Faking Normal

by Courtney C. Stevens

  “What happened?” he asks, after we climb to the top.

  There are gummy bears and ants on the table. I stare at them and squeeze the water from my hair.

  “What happened?” he repeats. His hair is dripping blackberry rain.

  “Craig begged me to change my mind about being in the wedding. And he said, ‘Will you do it for me?’”

  Bodee watches my face. “And?”

  “Oh God, it was years ago. I was probably six years old. Or seven. No, I must have been six because Craig started really hanging out with us after Granddad died. Anyway, Craig and Kayla were babysitting me. They did that on the nights Mom and Dad had meetings at church.”

  “My mom went to that some,” Bodee says.

  “I was already in bed after juice and my story. I always made Craig read ‘just one more.’ He had the best voices. That night he read Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, and we were just to the part where Mrs. Frisby goes to the rosebush to meet the rats. Have you read it?” I ask.

  Bodee shakes his head.

  “Anyway, I couldn’t fall asleep because Dad had a pot of those miniature roses in the den. And I got it in my head that we had a Nicodemus—that’s the head rat—living in Dad’s little rosebush. I had to check.”

  As I pause at the stupidity of this idea from an adult perspective, Bodee helps me pull off my soaked hoodie and hangs it on a peg.

  “But when I got to the den”—I cover my eyes as if this will stop the image from coming—“Kayla and Craig were on the couch. And Kayla was on top . . . I thought she was hurting him. You know? I was just six.”

  I don’t say that Kayla came up off the couch naked when I screamed.

  “What did she do?”

  “They both scrambled for their clothes. Then she grabbed me and yelled that if I told, Mom and Dad would make Craig go away. He’d never read me stories or take me to Chuck E. Cheese’s or watch the Ewoks with me again. He’d go and never come back.”

  “You really cared about him.”

  “More than Kayla,” I admit. “I cried that Mom and Dad loved Craig and they were good and they didn’t make people go away. But she said this was different.”

  “And it probably would have been. How old was Kayla?”

  “She’s eight years older than me, so fourteen. Too young for that,” I agree. “She pinned me in the chair, the ugly blue one in the corner, and I said Mom and Dad would probably get rid of her and keep Craig. She smacked me and I cried, but she didn’t care. She forced me to look at Craig and said, ‘You will never, ever, ever see him again if you tell Mom and Dad what you saw. When they ask you tomorrow about tonight, you say we read you a story and you went to sleep. And that’s all.”

  I’m shivering from the memory. And the rain. And Bodee looks lost as to how to help me.

  “Craig took me from Kayla, held me and wiped the tears from my face and told me he was my buddy. Best buddy, I said, and we did our special high five.” I show Bodee the behind the back, spinning high five Craig taught me to do. “So he asked me if I wanted to keep hanging out with him.”

  “Of course you said yes.”

  “Of course.” In my memory, Craig was smiling the whole time. Now, I realize he was tense and nervous, faking calm. “He said it was okay, but we needed to keep what I saw a secret. That best buddies keep each other’s secrets.”

  I hear my six-year-old voice say, “They do?” and sixteen-year-old Craig repeat, “They do.”

  Bodee’s head flops backward instead of its usual forward, and he sighs.

  “‘You just need to forget, Lexi. Not for Kayla, but will you do it for me? For your best buddy?’” I say in Craig’s voice.

  “Yea-uh,” I told him then, not realizing I’d actually forget. That I’d bury it until Craig himself excavated the truth today.

  “They made me repeat what they told me to say. Good, they said, and then Craig read to me until I went to sleep.”

  “Not good,” Bodee says.

  “No. They taught me to lie. Taught me to forget. And this summer, when Craig . . . when he led me to the back corner of the pool, I was still thinking what he taught me to think. That best buddies keep each other’s secrets.”

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  chapter 23

  BODEE breathes. Breathes again. All while I hold my breath.

  “Mr. Tanner?” he says through his fingers. “It was Mr. Tanner?”

