"Cole," I heard a voice call out. "Yo!"
Cole's arms snapped back to his sides, and he stepped forward, leaving me behind. "What up, playa?" he said, embracing the other man.
"Who's this?" the stranger asked, gesturing to me.
Cole began to mumble incoherently. He looked at me as if the thought that he might one day need to identify me to another person had never occurred to him.
"I'm Rowan," I laughed nervously, extending my hand.
"Oh!" the stranger smiled, recognizing my name. "Good to finally meet you! I'm Scott."
"Scott? Oh my god, yes—nice to meet you too. I've heard so much about you!"
"I know, I know," he said, doing an imaginary hair flip, "the rumors don't do me justice."
"Definitely not," I agreed. "Maybe I've been hanging out with the wrong guy." I nudged Cole to come out of his silence.
"Ah, don't let Patty hear you say that," he laughed. "What are you guys doing here?"
"Actually, we just ran into each other," Cole said flatly.
Scott and I exchanged confused looks.
"Yeah, it's so weird," I said, not wanting to expose Cole's lie. "I was just on my way to a friend's house. We're, um, having a movie night."
"We were actually just catching up and we were going to get some coffee."
"Cool," Scott said, obviously unsure of what to do next. "Well, I gotta get home to the missus. It was really great to meet you," he said, shaking my hand again. "Maybe we'll see you around sometime?"
"Maybe," I said.
"Cole, call me later, bro."
"Will do," Cole said.
I slammed the car door shut, and threw the candy in the backseat of Cole's Saturn in a huff. "What the fuck was that?" I scoffed, as Cole started the car.
"What was what?"
"You know what."
"I just didn't want it getting back to Chris, is all."
"Why don't you just tell him we're together?" I snapped.
"Because."
"Because why?"
We'd just turned onto his block, and I opened my door without waiting for the car to stop. I slammed the door again as he put the car in park. "Huh? Why?"
"What do you want from me, Rowan?" Cole spat back, slamming his own door.
"I want to know what we are."
"What are you talking about?"
"Am I your girlfriend?"
"Jesus," he laughed, placing his hands on his hips, looking toward the sky. "I knew this was going to happen."
"What was going to happen?"
"This," he said, holding his hands out to me. "This bullshit."
"Oh, so I'm bullshit?"
"No, this, that you're pulling right now, is bullshit," he said, walking toward me. "I told you I wasn't looking for anything serious."
"Then what the fuck are we?!" I half screamed, half laughed.
Silence.
"We're not friends. Friends don't sleep with each other for two years and then tell each other it doesn't mean anything. Friends aren't embarrassed or ashamed of each other when they meet people in CVS."
More silence.
"Like, seriously. What the fuck am I to you? Am I your girlfriend? Am I—"
"Oh my god, Rowan! You. Are. Not. My. Girlfriend. How many times are we going to go through this?"
That's when I knew I needed to ask. If I didn't, I'd get stuck in this moment, waiting for him. "Do you love me?"
"Rowan," he said, shaking his head, "Let's just go inside and—"
"No!"
"Fine!" he said, walking toward the house.
"So that's it? You're just going to leave?"
"You know what, Rowan? I fucking told you how it was. I told you I wasn't looking for anything serious and you said you weren't either."
"Well, my feelings changed."
"Well, mine didn't, okay?" he screamed. "My feelings didn't change—they're never going to change. You're not my friend. You're not my girlfriend. You are the girl I fuck once a week. That's all you are to me. That's all it's ever going to be."
I was quiet for what seemed like a long time before saying, "I think . . . I think maybe we shouldn't see each other anymore."
"Fine," he laughed. "Whatever. I give up."
Chapter Eleven
* * *
Sylvia pushes more tissues at me, and tells me I have options. "Rowan, you are completely and totally in control of what happens from here. If you choose to have evidence collected, that's all it is. It doesn't mean you're pressing charges or anything like that, although you can speak to the police if you want to. Like I said, it's totally up to you from here on out."
I nod.
