

by Meredith Tate

“Holy shit.” Why did I drink so much? “Oh my God. I ruined everything.”

  “No!” Patrick rests his hand on my shoulder. My face scrunches. I can’t look at him. “No. I swear you didn’t. I just . . . I like you as a friend.”

  I’ll never be enough. The tears betray me and start full-on leaking from my eyes. “Of course you do. I’m always a friend.” My voice breaks. “Never more.”

  “No, jeez, Ivy.” He scratches the back of his neck. “It’s not like that. I’m just—I’m not into dating. The whole boyfriend-girlfriend thing. But I’m so, so glad you’re here—when I moved back to Concord, I thought I’d be a friendless loser all year.”

  “I know that excuse. You say you don’t want a girlfriend, and then two weeks later you’re dating some girl who’s not me.”

  “That’s not it, okay? That’s not it. I don’t want to date . . . any girls.”

  “You’re . . . gay?”

  “No.” Patrick fists his hands in his hair. “I’m not gay. I just . . . Ugh, this is so hard.” He looks at the table, at the floor, at literally anything but me. “I don’t . . . like anyone, not like that.”

  I just kind of stare at him. “What does that mean?”

  He closes his eyes and takes a deep, shaky breath. “I haven’t even told my mom, I just . . . I don’t know what she’ll say, she’s always asking if I like anyone at school and I never know how to respond. She’s already so stressed living here, and I’m stressed, it’s like I’m in this town I know, but it doesn’t know me, and I . . . I want to tell you. I do.” His words all jumble together in a heap. “Please don’t tell anyone, all right?”

  I don’t know what I’m agreeing to, but I nod. “All right.”

  “I’m ace.” The moment the word leaves his mouth, it’s like he’d been holding his breath for an hour and finally let it out.

  I keep staring at him, and I realize I’m being rude, but I have no idea what I’m supposed to say. “A-ace?”

  “Technically ace-aro. Asexual. Aromantic.”

  My lip warbles. “Oh . . . I don’t know what that means.”

  “I don’t want to date anyone, I don’t want to sleep with anyone, I’m just not . . . attracted to anyone. Not in that way.” He shrugs. “The whole kissing, sex thing? I’ve just never really understood it or been interested in it. I’m not ready to tell everyone yet, you know? Please don’t tell anyone.”

  I’m still absorbing. Patrick won’t date me—he won’t date anyone. It’s like my mouth moves before my brain can catch up. “I won’t,” I say. “I promise.”

  My mind races. I’m still sober enough to realize he’s coming out to me, and the thoughts all kind of stew together in my brain. I think back to when Alexa came out, and I Googled all those articles on what to say. “That’s totally cool. I support you. And I’m here for you if you want to talk about it.” I mean every word, but it comes out stiff and robotic. It’s like all the energy has been sucked from my limbs. “Really, Patrick. You’re one of my best friends.”

  He smiles and squeezes my shoulder. “You’re one of mine, too, Ivy.”

  It doesn’t hurt, not really. Maybe I didn’t even want to date him. Maybe I just wanted someone to want to date me.

  I hate myself for making this about me. “Hey, I’m tired. I think I’m gonna head out.”

  “Yeah, I already texted my mom. She’s coming to get me. You want a ride?”

  I shake my head. “Nah. It’s the other side of town.” This isn’t about me and I need to stop being such a shitty friend. “Thanks for telling me. I’m sorry I acted so weird.” I bury my face in my hands.

  “I’m really glad you’re here, Ivy. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” He stands to leave. I smile after him, trying to show my support, but he’s already disappeared back around the front of the house.

  I definitely wasn’t expecting that.

  What am I supposed to do now?

  I’ll find her. No matter what else happens, I’ll find her. I have to find her. I’m at the end of my rope, hanging by a thread, and I can’t let go.

  Jason is standing by his car when I get back to the driveway. “Ivy—”

  “Nope.” I brush right past him, onto the empty street. “Don’t wanna talk to you.”

