by Charity Rose
“Okay, go on ahead. I’ll just get the car started. Warm it up, yeah?”
“Yeah, I’ll be quick,” I say with a nod.
I head back towards Keith as soon as my mom is gone. And step beside him. If he noticed me, he refuses to acknowledge it. I reach out my hands and wrap myself around him in a tight hug. I can tell he’s surprised, but I find him leaning into me, bringing our bodies closer as he wraps his arms around me. Squeezing me even tighter.
Now I feel complete. The past weeks' frustration and fury dissipating. Because I’m holding in my arms the person, I’ve to see since he walked out the door.
I’m not patient. I never know how to give people time. I always want my way. I always want an answer right here, right now. My mom has always told me that that it’s a bad habit of mine. She’s told me that I need to stop being so demanding and more understanding of people. That I need to show more empathy.
Today will be the day I stop being so selfish and learn to listen with my head and my heart.
Chapter 16
I pull away from him and look up into his eyes,
“Vee,” My name sounds like a plea from his mouth. I fix my eyes on him, remembering that we are in public, “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry, Vee. I’m so new to this,” he says, reaching for my hand.
I pull away, “Keith, I have to go,” I tell him. He doesn’t want me to leave. He reels me into his arms again. “I told my mom I was going to the bathroom,” I say which makes him chuckle.
“Lying to your mom again, are we?” he whispers in my ear, making my skin prickle with excitement.
“I’ve been lying to my mom since the day I met you,” I tease.
“Yeah, I know she called me your science fair partner. That made my day. I’d love to study some human biology,” he smirks. I let go of his hand and walk away.
“Vee,” he calls, but I don’t turn around I continue my walk. I exit the mall and walk straight to the car. I open the passenger door and hear my name again. He did not just follow me here! My mom rubs the fog from the window and peers out as he gets closer. She looks between Keith and I. How do I tell him to go away without drawing attention to myself? It’s too late, though.
Within seconds Keith is next to me, “This is foolish,” he says. My mother looks at him, brow furrowed and clearly confused. I don’t answer. But I give Keith my best shut up right now look before he says something he’ll regret. “What the hell are you doing?” I say between clenched teeth.
“I fucked up, again,” he says, “All I do is let you down. I don’t want you to be upset with me—”
“Well, maybe I wouldn’t be so upset, if you’d talked to me,” I retort, “I want to know you Keith, every part of you; I want to know. But I need you to trust me, to be honest with me,” I say. I glance over at my mom. She is watching with an eyebrow quirked and her lips puckered. She nods for me to continue, I turn back to Keith, “But with that said, I also was pretty demanding of you, and for that I’m sorry,” I apologise.
Keith’s eyes soften, his shoulders drop, his entire demeanour changes, “Thank you. Truly. And, I’m sorry too,” he takes a step closer, and now our bodies are less than a few inches away from each other. “I’ll make you a promise,” he says against my lips as he leans in towards me, threatening to kiss me in front of my mom, “I’ll tell you everything, anything you want to know. Because the last thing I want is to lose you,” he says before pressing our lips together. I am very aware that we are in public. And that my mother is watching with bated breath.
We pull away from each other, content with what we’ve finally settled, “You’ll tell me everything?” I ask I need confirmation. He nods.
“All of it Vee, I will not risk losing you just because I can’t face my past. That’s how serious I am about us.”
“Okay,” I answer and settle down into my seat. My mom looks at Keith and smiles politely. He waves at her and turns back towards the mall. Mom turns to me and gives me a look that says I owe her a considerable explanation. I know I do. I couldn’t keep lying to her. So, I told her, not every single detail, or how we actually met. And I didn’t tell her about Michael, at all. None of that.
She said she had a feeling something was up, by the way, Keith looked at me; intense was how she described his gaze. She was happy for me though; because if all goes well between us, she’ll get to brag to others about her handsome son-in-law in the future.