"Do you wish to have evidence collected?"
I nod. "Yes."
Sylvia places a consent form in front of me and says things like "blood and urine specimens," "sexual assault," "will become part of your medical record." I sign the form without reading.
She pauses to check that I've signed in all the right places, and continues: "Evidence collection can be an extensive process, but I'm going to be here with you every step of the way. If there's anything you don't want to do, let me know and we'll skip it. You're the one in control here."
* * *
I had cried. I had screamed. I had thrown things in a fit of anger. I went on a full-blown social media eradication. Unfriended from Facebook, unfollowed on Instagram. I pressed the delete button on my phone with such force, as if the intensity would delete Cole from existence. I showered, scrubbing my skin red—determined to get him off me. And when the water ran dry, I recognized I was the girl lots of guys had fucked once a week. I used to blame them—calling them assholes, dicks, man-children. But the one thing they had in common was me.
* * *
When I told my friends Mom was getting me a math tutor to ensure I graduated high school, they made jokes about how it should come naturally to me.
I remember throwing my graphing calculator across our dining room table during one of Jamie's and my study sessions.
"I'm never going to get this!"
"Sure you will," Jamie said, retrieving my calculator.
"No," I laughed, "I won't."
"Look, don't take it so personally. Math isn't for everyone. Some people just aren't built for it—it's no one's fault. Maybe God skipped you the day He was handing out the math gene." We laughed as she continued to explain sine, cosine, and tangent.
I went to sleep that night wondering what else God had skipped when creating me. Was this why BioMom gave me up for adoption? Was this why Mom and I fought constantly? Was there a way to fix it?
This is when The Voice was born. It came to me in my darkest moments, times when I was most afraid and alone. It whispered and hissed, You are not enough. And I believed it.
As time went on, I learned how to silence The Voice. It was most quiet when I was with a man. A man who listened to my stories, who held and kissed and made love to me . . . a man who wanted me. But The Voice was never gone. It was always there, lurking behind my ear like a rogue strand of hair that didn't quite make it into my ponytail.
And as I lay my head on my pillow, determined to put Cole and his words behind me, The Voice returned. It was loud and sinister and relentless.
There's a reason Cole left, it taunted. It's the reason they all leave.
As I listened, I noticed something—The Voice wasn't an external whisper like it had been before. No, it was closer, deeper. I sat up, threw off the covers, and began searching—through my hamper, behind the closet, under the bed. The Voice felt closer than it ever had and yet I couldn't touch it.
It's okay, Rowan, it said. It isn't your fault—it's just who you are.
Immediately I realized it wasn't The Voice I was hearing—it was me. The Voice was the part of myself I refused to acknowledge—the part that knew who I was.
All these years I thought I was trying to silence The Voice, but really, I was trying to deny what I already knew to be true: BioMom had regifted me like a s
cented candle reeking of gingerbread and sugar cookies. There was something inherent in me which made it easy for people to walk away.
* * *
The summer after Dad's best friend Floyd died, my parents rented a house on Long Beach Island, along the Jersey Shore. While Aidan and I were allowed to spend the money we'd saved on whatever we wanted, Dad always encouraged us not to buy anything until the day before we left.
"You never know—you might see something you like better and wish you'd waited!" he'd caution.
The day before we went home, I was in a gift shop surrounded by picture frames covered in seashells and necklaces with anchor and starfish charms. Toward the back of the store, there was a section dedicated to quotes painted on driftwood: Life's a Beach—Enjoy the Waves; A Little Sand between Your Toes Is Enough to Cure All Woes; All You Need Is Ocean Air and Salty Hair.
I was about to head up front empty-handed when I saw a large piece of driftwood. In lofty scripted handwriting, it said, A man becomes a father when he holds his child. A woman becomes a mother when her child is conceived.
"See anything you like?" Mom asked with a smile.
I shook my head, and we left.
