by Nicole Dykes
My father places his cellphone down, sitting up arrow-straight. “Because you’re a young, single college student. They aren’t your responsibility. So why move in?”
What the hell is he getting at? Asher has been around since I told Lincoln about Sebastian. Granted, he rarely came to our house, so they haven’t been around each other much, but my father has known Asher has been helpful.
“Sebastian is my nephew.”
“Not your son.”
My father looks deadly serious. Asher places his fork on his plate and matches my father’s posture. “No. My brother died.”
“So you’re just taking his place?”
Asher rarely gets flustered by anything, but the mention of Colt definitely riles him up. I see his jaw tense. “No. No one could ever take Colt’s place.”
“And yet, here you are.” My mother takes a sip of her wine, and my eyes dart to hers.
“What are you two implying?”
My father still won’t look at me, instead his eyes remain trained on Ash. “What exactly are you getting from all of this?”
Is he implying . . . ?
“You think I want sex?”
Now I want to die. I turn to Asher. “Ash.”
“Yes.”
I turn to look at my father in horror. “What?”
His cold, dark eyes meet mine for the first time in years. “Is it really that far-fetched, Vivienne? We know what you’re capable of. Clearly you have no self-control.”
I’m left stunned, and Asher is the only one able to speak up. “I would say Viv here has plenty of self-control.”
I turn to look at him and shake my head in warning. “Don’t.”
He looks straight ahead at my father. “I’m not here to get laid. I can do that anywhere in this town and in most towns.” Jesus, Asher. He leans forward. “I’m here because Sebastian is a kickass kid and your daughter is an amazing mother, but even the best moms need help. And she’s helping me out too just not with my dick.”
My cheeks flame, and I could kill all three of them in this moment. “Asher,” I hiss in a quiet warning.
My father straightens his tie, and it’s amazing, I’ve never seen him back down before. He’s the one that seems riled up. “Keep it that way.”
My voice is strained and almost a desperate whine, “Dad, it’s not like that. He’s here to help with his nephew.”
My father is no longer making eye contact as he picks his phone back up. “Yes well, two single people of the opposite sex under the same roof, Vivienne. Do not make the same mistake twice.”
I refuse to cry in front of them anymore. Referring to my beautiful son as a mistake makes me sick to my stomach.
I nod my head, my back painfully straight as I sit in the wooden chair and watch my parents exchange a look, my father giving my mother some sort of go-ahead before she turns to look at me. “We’re moving, Vivienne.”
They’ve both lived in Kansas City their entire lives. “What? Where are you moving?”
“New York. There’s more opportunity for your father’s business there, and since you and Sebastian have moved out against our advice, we have decided it’s time.”
They were so angry at me when I told them I wanted to move out, but in the end, they agreed to it. After a full year of me arguing my case and them giving in. “When?”
“In a couple of weeks.”
My mother’s eyes meet mine. “We’re finished cleaning up your messes. You wanted to be on your own. Now you are.”
They both stand up from the table, and on instinct, I stand as well. My mother continues to stare at me. I hate all the help I’ve accepted from them over the years. “I don’t expect you to.”
“Good. You can keep the house and your trust fund, but we won’t be helping you with your son anymore. You won’t listen to us anyway, so do not ask. We won’t be there to watch him, and if you decide to make another one,” her eyes land on Asher, “we will cut you off completely. Do not make the situation worse.”
I feel Asher stand next to me as I hold my hand up, praying he will take the hint and not say a word.
“I understand.”
I can hear Asher stewing, dying to say something, but thankfully he doesn’t. My mother nods, and I walk my parents to the door.
“Are you going to say goodbye to Sebastian?”
“Give him a kiss for me,” my mother says, brushing my hair over my shoulder. She was never good with affection. “We love you, but it’s extremely hard to watch you make mistake after mistake.”
I cringe, feeling the bile rise in my throat thinking about the last four years, really my whole life, of never being able to make them happy.
Always a disappointment in their cold, steely eyes.
Holy fucking shit. Viv’s parents.
Okay, I get it now. Jesus, it’s a wonder the girl isn’t wound tighter than she is.
What the fuck was that?
Vivienne wouldn’t talk much after they left. We just cleaned up in silence, and then she went upstairs to put Baz to sleep and I went downstairs. I took a shower to wash that fucking dinner off me, but I can’t shake it.
I guess I get why she puts up with them. I mean, the kickass house and trust fund. It ain’t easy to do it all on your own, especially without any money, but holy fuck.
Lying on my bed and looking up at the ceiling, I can’t stop thinking about her face, falling with each blow from her parents.
I hear a loud noise coming from down the hall and sit up and then hear a scream. I rush out into the dark hall and see a light coming from the theater room.
I race in and see the screen is lit up with a dude in a hockey mask chasing some half-naked chick on the screen and Viv cuddled up with a blanket in one of the chairs. “Vivienne?”
She looks back at me, more surprised by me than the killer on the screen. “Asher? Did I wake you up?”
I shake my head and look back at the screen. “Friday the 13th?”
She nods happily and pops a piece of popcorn in her mouth. “The original. The new one is shit.”