She did indeed drop the sex question, which was not something I wanted to deal with, and I didn’t want to open myself up for another drawn-out sex education speech. I told her in all sincerity that in no way was the sex department open for business. Well, not yet, anyway. Finally, after a long time debating on rather I should tell my dad or not, we both opted against it for now. At least not until things started to get really serious. From her point of view, we were still newly together, I didn’t bother to tell her it had actually been a while now.
Still, mom warned me that at some point I have to tell him, especially if I was serious about Keith. It actually felt really good to get it all out in the open. No more lying. No more hiding my texts beneath the table or running upstairs to answer them. It was one less thing to worry about.
It’s late, I don’t even know how late but I was already sound asleep when I awaken to the sound of my phone buzzing. I swear if Keith woke me up, I'd kill him. I take the phone in my hands and see a text from July. That’s odd, I mean we do text sometimes, but she hadn’t texted me in a while, not since she really started to hang out with Kassie more. Maybe it’s to invite me somewhere? But why send me a text this late at night? I hope it’s not an emergency, at that thought, I bolt upright in bed and read,
Jay: Vee, there’s something I need to tell you. Can we meet?
Vee: Is everything okay?
Jay: No, it’s not Vee, I just found out something that you really need to know.
Vee: Okay, we can meet. Tomorrow at the Newly Brew?
Jay: Ok, see you there
I feel hollow, like if someone just scooped out my insides. I wonder what it could be? Why couldn’t she just call me or tell me in the text? I can’t sleep so I roll around in bed for a while, reading comics on my phone.
I’m just starting to drift off again when the phone buzzes, someone’s trying to call me now. It’s Keith. I prepare myself to give him a speech about not calling so late, a girl needs her beauty sleep and all that but when I answer I hear,
“Vee,”, he sounds agitated.
“Keith, what’s wrong?” I push the covers to the side and get up off of the bed.
“Vee, I need you,” now I’m concerned.
“Keith, what is it? Are you alright?”
“Can I come over?” he asks.
“Now? It’s like the middle of the night?” I say, keeping my voice low, so I don’t wake my parents up.
“Please,” he emphasised. I feel my heart cave in. He’s serious.
“Okay, there’s a tree near my window. I’ll leave the lamp turned on,” I agree.
I’m not the kind of girl that usually sneaks boys into her house in the middle of the night. But the strange text from July and then Keith’s phone call, I’m shaking. When Keith arrives, he parks the car a bit further down the road, and I watch as he sprints across the ice and is soon clambering through my window.
Chapter 17
“I’ll kill him,” Keith is enraged. He paces back and forth in my room; his face is bruised, and he has a cut on his lip. I don’t know why yet; he keeps saying the same thing over and over. But I need to know what happened.
“Keith, please just tell me what is going on? You’re going to wake my parents up. Did you get into a fight? Why?” I ask. This was a bad idea. I should have told him to wait.
“It’s Michael and that bitch, Kassie,” he says anger seeping through him.
“Keith, what does Michael have to do with anything and Kassie, what—”
“You’re being manipulated. You have been since th
e beginning. I don’t know why but Kassie and Michael are both dead set on making your life miserable,” he says. My eyes open wide. Why would they do that, what for? Just because I wouldn’t go out with him? Because I didn’t want him touching me? Are they really that petty? It’s crazy to think that a person could hate you so much to go to such extreme lengths to humiliate you. I haven’t done anything to them that I can think of. Nothing deserving of this anyway.
As each and every word left Keith’s mouth, I sank, further and further into the ground. Scrolling through his apps, he clicked on one and opened a video of that night at the Senior party. I watched with tears in my eyes as the video played and I lived the moment all over again. His hand creeping into my shirt and fondling my breast. The memory slammed back into my head like it was only yesterday, I could still remember the smell of his cologne and his sour, alcohol-tinged, breath. The music was so loud you couldn’t hear what we were saying on the video. The video ended just before the moment I had pulled away from him. It was filmed, all of it, that entire moment between us was filmed and shared on an app. My mouth dropped open as I slapped a hand over it. It already had 1.2M views. Tears were making their way down the sides of my face before the video even ended, “Keith, oh my god, what do I do? By now the entire school has seen this. W-who filmed this?” I asked, but I was sure there was no way to know.