  “Can I drive you home? Look, I didn’t mean it. I was being a jackass.”

  Anger boils white-hot inside me. “I don’t care what you think. I’m looking for my sister because she’s my sister and it’s the right thing to do. And that’s me—good ol’ pathetic Ivy, always looking out for everyone else.”

  “I’m sorry, okay?”

  “Sorry?” I whirl around. “You’re not sorry. You meant everything you said.”

  “No, I didn’t. C’mon, Ivy. You know I don’t think that.”

  “I don’t want to talk to you right now. Go back to the party and hang out with Becca—you’re probably waiting for me to leave so you can anyway.” It’s petty, and a low blow, but I don’t care.

  “What the hell?” He gently grabs my wrist. “What are you even talking about?”

  “You wanna talk about it?” I twist out of his grip. “It’s been floating invisibly between us ever since Sophie’s movie night last summer, so we might as well just get it out in the open.”

  He visibly swallows. “Ivy . . .”

  “You broke my heart.” Deep down, I know I should shut up. I’m making a fool of myself, and I don’t think I can blame it on three beers. But I feel like a soda bottle that’s spent the last two months being shaken, and now that the cap’s been blown off, the rest of it comes spilling out, too. “I liked you, Jason. Really liked you. And you broke my heart.”

  “C’mon, Ivy, you’re—”

  “No.” I hold up my hand, cutting him off. “Do not say I’m your best friend.”

  His mouth opens, then closes.

  “I don’t have time for this.” I close my eyes, fighting back the tears. “I need to find my sister.”

  Before he can stop me, I walk away.

  AUTUMN

  I follow Ivy on her long walk home. It’s only about two miles, but the September wind chills the air, and it isn’t long before her cheeks turn red. Maybe it’s from the cold, or maybe it’s because she’s spent the last hour crying.

  I still can’t get the image out of my head. Ivy slapped Kaitlyn Kennedy in the face, for me. She doesn’t even kill spiders.

  I never saw that coming.

  Her footsteps patter against the sidewalk, barely audible over the rushing car engines that zip past on the main road, but I hear them.

  “You didn’t need to hit her.” I try and kick a pebble, but of course, my foot goes right through it. “But thank you for standing up for me.”

  Ivy says nothing and plows ahead, hands buried deep in her coat pockets.

  My skin fades to translucent before my eyes, flickering for a moment. When I finally inhale, the color returns, but it’s muted. A ghost of my usual skin tone.

  The color doesn’t come back.

  I screw my eyes shut. I can still hear that bastard’s deep voice—We’ve got to get rid of her. I wish he’d said when they’re going to do it. I’m almost glad he didn’t. I don’t know what’s worse—knowing or not knowing.

  The cold air is raw against my skin, even though I can’t feel it. “You should’ve taken the ride home. You must be freezing.”

  Ivy presses onward, her eyes glassy and determined. I never knew my sister had a stubborn streak. Then again, there are lots of things I didn’t know about her.

  Something that random douchebro said to Ivy is bothering me, about my stepbrother never drinking and driving. I don’t know why I can’t shake it out of my mind.

  Chris was drunk that night. Really drunk. I remember it; he was trashed. Although, the more I think about it, that doesn’t seem right. He drove us home
. A DUI would have killed his chance at a football scholarship. I was the one puking my guts out in the bathroom the next morning, not Chris. Maybe he wasn’t as drunk as I remembered. I don’t know.

  With every footstep, a second ticks away. I feel each one draw another breath of life from my dying lungs.

  When Mom was still alive, we had this New Year’s Eve tradition where we all ate junk food and watched the Twilight Zone marathon on TV. Ivy and I would try to guess the big twist in every episode, and we’d practically hold our breaths during the last five minutes, waiting for it.

  There’s one episode where this guy finds a stopwatch that can freeze time. After Ivy and I saw it, we’d pretend to click our watches at each other, and the other person would have to freeze right in the middle of whatever they were doing.

