by Hart, Lane
“What?”
“Twice at camp and then at homecoming.”
“I can count,” I huff. “I just meant, what do you mean I hated it? That’s not what I said…”
“That’s what you told everyone.”
“No, I didn’t.” Even though I was devastated after I heard Royal saying that he was only trying to get me to sleep with him, I never would’ve told anyone I hated being with him, because that would’ve been a lie and I’m not a liar.
“Whatever, Hannah. Lie to my face, if it makes you feel better.”
“I have no reason to lie to you, not that you wouldn’t deserve it after what you did to me!” I remind him.
“Maddie’s your friend. It’s not like you’re all alone at school or anything.”
I poke his chest again, because it seems to be some type of new obsession I’ve developed. And why can’t pissed off people poke the other person in the abs once in a while? I’d really like to touch him there even though I shouldn’t. “I’m not talking about at Mercy. I’m talking about what you did at camp.”
“Camp?” he asks as if he’s forgotten all about it, all about us. “That was fourteen…that was forever ago!”
“I know how long it’s been,” I say, even though I’m surprised he started to say fourteen months like he’s been keeping track. “Fourteen is about the number of seconds it took for you to break your promise to me! You used me to take what you wanted before moving right on to Claudia.”
“Claudia?” he repeats, his forehead creased. “Who the hell is…oh.”
“You forgot her already? Guess she wasn’t very memorable in the sack.”
“I wouldn’t know. I never fucked her.”
“Right, sure. You just snuck out of our end of the year party with her and didn’t come back for an hour because you were discussing English literature or-or politics…”
“I left with her to make you jealous after you ripped out my heart, but I never touched her.”
“After I ripped out your heart? That’s rich since you were the one using me the entire summer! You never had any plans of being with me when we came home, did you?”
“Of course I did!” he exclaims and then lowers his voice. “In case you forgot, I told you I loved you; and you didn’t make so much as a peep in response.”
My eyes water at the reminder of him saying those three words and how stupid I was to ever believe them. “Just another one of your lies to keep screwing me over.”
“It wasn’t a lie, and I never screwed you over.”
No. No freaking way! He did not just say he loved me. That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard out of his mouth, which is really saying something. I will not fall for his phony act again, though. He’ll say anything to sleep with me. “Camp aside, you’ve done plenty to screw me over at Mercy these last few months,” I point out.
“Because I had to deal with all of the consequences of cheating, even though I didn’t fucking cheat!” he shouts and then winces when he notices the volume. “Sorry. I didn’t cheat, Hannah. I swear.”
“So, you didn’t give that skinny, little dork a fake license with your name on it so he could take the SATs for you?”
“No, I didn’t. My father did.”
“What?” I say in disbelief. That’s the worst lie I’ve ever heard. “Why would your father do that? That doesn’t even make any sense.”
“Because he thinks I’m too stupid to get into a decent university on my own, that’s why.”
“Oh. Wow.”
If Royal is telling the truth, and that’s a big if, then that’s so awful for him to be screwed over by his father in such a huge way. And it’s not like I meant to out him. It’s just, I heard this random little boy say he was Royal Fitzpatrick at the check-in table beside me. I laughed out loud, and the words, “No, you’re not” just came tumbling from my stupid mouth before I could even catch myself. After that, I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. The proctors asked what I meant, and before I could explain or try to lie, the dork broke down and cried, admitting to being paid to cheat and begging them to not throw him in prison.
“There’s a whole lot you don’t know about me, Hannah,” Royal says. “It would’ve been nice if you could’ve, I don’t know, maybe asked me first before running your mouth?”
“I’m sorry,” I say because I am. “I never meant for anything to happen…”
“Why are you sorry? It’s my own damn fault, right? Didn’t you say I need to take responsibility for my actions?”
“Royal, that was before I knew all of this…”
“Well, now you do. And now I know you still think that being with me was a mistake.” Walking backward toward the balcony door, he says, “Don’t worry. It won’t happen again. I was drunk Friday night, and you plead temporary insanity; right?”
“Royal, wait!” I say, but then he’s gone, slamming the glass door behind him before I see his tall figure vault over the balcony.
* * *
Royal
Worst. Idea. Ever.
It was so fucking stupid of me to show up at Hannah’s.
What did I think was going to happen? That she would tell me I wasn’t the biggest mistake of her life and then climb me like a tree?
Yeah, no, that’s never going to happen.
She’s still pissed at me too, more pissed than I knew because she always just keeps her head down and sucks it up at school, acting like nothing is wrong.
There’s plenty wrong, and she’s still angry about camp, of all things.
Well, I’m angry too, dammit.
Hannah completely ignored me that last Sunday during the end of year party at camp. Whenever I tried to talk to her, her eyes teared up, then she ran the other way without a word, and I had no fucking idea why.
That’s the idiotic reason I went off with Claudia. I wasn’t going to screw her. I just wanted Hannah to get jealous and worked up enough to actually talk to me.
She didn’t. In fact, Hannah didn’t speak to me again until homecoming!
An entire year went by without a fucking word from her.
She ripped my ego and my heart to shreds in one summer, and then just went on with her life without a care in the world.
