I texted Dave when I got home, and all he said was that he needed a break. I messaged him a few more times, but he didn’t reply. I was still mad at him for leaving me at the party, until I saw that there was another text waiting. I didn’t recognize the number, but I soon learned that the text was a video; it had been sent to every single person at my stupid high school. It was time-stamped around two in the morning. In the video, I was on my knees, sucking Topher’s dick, with Wade behind me. They were enjoying it and, at one point, they high-fived over my head. I looked like I loved it, too, and the audio certainly made it sound like I did.
The video had a text message with it as well. It listed my name and my phone number, along with the comment, “dedicated to getting you off since 7th grade.”
17
Melinda’s quiet when I finish. I try not to let the judgment fill the room, but I feel it. I look down at my sweater and start pulling the beads of lint off the edges. I know what I am. I’ve known for a long time. I’m pretty, but because of that, I have to be less than whole. I don’t blame myself anymore for my dad, and I’m not sure I still think Jerry was penance for Jack. I do, however, fully blame myself for Prom. I didn’t need to do that, but I did. Because I didn’t think I could be anything else, and no one tried to tell me that I was wrong.
“You’re angry,” Melinda says.
“I don’t know. Maybe?”
“If not angry, then what?”
It’s a tough question, because I can’t blame everyone else for my choices. I made the choice, and it had no bearing on their opinions of me. Even now, I still do, though; I still long for someone to tell me that I was better than that, that I didn’t need to do it. Because after it happened, it just confirmed that not one person believed anything else about me, even Jack.
“I feel… abandoned.”
“How so?” she asks.
I try not to let it feel like it’s happening again, but the anxiety makes the room spin. It’s been four years. I have no excuse anymore. I should move on, get over it. That’s what everyone always says. That I’m weak, pathetic, a typical woman who holds a grudge. Yet even talking about it brings back the days that followed, and it brings back the one conversation that broke me completely.
“Dave broke up with me after he saw the video. I don’t blame him, but he didn’t even ask. I mean, I guess there wasn’t much to ask. He saw it. It happened. But still… he left me as soon as we got to the party. I didn’t need to go upstairs, but he played his role just as well.”
“But you were together? Later?” she asks.
I nod. “We ended up getting back together a little while later. Maybe a month? He never apologized for leaving me that night, and I never apologized for what I did. We just didn’t talk about it.”
“You went back to sleeping with him, though. Was that right away?”
I sigh. “It’s complicated.”
She pauses, but I don’t continue. I don’t want to talk about Dave, to talk about how I treated him, to see myself as the girl I was when he was in my life. I set us up to fail, but that’s not why I’m here.
“Can we just not talk about him? I can’t talk about him,” I say.
She takes a deep breath, writes something down on her notepad, and nods. “Okay. Well, tell me why you felt abandoned.”
“It was Jack. The Wednesday after Prom. I…”
But I can’t continue. It hurts more than it did back then. It’s stupid. I know it’s stupid. High school ended a long time ago. The harassment, those guys, the girls they dated – it’s all in the past. Jack and I have moved on. Sure, we’re both broken, but we’re still here, and that one conversation was just one conversation. But as I think of it, my lungs collapse inside of my chest, and I begin to hyperventilate. Melinda talks me through the attack, slowly, calmly, and I manage to stay sitting on the futon without too much chaos erupting.
Her clock dings just as the attack subsides and I look at it. I should be relieved, but instead I start to laugh, a bitter, twisted laugh. I brought this pain to the surface, faced it again for the first time in years, and now, time’s up. So I have to hang on to the pain for another week or so, or repress it again, pushing it back behind the wall that turned out to be far less sturdy than I’d hoped. If I put it back, I can’t promise I can face taking it back out. I don’t know that I want to test the wall’s strength, either.
She looks over at the clock, too, then at my face. She puts down her pen and notepad, but surprises me when she speaks. “I don’t have another appointment for an hour. I think, perhaps, you need to tell me about Jack. About the Wednesday after Prom. Can you do that, Alana?”