As we continued to walk past the storefronts on North Bay Avenue, I wondered if BioMom had ever been my mother. Did she cry when she saw me on the ultrasound screen? Did she smile and clutch her belly when I kicked for the first time? Did she ever hold me? Why was I here, on Long Beach Island, with parents who didn't look like me and a brother whose blood I didn't share?
The Voice answered, She cared enough to eat right, went to routine checkups, ensured your survival, and still cast you out. When she looked upon your face and into your eyes, she knew you did not deserve her love. You weren't worth it then, and you aren't worth it now.
* * *
There is a short stretch of Jericho Turnpike where you can find hourly accommodations. Morse-like fluorescents whisper, Your secret is safe with us. Between doing lunch and coffee runs, four-door sedans that have seen better days sit side by side in the mostly abandoned parking lots. But by night, minivans and midlife crises wedge themselves between the white lines, having gotten lost on their way to the grocery store. The Hostway is at the end of this strip.
On Groupon, the Hostway Motor Inn is marketed as a quaint bed-and-breakfast located in the heart of Jericho, making it a hit for travelers and locals that need a quiet escape. If there's an area of the Hostway where you can get fresh muffins and a Western omelet, I haven't seen it.
I imagined the Hostway looked the same as it did when it was erected in the early sixties, at the time of its parking lot's first and only paving job. In fact, I'm sure the billboard advertising their thirty-five-inch cable TVs and free HBO enticed many Manhattanites in desperate need of a place to crash before driving the remaining sixty-seven or so miles to the Hamptons in the a.m.—their children immediately sucked into the gravity of the machine-that-produces-sugary-drinks' glow.
I couldn't explain how I came to know the Casual Encounters section of the Craigslist personals. I couldn't explain why I found myself there not twenty-four hours after Cole left me. All I knew was The Voice tormented me, and I needed peace.
I remember Valentina telling me this was crazy—that they still hadn't caught the Gilgo Beach killer—and asking what she was supposed to tell my mom when they found my body chopped into little pieces, scattered along the beach.
"I have a plan," I told her. "I'm going to wait in the parking lot and when the guy comes, I'll text you his plate number."
"Oh my god, Rowan! Do you hear how crazy this sounds?"
"I already know a lot about him. His name is Dave, he's forty-seven. Hold on, I'm texting you the picture he sent me. Did you get it?"
"No, no. I didn't get it yet. Seriously, this is a bad idea."
"Val! I can't just sit here, okay? I can't just sit here and be sad about it."
"Then let's go out. You want to go to the diner?"
"No! If we go to the diner, we're just going to sit and talk about it, and I can't do it. I can't keep going over and over this. I just . . . I need to do this, okay?"
Long pause.
"Valentina?"
"Okay," she said. "When are you meeting him?"
"Ten thirty."
"If I don't hear from you by eleven forty-five a.m., I'm calling the cops."
* * *
After missing the turn for the motel at 10:17 a.m., I almost hit some asshole running for the bus. He gave me the finger when I honked my horn and he smiled as the cars piled up behind me. The bus drove away with his grin and I knew he hated me. He sat on the bench while I waited for the light and he shook his head as though he knew where I was headed and what I was going to do when I got there.
In the empty parking lot, I wondered how to greet someone who promised you a spanking. Do you shake hands with someone who's asked if you like it rough, or if you prefer to go slow? Is it acceptable to hug a stranger you're meeting for sex? The answer is always yes, but I didn't know that then.
I wished I'd had a better reason—I wished headphones and traffic and Friends reruns were enough to drown out The Voice, but they weren't.
Dave was the first man I met through Casual Encounters. Something about his precise directions to the motel and how he reminded me to pick up condoms led me to believe he had done this before.
I remember he felt the need to explain his situation—how he wasn't with his ex, how his daughter was his life, why he couldn't have me at the house. I undressed as he told me, hoping doing so would demonstrate how little I cared about how we came to be in this room.
He talked me through how he liked to be sucked, and encouraged me take it deeper. I assume he had the same patience when helping his daughter—fractions can be such a bitch.
