CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
PIERCE
For the first time, I don’t fight it. I’m just too fucking tired. So, I let myself fall. Fall into the memories.
*
“Pierce, please tell me you remember last night?” Annie said cheerily, walking into my room. “Because you promised.”
I jumped from my balled-up position on the floor, where I’d been since I woke up, my head pounding, the stench from my vomit in the nearby trashcan engulfing the room. “It was you,” I cried. “Oh, thank God it was you. Please tell me it was you?”
“You kiss someone else last night?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at me.
“Don’t mess with me right now. Please tell me. It was you, right?”
She pinched her nose, glancing into the trashcan. “You’re scaring me.”
“You and I . . .” I struggled to even say the words. “We . . . Just tell me we were careful.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“Fuck!” I started to pace, pulling at my hair, searching my mind for an explanation, unable to stop my body from shaking.
“Tell me what happened.”
“I don’t know. It goes in and out. First, it’s you, and we’re you know . . . but then it’s not you. No, No, No!”
Annie grabbed my shoulders. “You’re telling me you had sex?”
“I wanted it to be you, Annie,” I said, collapsing onto my bed, my eyes landing on something on my pillow.
“It wasn’t me.”
I held up a strand of long, bleach blonde hair, memories starting to come back, attacking me. “Vicki.”
I’d never forget the look in Annie’s eyes when she realized what happened. I never wanted anyone else to look at me like that again. But somehow, she stayed calm.
“Tell me what you remember,” Annie said.
“I felt a hand on my chest. I said your name, thinking you’d come back. It was dark, and my head was cloudy. I couldn’t focus.”
“What else?”
“I remember asking where you were. She said, ‘I’m right here. I love you,’ and placed my hand on her chest. Then she said, ‘Feel me. Taste me.’”
I stopped talking and started to shake so hard I thought it would never stop. My heart was pounding hard and fast, making my head spin. I looked at Annie and said, “No more, Annie. I can’t.”
“Pierce, we have to tell someone.”
“No! Are you crazy?”
“We have to. Your dad needs to know. This is fucking . . .”
“Please, Annie,” I begged. “Please, I don’t want anyone to know. Please.”
“Shh! Okay, I won’t tell anyone.” She pulled me into a hug and asked, “Vicki’s never done anything like this before?”
“No, but I told you she walks around without much on and . . . It’s always made me feel weird. But she never came to my room or anything before. Of all the nights for this to happen. It had to be the one time I got shit-faced.” Annie looked away. “Annie, you know this wouldn’t have happened if I’d been sober? You believe me, right?”
She held me tighter, sniffling. “I know.”
“I lost my virginity to my stepmother,” I cried. “I had sex with her. I don’t even like her. I can’t believe this. It doesn’t seem real.”
“You were so fucked up,” Annie said. “I should’ve never left you.”
“I thought it was you,” I cried out, clinging to Annie. “I thought you changed your mind. I don’t want to remember this. No!”
Annie gripped my face in her hands. “Then it was me. Understand? It was me.” I looked up into her face. “It was me. That’s the story. We spent the night together. You understand? I was your first.”
“Annie, I’m not going to let you lie for me. I don’t want you to be a part of this.” She flinched, pulling away from me, but didn’t say anything. “I can’t deal with this.”
“You wish it was me, right?”
“Yes,” I said. “I wanted it to be you for so long.”
“Me, too,” she said. “And if I’d just said yes, it would’ve been me.”
“We kissed,” I said. “A lot.”
She smiled the saddest smile I’d ever seen then reached for the hem of her shirt, lifting it over her head. I’d seen her in less clothing, but this was different. She reached behind her and undid her bra. Annie’s petite, but her breasts didn’t match her small frame. “We’ll replace the memory with a good one,” she said. “One you’ll remember.”
“But you said only kissing?”
“Wish I never would’ve said that,” she whispered, a tear rolling down her cheek.
I wiped it away, and she leaned back a little, offering me the only thing she could—her. She gave me control back.
She looked beautiful, but so sad. Annie had been used by boys before. I didn’t want to be on that list. I handed her back her shirt. “Forever the good guy,” she said.
Not anymore, I thought.
My bedroom door flew open—Vicki, my dad, and Annie’s parents on the other side, her dad holding up a bag with the empty bottle and snacks from last night.
“Oh my God,” her mother screamed, seeing her daughter half-dressed and laid out before me.
Annie threw her shirt on. “Nothing happened.”
Her father held up the bag. “What about last night?”
“Obviously, there was some drinking and drugs in this room last night,” Vicki said, looking at me. “And they made some poor choices. A mistake.”
That was her party line. I felt my stomach surge again, and Annie wrapped her arms around me. Her parents grabbed her, trying to pull her out of my room. I heard her crying out for me, but I didn’t move, my stepmother staring down at me.
I didn’t see Annie again for three months. Three months where I learned to sit across the breakfast table from Vicki and my dad. Three months where I locked my bedroom door every night. Three months where I begged my boss at the hotel to let me work more and more. Three months of silence that turned into a lifetime.
*
I was about to lose hope that I’d ever see Annie again, but then one day, there she was, waiting for me on the front step of my house. I should’ve run to her, smiled, picked her up, and twirled her around, but instead I froze. Seeing her was like having my secret out in the open.
Her lips pressed together, she pushed out a smile. “I didn’t tell anyone.”
Relief flooded my body. Three months in-patient therapy for drugs and alcohol, and she hadn’t cracked. I knew she never would. I was safe. Safe with Annie. She flew into my chest, and I held her as tight as I could.
“Do your parents know you’re here?” I asked. “I figured they’d never let you see me again.”
“I told them there was no way to keep us apart,” she said. “They just left. They talked to Vicki and your dad.”
“What do your parents think happened?”
“I took your virginity,” she said with a broad smile.
She put her money where her mouth is, that’s for sure. “You’re the best friend a guy could ever have.” Her eyes gave away her hurt. I hated seeing it. I never wanted to hurt her, but I could never be more than her friend, now. “Annie, I can’t be . . .”
“I know,” she said, hugging me again. “Are you okay?”
I nodded. “I missed you.”
“Me, too,” she said. “I tried to get them to let me call or write, but they wouldn’t. I even tried to break out.”
The front door to my house opened. My dad smiled down at us, welcoming Annie back, but I just stared at my feet. I hadn’t looked him in the eye since that night. He took us inside, sitting us down on the sofa, sharing with us the new rules of the house, explaining it was the only way that Annie and I could continue to see each other. Stupid shit like we couldn’t be alone in my room. We couldn’t be in any room with the door closed. He’d never acted like a father before. We knew all this was coming from Annie’s parents, but we just rolled with it, knowing we’d do whatever the hell we wanted anyway. No drugs or alcohol of any kind was hilarious coming out of his mouth.
“We won’t be having too many parties,” Vicki said, coming and sitting down beside my father. When she came in, I swear he looked like he was glowing, his smile was so huge. She started to say something, then stopped, and he gave her a little nod. “I’m pregnant.” My eyes darted to hers, so cold I almost pissed my pants. “You are going to be a big brother, Pierce.”
Annie’s nails dug into me, and I said, “When? When’s the baby due?” My dad rattled off the date with such pride, and I did some quick math in my head.
“It’s early,” my dad said. “Only about eight weeks along.”
“Ashton, can you get me something to drink?” Vicki asked. “Some orange juice for the baby.”
Dutifully, he got up and walked toward the kitchen. Did he ever do that for my mother either time she was pregnant?
None of us had dared mention that night. But it was in every glance between Vicki and me. In every breath. It had stolen all the oxygen out of the house. But now we had to.
“She could be lying. About the date. She could be lying,” Annie whispered, but Vicki heard her, her head whipping around. I shielded Annie, afraid Vicki was going to slap her. “You have to tell someone,” Annie whispered to me.
“What would you like to tell them?” Vicki asked.
Annie got in her face. “You know what you did.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“You . . .” Annie stumbled for the right words. “You snuck into his room and . . .”
“And . . .” Vicki said, almost like a dare. “What did you do?”
Annie’s eyes darted to mine. “Annie didn’t do anything,” I snapped. “Leave her alone.”
Vicki smiled. “You and Annie got high and slept together. That’s the story she told everyone. The story she told her doctors, her parents. You want to change that story now?” Annie looked at me again. “Because I can think of a lot of interesting stories to tell. Maybe a story about a troubled girl who gave my stepson drugs and alcohol. Or maybe a story about my drugged-out stepson who took advantage of . . .”
“You’re crazy,” Annie cried.
“I’m not the one who just got out of the psych ward,” Vicki sneered, inching closer. We all knew who had the power, the control, and it wasn’t two fifteen-year-old kids. “I don’t want to talk about this again, agreed?”
And we never did. Instead, Annie and I waited, counting the days until Tawny’s birth, thankful when she was born on her due date and not a second sooner.
Turns out, she wasn’t my daughter. She was my sister, but she was still growing up in that house with that woman as her mother.