“So you stayed with me out of pity?” Ben accused harshly.
“Not completely,” I said, wishing I could take it back. Oh God, I never should have told him that.
“So instead of just ending things, you cheated on me with some random guy?”
“Yes,” I said, fresh tears falling down my cheeks at the thought of what I’d done.
“Who is he?”
“No one,” I said, not wanting to share the intimate details about Zack. Ben didn’t need to know who he was.
“Who is he?!” he screamed, his voice reverberating in my ear.
“His name is Zack. He’s just a guy I met.”
“Just a guy you met and you slept with him. Well I hope it was worth it. I hope you had fun.”
“Ben don’t,” I pleaded with him, knowing by his sarcastic tone where the conversation was headed.
“Did you like it, Emily? Did you? Did like it when he kissed you and touched you and stuck his dick–”
“Stop it, Ben!” I screamed, cutting him off.
I didn’t want to hear it. I couldn’t listen to him say what I knew he was going to say. He would make me sound cheap and easy and make Zack out to be a martyr, and we weren’t any of those things. True, we weren’t in love, but how many people wait until they’re in love to have sex. I wasn’t sixteen. Maybe I had just wanted to have sex and that was it. Ben was making me out to be a whore because of it, and I knew he was pissed, but it still didn’t give him the right to belittle me like that. I wouldn’t stand for it.
I slammed the phone down before he could get another world in edgewise.
Chapter Seventeen
“What the hell is going on in here?” Chase asked, storming into my room a minute later, finding me sitting on my bed, shaking and crying, still holding my phone in my hand.
He instantly crossed the room, sat on my bed and put his arms around me, pulling me against his chest. I let my phone fall from my hand and drop onto the bed, as my fingers gripped the comforter on either side of me. I continued to bawl, unable to speak as my tears drenched the front of Chase’s blue t-shirt.
“It’s okay,” he said, stroking my back. “It’s okay. Just breathe.
I tried to take in air, but all I could do was huff small hiccupping gulps of oxygen into my lungs. Chase continued stroking my back as my breathing evened out, and I loosened my grip on the comforter, but I didn’t have the strength to lift my head from his chest.
“What happened?” he asked again, when he thought I had pulled it together enough to talk.
“I cheated on Ben, and we broke up,” I whispered, hating how the words felt on my lips.
“You cheated?”
I nodded against his chest.
“When you say cheated, you mean sex, right? This isn’t about just a kiss, is it?”
I shook my head. “No, I had sex,” I said, begrudgingly.
“When?”
“Last night,” I sighed.
“Um, with who?”
I could tell he was trying his hardest not to sound completely flabbergasted. I knew it was completely out of character for me to have done what I had with Zack, but I appreciated that Chase was sensitive to that fact and didn’t make any side comments.
“Zack,” I said, as my mind flitted back to the night before.
I had flashbacks to Zack and me, skin on skin, and feelings of complete exhilaration and passion and pleasure flooding me all at once as we moved together. Zack made me feel beautiful and sexy and alive, and I thanked God again and again that no one had been in the house besides us because I was pretty sure I had been less that quiet. But Zack had made me feel things I didn’t know were possible in all the years I’d been with Ben.
I knew it was wrong to compare them, but I couldn’t help it. Sleeping with Zack had been like sleeping with a man instead of a boy. He was in the moment the entire time and equally focused on if I was enjoying myself. I had been with Ben for so long that sex had become predictable, and honestly, a little frustrating since he almost always finished before I could. Zack had waited. He had been patient, and it had been spectacular.
“Do you regret it?” Chase asked, bringing me back to the present.
I shook my head.
“Are you sad about Ben?”
I took a deep breath and sat up, facing my brother and taking in the concerned look on his face. He was completely out of his comfort zone, but I appreciated more than anything that he was sitting with me and talking me down from the ledge.
“I should have broken up with Ben a long time ago,” I said, shaking my head.
“So, I’m guessing you told him what you did?”
I sighed. “I didn’t want to. I tried to make a clean break and end things, but he wouldn’t let me, so I finally told him. And he basically called me a whore.”
It was Chase’s turn to sigh. “You’re not a whore, Em. He’s just an asshole.”
I shook my head. “I shouldn’t have cheated on him. I should have been adult about this and ended things before I did something so hurtful.”
Chase shrugged. “Semantics,” he said. “If you broke up with him, then slept with someone else, it still probably wouldn’t have felt good. He’s pissed, I get that, but it doesn’t give him the right to be a dick about it.”
I flopped back onto my pillow and threw my arm over my eyes. “He’s just hurt. I know he didn’t mean the things he said. Ugh, what am I going to do?”
“About what?”
“Everything. Ben. Zack.”
I was overthinking things again, but I couldn’t help it. It was second nature for me.
“What do you want to do?” Chase asked.
“Forget what I did to Ben and have fun with Zack,” I said, that time without thinking.
“So do it,” Chase said, as if it really were that simple.