  I hear the total shock in Bodee’s voice, and I realize the truth is out there and there’s no calling it back.

  Bodee knows. He knows.

  That terrifies me, but mostly because it’s no longer all mine. Not within my control anymore. My hands are on my neck, scratching and tearing and ripping, even before I know they aren’t in my pockets.

  “Lex, stop. Stop.”

  But I don’t.

  Skin wedges under my nails on the first dig—microscopic particles and blood—as easy as raking them in sand. I go for round two and scrape more skin, and I’m frantic. I’m tearing and bleeding. Faster and faster in a rage, where Bodee’s voice can’t reach me.

  I struggle and flail and fight him, desperate to contain my secret, to go backward in time. Where I haven’t told Bodee about Craig. Haven’t tattled on my best buddy.

  Rapist.

  Craig raped me. He raped me. I scream into the flannel of Bodee’s shirt, and I cry and moan and curl into the pain.

  I don’t want it to be true. I want to count to twenty-three and pretend it never happened and make the shadows go away.

  But darkness conquers me.

  All this time, I watched him and Kayla and their stupid roller-coaster relationship. Break up. Get back together. Break up. Get engaged. They always ended up together. Always. Like Craig was already family. Unavoidable. Permanent. So I made excuses and tried to put it out of my mind. But it happened. It’s real. Like my heartbeat. Like breathing. Like Bodee’s knowledge of it now.

  Oh God, if I could only take those words back.

  It was my secret. Mine.

  But it’s ours now.

  And Bodee holds me. He’s panting, too, trying to stay calm and calm me at the same time. But I hear it in his voice, his soothing, comforting voice, long before I hear the words. This knowledge—the who—surprises him the way it still surprises me.

  “I thought it was Collie.”

  “It’s Craig,” I cry.

  “And that’s why you wouldn’t tell. He’s been your buddy.”

  “My best buddy.” I sound as if I’m six, and for the moment I am. “He didn’t mean to hurt me. He’s not like your dad.” I stop fighting. “I can’t ruin his life.”

  “But you’re letting him ruin yours.”

  At least we agree it’s ruined.

  Since it happened, I’ve lived a phantom life. Like an amputee patient who can still feel the missing limb where there is only a nub. I am a nub, and Bodee and high school and the Captain and Sunday dinner are only phantoms.

  I try to scratch again, but Bodee is stronger.

  “You may think Craig is a good guy,” he says.

  The fact that he no longer says Mr. Tanner isn’t lost on me.

  “But that doesn’t change the fact that he took advantage of you, hurt you. No wonder you couldn’t stop him. He’s a man. You were only sixteen.”

  “Fifteen. My birthday’s July thirtieth,” I say in a daze.

  “Exactly. He had no right to do that to you at fifteen or sixteen. Or anytime. To ever put you in a position to have to tell him no. Besides, if he marries Kayla, you can never get away from this.”

  “But he’ll lose his job. Football. Kayla. Everything,” I sob.

  “That’s not your problem, Alexi.”

  “It is. He’s family,” I say.

  “No. Family is my mom. Your mom and dad. And Kayla. It is not Craig. Not the guy who raped you.”
/>   “The guy who ruined me. That’s what you said,” I say, turning his words on him. “And if I tell, not only does my family fall apart and Kayla hates me forever and ever, but everyone will know I’m ruined.”

  “You’re not ruined, and Kayla won’t hate you. My God, Lexi, he’s a teacher. What if he does it to some other girl?”

  “He won’t,” I argue. “But you already said it: he’s ruined my life. And you obviously don’t know Kayla.”

  “Lex, I’m not saying it wouldn’t be tough; I’m saying you can take it. You’ve already been so brave.” He sighs. “I can’t undo things you know with . . . Mom”—there’s a catch in his voice—“but I can’t help them either. Besides, what happened to my family didn’t keep you from being my friend. You can move on from this and not let it define you. If you decide to.”

  “That’s what you’re doing?”