I put my hands under my ass, pressing down hard, to feel the pain, to feel something, and then I nod back at her. “I have never been suicidal, but if I was, that would have been the day that pushed me over the edge.”
18
I was standing by my locker. Dave wasn’t talking to me, except sporadically through texts at night, still trying to make sense of what had happened, and I had never felt so alone. By even going to Prom, I had abandoned Jack, but now, I needed him so badly. When Dave and I had started dating, Jack began to be difficult to be around. He was always mad, making a scene. He’d also begun to drink a lot more. I don’t know how he was still doing well in school because on our homework days, when he even bothered to show up, he’d be passed out drunk before I even finished half my math problems. He’d started playing bass and he was talking about being in a band, but most of the time, he was just drunk. He’d even started coming to school drunk, but if I mentioned it, he would just tell me to mind my own fucking business. Somehow, though, he was still getting good grades, so no one except me and Dave seemed to care. The other kids certainly didn’t; they already called him the junkie’s kid, the killer’s kid, and assumed he was high all the time even though Jack never touched drugs.
I hated what dating Dave did to Jack, but Dave was lonely, too, and when Jack and I had broken up, I liked the way Dave paid attention to me. He knew that I still loved Jack, but since Jack couldn’t see it, I’d decided to move on. Still, I hated that Jack was alone all the time now, because even when Dave and I invited him out, he wouldn’t join us
Now, though, I felt relieved for the first time, knowing that Jack was ostracized. Because it meant that if there was one person in the entire school who had not seen that video, it was him. And two days had passed without a glance from him. I knew that, mad as he was, he at least would have shot me a dirty look or made a comment to me in math class, but instead, he just sat next to me, staring straight ahead, and he didn’t say a word. So he didn’t know, and I was grateful for that.
I don’t know why I thought it would last forever, but I did. So I was standing at my locker and, when I shut it and saw Jack standing there, I smiled. I felt so much joy in seeing him there. I completely forgot for a moment about Prom, because there was Jack, looking at me, close to me for the first time in over a month, and I almost kissed him. Until he spoke.
“I thought you were beautiful,” he said. There was no anger in his tone. There was nothing in his tone. His eyes were empty of emotion, and I was too stupid to make sense of what he meant. “I always thought that you were beautiful. When they would say those things, it hurt me, Alana. It was like every word cut me, because you were beautiful and good and kind and you gave so willingly of yourself – and they didn’t know. They didn’t understand. They were wrong about you. You were none of those things they said.”
I let the words process. It wasn’t subtle and I picked up on the past tense immediately. “Were?” I asked.
“I always believed in you. When I looked at you, I didn’t see what they saw, what I know you saw. I saw the girl who had been my friend, even though everyone said I was a freak. I saw the girl who never told me about why she had the scars, but didn’t need to, because I guessed. I saw the girl who let me kiss her, who let me touch her and hold her, like I was worthy of her. I saw the girl I loved, more tha
n life, more than anything.”
“And now what do you see?”
I couldn’t look at him while I waited for the answer, because I realized where this was going. I looked down at my shoes, at the tattered hems of my jeans, at the thinning canvas of my sneakers, and I tried not to hear the words. I tried to make time stop, to reverse, to make my life not my life, but it didn’t work. I tried with everything I had, but the words came anyway.
“All I can see is that video, Alana. All I can see now is how you let them degrade you, how you let them be right. All I can see is my heart broken.”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t look up. I didn’t even move as he waited, and then he walked away. He didn’t talk to me again until summer, but it didn’t matter. Because there were no words to take it back. There was no anything but the ruin between us.
19
“I thought you said you never told him?” Melinda asks.
