A Real Disaster (14 page)

I pulled away abruptly and shot my hand
out to balance myself against the wall. My heart thumped and blood rushed in my
ears. Nash’s eyes were glazed over and it didn’t seem like he knew much more of
what was happening than I did.

“I have to go,” I muttered and dropped
down to pick up my deserted things. “I have a test and then I have to meet
Sabrina and Elizabeth.”

“Lily-”

Nash reached out to me but I skittered
out of his reach. If he touched me again I knew I wouldn’t stop it from going
farther. I was so disjointed that I probably would have pushed forward. My body
was warm and I was restless. I wanted to ditch everything, including my
inhibition, and take Nash upstairs. I wanted to crawl into bed with him and let
him do anything and everything he wanted to me. I wanted to be at his mercy and
that scared me... I never felt as drawn to one person as I did with Nash.

This was new territory for me.

“I said I have to go,” I repeated.
“Nash…”

He looked at me, hope written across his
face. His scowl was gone and, now that his sense came back to him, he was
smiling again. He ran his hand through his hair and smoothed out the collar of
his shirt, all without taking his eyes off of me.

“What?” he asked and I could hear the
expectation.

He was waiting for me to tell him that I
was wrong, that I made a mistake. He wanted to hear that I realized that I
couldn’t live without him. Although he didn’t say that, I could see it in his
face. He thought he broke me..
.
Maybe
he did.

But I didn’t want him to know…

“You need to leave me alone… I need
space…”

Nash opened his mouth to spew out a
retort but I turned around, cutting him off. My chest tightened and a knot was
in my throat. I wasn’t sure what would happen if I walked away from Nash but I
knew that I had to.

*
         
*
         
*

After my test that I’m sure I failed, my
head pounded and the knot that was in my throat traveled down my stomach making
it impossible for me to eat anything. On the other side of the room Sabrina sat
with Elizabeth, laughing at some kind of inside joke. I, on the other hand, was
curled up with blankets, tucking my head under the pillow. All I wanted was
some peace and quiet but it didn’t look like I was going to get that any time
soon. Every time I closed my eyes, Nash’s face came back to me with such force
that I hadn’t slept in two, maybe three days. I was becoming exhausted and it
was showing in everything I did.

It took almost all my strength to get up
in the morning and drag myself to class. Already I had ditched two classes
because I was just so tired and so depressed. Like I asked, Nash left me alone.
He left me alone so well that I never saw him in the halls or where I got food.
It was like he disappeared, or as if he was a figment of imagination.

He probably found another girl. It
wouldn’t be hard for him

Turner, on the other hand, was
everywhere I turned. The first encounter was awkward; neither of us knew
exactly what to say, but he finally broke the ice with some pathetic joke that
actually put a smile on my face.

When was I going to forgive him? The
logical side of me said never. Nash hurt me, a lot. But, I didn’t want to mope
around for the next few years.

“Hey little miss fun sucker, are you
going to come out from your little cocoon and join the land of the living
again?”

I lifted the pillow over my head and
glared at my roommate. She had half of a smile on her face and she was staring
at me expectantly.

“Or are you going to lie there, hiding
from the world, because your heart got banged up a little?”

“I’ve just had a lot on my mind lately
and need some time to decompress.”

“So by decompressing you’re going to
fail out of school and go home? Is that going to make things any easier,
really?” Sabrina scoffed. “He’s just a boy, for crying out loud. You’ll meet
someone new next week or the week after that.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m not
going to find someone new. I don’t
want
to find someone new. I’m done, worn out.”

Sabrina sighed and crossed the room to
sit on my bed. I was fine in high school without a boyfriend. Now, here I was
aching for bad boy Nash.

“For what it’s worth,” she said. “He
came over the other night…
When you were at the library.”

This time I took the pillow off my head
and pushed myself up to look at my roommate.

“He?”
I asked.
“He who?”

“Nash,” she said. “He was looking for
you… Well actually he was looking to see how you were. He knew that you wanted
nothing to do with him but he decided to come by and ask me. He’s worried about
you.”

“Well, he has no reason to be worried,”
I said. “You can tell him that the next time you see him. I’m fine...”

“Right.
Fine.”

Sabrina started to play with the ends of
my hair; hair that could use a good washing.

“If you want to believe you’re fine, Lily,
then
I’m
not going to stop you. But, honestly, if you
want my opinion, you are everything
but
fine. Why don’t you give the guy a chance? People screw up.”

To my horror, tears brimmed in my eyes
and I squashed them away by rubbing my palms against my sockets.

“I really liked him, Sabrina. I thought
he liked me too… But he kisses other girls and gets pissed at me for stupid
stuff.
 
I should have known that. I mean he
told me that he wasn’t a one girl type of man.”