  Of course, to a little kid, the concept of freezing time absolutely sucks. Everyone wants to get older, because the older you are, the more cool stuff you get to do. No one wants to stay a kid forever. Everything good happens later.

  No one warns you about death.

  When you’re a kid, death is something that happens to old people and betta fish and plants you forget to water. Not to you, never to you—not for years and years and years. Unlimited years.

  I find myself subconsciously pressing the bone on my left wrist, even though I haven’t worn a watch in years. Maybe if I press it hard enough, time will stop.

  It’s happening too fast. It’s all going way too fast.

  It’s after ten by the time Ivy takes a right onto Church Street and our tiny home comes into view. Dark puddles dapple the crappy road, reflected by streetlights high over our heads.

  She wipes her muddy boots on the mat by the front door and pauses with her hand over the knob. Her lips press together.

  She twists the knob and bursts through the front door, all traces of emotion wiped from her face. Dad and Kathy startle from where they’d been sitting on the couch.

  Dad’s brow creases. “You okay, sweetie?”

  “Hey,” Ivy mumbles before disappearing straight upstairs, still wearing her boots and jacket. Dad makes a move to stand and go after her, but Kathy rests her hand on his elbow and gently shakes her head.

  I follow Ivy back into my room. She goes right for my laptop, powering it up and typing in the familiar password. My hands subconsciously clench at my sides. I watch, holding my breath over my sister’s shoulder, while she clicks into Chrome and delves into my browser history. There’s nothing relevant in there. She’s wasting her time.

  Ivy scrolls through random things I’ve searched over the past couple months—music on YouTube, random wiki links for school papers, that time my intestines felt like someone was hitting me with a baseball bat and WebMD convinced me I was dying before the culprit revealed itself as my period. She gets through all my internet history from the past year . . . two years . . . three years. Her cursor pauses on a series of old Google searches from ages ago. I tense.

  sex while drunk

  sex consent intoxicated

  is it still consensual if you don’t say no but don’t say yes either

  had sex drunk feel weird afterward what should I do

  My eyes are glued to the screen. I forgot I Googled this shit. That same unease that spread through my body the day I searched it comes back. It’s like a thousand caterpillars are crawling on my skin. Why’d I look that stuff up, anyway? I’d already made a fool of myself over that whole situation, and now my sister knows it, too.

  Ivy stares at the screen for a moment, then slams my laptop screen shut. She plows back down the stairs with me following close behind.

  “Ivy? What’s wrong?” Dad rushes over. He sniffs the air and recoils. “Have you been drinking?”

  Kathy hoists herself up. “Honey, what happened?”

  Ivy takes a deep breath. “We need to talk.”

  Something heavy settles in my chest.

  Dad and Kathy watch her, unblinking.

  “What do you know about Autumn and Chris?” Ivy visibly tries to keep her resolve, but the moment she speaks, her voice cracks. “What happened three years ago?”

  “What do you mean, sweetie?” Kathy’s brow furrows.

  “I think there’s something you’ve never told me.”

  I stare, unable to look away.

  Dad glances from Ivy to Kathy. “Sweetheart, what are you talking about?”

  “Did they call you in to the school?”

  * * *

  —

  “Autumn Casterly, please make your way down to the principal’s office.” The announcement had chimed into my freshman English classroom.

  I wrung my hands, crossing the catwalk and tiptoeing down the stairs to the main office. The week before, I’d cut study hall and geography. I didn’t feel like going, so I hung out with Jaclyn in the common room instead—she was a loner, too, and we got along instantly. Surely the school was going to yell at me for skipping. But as I got closer to the office, I could see the back of Chris’s head through the window. The principal sat in his swivel chair, along with Coach Bratten, Coach Crespo, and my stepbrother.

  Kathy sat beside her son, her hand in his lap. She didn’t look at me when I entered the room. A man stood behind her, and I only recognized him from photos—Kathy’s ex. He kept his distance, typing on his phone in the corner.

  Coach Bratten wasn’t supposed to say anything. Anger, fear, betrayal, panic—they all flared to life inside me. I had let my words run away from me in her office. I shouldn’t have told her what happened. I was just thinking aloud. But maybe it was the law and she had to report it.