“I never told him why. I couldn’t tell him that, although my whole plan was to make him mad, the reality of hurting him was unbearable. I never explained how lonely I was without him. I never told him how much what he said destroyed me. Jack has never really understood just how much he saved me… and because of that, he has no idea how lost I am, how lost I’ve been, because he can’t see anything in me anymore.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” she says. “I think he sees plenty. From the bits you have told me, it sounds like you and Jack need to talk, to clarify just how much you affect one another – for good and bad.”
I shake my head. “There’s no point. I am what I am.”
“What’s that, Alana?” she asks. “What are you?”
“I’m worthless and horrible and I fuck up everything. I lost the only person who mattered to me.”
“It doesn’t sound like you’ve lost him. It just sounds like you aren’t his girlfriend. Let me ask you. Why do you want to be his girlfriend? Things didn’t work between you, but you cling to him like they should have. Why didn’t they work? And what’s changed?”
I sigh and ask her for a glass of water. Isn’t time up yet? I’m glad I talked about Prom, I guess, but I’ve talked enough.
Melinda hands me the water and I drink it all in one sip, before pausing and continuing, “I don’t know why we broke up. I don’t have a clear memory of it. We were good… and then we weren’t. We’d been spending more time with Dave and he’d started to have a crush on me, but I was never anything but Jack’s. We had started to fight a lot. I mean, we always fought a lot. It wasn’t the happiest relationship, but it was ours and I loved him. And I know he would’ve died for me. But we had started fighting more. Then, one day, we fought and we just weren’t together anymore. I don’t even know who ended it.”
“Do you remember the reason?”
I shrug. “No. And when we eventually started up again, it was after Prom, after Dave, after a lot of things, and we never tried to be more than physically connected. But he’s my biggest regret. Because I have never needed anyone like I need Jack.”
“You know, maybe-”
“No. Before you give me a lecture on codependency or whatever, I have to be clear. I have a lot of issues and I have a lot to get over, but I will never get over him. We’ve had our moments and I wish desperately that I could go back and fix that first crack that started our destruction, but I will not live a life without Jack. Sure, I may never get to kiss him again, or feel his arms around me when I need someone to hold me, but there is absolutely no life without him. I can’t make that any clearer.”
She nods. “I understand. And I wish we could continue today, but we will need to put this part off until next time. Will you be okay, though? After today, are you-”
“I’m fine,” I interrupt. “I know what I am and I’ve accepted it. I’m not going to run out in traffic or anything.”
She gives me a weak smile. “You know, Alana, there are certain things you probably don’t want to say to your therapist.”
I realize what she’s done, but I smile anyway. “Touché.”
****
My mom is out again with her new boyfriend, Owen. He actually seems decent and, even better, he not only hasn’t hit on me, but he also has not tried to be friends. Sometimes, you’ve got to take the small pleasures in life, I guess.
I want to call Jack, but he’s been trying to keep his distance. He tells me I’m hovering, but I’m worried. I don’t know if things will work out with Lily; I both hope they do and hope they don’t. I’m not really delusional about me and Jack anymore, but I still hang onto him like it could work. At the same time, I want nothing more than his happiness, even at my expense. And she’s that happiness right now.
I decide to send him a quick text, reminding him to call me if he needs me, and then I settle in to read. The book’s about a reporter who goes to war to capture the atrocities happening at the hands of a conservative regime, and of course, the soldier she meets and falls for while she’s there. I don’t know why I picked it up; I don’t normally go in for the romance thing, but it sounded good. Now, though, it’s just got me picturing Dave.
Two years. I can’t believe it’s been two years. He sent me one letter, right after he left, and then he just stopped communicating with me and Jack. I guess neither of us put in much effort, either, since Dave said in the letter that he thought it was best for him to move on and sever ties. Still, I feel like eras have passed while also feeling like that same girl who felt naively happy in a thrift store dressing room as I spun around and showed him my Prom dress.
If there is one part of my life that I haven’t faced, it’s Dave. I struggle to understand him, to understand what happened with him, why I was the way I was with him, and why he never gave up on me, no matter how much I pushed.