“But maybe now that he met you he
is
a one girl type of guy. Maybe he changed…
Or at least wants to change. Did you ever think of that?”

The truth was that I hadn’t. I hadn’t
thought much of anything except what Nash said to me during our fight.

“Guys don’t change,” I argued. “They
don’t know how to change. It’s their way or no way.”

Sabrina slapped her hand on her forehead
and shook it.

“You are so damn stubborn sometimes,”
she muttered. “You like to think that the guys are the thick headed imbeciles
but you… You’re just as bad.”

“No I’m not!” I exclaimed.

How could Sabrina say something like
that? Wasn’t she supposed to be on
my
side?
Shouldn’t she be defending
me
to
Nash
, not the other way around? What
was this?

“Nice, Sabrina, really nice.
So much for sister solidarity.
Aren’t girls supposed to
stick together; you know, ho’s before bro’s?”

“Yes we are and I would be if a certain
ho wasn’t so stuck in her ways when it came to a certain bro,” Sabrina wrapped
her arm around me. “What made you this way, Lily? Why are you so hard on Nash, Turner,
or any other guy? Why can’t you give Nash a chance?”

Tears spilled down my cheeks and dripped
off my chin. I wiped them away as fast as I could but Sabrina and Elizabeth
still saw them.

“Lily what’s wrong?” Sabrina asked. “Why
are you crying? Did I make you cry? I didn’t mean to. I was just trying to get
through to you.”

“Because… I lied to you,” I said, my
voice barely above a whisper.

“About what?”
Elizabeth
asked.

It was the first time she had spoken and
she cut the tension in the room with her voice. I didn’t want to tell them, any
of them, the truth; the truth that I tried to bury a long time ago. I didn’t
want to relive the moments in the cabin by the lake or the feelings that I was
left with.

“Lily…Lily, talk to us.”

“I can’t,” I said. “I can’t talk to you…
I can’t talk to anybody. Not about this. I don’t even want to think about this,
let alone talk about it.”

“Well, whatever it is you’re hiding,”
Sabrina said, “it is preventing you from being able to move on with your life.
Is this the way you want to be from now on? Do you want to be a shell of
yourself; hiding and darting around just so no one gets close enough to you?”

No, of course I didn’t want that. I
didn’t want any of that but there was nothing I could do about it. Once they
knew there was no going back. I would be
that
girl forever. I had to break away from it once and that was only because I went
to college. How was I supposed to break away from it again?

I hoped that it wouldn’t be like last
time. These people… They’re older and would understand more. They wouldn’t try
to burn me at the stake…Or maybe they would. But I would never know until I
tried.

“I’m not a virgin,” I said.

Sabrina and Elizabeth stared at me,
silent and waiting.

“You lied about sex?
But
why?”

“I didn’t want to tell you the truth
because the truth comes with more baggage than I wanted. I didn’t want everyone
to know it about me. I… I wanted to start over; I wanted to be a new person.”

“So what happened?”

I wiped the tears from my eyes.

“It happened when I was fourteen years
old. It was the very end of the school year and I was about to graduate from
middle school. That coming fall I would finally be a freshman in high school,
something I only dreamed of being.”

“Okay, and?”
Elizabeth
 
asked
.

Sabrina glared at Elizabeth as she
squeezed my hand.

“She doesn’t have to tell us if she
doesn’t want to,” Sabrina said.

She looked at me.

“Seriously, Lily, you don’t have to tell
us. It’s okay to keep your secret.”

“No,” I said as I swallowed loudly. “I
have to tell you… I
want
to tell
you. If I don’t then I’ll just be living two different lives. I won’t be able
to be honest with myself or let anyone else close to me.”

I wanted all my new close friends to
know about it so it didn't feel like I had to hold it in and feel so alone. I
didn't want attention or anything like that otherwise I would've told people
about it a long time ago. But it was to the point where my new friends were
beginning to not understand me. Letting them know about my secret would
probably help them too.

“Okay, but only
if you’re absolutely sure.”

“I am,” I said, wiping the tears from my
eyes. “So like I said, it was the summer before I entered high school. There
was this boy I met, a seventeen year old. He was cute; you know blonde hair,
blue eyes, great body. He was the lifeguard at the local pool and he would
always take a minute or two to talk to me when I got there. All my friends were
jealous because he was giving me special attention. I liked the attention because
no other guy had ever given me any. So I didn’t bother to try to stop it or
change it anyway. Why would I, you know? Anyway, one day he asked me if I
wanted to go on a date with him. I knew my parents wouldn’t let me so I lied
and told them I was staying at a friend’s house. He wanted to take me to his families’
cabin in the woods, right by a lake.”

Elizabeth gasped and Sabrina bit her
lower lip. I had a feeling that the two knew what I was going to say before I
even said it.

“Oh no,” