* * *
* * *
In the morning, I check the sophomore’s Instagram story, the girl who Sean hooked up with, and the post is already gone.
* * *
* * *
I meet Ali on Monday outside her class just like I’ve been doing. I don’t make one mention of the dance. She’s waiting for me to say something, I know it. She’s quiet now, more quiet than I’ve seen her.
“Will you hate me forever, because I don’t know if I can take it?” she says.
“I’ll only hate you for a little while,” I say.
32
ALI
Everyone in school calls the school social worker Ms. Tapestry because she’s got all these “taps”—her word, not mine—hanging on her walls. By taps, I mean giant purple and paisley fabrics with a trippy, psychedelic quality. If I had more problems and met her sooner, and if she were a couple of years older, I could have introduced her to my dad. Ms. Tapestry, with her long flowy skirts and collection of hot pink Buddhas, would be right up my father’s alley.
This was my father’s idea. That I talk to someone. I chose her because I heard she doesn’t make you cry. Other therapists, that’s part of their job. To pull out the tears.
“So what’s going on with you, Alistair?”
I have a list of things I could theoretically talk to her about, but I don’t even know where to start.
“Do you want to talk about why you think your dad wanted you to see me?”
“I’ve been kind of out of it lately. I think he’s overreacting.”
“Sometimes being out of it is a symptom of something else.”
“Like a manifestation?”
She jots something down on her yellow pad. A dragon ring curls around her index finger. “Yes. Like that,” she says. “So tell me about yourself. Your dad has told me a little. But I’d like to know why you think you’re here.”
So I start to lie. Well, not lie, but I tell her things she’d want to hear. Things that have nothing to do with Sean Nessel. “My mother hasn’t lived at home in four years.”
“Okay. Your father didn’t mention this. That must have been very disruptive for you.”
She looks up from her notepad and starts filing through her folder.
“It wasn’t that disruptive, actually,” I say, which, of course, is not the truth.
“No?” she says. “Can you explain?”
“My father—he’s a great guy. He and my aunt help me with everything.” I think of my aunt Marce dropping off Plan B. Dragging me to the gynecologist. “Plus my mother and I talk a lot. Even though she doesn’t live at home.”
“You see her on holidays? In the summer?”
“Right.”
“That’s good. So you have a strong support system.”
“Yes, and friends and lots of people to talk to. Except . . .”
“Except who?”
“My friend Sammi. Who I— Things have been different for us lately.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“Because I’ve become friends with someone she doesn’t like.”
“Why doesn’t she like them?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she’s not entirely good for me.”
Blythe Jensen is a drug. That’s what I want to tell her. A drug I don’t want to stop taking.
“Is that why you think your dad wanted you to come here? Because of this new friendship?”
I shake my leg, pump it up and down uncontrollably. I could give her countless reasons for why I’m here. I’m sure she’s heard them all.
“Well, maybe I have some things to talk about. I just don’t necessarily want to talk about them this second,” I say, sort of satisfied with that answer.
“I’m a slow mover,” she says. “We can take our time.”
“Okay. Just do me one favor?” I say.
“Sure.”
“Just don’t tell me that I’m being too hard on myself.”
“Is that how you feel sometimes, like you’re too hard on yourself?”
“I feel like that a lot,” I say. “Sometimes, I just want to shut my brain off.”
“I know the feeling.”
She agrees to not tell me that I’m being too hard on myself but wants me to do a few things that will help my brain “unwind.”
She wants me to write in a journal. Spill my feelings.
* * *
* * *
At home later that night, I open a new composition book and write two words.
Sean Nessel.
I hate those two words. And I don’t want to see them ever again. I scribble over them so hard that I rip through the page and throw the stupid journal across the room.
I shove my pillow to my face and scream. My body is hot and clammy. I hate you, I scream, my face stuffed in my pillow. I hate you.
* * *
* * *
An hour later. I try again. Pretend it’s about someone else. A stranger. Remove myself from the equation. How are you doing? I write to the stranger.
Not great. I was raped.
I shut the journal.
It’s enough for tonight.
33
BLYTHE
I ask Sean to meet me in the parking lot.
Donnie would scold me for it. She’d tell me how I was under his dark spell. Yes, Sean rounded up these three girls, an initiation of his own, but he was wasted. We were all wasted at the dance. Donnie in a drugged-out haze. Cate had sex in the limo. No one was in their right mind. He hooks up with girls. This is what he does. What was he supposed to be—loyal to me? The girl with the boyfriend she loves? His best friend? We just got caught up. That’s all it was. Sean and I are friends. Close friends. That’s all we are.
“You recovering from that dance?” He leans on my car window. When Sean smiles, it’s almost impossible not to smile back. I want to touch his golden arm hair. His cheeks are flushed from the cold air.
“Yeah. Still a little blank.”
“I wanted to talk to you. I’m glad you told me to meet you.”
He slides in on the passenger side, close so I can feel his breath.