A Midsummer's Nightmare

by Kody Keplinger

  I stared at him, a little confused.

  “I told you this afternoon, but you wouldn’t listen,” he said. “I mean it, though. What I said—”

  I shook my head. “Don’t bother. It wasn’t like you were lying, after all.”

  “But—”

  “It’s fine,” I said. “It’s just… ironic.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Back home in Indiana, when I was hooking up all the time with random guys, people called me a whore, but it was like… It wasn’t like everyone knew my name. But here? I’ve been good in comparison to what I used to do. I haven’t done anything with anyone but make out, yet everyone cares, everyone knows me. They call me a slut, but since I’ve been here, I haven’t even done anything.”

  Nathan looked a little surprised. “You mean, you aren’t… You didn’t…?”

  “Nope. The last time I got laid was graduation night,” I said. “And that wasn’t really a normal thing.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked. He was sitting sideways in the booth, one leg hanging out into the aisle between the tables. He was playing with the hole in the knee of his jeans, his eyes on his fingers, like he was suddenly very interested in the denim. “How wasn’t it, uh, normal?”

  “I don’t have sex with everyone,” I said. “I’ve hooked up a lot. But I could count the number of people I’ve slept with on one hand, including you. You’d never know it based on what people say, or those pictures, but…”

  “Oh.”

  I leaned back in my seat and stared out the dirty window. A few fireworks were still erupting from a church parking lot across the street.

  “Weeks of posts, tons of comments, pictures he was tagged in… and my dad hasn’t said a word. He just untags himself.”

  “That’s why you do this, isn’t it? Because of your dad?”

  I turned to face Nathan again. “What do you mean?”

  “Your dad,” he said. “Okay, this is going to sound really shrinkish, but I think you act like this—party, drink—because you want his attention. Don’t you?”

  “No. That’s stupid.”

  “Really?” He leaned across the table, his eyes on mine. I looked away, and he asked, “Then why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why do you do it? Go out and get wasted all the time. Why?”

  My first feeling was anger. I wanted to yell at Nathan and tell him that I lived this way because I wanted to. Because it was fun. Because it worked for me. But that was bullshit. Especially after what had happened tonight.

  This wasn’t fun. It hadn’t been for a long time.

  I thought of Bailey. I’d been so much like Bailey once. Somehow, I’d gone from that to… this.

  “Remember when I told you that I had my first drink when I was fourteen?” I asked, turning to Nathan.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, it was at a kegger. I went because all the cool high school kids would be there, and I wanted to make some new friends before freshman year. I went, I drank, and I tried to have fun. And I did. The hangover was hell, though, and I was sure I’d get grounded for drinking, but Mom didn’t even notice. I mean, she ate breakfast with me the next morning and everything. She probably heard me puking in the toilet. But she didn’t say a word.

  “Since she didn’t care, I thought I might as well keep going to parties. I went to a few. I met some new people. We weren’t friends or anything. I didn’t have friends, because my middle school best friend, Nola, had stopped hanging out with me. Some girls told her I’d give her a bad reputation or something. But these new people seemed cool. They gave me liquor, and I liked it. I liked being giggly and happy, because I didn’t feel like that very often. Not since the divorce.”

  Nathan was quiet. I turned my head to stare out the window again, watching a few more fireworks explode in the sky. I’d never told anyone this part of the story before. No one had asked until now.

  “I got really, really smashed one night at the end of freshman year. I mean, the drunkest I’d ever been in my life. I passed out at this party and… Well, I don’t really remember what happened. But I lost my virginity to a guy I didn’t even know. A senior, I think. I felt somehow… I don’t know. Bonded to him? So I gave him my number. I think part of me assumed we were, like, dating or something stupid like that. Of course I don’t have to tell you that he never called. I never saw him again. And I was so humiliated and ashamed.”

  I shifted uncomfortably, feeling Nathan’s eyes on me.