Who is this girl? “I haven’t seen the new one.”
“Don’t waste your time.”
“You okay?” I stand in the doorway and watch as she pulls the white blanket up to her chin and reaches into the bowl of popcorn again.
“I’m fine. I told you they were a lot.”
“Yeah, I feel like you undersold them. Like, a lot.”
She laughs at that and eats another piece of popcorn. “Yeah. Sorry about that, but at least they’re moving and want nothing to do with us anymore.”
I’m sure she’s conflicted about that, although for the life of me, I don’t understand why. “Can I join you?” She nods her head, and I walk in, sitting in the chair next to her. “Surprising. It seems like they like to have their thumb over everything.”
“Yeah.” Her sad eyes are on the screen. “I think they’ve finally given up.”
“Their fucking loss.” I grab a hand full of popcorn. She doesn’t say anything and doesn’t even flinch as another camper loses their life on the big screen. “You know, I really didn’t have you pegged for a horror film lover. I figured you were more of a rom-com girl.”
She laughs at that. “Now those are the real horror.”
I laugh too. “No shit. Still, . . . horror?”
She lifts her shoulders and watches the screen intently, her makeup washed off and her hair up in a ponytail. “I like it. I hate reality.” Her eyes meet mine. “I know this stuff, most of it anyway, can’t ever really happen. It’s easy to get lost in it.”
“I get that.” So she does have an escape—in the form of homicidal, slow-moving murderers, but still.
“So what about thrillers?”
She shakes her head. “I prefer over the top, almost inhuman, horror movies. Slasher flicks. Ghosts. The kind of stuff that’s unlikely to happen.”
“Interesting.”
She laughs. “And now you think I’m even cra
zier than you did before.”
“Nah. I like horror movies too. I get it. I prefer The Texas Chainsaw Massacre myself. Or Nightmare on Elm Street.”
I swear her eyes actually light up as she turns to me, seeing I’m not just fucking with her. “Those are good ones.”
“I know.”
She laughs and turns back to the screen, sighing. “I’m sorry about my parents. I know they’re horrible.”
“Don’t apologize to me. They suck, but that’s not your fault.”
Her small shoulders shrug. “They were never that great, but it got a lot worse when I got pregnant. They were so horrified and disappointed. They groomed me my whole life to be so damn perfect.”
“Nobody’s perfect.”
Her eyes meet mine. “I was close. And then I got pregnant.”
“It’s really not the end of the world.” Jesus, they act like she murdered someone. Lots of people have sex in high school.
“You should have heard them. It was definitely the end of their perfect little world.” She turns back to the screen, mindlessly watching the horror flick, and I think we’re done talking. But then she says, “My mother begged me not to go through with it.”
I swallow, unable to think about that scenario because . . . well, Baz is the shit. Still, I imagine it’s something that was tossed around. “She wanted you to get an abortion.”
She nods her head slowly. “Every single day from the day I told them I was pregnant until my twelfth week, my mother would start the day off telling me she would make the appointment and take me. She’d tell me how horrible life as a single mother would be. She made threats.”
“What kind of threats?”
I wish she would look at me, but I can feel the shame she carries, and she won’t. “I guess they weren’t actually threats. I had received early acceptance to Harvard. I was still going to go, but she told me that there was no way they would pay for an Ivy League school if I had the baby.”
Fuckers.
She laughs sadly. “I mean, it was a crazy idea, but growing up the way I did, I thought it was still doable. I thought they would pay for a nanny and I’d go to school and still have time with my baby.”
They could have easily done that for her. I stay silent, feeling like she wants to be listened to for once.
“Then when I hit my twelfth week, my mom started in on a closed adoption.”
The thought of someone other than Viv raising Sebastian is unimaginable. She’s that kid’s mom, through and through. “You stood your ground.”
“I did.” Her voice is distant and sad as she stares at the screen. “When I was seven months pregnant, they finally gave up and then decided I would continue to finish school remotely. My freshman year of college I took mostly online courses until I fought hard the next year to go to class. Everything with them has been a fight, all punishing me for one night. What they call a mistake.”
I know she doesn’t see it that way. I’ve seen the way she looks at Sebastian, there’s no regret there.
“He’s not a mistake.”
She turns to look at me again and nods her head, more confident now. “I know. They hate me, but I’m not sorry.”
I settle back into the oversized theater-style recliner and use the lever to lay it back, trying to seem casual. “Yeah. I mean, I’m glad it happened too, but . . .”
She’s still sitting the same way, looking over at me curiously. “But what?”
“How the hell did that happen?” I tuck my left arm under my head and turn to look over at her. “My brother was also as close to perfect as they came. So how did two perfect, well-behaved scholars end up banging at some party?”
She looks slightly horrified but also amused as she settles back into her seat and looks up at the screen. “I guess that’s a good question, but it’s one you haven’t asked in three years.”
It’s always been in the back of my mind and recently moved to the front by Sawyer. “You don’t have to tell me.”
“It’s stupid really.” I stare at her profile, her little nose with the smallest cute point at the end. I swear there’s a blush in her cheeks. “I had maybe two or three conversations with him the entire time we went to school together, if you could even call them that. But Colt always had a sort of charisma about him, a welcoming, kind personality.”
