Ms Cox motioned for her to sit back down, and came around to sit beside her. “I don’t come regularly, but every now and then, I can use the peace.”
“Know God. Know peace. No God. No peace.” Sarah recited one of the first lessons they’d been taught in Christian school.
“Something like that. Why are you here on a Saturday? Shouldn’t you be out with your friends or something?”
“What friends?”
“Sarah, is there something you want to talk about?” Ms Cox asked in that way parents and teachers had of letting kids know there was something they wanted to talk about.
“I just needed to come here, I guess, to think about things.”
“Would those things have anything to do with what happened at school with Harper Isabelle?”
Sarah froze. “H-how…” She stopped and swallowed. “What do you mean?”
Ms Cox gave her a patient smile. “I know you students think that we have no idea what’s going on in your lives. That we’re old, and we can’t possibly relate to what you’re going through, but that’s not the case. We were teenagers once too, some of us not so long ago, and we dealt with the same problems you’re dealing with.”
“I think my problems are a little different.” Sarah lowered her gaze.
“Is that what you’re afraid of? That you’re different?”
“I…I don’t want to be different.”
“I know that you didn’t come here to talk to me, but I’m here now, and if you want, I’m listening.”
Sarah thought for a moment. Ms Cox seemed to know something, and she certainly wasn’t getting any answers from the empty pews. “What do you do when something you always thought was wrong suddenly feels right?”
“Sarah, you’re fifteen, how can you be so sure what’s right and wrong?”
“If the bible says something’s wrong, doesn’t that make it wrong?”
Ms Cox shook her head. “I can’t answer that for you, but I can tell you that, like any story that I teach, I think we are supposed to take lessons from this one, but not necessarily live by every word.” She pulled the bible out from the back of the pew in front of her and passed it from one of her hands to the other. “It’s pretty light, to have so much weight, isn’t it?” She placed it in Sarah’s hands. “If you had never opened it, how would you decide what was right and what was wrong?”
“I don’t know.” Sarah looked at the bible in her hands. “I guess I would do what felt right, and I wouldn’t do things that felt wrong.”
Ms Cox nodded. “So, why can’t you do that now?”
Sarah put the book down next to her. “I don’t know. I guess I’m just scared.”
“What are you scared of?”
“That if I do what feels right, then people will get hurt.”
“Like who?”
“My parents. Tyler.” She tucked her hands under her legs. “The things that I want would wound them.”
“And what about you? What has denying yourself done to you? How about other people? Has anyone else been hurt because you were trying to do what was right?” Ms Cox asked.
Sarah nodded, tears in her eyes.
Ms Cox looked into her eyes, a serious, sympathetic expression on her face. “Life is about so much more than what we’re told is right and wrong.”
“But if someone is going to get hurt no matter what we do, how do we decide?”
“I guess you need to think about the reasons you make your choices. If someone is going to get hurt no matter what you do, then doesn’t it make more sense to follow your heart? You can’t make everybody happy. Sometimes in life, people get hurt, and you just need to make sure that, if you’re doing the hurting, at least you’re doing it for the right reason.”
Sarah nodded. “I think I’ve hurt somebody really badly.”
“Harper?”
Sarah turned toward her, surprised.
“It’s okay, Sarah. You’d be astonished what we pick up from watching our students.”
“It just hurts so much.” She wrapped her hands around herself protectively. “I feel like I can’t breathe.” Sarah let the tears fall. “I couldn’t be with her, and now that I’m not with her, I just want to die.”
“Shhh.” Ms Cox put an arm around her, and pulled her into a hug. “When you’re a teenager, everything feels like the end of the world, but it isn’t. You’re still so young, so full of possibility. There are going to be many things that will hurt you, and there will be people who try to change you, who try to take away your innocence. Don’t let what people are saying at school do that to you. Don’t let things you thought you knew get in the way of things that feel right. You’re fifteen. This is the time to learn who you are, not to let other people decide that for you.”
“I wish I didn’t care what people thought. You don’t know what it’s like to feel like the whole world is against you. It’s so hard.”
“The whole world isn’t against you, even if it feels that way at times. You have to remember that tomorrow there will always be another day, and that whatever you’re going through, someone else is thinking the exact same things you are about yourself. We all think our mistakes are the worst, but they’re just mistakes, and everyone makes them.”
“I don’t think anyone’s screwed up as badly as I have. I don’t think anyone feels like this. I just need to stop feeling what I’m feeling.”
“And how do you think it is now for Harper? For Tyler? If you keep doing what you think other people want you to do, if you keep letting your head battle with your heart, you’ll keep hurting yourself, and you’ll keep hurting the ones you love.”
“But what I feel is wrong. It’s unnatural.”
“Do you think Harper is unnatural?”
She shook her head. “No. She’s so good. She’s the kindest person I’ve ever met.”
“Then how come your feelings for her can’t be good too?”
“I…I don’t know. I just know I don’t want to hurt anymore. I don’t want anyone to hurt.”