  “I expected Mom to say something. To scold me for the way I was acting, or at least give me the stupid safe-sex talk. God, I came home drunk all the time. Sometimes I didn’t come home at all. But after that I just… I expected her to see how upset I was and to ask what had happened. Maybe she couldn’t tell I was depressed because she could never admit she was depressed, too. I don’t know. But she never said a word. I mean, she has to know what I’m doing…. She and Dad both have to. Dad has to know, and he hasn’t said anything.”

  “So you do want attention.” It wasn’t an accusation. Not harsh. Just a statement.

  “Or I did. You’ve seen Facebook. I’m getting plenty of it now,” I said.

  “Yeah, but not from the right people.”

  I saw Nathan’s fingers move on the table, spreading from a loose fist until all his fingertips touched the stained plastic. Some people would have taken my hand by now. It just went to show how well he knew me. He knew I wasn’t the type to ask for comfort, so he wouldn’t touch me. Wouldn’t console me.

  I cleared my throat. “Anyway. After that, after the first guy, I just kept partying. Maybe it only made me happy for a few hours, but at least I was happy. I tried to be more careful about how drunk I got. I’ve fucked up a few times, gotten trashed enough to agree to have sex, but only a few times.”

  I replayed the memories of those boys. Greedy hands clutching at me, pulling me, pushing me. Theirs to use for a night. I guess I was using them, too. None of them had tried to force me, but now, in my head, they all looked like Theo.

  “Whitley, you don’t think I… I mean, I didn’t…”

  “Take advantage of me? No. If anything, I probably took advantage of you. If my very fuzzy memory is correct.” I smiled a little. “Sorry.”

  “Still,” he said. “We probably shouldn’t have…”

  “Believe me, Nathan, if I’d known your mom was marrying my father, I wouldn’t have slept with you. And I’ll probably wish I hadn’t told you this tomorrow, when I’m sober, but I had fun that night, thanks to you. So I don’t completely regret it.”

  He gave me a small smile. “Do you want to know a secret?”

  “I’m not promising I’ll keep it,” I warned, taking another sip of coffee. “As I just demonstrated, I spill my guts after I’ve had too much to drink.”

  He laughed and shook his head. “That’s okay. I think I could survive, even if you did tell the world.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.” He leaned back in his seat, folding his arms behind his head with a sigh. “So, the truth is, I had a very, very similar experience to yours.”

  “Really? How’s that?”

  “Well, you may not realize this, but I was a big partier in high school. It’s actually kind of weird we didn’t run into each other a few times.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Really? I guess I just figured that graduation party was a fluke, based on the way you’ve been acting.”

  “Hardly,” he said. “That’s how I know so much. Like the mints and the coffee, and Mom’s sleeping schedule. It’s also how Mom knows so much about the warning signs of drinking, how she figured out what happened to Bailey. I put her through hell for, like, three years. Ever since Dad died.”

  “What?”

  Nathan shrugged. “After Dad’s heart attack sophomore year, I got really… well, angry. Mom and Bailey had each other, but I didn’t have anyone. I felt like Dad had left me. Sounds dumb and selfish, I kn
ow, but that’s how it felt then. Some of the guys on the basketball team asked me to come party with them. They gave me pot and beer, and before long, I wasn’t angry anymore. I didn’t feel anything. Then it just became a habit.”

  “I’m kind of shocked,” I admitted. “You act like my partying is so disgusting. I just thought… I don’t know what I thought.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “I probably should have explained sooner, but I didn’t really want to think about it. I’m embarrassed now, remembering some of the stupid shit I did. God knows if Mom will ever completely trust me again.”

  “Nathan, I’m still confused.”

  “Graduation night was my last party,” he said. “Or at least my last drink. After that night, I decided I was done with all of it.”

  “Why? What changed?”

  A sly grin crept across Nathan’s face. “I got really, really wasted graduation night, and when I woke up, some sassy, sexy vixen had stolen my virginity.”