I realize I need to talk to Melinda about him soon, but my life is broken into layers. Some layers are hidden below the surface but ever present, like my father and Jerry. Below those layers are the things that I only talk about if pushed, like Prom, and usually it takes a lot to dig through to those layers because they’re scary and overwhelming. And under that, there is a layer that I pretend doesn’t exist. It’s where I keep hope, real and unadulterated hope. That layer stays securely protected, because I guess it’s what makes me different from Jack. I know it’s there, but I refuse to tap into it. He digs repeatedly into that layer, only to find it empty, and then he can’t go on. I like imagining mine as full to the brim, and I don’t dare to test the theory.
Dave is in that layer as well, because Dave is something entirely foreign. Jack I understand. Jack is love; he is beauty; he is comfort. He may hurt like I do and we may be mutually destructive, but Jack is still not hidden away. Jack isn’t even a layer; he’s the aura that surrounds me, holding all the layers and walls and memories in place. I suppose that’s why I need him, because without Jack, I might have to face the things I’ve buried. And even at twenty, I don’t think I’m ready to do that.
20
Dave sort of just appeared in our lives one day. He was in our classes and we all just clicked almost immediately. Jack and I had only begun sleeping together, but it was volatile from the start. When we were together like that, he was sweet, and even right after, I felt safe, but something happened after that first time. The more other kids said things about me, the angrier he got. It was as if he was mad at them, but also mad at himself because they were sort of right now. They sort of had this window into our relationship, and he hated sharing what we had in private. It got worse as we spent more and more time with Dave, because there were rumors about the three of us. Everyone assumed that I was sleeping with both of them, but eventually Jack was getting called “faggot” on top of everything else. And, as anyone in high school knows, there are levels of freak – and faggot is at the bottom.
It didn’t change what Jack and I had privately, though. That whole summer, we would see Dave a few times a week, but there were other days when it was just us. I’d go to his house, and all my worrie
s about sex and about being touched were gone with Jack. In his bed, it made sense. There was one afternoon, midsummer, when we were lying on his couch and his grandmother was out. We had already had sex that day, but at that point, we were just relaxing upstairs. We rarely left his room, because Jack didn’t like to socialize. Since we had the place to ourselves, though, we were taking advantage. The windows were open and the warm, heavy summer air kissed our bodies as he held me. I could hear a car pass by every so often, small signs that the world wasn’t on pause.
Jack pushed against me and I could feel him hard against my ass, but he didn’t move his hands from my waist. He blew my hair away from my ear and whispered, “I Googled some things, if you want to try them.”
“What kind of things?”
“Just how to be better,” he said.
At the time, I didn’t know there was better. I’d enjoyed sex with him, even if sometimes at night, I felt dirty and guilty for it. It made him happy and I’d had soft orgasms that brought me back to life a little, after the horrible things that had happened before Jack. But when he undressed me on his couch and slid down my body, to kiss me between my legs, I suddenly had a whole new sense of it.
Jack used his fingers and his mouth, but it wasn’t like it had been with my father or Jerry, and it wasn’t even like it was when I had touched myself. He touched me in ways I had never imagined and the way my nerves tingled was only the beginning. He tried a lot of things, but when he used his tongue on me that first time, I couldn’t think about guilt or shame or anything but the utter bliss that flooded my body. I came like I never had, but like I would learn to that summer. I screamed Jack’s name and I’m sure it echoed through the windows, loud enough that those random cars passing could have heard it had they had their windows down.
But none of that compared to when Jack asked me to sit astride him, and helped me control the way he moved inside of me. I’d never been on top, never had any say in the way things happened. He held onto my hips and he let me experiment with my pacing and my angle until suddenly, he reached me in places he never had, and I lost my mind. I leaned back almost all the way, but he brought his legs up to catch me, and he clung to me as I rode him. It was incredible and I suddenly felt not only amazingly satisfied in a way that I’d had yet to experience, but also empowered. This was my choice. The pleasure was mine for the taking, but I dictated what happened.
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