That first night, Jaret’s father insisted that we all have dinner together.
“After all, we’re a family now. I want us to have a nice dinner as a family, to celebrate the addition of Marilyn and Michaela to our family.”
Just after six the delivery guy showed up with a pile of Chinese food so huge I knew I was going to be enjoying the leftovers for the next week, at least.
Piling my plate high with fried rice, sweet and sour pork, ginger beef and of course – my favourite – a whole bunch of spring rolls, I did my best to avoid looking at my future stepbrother.
The meal was very tense, and not just because of Jaret and I. The longer it went on, the more I knew this was a bad idea. Jaret and his father completely ignored each other, Jaret and I ignored each other, and my mom was trying way, way too hard to make everyone get along.
“So, Michaela,” my mother started. “What’s it like no longer being around Jaret every day at school?”
“It’s great, mom. Now I get to look forward to seeing him every single day here. Even weekends!”
“Yeah, it’s great,” Jaret piped in. “Now I get to learn all about chemistry and shit at home instead of just at school.”
“You’re not even going to school until the winter now,” I snapped back.
“Stop it, both of you,” Jaret’s father ordered, and the two of us withdrew back to our own plates. I was silently shooting daggers at Jaret with my brain; he had always been a little bit of a douche to me at school, but now he was being a full-on asshole.
Why on earth did I ever think sleeping with him was going to be a good idea?
When I finally left the table, despite the comfort food, I was more pissed off than when the meal began.
God, Jaret is impossible to live with, I texted Lea after dinner.
Why? He’s basically like having a Calvin Klein model living with you.
Calvin Klein models don’t talk.
That bad, is it?
Yup. I have no idea how I’m going to survive the next six months.
Just stare at his face.
He’s going to be my stepbrother, Lea.
So? You can still admire the goods, it just means you can’t buy them.
You’re so gross.
That’s probably accurate. Lunch tomorrow?
Sure.
I put the phone away and thought about all the complaints I wanted to make about my new stepbrother, that I was now living with.
Of course, I could never tell Lea about the biggest problem of all.
Jaret had taken my virginity.
In a fit of insanity, I had actually had sex with him. And now we were living together. Under the same roof. His bedroom was literally right next to mine. And we were supposed to do this for the next six months?
I was never going to survive this.
Going up to my room, I played around on my phone for a bit then decided to catch up on a bit of the sleep I’d been deprived of since the beginning of the school year.
As soon as my head hit the pillow, the tears began to flow.
This wasn’t fair.
Why was this happening to me? Why was the universe doing this to me? And why was Jaret being even more of a dick than usual?
* * *
Over the next few weeks, I realized just how different he and I really were. And I wondered why I ever thought sleeping with him was a good idea.
It wasn’t just the weird hours. I had always been a light sleeper, so whenever Jaret decided that going out at 3am was a good idea, or snuck back into the house after 7, I always knew about it.
It wasn’t the smell of pot smoke that I always knew was coming when I heard the window open. Even though I didn’t smoke it myself, I was used enough to the smell. After all, I did live in California.
It wasn’t even the snide comments he’d make when he saw me in the house during the day.
No, the worst part was the girls.
Almost every night, I’d hear them come in. Their little naughty giggles of knowing what they were about to do, knowing they had to avoid our parents.
Those giggles that soon turned into moans of pleasure, every one of them a reminder of the way Jaret had made me feel the night he took my virginity. The pure ecstasy, the pleasure, the intensity of it all. A cruel reminder that whenever I looked at him now I felt nothing but hatred, and shame at the weakness I’d revealed by letting him take my body as his own.
Every time it happened, I couldn’t sleep. I’d stay awake, staring at the wall, listening as my new stepbrother pounded the living daylights out of girl after girl after girl.
I couldn’t help but imagine they were the gorgeous supermodel type. You know, the kinds of girls guys like him usually slept with. I wondered if he compared me to them. If he made fun of me to his friends, about how I was the worst fuck he’d ever had.
Tears would stream down my face as I listened to them have the orgasms that – I had to be honest – I wished I could have… but I wished anyone other than Jaret could give them to me.
One morning, I decided to have a look. I wanted to know what his conquests looked like. Were they really the supermodel-gorgeous women I knew he had banged in high school? Was I really that far off from his usual standard that he did it as a joke? The more time I spent living with Jaret, the more I was sure that had to be the case. And now I was going to have a definite answer.
After his latest lay finally came, I grabbed my bathrobe, put it on and quietly snuck by the door. I sat, listening. As soon as I heard the subtle creak of Jaret’s bedroom door, I opened mine, planning on looking shocked as I “accidentally” ran into the girl as she snuck out of the room, her clothes carelessly strewn back on her body as she got ready to do the walk of shame home.
But the shock on my face was real.
I wasn’t expecting to see Lea standing right there in front of me.