  My jaw must have hit that sticky table.

  “I thought we’d had a great night, but when I tried to get her number, she promised she’d never see me again,” he continued. “It kind of broke my heart. Call me a romantic, but I’d never expected my first time to be so… impersonal.”

  “You’ve got to be shitting me,” I groaned, burying my face in my hands. “Oh my God. Oh my God. I was your first? Like, I took your virginity?”

  “Yep.”

  “But… you were really good.”

  He blushed. “I bet you say that to all the boys.”

  “No, I’m serious. You were sweet, like… gentle. The other guys I’ve been with just…”

  “Used you?”

  “Yeah. I mean, I guess it goes both ways, but… you were so different.”

  “I liked you. I wanted to make you happy. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, but thanks for saying I was good.”

  “I just…” My brain was moving too slowly. My words faltered. “You… you weren’t a virgin. There’s no way.”

  “I was.”

  “But you’re eighteen,” I argued. “And hot. And a boy. You can’t tell me there weren’t opportunities.”

  “There were. I just didn’t take them,” he said. “I saw so many of my teammates hook up with a different girl every weekend. Sure, it sounds great, but I just wasn’t into it. I didn’t want to be that kind of guy. I was waiting for something special—maybe not love, and definitely not marriage, but someone I liked a lot, someone I could see myself with for a while.”

  I felt the weight of his words sink into my stomach. He’d wanted something special, someone special. Instead he’d gotten me.

  “That’s why I quit drinking,” he said. “After you left, I realized what I’d become, and I didn’t like it. So I decided to change things. Start fresh.”

  “Fuck. Nathan, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

  “It’s okay.” He shrugged. This time, he did reach across the table to take my hand. “If it hadn’t been for you, I’d still be out there getting hammered every weekend. Still driving my mother crazy. I guess I just needed someone or something to shake me up. You taught me a lesson, Whit. And sometimes I hate you for it, but… but I’m trying not to.”

  “You can hate me if you want to. I’d hate me.”

  “But I don’t want to,” he said. “You’re part of my family—or you will be soon—and I want it to work. I’ve put Mom and Bailey through enough, and I want them to be happy now. That’s why I try so hard to keep it bottled up, how seeing you makes me feel, but sometimes I just… I’m sorry. For some of the things I’ve said.”

  “You were right, though. About me being a whore. If I hadn’t acted like such a… If I’d been different, Theo wouldn’t have—”

  “Stop it,” he said. “I don’t care how you acted. What happened tonight wasn’t your fault.”

  “You weren’t there.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It wasn’t your fault, Whitley. And you’re not a whore.”

  I didn’t say anything. I just stared at Nathan’s hand on mine for a long moment. I’d done to him essentially the same thing that senior boy had done to me when I was fifteen. I’d used him and abandoned him and taken something from him. But instead of regressing like I had, falling into the habits and giving up on people and happiness and anything good, Nathan had worked to turn himself around, to change everything, no matter what people thought.

  If he were a drug addict, I would have been his rock bottom.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “For what?”

  “For trying not to hate me.”

  19

  Sylvia knocked on the guest room door the next morning. For once, she didn’t wake me up. I hadn’t been able to sleep much that night, between the coffee and the terrifying memories of Theo. And staying up all night had only made the hangover worse. This one was on par with the one I’d had the morning after graduation.

  “We need to have a talk,” Sylvia said as soon as I pulled open the door.

  “Okay,” I said, letting her inside.

  I wasn’t wearing skimpy pajamas this time. After what had happened last night, I’d felt the need to be fully covered. I was wearing baggy sweats and an ancient T-shirt, and it still didn’t feel like enough.

  “I heard Nathan leave last night,” she said, folding her arms over her chest. “To pick you up at three AM. I thought you were staying over at Harrison’s.”

  “I was supposed to.”

  I eased myself back onto the bed. Pain shot through my head, and I winced.