“No argument here.”
She smiles sadly. “I would see him in the hall every day, smiling and waving to people. He was so good and kind, and I guess . . .” I watch her nibble on her bottom lip, showing her embarrassment. “I guess I formed sort of a ridiculous crush on him.”
That I definitely didn’t know. It always seemed like a total fluke. Two strangers who just randomly hooked up. That’s how Linc made it seem when he told me. “Why ridiculous?”
“Everyone knew he was taken. Everyone. He made it known. It was silly to develop a crush on someone I barely knew—who had a girlfriend.”
“The teenage heart wants what the teenage heart wants.”
She laughs at that, shaking her head. “He never noticed me.”
He apparently noticed her at that party, but I don’t say anything. “Were you still dating Casey Williams at that time?”
I remember she had a boyfriend that year. The typical rich guy, alpha type who seemed to swarm the halls of our private school.
“No. We had broken up by that point. And what we did, I wouldn’t really call dating.”
My eyebrow quirks up in a question because what the fuck does that mean? “No?”
“That was set up by my parents. They’re friends with his parents, and they all thought it would be great if we got married and had the grandchildren they wanted—after we both graduated and were married for a year, of course.”
Her tone is a serious mocking tone, clearly making fun of her parents, and I’m here for it. I like this honest, open side of Viv. “Of course. But you dumped the fucker.”
“Yeah, he wouldn’t stop pawing at me, and I wanted no part of it.”
My mind starts to add up all the things she’s telling me, going over it all. “So you and Casey never . . .?”
Her eyes meet mine, and I watch her gulp at having let that very real information slip. Vivienne isn’t a fan of letting her guard down. She immediately looks back at the screen, her eyes glued there.
She doesn’t answer my question, but instead goes back to what she was saying. “Anyway, Colt never went to parties. Like ever. And neither did I, but we ended up at the exact same party. At the same time.” Her voice lowers as her eyes remain locked on the screen. “It felt like fate.”
“I still don’t know what he was doing at that party. Linc said he and Dad got into some fight because he was going to propose to Penelope and my father wouldn’t have it. But still. A party. He hated them.”
“He didn’t seem to want to be there, but I think he was looking to get lost. And so was I.”
“Why?”
She still won’t look me in the eye. “It all got to be too much. Harvard. The predetermined plan for my life. It was like I couldn’t breathe. And I heard about that party and decided to sneak out.” Now she looks over at me, her pretty eyes wide and earnest. “I swear I thought we were just going somewhere to talk. It was so loud.”
“I’m sure alcohol was involved.”
Her head shakes slightly. “I only had like, half a beer. I wasn’t drunk. I just lost control. I never do that, but I did that night. I had never . . .”
I stare at her, studying her and hearing everything she’s not saying. “That night with Colt was your first time?”
I watch her swallow. Her voice is raspy and barely existent. “Yes. First and only.”
“What?” I think I’m in shock, my heart races, and my throat is desert dry. “You’ve only had sex once? And it was the time you got pregnant?”
Her hands are balled into nervous fists in her lap, and she takes a deep breath. “Yes.” She looks into my eyes, pleading with me. “Please don’t make i
t a big deal. I’ve been kind of busy.”
“Holy fuck.”
She huffs and turns away from me, looking back up at the screen. “Asher, it’s not that weird.”
“I’m not saying it’s weird. It’s just fucking surprising.” I mean, look at her. She may be uptight, but the girl is fucking gorgeous.
“Sebastian is my priority, not getting laid. And if I got pregnant again, my God, my parents would have a fit.”
“They do have birth control, you know.”
“Oh I know. I’ve been on birth control since I had Sebastian.”
Didn’t expect that either. This girl is all mystery and surprises. Suddenly I’m aware of how little I know about her. “You know, you really can’t get pregnant if you’re not having sex, right?”
She sighs loudly and turns to me, clearly annoyed now. The whole conversation has shifted. “I know that. I’m just not leaving a damn thing up to chance ever again. I have an IUD and am good to go for five years. Two left. And I carry a condom in my purse.”
“So you do want to get laid?”
Now she looks at me like I’m stupid, which maybe I am because I’m lost. “No. I mean,” She plays with her hair, running her fingers through loose strands that have fallen out of her ponytail. “Maybe. Someday. I just don’t ever want to lose control again.”
“That’s a sad fucking way to live life.”
She looks surprised by my reaction. “You don’t use condoms? With all of your hookups?”
This is where we differ because I don’t get ashamed about having a normal sexual appetite. No repression here. “Of course I do, but being afraid to lose control? Come on, Viv. What’s the point of life if you don’t allow yourself to get lost? Especially in another person.”
Sawyer’s theory about having to schedule an appointment to have sex with her pops into my head, and I think he might actually be right. “I love my son more than life, but I can’t afford to not practice restraint.”
“You’ve lived your whole life restricted. Maybe it’s time to experience freedom.”
“Freedom isn’t a luxury I have.”
“It can be.” Our eyes are locked on each other’s, lost in some sort of battle—me fighting for her to loosen up and her determined to stay wound tight.