“It just feels crappy,” I said, moving my arm up to my forehead so I could look at him. “I feel like I should be mourning my relationship or something – like I shouldn’t be allowed to have fun. I did a crappy thing to Ben, so I shouldn’t get to have Zack.”
“Em,” Chase said, and I could hear the exasperation in his voice. “In the adult world, break-ups happen all the time, and someone always gets hurt. It’s life. But it doesn’t mean you have to punish yourself. I know this is new to you, but come on.”
“Have you ever broken up with someone you loved?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I have, but I’ve also been on the receiving end of a break-up, and it’s never fun. Break-ups just suck no matter how you look at them. But sometimes it’s just better to not wallow in the past. No one’s saying you have to jump into another relationship, but get out there and live your life.”
“You mean make Zack my rebound?”
He shrugged. “Why define it. Just hang out, have fun. Enjoy being with him or enjoy being with many people. Just don’t make yourself miserable because you made the first selfish choice of your adult life. Embrace it. It’s about time you took charge of your life and did what you wanted for a change instead of living the life you think everyone wants you to live.”
“How do you know so much about me?” I asked, always surprised that he seemed to know me so much better than I knew him.
“I’m your brother, Em. You forget that we grew up together and lived under the same roof for eighteen years, and you haven’t changed that much since high school. I know we haven’t been close for the past few years, but it doesn’t mean I stopped caring about you.”
“You care about me?” I asked, slightly flabbergasted.
He nodded. “Yeah, I do. I know it’s hard for you to see, but I do. I always have. I just hoped that you’d get to a point where all your preconceptions stopped clouding your judgment of me – and that you’d realize what a snob you turned into the minute we hit high school. I just didn’t think it would take this long.”
He smiled as he said it, so I knew that although he was being honest, he wasn’t doing it to hurt me. I sm
acked him lightly on his thigh, which made him duck away and grin at me.
“I really was a snob, wasn’t I?”
He nodded. “Yeah, you were. I’m not going to lie. And I’m not going to tell you it didn’t hurt when you and Rachel started ditching me freshman year.”
“Oh please! You had Davis. You couldn’t have cared less what we were doing. Hell, you guys made it your life’s mission to tease and mock us whenever you could – making fun of us practicing cheers in the backyard, torturing us when Rachel would sleep over and making snarky comments in the halls at school.”
Chase looked serious and introspective for a moment. “Em, I was fifteen, and I had a huge crush on Rachel back then. That’s why I teased you guys – in the beginning. I missed hanging out with you, and I just wanted her to see me as someone she wanted to date, but she never did. Then by Christmas break, you guys had changed so much that I didn’t miss you so much anymore. In fact, I had a hard time remembering why I liked hanging out with you in the first place, so I stopped trying. But I never stopped caring.”
His words had me thinking back seven years, trying to see things from his perspective, but it was hard.
“I’m sorry, Chase,” I said, feeling like it was long overdue.
“Hey, I’m good,” he said. “My life turned out just fine. I’m definitely not holding onto anything that happened in high school.”
“What are your plans after graduation?” I asked, realizing that I truly knew nothing about my brother’s life. I wasn’t even sure what his major was.
“I’m going to stay in New York. I’m applying to grad school at NYU this year.”
“For what?”
“Architecture,” he said, like I should have known, which made me assume he’d mentioned it at the dinner table once or twice in the past few years.
“I didn’t know that,” I said, swallowing my pride as I realized truly how self-centered I’d been. “But that’s really cool.”
He put his hands behind him on the bed and leaned back. “I actually have a pretty amazing internship lined up for the fall with this firm in Manhattan. It was started by this TA I had in my Intro to Arch class freshman year. He’s kind of been my mentor since then, and last spring he asked if I wanted to work for him in the fall. If things go well, I can work part-time for them while I’m working on my masters.”
“That’s awesome, Chase.”
He shrugged. “So you’re okay?” he asked, changing the subject, and I wasn’t sure why.
“I’m good. Thank you for talking with me.”
“You got it,” Chase said, as he got up from my bed. “Meet you down on the beach?”
I nodded. “I’ll be down in a few.” I needed to do something before I headed down there.
My mother was sitting out on the back porch drinking coffee and reading a book when I found her. I sat in the chair opposite her, waiting for her to put down her book and look over at me.
“I’m not interested in fighting with you, Emily,” she said, not looking up.
I took a deep breath and held it, counting to ten, so I wouldn’t say what I really wanted to say to in that moment.
“I’m not here to fight,” I said, proud that I was able to say it calmly. “I’m here to apologize.”
She looked up from her book and raised her eyebrows at me. “You are?”
I pulled my knees up to my chest and hugged my arms around them. “I’m sorry I’ve been so on-edge this summer.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but I put my hand up, so she remained silent and looked at me expectantly.
“Okay,” I said, knowing what she was thinking, “I know I’ve been more than on-edge, but I wanted to let you know that it stops now.”
She nodded, as if to say, ‘go on’. I could tell she wasn’t sure if she could believe me.
