Carly Sevens
“For goodness sake, babe, settle down and leave the girl alone. She’s growing up, and well… you know.”
“No. No I don’t know, because I don’t want to think about it. Ever. So seeing the evidence of my daughter growing up isn’t something I’m going to settle down over.”
My dad lost his mind when he saw the hickey, and as I lay there soaking on the grass, I could tell he was weighing up his options. Option one was to scream and beat his chest in the quest for immediate answers, and option two was to lock me in a castle somewhere until the imminent threat of men, hormones and relationships had passed. Fortunately, my hot headed dad dug deep and discovered option three, to storm off in search of my mom and demand we have the talk.
The. Talk.
Did he think I didn’t know this shit? As a college girl if I hadn’t, I would have been in for a world of hurt.
So while my dad was changing a soaking Cowboy Isaac in an effort to calm himself down, my mom was in my bedroom trying her best not to giggle. When I asked if she was going to leave while I got changed, she looked at me like I’d lost my mind.
“I can’t go out there yet. This talk he expects me to give you needs to last for a while.”
“True. Like long enough for him to calm down preferably,” I mumbled, digging through the clothes I left at home for visits such as these.
“Exactly. I’d also expect a pop quiz if I were you.” She chuckled and then I heard the intake of breath. “Mother of God, what in the hell happened to you? Your father absolutely cannot, and I repeat cannot, as in never ever, see you like this.”
When I twisted my body to see what she was referring to, I was horrified to see multiple hickeys and oh god, teeth marks. There were definitely teeth marks all the way down my back, disappearing beneath my waistband. The sight of them made me shiver, even if I didn’t remember having them inflicted on me, but the feeling of lustful enjoyment from that night was a crystal clear memory.
“I know that look!” she snapped. “I am this close to running outside and calling your Uncle Jake to demand a police investigation. Please tell me that you’re not in trouble.” Mom had her thumb and forefinger pinched together close enough to match the squint in her eyes. I shrugged into an oversized sweater. “No. Absolutely not. You cannot wear that boat neck. Your dad will have a cardiac arrest.”
I looked back in the mirror and she was right. It did nothing to hide my night of passion.
“I’m waiting. Say something to convince me that those marks are not the result of a campus attack and that you were a willing participant. Shit, your dad’s right. Even I don’t want to talk about this.”
I watched as she steeled herself and got mentally prepared to deal with whatever horror story I was about to spill. I had to remember that as a children’s social and welfare officer for the DFS, she’d seen this shit more times than any human should have to. The thought that any of the nasty stuff she helped other kids through had happened to her own daughter was starting to creep into her brain, and I could see she was struggling to hold it together. Her instinct was telling her to reach out and comfort me, but all of her training was fighting against her. If I’d suffered something vile and despicable, I needed to tell her so she could help me work through the fall out.
“Carly?” she pleaded on a whisper, which snapped me out of my day dream, and as my mom was on the verge of tears and a mental breakdown, I rushed to her.
“Mom, I promise you it’s nothing like that. I swear on Dad’s life it was fully consensual and you’d be the first person I’d ask for help if it was anything else.”
She exhaled in relief and slumped her butt onto my bed. “Is it serious? I mean, if you’re sleeping with him and he’s marking you, it must be.”
I was beginning to wish I’d stayed on campus now, or at least taken more than three seconds to look in a mirror before I left this morning. There was only one way to answer this. If I told her it wasn’t, she’d launch into her casual and promiscuous sex lecture, and the minute I left to go back to Moore’s, she’d hound me to make sure I was staying safe, in every sense of the word.
“Maybe. We enjoy each other’s company and it’s still early.”
“I can see you enjoy his company. Name?”
“Uh, um, Xavier Burrows.” What the hell was I saying?
“Will we get to meet him?”
“Mom!” I cried in exasperation. “I don’t know. Did you not hear me three seconds ago when I said it’s still early?”
“Okay, okay. Wait here.”
My mom left my room and I heard her bedroom door open and close. What was I saying? I was digging myself in a lie that could get out of control. Thankfully, my fake college boyfriend was miles away and there was no way she was going to get to meet him. I spun around in front of the mirror to look at the marks on my body and felt my skin flush in embarrassment. How the hell had I not known what he’d done to me?
“Here, you’ll be wearing turtle necks until they go down unless you want to see your dad’s head explode. Get a move on. Dinner is ready and I think Jake, Rebecca, Livvy and Jack are here.”
She spun on her heels leaving me wide mouthed in shock, holding the stupid sweater I was going to have to wear unless I wanted to inspect my dad’s brains on the dining room wall. I felt my knees knock as I pulled it over my now drying hair. I noticed my hands shaking as I reached for a pair of joggers I’d pulled from my drawers earlier.
I had no idea how I was going to face him. He’d skulked off early this morning, and never once during our night together had he mentioned that he was coming home, too. The thought of sitting across from him was sending my nerves into freefall, but the thought of sitting at the same table as him and my dad, especially after my dad had seen just the one hickey, was causing my stomach to roll.
“Carly!” I heard my dad shout up the stairs and I knew if I didn’t go down on my own, he’d come in search of me and I risked receiving yet another talking to. That could be all kinds of awkward, especially as he had both culprits under his roof and he didn’t know it.