I really wish I could do the same.
* * *
“Hey, Royal. Everything okay?” Sophie asks when she finds me sitting alone on the football stadium’s bleachers staring off into space. I had been watching football practice, and fuck, does our team suck without Aric before they called it a day.
“I wasn’t checking out the cheerleaders,” I assure her since they had been practicing too when I came and sat down.
“I know that!” she exclaims.
“Well, then just pretend like I’m invisible.”
“That’s sort of hard to do since you look like you want to murder someone,” she replies before she climbs up the metal stairs. She takes a seat on the lower bleacher right in front of me in her blue cotton shorts and red Mercy tee, her blonde hair pulled back in its usual peppy cheerleader ponytail. “I’m a good listener if you want to talk.”
“Nothing to talk about,” I say. “Everything is just…fucked up.”
“Everything?”
“Every. Fucking. Thing,” I elaborate as I scrub my palms down my face.
“Okay. Well, give me the full list, and I’ll tell you from an unbiased opinion if I think each item on it is truly fucked or not.”
“I can’t,” I say, because I’m not going to tell her about Hannah or about Aric and Blake’s business.
“Does it have anything to do with the yelling I heard coming from Blake’s house all weekend? Is it true his mom and Aric…you know?”
“You can’t tell a fucking soul about what you think you heard,” I warn her with a glare.
“I won’t. And yes, you’re right. That’s totally fucked up,” she says with a small smile full of pity. “Blake and Aric’s friendship probably won’t ever be the same again, and you
’re always going to get dragged into the middle of their mess.”
“Fuck, I know that!” I say as I throw my hands up. “And the thing is, I want to be on Blake’s side. No, I am on Blake’s side. But he doesn’t really know how his mom is…”
“And you do?” Sophie asks.
“Yeah, I do. That’s why I stopped going over to his house.”
“What happened?”
“You have to swear on your life, Soph. I’ve never told a soul about any of this, so if you run your mouth, I’ll know it was you and then I’ll hunt you down.”
“Did you know I want to go to school to be a psychiatrist?” she asks.
“No.”
“Well, I do, and one of the most important rules psychiatrists live by is confidentiality. Unless someone’s life is at risk or a child has been abused, they can’t say a word to anyone, ever. If they did, no one would ever trust them, you know?”
“So that’s your long way of telling me that you’ll keep your mouth shut?” I ask.
“Yes. Not to mention that it’s not good for the soul to keep secrets. Locked away, it’s easy for them to start getting dark and twisted, making us feel worse than we should.”
“Okay,” I agree, because she’s right. I want to tell someone to take the burden off, and I can’t tell Aric or Blake. Ever. “One Sunday morning when I stayed over at Blake’s, I went downstairs to find something to eat because Blake was still sleeping.”
“Did this happen recently?” Sophie asks to fill the silence when I pause.
“No. It was, like, about two years ago, after I turned sixteen.” After my summer with Hannah I withhold. I was a mess back then, unable to move on even with anyone else, although I knew I should, but I wasn’t ready to give up on her.
“Okay, so you’ve kept this a secret for years. That’s a long time.”
“Yeah, it is. So, um, I’m down in the kitchen before the sun came up, starving and sporting morning wood, like usual, you know?”
“Yes, I’m aware of the phenomenon,” Soph says with a completely straight face.
“Yeah, well, it is what it is. And no one else was up in the house. At least I didn’t think they were…”
“Blake’s mom?” Sophie guesses with a wrinkle of her nose.
“Yeah. She was up, and it didn’t take her long to notice that I was hard even though I tried to turn my back to her and face the kitchen counter.”
“That must have been awkward,” Sophie says.
“Fuck yes, it was. She’s his mom! I thought she would pretend like she didn’t see it and we would both go on our way like nothing happened. I had no idea she was going to come up behind me and, you know, grab me.”
“She did that? Right there in the kitchen?”
“Yep, while Blake and his dad were upstairs asleep. And she’s like caging me in with her hand on my dick and nowhere for me to go. I remember she whispered that she would take care of it for me with her hand, her mouth or anywhere else I wanted to put it.”
“Wow. That’s rather creepy and incredibly bold of her,” Soph says with a shiver.
“It was, and at the same time I sort of…liked it even though I know I shouldn’t have.” Back then, I didn’t want anyone touching me but Hannah. But afterward, well, that’s when I started getting blowjobs, wanting to forget what Collette did and to stop thinking about Hannah, feeling guilty I didn’t wait for her to come around before moving on…
“You can’t feel bad about that, Royal. It’s sort of a natural thing.”
“Yeah, I guess so. But still, I should’ve pushed her away or something, right?”
“No. In a perfect world, you never would’ve been put in that position in the first place.”
“Well, I was, and it was so fucking embarrassing. I’ll never forget her saying, ‘Uh-oh, looks like you made a little mess. Let me go find you some clean shorts,’ like it was all my fault and I should be ashamed, you know?”
“It sounds like she wanted to embarrass you, to make you feel bad. What a bitch,” Soph says with a shake of her head. “Sorry. I don’t think psychiatrists are supposed to call people bitches, even if they are.”