“I don’t really want to go into the details, but I’ve kind of been doing some soul-searching this summer. I think I’ve changed a lot and it’s been hard to process some of it, so I wasn’t sure how to deal with it all. I’ve done some things I’m not proud of, and some things I’m glad I did – things that I should have done a long time ago.”
She raised her eyebrows at me.
“I don’t regret getting my piercing,” I said. “I know you don’t like it, but I do.”
“It’s growing on me,” she said honestly.
“The thing is, Mom, I think I got so wrapped up in who I thought I was supposed to be that I lost sight of who I actually wanted to be. I know that you and Dad have this image of me, so I fought so hard to maintain that, even when it didn’t fit me anymore.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, a worried look passing over her face. “Emily, I’ve never wanted anything for you other than to be happy.”
“Then why did you freak out when you saw my piercing. You didn’t do that when Chase got his piercings or his tattoos. Why did you treat me differently?”
She smiled a weak smile. “Emily, your brother has always been a free spirit, so I guess I was never surprised when he wanted to decorate his body. Don’t you remember how he always used to draw on himself when he was a kid? I knew back then that it was inevitable that he’d get a tattoo one day.”
I laughed, remembering it well. Chase was always drawing on himself instead of paper. There was even a time when he was three and had been really into animals. He’d actually taken the time to draw tiger stripes on himself with an orange marker while we were supposed to be napping. When my mom had come in to get us, she panicked, thinking he had a rash. When she realized it was marker and asked what he’d done, he simply said, ‘I’m a tiger’ and actually roared. After that she had to laugh and then got out the camera to document the whole thing. The pictures are really cute, especially since I was wearing my Princess Jasmine outfit that day.
“I guess I just panicked when I saw your piercing,” she said. “Because you’re my good child. You never did anything radical while you were growing up, and I was afraid that you were losing sight of who you are. You already seemed so volatile that I figured the piercing was just another way that you were acting out, and honestly, I felt it was a little immature.”
“Mom, I didn’t do it to act out, I did it because I think it looks pretty, but this is what I’m talking about. There this image of me that everyone has, and I feel like if I don’t live up to them, then I’m failing, and it’s gotten really exhausting to keep up with what everyone else wants. I think I just hit my breaking point, and didn’t know how to deal with it.”
“Emily, we’ve always been able to talk. Why didn’t you tell me what you were going through?”
“Because I know you love that I’m disciplined and that I’m so involved at school and that I’m dating Ben, so how could I tell you that I maybe didn’t want do those things anymore. How could I even think about disappointing you?”
“Honey, none of that means anything to me if you’re not happy. Are you not happy with your life?”
I shrugged.
“You’re not dropping out of school, are you?” she asked, suddenly panicked that I was taking things to an extreme she couldn’t handle.
“No!” I said quickly, eager to erase the look of horror on her face. “I’ve just sort of found myself not really being able to get excited about the same things anymore. I still really like school and my program, but I mean how many more socials and woodsers can I really go to? Is being on the homecoming planning committee all that important? I realized this summer that there’s this whole other world out there that doesn’t care about how many friends you have or who you’re dating or which Greek organization you belong to.” She nodded, as if she was well-aware of that fact. “There are really amazing people that I’ve met who don’t fit that stereotype, and I’ve found that I sort of fit in better with them, you know.”
“Like your brother,” she said.
I nodded. “Yeah, I would lump Chase into that category.”
“Honey, I know better than anyone
that you and Chase are different people, but I also know that he was your best friend for years. It hurt me to see the two of you so separated, and it’s pleased me so much to see that you’ve become friends again this summer. I don’t care if you’re a Gamma Pi or if you don’t want to be involved in student government or that you don’t want to date Ben anymore, because all I want is for you to be happy with whatever you choose for yourself. I want you to be a good person and above all else, graduate and get a job doing something you love. Just don’t discount your family. We’re the people who will stick by you no matter what.”
I realized then that she was right. Chase had subtly been there for me, even when we weren’t friends, my whole life. It was what family did. I also realized how much I’d hurt my mother when I’d been acting out and taking it out on her. All I had to do was tell her how I was feeling and things would have been fine.
“I broke up with Ben,” I said quietly.
“You did,” she said, no judgment entering into her voice.
I nodded and started to tell her about Zack, although I knew I hadn’t broken up with Ben for Zack. I’d broken with Ben because it was the right thing to do. Zack was just an added bonus – someone sweet and fun and different that I could hang out with during my summer vacation.
Still, I could feel the smile creeping up on my face as I spoke of him, telling my mom about his situation and all the things I liked about him. I carefully omitted the fact that I’d ridden on his motorcycle or that I’d slept with him. She was my mother, after all. She didn’t need to know all the details of my life, but it felt good to talk to her again.
From Zack, we talked about other things like we used to do all the time, and I realized how long it had been since we’d had one of our talks. If I thought about it, I knew it had been a few months. I’d slowly been shutting her out, and I was glad to get that part of my life back, not realizing how much I’d missed it.
Chapter Eighteen
“I broke up with my boyfriend,” I blurted out as soon as I saw Zack two days later.
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