I pulled my hair into the stray ponytail holder I always had wrapped around my wrist for such hair emergencies as this and put one brave foot in front of the other. When I pulled my bedroom door shut behind me, I gave myself a serious talking to. I was a grown woman; I understood the rules of the game. I had explored my feelings with someone I’d crushed on for years and I needed to act natural. My father was already on high alert, so acting up in front of Jack was only going to cause me more problems.
I could hear voices the closer I got to the top of the stairs.
I could hear chairs scraping across the dining room floor and my dad telling Isaac to remove his hat and Sophie to get the napkins.
When I finally braved the faces that were sat waiting for me, I did a quick inventory. Mom was nervously tapping her fingers, clearly having just assured my dad that she’d had ‘the talk’ with me. Dad had a face like thunder; he was still in the depths of letting his mind present him with unhealthy visuals regarding me and the opposite sex. Isaac had changed outfits and was sat in full quarterback outfit, complete with shoulder padding and a helmet. Rebecca looked amazing balancing the goo-gooing, gah-gahing baby Livvy on her lap, and Jake was sat watching the two of them like they were the best things since sliced bread.
No Jack.
All my shaking and knee trembling had been for nothing. I couldn’t decide if I was angry with myself for letting him get to me or disappointed. No, I refused to be disappointed.
“Isaac, you cannot eat dinner with that face guard on. Take it off, dude,” my dad asked him.
“I’m wearing this for Unca Jake. I’m pretending to be Unca Jack. He’s sad because Unca Jack isn’t here,” my brother told the table in the cutest voice possible. If you didn’t know Isaac, you’d think he actually meant it, but we did know him and it was a ploy to get enough sympathy from the table so he could defy our dad and leave the helmet on.
Jake knew this too and as he leaned across the table to fist bump Isaac, he whispered, “How about we eat dinner and then you put it back on? I may even throw a ball at your head in the garden after, see if you can feel it.”
The smile from my brother was like sunshine on a rainy day. He was so excited that I knew we were going to see him speed eat his way through dinner.
“Where is Jack?” my mom asked, passing me the bowl of potatoes.
“No idea. Got some text telling me he had too much on. I can only imagine what he’s got on,” Jake replied, waggling his eyebrows at my dad.
My dad smiled and then tried to cover it up with a scowl in my direction. “You see much of Jack around campus, Carls?”
“No.”
I continued to pile food on my plate, letting my brain consider the possibility that Jack was working on another female conquest during his down time. I didn’t realize I was stabbing at my steak until my mom kicked me under the table and stared at me in confusion.
“How’s the study going, Carly?”
“Really well thanks, Rebecca. It’s going to be a short year with finals and revision.”
I watched as she nervously took a sip of water from her glass. “I was wondering whether you’d be interested in coming to work for me when you get home?”
“Really?” I replied, shocked.
“Well yeah. I need someone with a business head on the team. I’ve got the dance bit covered, but I’m being asked about expanding the classes and facilities. Making all the decisions solo is exhausting. I know it’s not your dream job,” she told me shyly. “People don’t go to college to come back and work at a small town dance studio, so if you could give me some of your fresh business brain to kick it off, I’d be really grateful.”
I hadn’t thought about what I was going to do when I got home. I wasn’t planning on leaving Hawkstown. I’d spent too much time away from my dad already and we were still making up for that. Me leaving for college was just a necessary evil in life’s journey.
“It sounds like a great opportunity to put my learning into practice.”
Rebecca was visibly relieved. It was a lot for her to include people in her dream. I already worked part time at the dance studio when I was home for vacation, so I had a lot of the background on her vision anyway. I knew that Jake worked hard with the Sheriff’s office and family time was important to them. Working for her would make a little more of that possible for them and I was only too happy to help out.
My dad smiled at me for the first time during dinner. He seemed pleased to know that I wasn’t planning on leaving for good once I’d graduated.
We carried on eating, talking about the future, listening to Isaac beg and plead for Jake to hurry up so he could go outside and do training drills with him, and it was all going well until my mom said, “Carly has a young man.”
My own mother threw me under the bus and she knew it when I dropped my fork in shock as she finished those five deadly words. The cloud returned to my father’s features and Rebecca smiled. “Oh, tell me more,” she said excitedly. “What’s his name?”
“Uh… Xavier.” I was nervously expecting someone to jump up and immediately call me out on my lie.
“Cool name,” Jake commented. “Don’t worry, Tommy. I’ll get Jack to check him out, make sure he’s worthy of Carly’s time and affection.”
“Oh God, please don’t.”
“Excellent idea, Jake.”
With my head in my hands, I heard Jake burst out laughing. “I was joking.”
But if I knew my dad and Jake, they’d be on at Jack the first chance they got to get the lowdown on Xavier. Why hadn’t I made up a guy with a more regular name? It wouldn’t take anyone long to hunt down Xav. I was pretty sure he was the only one in the college.
“Welcome to the world of dating and over protective parenting, Carly.” Rebecca laughed.
I didn’t want to laugh; I wanted to scream. I knew Jake would absolutely call Jack for the lowdown on Xavier. My mom would insist, especially after the toothy love nibbles and hickeys she’d seen on my body earlier.
There was only one way out of this, or at least to make it less like an impulsive lie.
I was going to have to actually go out on a date or two with Xavier Burrows.