  “Change of plans?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Whitley,” Sylvia groaned, running her hands through her hair. “Look, I don’t want to be the wicked stepmother. I know what it’s like to have a stepmom you hate—my stepmother treated my sister and me like we were juvenile delinquents. I don’t want to be like that, but now you’ve clearly got a hangover, and you had Nathan out early in the morning—”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “I just can’t go through this again,” she went on. At first I didn’t know what she meant, but then I remembered Nathan’s confession. He’d said he made her crazy for years. “I don’t want you to hate me, but I can’t do this. I can’t let my daughter be around this kind of behavior.”

  “I know. Like I said, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again, okay?”

  “My question is why you had Nathan bring you home,” she said. “You were loud in the hallway this morning. If you were going to get drunk, why didn’t you stay at Harrison’s? You knew I’d be upset if I noticed.”

  My body tensed, feeling Theo’s ghost fingers on my skin when she asked. I let out a breath, wrapping my arms around myself. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I told her. “Are you going to punish me?”

  She frowned. “Whitley, did something happen last night at Harrison’s?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?” I knew my voice had risen a little too high, that my words were cracking a little too much. But I couldn’t tell her. Couldn’t admit what had happened with Theo. I was too angry with myself, too sure it was my fault. For drinking too much, for following him, for letting everyone think I was a slut, even if I hadn’t done as much as people wanted to believe. I’d set myself up for what happened last night.

  “Okay,” she said. “If you change your mind… Well, anyway, there’s something else I want to talk to you about. Nathan showed me the Facebook page last night while you were out.”

  “God,” I groaned, burying my face in my hands. “It’s not… The stuff they’re saying on there—I didn’t do most of it. I mean, I’m not sleeping with all those—”

  “I believe you,” she said. “I’m not here to call you out on it. I’m just making sure you’re okay.”

  “Yeah. Sure, I’m fine.”

  “I don’t know exactly what’s going on with you right now,” she said. “Or with that web page. But if this… Do you think this is cyber-bully
ing?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Christ, no. It’s just stupid rumors.” Cyber-bullying. The word felt so dramatic, like the kind of thing you might see on Oprah or Dateline or something. I wasn’t one of those crying girls who’d been tortured by my classmates. I didn’t even know these people.

  “Are you sure?” She was dead serious about this. “Whitley, if this is getting to you, I need you to tell me. There’s legal action we can take. Cyber-bullying can be very damaging.”

  Damaging. I wondered if Theo would have touched me if he hadn’t seen that page, those pictures. I hugged myself tighter.

  “It’s nothing. I mean, I don’t even use Facebook, so what do I care? Just leave it alone, okay? My dad’s a local celebrity. People are always going to talk, right?”

  She sighed. “Okay—if you’re sure. But if this gets worse, if you feel like it turns into bullying at any time—”

  “Yeah. I’ll tell you.”

  “Okay.” She started to stand up.

  “Um, Sylvia?” I hesitated. “Has Dad said anything about it? The Facebook page?”

  “I’m not even sure if he knows,” she said. “Maybe it was wrong of me, but I didn’t show him. I didn’t know if you’d want him to see.”

  When the photos first came out, I hadn’t wanted him to see them. But he had to have. I tried to tell myself that he’d untagged himself only yesterday, that he didn’t check Facebook often, that if Sylvia cared enough to talk to me, surely he’d be up here in a few hours, too.

  So I waited. After Sylvia left, repeatedly telling me that I could come to her if I needed to, I sat in my room and waited for Dad to come. I watched from the window as his car pulled into the driveway after work, heard the front door shut when he came in. I thought he’d come up soon.

  Trace called me that afternoon while I was still upstairs, hoping Dad would come.

  “Have you talked to Mom lately?”

  “No.”

  “You should call her,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Because she’s your mother,” he said, exasperated. “But also because she called me the other day and told me how much she misses you right now.”