  “Yes. I’m choosing to move forward. To be here with you instead of back there on the porch with a broom in my hands. Helpless.”

  This is all logical, but I don’t want logic. Don’t want a survival story that works for someone else. And I could never survive my dad killing my mom like Bodee has; I’d still be in a deep hole.

  All I want is to keep life the way it is.

  Kayla’s difficult. Craig’s a hero. Mom and Dad are in the dark. And I am a normal, untouched virgin. I’ve kept it that way for three months.

  I can keep doing it. And I will unless Bodee talks.

  “I can handle this,” I tell Bodee.

  “Lex, you’re ripping the skin off your neck. You’re lying to everyone, including yourself. You’re not handling it. You’ll barely even call it what it is. That man raped you.”

  I push my hands, which are still in his grasp, between us and show him the skin under my nails. “I choose this pain over the pain of—”

  “Healing?”

  “You won’t tell,” I say. I am adamant.

  This close, I feel him stiffen with indecision. Betrayal.

  I jerk from his hold and put a foot of space between us.

  “You will not,” I say.

  “I’d rather you tell,” Bodee says, finally.

  “This is exactly why I kept this to myself,” I say. “I trusted you.”

  “You still can.”

  “No. Not if you’re going to tell someone,” I say.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do, Lex. I didn’t think, really didn’t think, it could be him. It complicates something that’s already complicated.”

  I know this burden he asked to share is heavier than he realized. He likes Craig too.

  Liked.

  “You see. That’s the way it’s been. Every time I think about that night, I blur out his face and wish he was someone else. Anyone else. But he isn’t. He read me stories and he . . . hurt me.”

  “What did he say afterward?”

  Like it matters. “That he was sorry. That I could understand. That I looked like Kayla looked when he knew for sure she loved him. And he meant it. I felt sorry for him and told him I was fine.”

  “And he believes you?”

  “No. Of course not. I’d bet he’s dropped twenty pounds since then. And every time he looks at me, it’s there in his eyes. But I know the game. I know he’s doing what I’m doing when he looks at me and then whips his head toward Kayla. He’s trying to pretend it never happened.”

  “His regret doesn’t change things,” Bodee says.

  “It does for me.”

  “Well, it doesn’t for me. For God’s sake, Lex, he used a condom. There was plenty of time for him to think about what he was doing.” The rage that sent Bodee’s fist into Hayden’s jaw is in his voice. “Oh, I’d like to . . .”

  Crack. Crack. Crack.

  “What?” I say.

  “Hurt him. Punish him. Pay him back.”

  “You can’t,” I say, knowing clearly that he can. A mere accusation of this nature is as life-changing as proving it. “And you can’t just put your thumb in the air and fix this for me any more than I can bring your mom back.”

  “I can’t just . . .” Bodee rakes a hand through his hair. “I need some time, Lex.”

  And for the first time since Bodee came, he walks away from me.

  Craig and Kayla aren’t at dinner that night. I entertain Mom and Dad with made-up stories of a high school that is closer to what they remember than what it’s like. School spirit, lunch ladies with hairnets, and too much pepperoni. Even Mrs. Tindell’s corrections. Overdoing it, so they’ll hear my tone but not look at my eyes. But after a few minutes, thank the good Lord, they are immersed in their own little world of bank loans and elementary students. Bodee says nothing more than “please pass the biscuits” and “thank you, sir.”

  He hasn’t told. They still don’t have a clue.

  From the moment Mom asked if I’d like sweet tea or lemonade, I could tell. There was no shame when she looked at me. No pity or internal volleying of what do I say and how to say it, the way she always is with Kayla. Mom has a look when she’s walking on eggshells; she doesn’t have that look tonight.

  We all hear Kayla come home. Heck, our next-door neighbors, so far away that I’d have to have an arm like a center fielder to hit their house with a baseball, probably heard Kayla come home.

  “The wedding is off,” she announces defiantly.