“Then you need to be true to yourself, Sarah. You need to own your feelings, and you need to understand that it’s okay to want what you want. To love who you love.”
Sarah pulled back to study Ms Cox. “Are you a Christian, Ms Cox?”
“I am.”
“Then how can you tell me that what I feel for Harper isn’t wrong?”
“Oh, Sarah.” She wiped the tears from Sarah’s eyes. “Love is never wrong.”
* * *
Sarah sat in that pew long after Ms Cox left. She sat there until her father came out of his office, startled to find her there. It was six o’clock, and he was closing the doors for the evening. When he asked if she needed a ride anywhere, she told him she wanted to go home. When they arrived, she gathered her courage to do what she had to do. She went to Tyler’s room and knocked on the door.
“What?”
She turned the handle and opened the door. “Hey, can we talk?”
He looked away from her, but he didn’t tell her to leave. It was a start. She slipped into the room and closed the door behind her.
“Tyler, I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry.”
He turned, his brow furrowed. Clearly, that wasn’t what he expected.
“What I did to you was wrong. I lied to you, and I want you to know how sorry I am. I thought that if I lied to you, that if I lied to everyone, then I could lie to myself too. I didn’t want to want what I did, I hope you know that. I know you can’t understand what I’m talking about.” She walked to the other side of his room and picked up a snow globe she had given him for their eighth birthday when they’d been at Disneyland. She’d never really noticed before that he still kept it in his room. “You’ve always been there for me, but you never really knew what it was like to be me. Always on the outside, looking in. Always different.
“I didn’t want to be different. To be the girl who stuttered. To be the idiot savant who had to draw her feelings because she couldn’t express herself. I did
n’t want to be any more different than I already was, so when I met Harper, and she made me feel different than I had ever felt before, I didn’t want anyone to know. At first, I couldn’t even admit to myself what it might mean, and by the time I figured it out, you already liked her.
“She didn’t want to hurt you, you should know that. It was me who insisted that she date you. I was so selfish, so cowardly, that I let her hurt you just so that I wouldn’t have to be honest with myself. I never meant for it to go as far as it did. I kept thinking that my feelings would go away, that I would stop falling for her, and that she would wake up and realize what she was doing with me and turn her back on me, and go back to you.
“I can’t even imagine what it was like for you. For once, you were the one who needed my protection, and I couldn’t be there for you because I was too busy trying to protect myself from my own self-loathing. You were right about me, about what you called me. I don’t know if this is the way I’ve always been, or if this is just the way Harper makes me feel. I don’t know if I would have ever realized this about myself if I hadn’t met her, or if I would have realized it a few years from now when I met someone else. All I know is, I did meet her, and it changed everything.”
“You can stop now,” Tyler said, and she was surprised at the lack of anger in his voice. “I’m sorry too. You really needed me, and I wasn’t there for you. I always thought I was such a great brother, that I protected you, that I was the only one who understood you, and then when you needed me to, I couldn’t just swallow my pride and let you have what you needed. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I don’t know what I was more jealous of, Harper’s feelings for you, or your feelings for her.”
“What do you mean?”
“For a long time, I was the one you turned to for everything. Then we started high school, and it was like you didn’t need me anymore. I realized it was because you had someone else to talk to, to confide in, and I got jealous. After a while, I think the reason that I wanted her to be my girlfriend so badly was so I could take her away from you. If I’m honest with myself, I knew for a long time that there was something going on between you. I may not have known exactly what it was, but I knew there was something special between you, and I wanted to take it away from you.” He shook his head. “Honestly, I still don’t even know why. I keep asking myself how I could do that to you, how I could do what I did to Harper.” There was shame in his eyes. “I thought I could get back at her, get back at both of you by hurting her. Being an asshole wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be though.” He pointed at his broken nose. “Or as cool. I always knew that Harper was holding back, and instead of listening to what she was trying to tell me, I kept pretending everything was okay. I should have let her go months ago. I was just so… I don’t know, not myself.”
“We were lying to you. We…we were unfaithful.”
“I know.” He nodded. “Those letters that I found, I didn’t find them for the first time the other day. When I first found them, I pretended that I didn’t know what they were or who they were from. You guys tried to be careful, never putting in names or places, but who would do that if they didn’t have something to hide? Besides, it’s not like I didn’t recognize both of your hand writing.”
“If you knew, then…”
“I don’t know. I don’t know why I did anything. I was embarrassed that my girlfriend liked my sister more than she liked me. I was mad that you found someone who meant more to you than I did. I was angry that Harper was the most popular girl in school, and I guess I thought that meant she should be mine. I let my pride get in the way of what actually mattered. I let my selfishness mean more to me than you.”
“No one could take your place in my life, Ty.” New tears welled in her eyes, and they were mirrored in her brother’s.
“I know.” He nodded his head, and a few fell down his cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Sarah,” he choked. “I’m going to tell everyone that I was lying. I’ll tell everyone that I made it up, and I’ll keep your name out of it. I’m so sorry I did this to you.”
She crossed the room and swung her arms around her brother. His body shook against hers as he pulled her in tighter. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered again.