Dave was a personal trainer. The sweat dripping from his bald head as he drove himself into me tasted of creatine and PowerBars. He lasted an hour past the time he'd paid for the room but didn't ask me for cash—only if we could do it again sometime.
"Sure," I said, halfway out the door.
On the way home, I replayed our fornication in my mind, trying to transport myself back to that room. It wasn't the echoes of our flesh smacking together that silenced The Voice—it was something else.
Dave's hands had interlocked with mine. With each thrust, he buried the backs of my hands deeper into the mattress. And in his eyes, I saw his need for me was real.
His fingernails left half-moons on my love handles and he texted me before I could wash him off. I need to see you again, he wrote.
All at once, I could hear—the music from the radio, cars whooshing past, the cool air dancing with my hair. The Voice was gone, and I had returned.
Over the next few days, I surrendered to the giddiness that only comes from discovering that the boy whose name you've been scribbling over every inch of your notebook wants to take you to the dance. Except this wasn't high school.
I wasn't a girl and he wasn't a boy. He wasn't my crush and I wasn't his. He was a stranger to whom I'd e-mailed a photo of my naked body. A stranger to whom I'd offered that naked body in exchange for an hour's reprieve from The Voice's menacing persecution. A stranger who'd priced the value of that naked body at $43.71, plus the cost of gas. A stranger to whom I'd admitted his price was right.
The Voice was quiet in the days that followed. Dave texted me furiously, anxious to meet and mistaking my inability to sext for coyness. For a moment, I let myself think we could be something. I imagined where he'd take me on our first date, what secrets he'd tell me as we lay in bed together, how we'd lie to friends and family about how we met.
It took three days, but we agreed to meet at the Coliseum Motor Inn off Hempstead Turnpike, on the bad side of Eisenhower Park. Dave was doing abs and arms with some East Meadow housewife, and said he'd be there by eleven a.m.
At 12:15 p.m. I shot him a text: Where the hell are you?
Sorry, he replied. Client is running late. Can we reschedul
e?
You don't really believe that, do you? I thought to myself.
Fine.
C'mon baby, don't be like that. I promise I'll fuck you so good tomorrow.
I pulled out of the motel parking lot and drove home, trying to swat The Voice away from my ear, as if it were that rogue section of hair that never made it into the ponytail.
Mom was folding towels when I flung open the back door of the house on Elderberry. She didn't ask where I'd been or whom I'd seen—only, "Do you need anything from Target? Dad and I are heading over there as soon as I'm done with these towels."
"No thanks. I thought you'd be at—" I was going to say I thought she'd be at Nana's, packing up the rest of the house, when I spotted Emma's perfect, smiling face on a 5x7 postcard with matte finish. "So," I said as Mom went to put the kettle on, "Emma's graduating today?"
* * *
Emma was three months old when she first came to the house on Elderberry. Her mother, Mrs. Acosta, would drop her off at seven fifteen each morning before heading out to a corporate law office in Westchester, where she was trying to make partner. Emma's father, Mr. Acosta, came to retrieve her at six thirty p.m., after overseeing projects at his construction company.
Mrs. Acosta was promoted to partner shortly after Emma's fifth birthday. We only saw Mrs. Acosta on Fridays, when she came to pay Mom. Other than that, Mr. Acosta was responsible for Emma's dropoff and pickup.
When Emma turned seven, Mrs. Acosta began planning for college. Each afternoon of Emma's week was meticulously scheduled. On Mondays, Emma had tap and ballet. On Tuesdays, karate. Wednesdays were for piano, and Thursdays were for drama. On Fridays, Emma was tutored for the following year's math and language arts.
Mrs. Acosta coordinated with other moms to drop Emma off at the house on Elderberry after her extracurriculars. Emma would sprint up the driveway, eager to show Mom what she had learned.
Mondays were the hardest. She'd stand in the middle of the kitchen flapping and scuffing, kick-ball-changing and plié-ing, while Mom tried to get dinner on the table. Mom would just stand there, mesmerized by Emma's talent. If I tried to ask her a question, I was shushed.
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