  Mom stands at this news. “Off?” she asks. “Oh, honey.”

  Bodee’s fork stops midway between his plate and mouth.

  “It’s not really over,” I say to him, rolling my eyes.

  “Honey, what happened?” Dad asks.

  “He wants to move the wedding back. And do some thinking. Move it back,” she says indignantly. “We’ve been together ten years. What else is there to think about?”

  “Then . . . he didn’t really call it off,” Mom says, trying to pacify. “When does he want it to be?”

  “Wouldn’t say.” Kayla twists the brand-new engagement ring off her finger and slams it on the kitchen counter. “He said he had some stuff to work through. My God, I’ve put my whole life on hold for him. Didn’t go away to college. Stayed at the bank. I didn’t even move out because of him.”

  “Honey, Craig will come around. And you’ve broken up with him at times. This will work itself out.”

  Dad’s reasoning just makes Kayla slam her fist into the counter. The ring bounces at this earthquake.

  “You want him to be sure,” Mom says.

  “He should already be sure.”

  “With these tantrums? I highly doubt it,” I say to Bodee.

  Mom shoots daggers in my direction before she asks Kayla, “Do you know what brought this on?”

  “I know he talked to Alexi this afternoon.” She points at me, and I stop eating. “What did he tell you?” she shouts. “What did you tell him? You did something, didn’t you?”

  Bodee nudges my foot under the table. How the tip of his sneaker can say The opportunity is here, I don’t know, but it does. I could tell her, tell them all, and I’d never have to worry again. At least not about Craig. Bodee nudges me again. Tell them.

  “Nothing. He didn’t tell me anything,” I say. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Bodee sighs. A deep sigh that we all notice.

  “Were you there?” Kayla asks him.

  “Yes,” Bodee says.

  Now I kick Bodee. Does he not read foot language as well as I do?

  “It was raining and Craig”—he pauses—“gave us a ride home.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “I didn’t hear him say much of anything,” Bodee says. “But . . .”

  “But what?”

  “I wasn’t there the whole time,” he says.

  “Lex?” Kayla says. “I wanna know what he said.”

  “Nothing,” I repeat.

  “I don’t believe you. You’re lying. There’s always been something between you.”

  “Honey, there is absolutely nothing between
Lex and Craig.” Mom’s appalled even at the idea; she slams her plate into the sink, and Mom doesn’t slam things. “He’s ten years older than Alexi. You’re being ridiculous.”

  See, this is what I was talking about, my foot says to Bodee’s.

  “Kayla, control yourself,” my dad says firmly. “Stop blaming your sister. You and Craig will work this out. Or you won’t. But that’s between the two of you.”

  “You always take her side,” Kayla screams, and runs out of the kitchen, slamming things as she goes. Leaving behind an avalanche of emotions.

  “May I be excused?” Bodee asks.

  “Of course,” Mom says, and looks as if she wishes she could be excused. “She needs to move out and grow up,” she tells Dad as she clears the table. “I’ve about had it with her.”

  I listen as a glass bowl rattles around in the sink, and as my parents take their frustration out on the china instead of on Kayla. When everything is back in its place and the dishwasher is humming, Mom apologizes to me. “I shouldn’t have shown my frustration with Kayla to you, Lex. I’m going to go try and fix things with her.”

  “Let her be,” Dad says.

  “I can’t. She’s my baby.”

  He smiles. “I know.” He squeezes Mom’s hand before she leaves the kitchen.

  Kayla’s mad at me. Mom and Dad don’t know me. Bodee’s hiding in his room, disappointed with me.

  So I text Hayden.

  R u who I think u r?

  Who do u think I am? he texts back.

  Someone w the right words, I hint.

  Sure hope so, he says.

  See u tomorrow.

  K.

  Retreating to my room, I am surprised to find Bodee there already, doing homework at my table.

  “You want me to leave?” he asks.

  “No.”

  We work until Mom comes to the door several hours later. “Oh, hey, Bodee. Y’all working hard?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”