“So, now that you know the whole story, do you think I should come clean with Blake or with Aric?”
“That’s up to you,” she says. “Do you think she did the same thing to Aric?”
“I don’t know. From what I’ve gathered, it sounds like they had sort of an ongoing affair…”
“Oh. Okay, well, you could ask Aric and see if it started the way she did with you. But as far as Blake goes, do you think any good would come from him knowing about that?”
“Probably not. That’s why I haven’t ever said anything. I don’t want him to be pissed at me too,” I explain.
“And he’s already pissed at his mother and Aric, so there’s no reason for you to take the damage from her mistake.”
“So I shouldn’t tell Blake?”
“I don’t think you have to. You may want to, just to alleviate any guilt you feel, but you don’t have anything to be guilty for, Royal. None of what happened was your fault. You were the victim, and you don’t have to tell anyone if you don’t want to. There’s no obligation. But you could always tell the police or someone since what she did was…”
“No,” I interrupt her before she finishes that sentence. “I’m not going to do that.”
“Okay. Your decision. I’m glad you told me, and I hope it helped to get it off your chest.”
“Yeah, it did. Thanks, Soph,” I say, since hearing her opinion about that morning makes me feel better even if she’s just making shit up as she goes.
“No problem,” she says as she straightens her spine. “Now, can we please talk about the rumor I heard about you and Hannah Morgan hooking up at homecoming? I thought we hated her.”
“We do,” I mutter. “It was nothing. I was drunk, and she was easy,” I say even though the words burn my throat. Hannah is anything but easy.
“Nothing, righhht,” Sophie drawls. “I always thought something was up with her for you to get so worked up after the SATs. I mean, I know you were pissed, but you seriously went ape shit on Hannah.”
“We sort of had a history, one she’s apparently always regretted, but it’s going to stay way back in the past. She’ll never forgive me, and I don’t think I can forgive her either.”
“It’s not impossible for you two to work things out. There’s always a chance, no matter how slim…”
“I don’t think so. My shot with her got blown to hell. I have zero chance of getting into a decent college or playing football again. My two best friends are probably going to try and kill each other before we graduate. It’s all going up in smoke…”
“Maybe Aric and Blake will make amends,” Sophie says, ever the optimist. “And you could always go to a community college and then transfer to another school.”
“It’s going to be hard to pay for even community college once I’m broke and homeless,” I grumble.
“What? Homeless?”
Shit. I’ve said way too much. Sophie’s always had a way of making me do that.
“Don’t go silent on me now,” she says. “Talk to me. What do you mean you’re going to be homeless?”
“After everything that happened in the spring, my dad was so angry he told me that after I graduate from Mercy, he’s cutting me off and kicking me out of the house.”
“Oh my god, Royal. I’m so sorry. I can’t believe your mom would let him throw down that sort of ultimatum!”
“That’s how my mom has always been,” I tell her. “Whatever my dad says goes. I’m not sure if it’s because she loves him or is scared of him. Either way, she’s never been on my side.”
“Sorry. That really sucks.”
“The most fucked up thing is that it was his fault I got caught trying to cheat,” I admit to her. “He sent the boy to take the SAT for me, and I had no idea.”
“Holy crap!” Sophie exclaims. “Why didn’t you tell
anyone?”
“Because my dad was already furious with me for blowing up my future. When I pointed out it was all his fault, he told me he wouldn’t have had to pay someone to take the test for me if I wasn’t an idiot, and then he beat the shit out of me and sent me to boot camp.”
“That’s where you were this past summer?” she asks.
“Yep.”
“Wow. No one knew for sure,” she says.
“I haven’t even told Aric or Blake, so I’m not surprised.”
“Did you have, like, bruises and all when you went to boot camp?” she asks.
“Oh yeah.”
“And they didn’t ask who did that to you?”
“No,” I reply. “My transcript only said that I was expelled from Mercy for violating the student code of conduct, so my dad told them I kept getting into fights.”
“I’m sorry,” Sophie says. “Does he do that a lot?”
“What? Lie or hit me?”
“Both?”
“Only on days that end in Y. But not for much longer. At least that’s one good thing about being kicked out of his house. I just have no clue what the fuck I’m gonna do after graduation...”
“You’ll figure it out. You could always come stay with me,” Sophie offers.
“Yeah, right. I’m sure your parents would love that,” I chuckle.
“Like they’re ever home? I haven’t seen them since May, and I probably won’t until Christmas if they decide to come home from Fiji or whatever beach they’re relaxing on.”
“Must be nice,” I say.”
“Yeah, must be.”
“Thanks for listening, Soph. I owe you one. Just, don’t tell anyone about what we’ve talked about, okay?” It felt good to get everything off my chest, but I don’t think I’m ready for anyone else to find out. Maybe I never will be either.
“Your secrets are as safe with me as they would be with a real psychiatrist,” she says with a wink.
Chapter Seventeen
Hannah
I’m so confused and on edge after Royal leaves that I need to work out some of my frustration. The best way to do that is to go down to the studio my parents set up in the garage and paint.