“Bradley,” Keith said with a certainty that made me sure of the truth of it. “B-but why? Why would he do this? Was it because I broke up with him? He said that he was okay with it. At the party. I mean, he did ask me about getting back together but,” I trailed off, “How did you find this?” I asked.
“Michael. He came to my house, he threatened me with it, but by then Kassie had already uploaded it,” he said, “I got pissed, trust me he looks worse than I do.” He told me that Bradley was there as well and that he admitted that he was supposed to be the one to make out with me at the party, but he just couldn’t do it. Not after what had happened between us and how badly it had hurt him. He really liked me, loved me even. And it was his phone but that he didn’t film it. “It was all Kassie’s idea apparently,” Keith said, and then explained to me what he else he had learned.
It was Kassie’s plan all along. All she’s ever wanted was to destroy my life, and I have no idea why. She wanted something that she could use against me, so she arranged for me to meet Bradley, but she hadn’t expected on Bradley falling in love with me. By the time the party came around, he had backed out of the plan. He didn’t want to do it. So, when Kassie realised I was there with Keith, she arranged for Michael to feel me up and she used Brad's phone to film it all with plans to blackmail him if he refused to let them post it. And then, after hearing about Keith, she decided to add his story to the mix as well, knowing that everyone in the school would assume that I was sleeping with both Michael and Keith and probably Bradley as well.
I’m tired, I was so happy back at my old school. Everyone was friendly; I had people who actually cared about me and who looked out for me. Kassie wouldn’t have been able to touch me. The teachers were quick to stop any bullying incidents they got wind of, but there wasn’t any such protection here.
They dug really deep into Keith’s past and found what they thought would hurt him and me the most. The worst part was finding out that Kassie has been dating Michael since middle school. Those two had it all planned out. We still weren’t sure how they had found out about Keith’s past, but it didn’t matter; the damage had been done. Why does Kassie hate me so much? Why does she fend on proving to everyone that I’m not as innocent as everyone believes, why does she want to make a devil out of me? Why does she so desperately try to drive me away? I don’t remember ever doing something to hurt her, not once. Certainly not in the way that she has me. In fact, there was a time when we actually got along. We weren’t friends, but we weren’t enemies either. I don’t want to be here anymore. I wish I could just move. I wish my parents had only accepted driving me to the private school branch. The thing is, I don’t know how to tell my parents that I want to transfer and why. I’d have to tell them everything. I’d have to tell them about Bradley, about Michael, about Keith and his past. They’d have to know everything.
Keith is still pacing my room, his eyes bloodshot and ears red. His hands are trembling. I can tell he’s hurt with himself for not having been able to protect me from Michael. I saw the pained expression on this face as he was showing me the video. I saw the sadness that was haunting him behind those eyes. And I know that deep down; he was reliving his worst nightmares over again.
I want to reassure him that it’s not his fault, none of it was. I can see he is breaking all over again. It’s like every step we take forward, the universe is working against us and throwing us right back to where we were before.
Chapter 18
My entire world is crumbling as I stare at the video again. I’m watching it, but I’m not really focused on the video. Instead, I’m focused on the steadily growing number of views. Keith tried to convince me not to read the comments, but I can’t help it.
Sinder89: God, what a slut!
xHieidIx: She probably wanted it, what a whore…
No_name: the hell? I didn’t know she was such a slut!!!
The comments only got worse from there, I even saw my name-dropped a few times and panic when I realise I can’t delete them. I drop down onto my bed and tightly shut my eyes. Keith plops down beside me; I lean into him and let myself completely break down all the emotions I’ve been holding in.
I cry until my eyes hurt until I feel I am thoroughly dried out. Keith holds me the entire time, not saying a word. But the truth is, I don’t need anyone to talk to me right now, and neither does he. All we need is some peace and quiet; some safety. I let his arms engulf me, feeling safe and confident in their strength. After a while, I feel my eyelids begin to flutter shut. He stayed with me the entire night, holding me as I slept.