“I’m sorry too,” she whispered.
“I meant it when I said I would support you. I don’t care who you like. There’s nothing wrong with how you feel. It’s okay if you’re gay.”
Sarah pulled out of his hug. “I…I think it’s going to take me awhile to be able to say that. At least out loud.”
“But you are?”
She swallowed and nodded.
“Do you love her?”
“I…I thought I did. I thought she was the one, but then when you told me… I don’t know.”
“I didn’t sleep with her, Sarah.”
“What?”
“I never slept with her. I said that to hurt you. God, I barely even kissed her. I kept thinking that if I waited long enough, she just might love me, but she couldn’t, because she was already in love with you.”
Sarah’s heart dropped. Harper had been telling the truth. She hadn’t slept with Tyler. She hadn’t lied to her…and Sarah had said all those awful things to her. She realized the truth too late. Much too late. Tyler had been trying to hurt her, trying to drive a wedge between her and Harper, and it had worked. She’d turned her back on Harper. She’d let her stand there in school and take everyone’s judgment by herself. She’d abandoned her to face it all alone.
In that moment, Sarah missed Harper acutely. She missed her more than she thought she could ever miss anybody. Even more than she’d missed Tyler when they weren’t speaking. The shame consumed her. It was the true price of her insecurity, of her cowardice, and Harper had paid it for her. Her whole life, she’d lived in the shadows, just trying to get by, hoping that no one would notice her, but Harper did, and it had changed her world.
She still wasn’t ready to tell her parents about herself, and maybe she wasn’t ready to shout it in the streets, but she was ready to stand up for herself and for Harper. If Harper would take her back, she could do anything, maybe even tell her parents about herself someday. With or without Harper, she understood the truth about herself now, and she didn’t want to live in the shadows any longer.
CHAPTER 25
Bronte, the person who had always looked out for her, protected her, shielded her for her entire life, fed her to the wolves. She’d been set up. She knew it the second she walked into her house and saw both her parents were at home, sitting in the family room with her sister.
“Harper.” Her father cleared his throat. “Sit down.”
She stood by the doorway. “I think I’ll stand.”
“Listen to your father.”
Listen to your father? Since when were her mother and father on each other’s side about anything?
Her father was seated in the loveseat, and her mother and Bronte were on the chesterfield. She made her way over to the easy chair and perched tentatively on its edge, ready for flight.
“Bronte tells us that there was an incident at school recently, involving you.”
Harper narrowed her eyes at her sister. How dare she? Her father took a sip of his scotch, and her incredulity rose. Whatever this was about, it wasn’t so important that it couldn’t be washed down with a glass of single malt, evidently.
“Why don’t you tell us what happened?” her mother said.
“I’d much rather hear what Bronte has to say about it,” she answered, a sweet, plastic smile on her face.
“I told them for your own good.”
“Oh, I bet you did. Just like you told me I should be ashamed of myself. Was that also for my own good?”
“What you’re doing is disgusting, Harper.” Bronte said, and Harper flinched. “I thought if I gave you some time that you’d be honest with yourself and stop pretending, but you walk through the halls like you don’t care what people are saying, what they’re calling you. That girl i
s a pervert, and she’s done something to you. I saw it all along. You’re not yourself around her.”
So, Bronte knew about Sarah, just as Harper had suspected. Unlike everyone else at school, she hadn’t bought Tyler’s story about catching her with some random girl. Bronte knew exactly who it was she had feelings for. “What do you care? Apparently, I’m not your sister anymore, so don’t worry about it.”
“How can you be so glib about this, Harper?” Her father demanded. “What Bronte has told us is very serious.”
“Is it?” She rounded on him. “I’m surprised you even care.”
“Watch your tone, young lady.”
Harper huffed. “Is this a joke? The two of you sitting here, trying to talk to me about my life. Where the hell have you two been the last fifteen years? You have no idea what’s going on with me.”
“Yes, well, we trusted you to make the right decisions. We see now that was a mistake.” Her mother poured herself a glass of scotch.
“Are you kidding me? You’re both going to sip your scotch like you’re talking about another one of your cases? This is so…” The tears stung her eyes, and she balled her fists, unable to express how hurt she was.
“Use your words, Harper. You’re not a baby.” Her father put his glass down.
Harper stood up. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You want me to use my words? You’re both workaholic, alcoholic, absentee, asshole parents who wouldn’t know if I was a drug addict or a sex fiend or a lunatic or a lesbian if it was on the evening news!”
Her mother took two long strides and slapped her hard across the face. Harper lifted her hand to her cheek, the heat of her blood already rushing there.
“You’re not a lesbian.”
Harper willed her tears not to fall. “You think hitting me is going to change anything?” She turned to Bronte. “You think people calling me names at school will change the way I feel? You think bullying me to be straight will make this all go away? Will make you better parents?” She looked back at her mother.
“Don’t you say that.”
“Which part? The part where I’m your daughter and you don’t know a thing about me, or the part where you’ve completely failed as parents?”
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