  I let them direct me into a chair, not daring to meet my stepbrother’s eyes. The room felt hot, too hot. Suffocating me.

  “What’s this all about?” The ex-husband glowered down at me. “I have a meeting in thirty minutes.”

  Coach Bratten glanced at the principal. “Is Autumn’s father coming?”

  “He was supposed to be here.” Principal Greenwich checked the time on his phone. Dad was working a double today. They wouldn’t start without him. They couldn’t.

  I scraped my left thumbnail over my right, scratching off the dark blue polish and watching the chips flutter to the stiff gray carpet.

  “I don’t have all day,” Kathy’s ex snapped. “Can we get on with it?”

  “It’s okay, we can start without Steve,” Kathy said with a wave of her hand. “I’ll update him later.”

  “Yes, yes.” The principal steepled his fingers over his desk. “Autumn, can you tell us what happened two Saturday nights ago?”

  My pulse thundered underneath my skin. What happened that Saturday? I wasn’t supposed to be at the party, wasn’t supposed to be drunk. Definitely wasn’t supposed to have done what I did with my stepbrother.

  “I . . . I don’t know.” My voice choked off. It all happened so fast, and then I was confused. And they wanted me to cough up the details of my sex life to the entire room? All those intimate, personal, terrifying details? “Chris . . . Chris and I . . . It just happened.”

  “We shouldn’t have been drinking,” Chris said, with more strength in his words than I had in mine. He didn’t meet my eyes. “It was all a big mistake.”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake.” Kathy’s ex whirled on the principal. “You made me leave work for this?”

  “Try to remember, Autumn,” the principal said. “Just do your best.”

  * * *

  —

  The shuddering breath rips into my lungs and tears back out. I remember regurgitating the story to the entire office. Skinny jeans and a T-shirt covered my body, but it was like I was bare, exposed naked to people I barely knew.

  I remember the night with vivid clarity now. I was old for my grade, and Chris was young for his, but I’d only been a freshman for a few weeks, and I was already invited to
a senior party. I remember the outfit I wore. The top was low-cut and silvery, the type of thing the older girls wore to parties and guys seemed to like—I liked it, too. I looked pretty. I liked what I saw in the mirror. I haven’t worn that shirt since.

  I remember the drinks he handed me. They burned my throat going down, but I kept drinking. Because he was. And he’d brought me to the party. I owed him that.

  I remember the car ride home, and how everything outside blurred together.

  He was sober enough to drive.

  When he helped me to my room, he pressed his finger to my lips, then his lips to mine. I remember thinking it was wrong, because he was my stepbrother, and I didn’t want it, and I should make him stop. But when he shoved his tongue into my mouth, the taste of pepperoni pizza on his breath, I opened up and let him in, because I couldn’t tell him no. No wasn’t fun. No was bad. No was what the boring girls said. I didn’t want to be a boring girl. Boring freshmen didn’t get invited to senior parties.

  I remember the room spinning around me. How much had I been drinking? I couldn’t even remember. The drinks all blurred together and churned in my otherwise empty stomach.

  When he laid me on the bed and unzipped my pants, I remember the words forming on my tongue.

  No. Stop. I don’t want to. I’m not ready.

  But everything came out muddy and incoherent, tinged with rum. I didn’t say no. I had been all over him at the party, leaning on him, laughing with him. I kept telling myself this was supposed to happen. I’d flirted with him all night. This was the next step, the natural progression. I was supposed to be doing it.

  I remember the weight of his body, pressing down on my lungs. I remember his lips, fused to my neck, my cheek. I remember the sweat and how his skin stuck to mine. I remember how I scrubbed for hours afterward and never felt clean.

  I remember the pain.

  I remember the plastic animals on my dresser from Ivy’s Advent calendar, and how I focused on each one in turn. How I shut my brain off and refused to think of him. I would only think of the animals on my dresser, standing in a line, watching us.