It’s not until my eyes flutter open in the early morning that my heart fills with panic again. I sit up in bed, Keith isn’t here. I run to the window, his car is still parked down the road from the house, so he didn’t leave either unless he walked, but I doubted that. The ground was covered in a thin layer of snow. I glance to see the tire treads left in the driveway. My parents have gone to work, or they are dragging to the police station. I vault down the stairs, not bothering to stop and straighten my clothes and hand.
“Mom? Dad?” I call out.
“They aren’t here,” Keith answers. I pause, wrinkling my brow as I step into the kitchen and find him making breakfast. He smiles at me, gently, “I heard them get up and leave about an hour ago. I waited around till I was sure they were both gone. Don’t worry, they don’t know I’m here.” I nod slowly and reach into the fridge to grab the milk.
“Can I ask you something?” I say. He looks at me concerned but doesn’t decline the question.
“Why do you want to major in English?” I ask remembering that Emma had mentioned it when I last visited. He seems relieved for me to have asked such a simple question. I’m guessing that Keith was worried I would have asked him about last night again, but that was something neither of us wanted to bring up. He’s quiet for a long while as he scrambles the eggs he had cracked into the skillet. I can see he’s already fixed some bacon and pancakes.
Just when I think he’s not going to answer, he opens his mouth, “I’ve always loved literature. Ever since I was a kid,” his back is towards me while he places the pancakes on their plates. He brings the dishes to the table.
He sits beside me and continues talking, “Reading, writing it made life easier. Books gave me a place to go during bad times. It was my safe haven when my home wasn’t. I would read and imagine that I was the hero doing all the heroic things. I sometimes pretended I was them and I’d write my own stories, fan fictions I guess,” he finishes preparing his eggs and dumps some onto the plates. He walks up to the fridge, taking out a jug of orange juice and setting it do
wn between our plates with a set of cups.
I press for more information since he's generous, “When you say that books were your safe heaven, when your home wasn’t, what do you mean by that?” I ask. I see his face fall, and I immediately know this is a hard-hitting question. He’s quiet again. Then he nods, seeming to have come to a decision with himself,
“I promised you I would tell you everything, so here goes,” he takes a deep breath. “I didn’t have your typical childhood, I guess. My dad wasn’t exactly father of the year. He was…well, an enigma. He’d present himself as this elegant figure of professionalism, but in reality, he really loved his women. He was always running off on my mom. He’d been doing it for a while apparently,” he paused, I could tell this was difficult for him. I reached out and squeezed his hand. Keith continued, “One day, an early release day, he didn’t pick me up from school, so I walked home. It wasn’t very far, but I was only nine. When I got home, dads car was there. I walked inside, and I heard noises from their bedroom. I was scared, but I pushed it open anyway. And, dad was fucking some lady that was not my mom. He wasn’t just having sex, though; he was beating her. Slapping her. She was crying, and his hand was wrapped around her throat when I’d barged in, she looked at me like she her prayer had been answered. She ran. And my dad,” he paused again as his voice grew tight. “He beat me. I’d never felt so much pain in my life before. He threatened me; he told me that if I told my mother that she’d leave us both, I’d be all alone. What was I supposed to do?”
I open my mouth, but he stops me, I allow him to continue talking. “When mom came home, dad told her he’d found me like that. That I’d gotten into a fight at school and would need to stay home for the rest of the week because I’d been suspended,” he finished. I could see the tears on his face. My heart sinks and my instinct tell me to hug him, so I do. Tears keep on falling, my shoulder becomes moist. My thoughts go back to the party and me holding him like this in the bathroom. “He hurt women Vidya. It happened a lot more after that. Once he had that leverage on me, he used it as often as he could. The moment my mom had to work a late shift; he’d have some girl over. When she was hospitalised for a miscarriage that bastard had a lady over the entire three days. That’s why I’m scared I might hurt you. It’s in my blood Vidya. My dad hurt women and then…I hurt her,” I know that he’s talking about his ex, “And I don’t want to hurt you too,” he says. His eyes are red and face moist as the tears continue to fall.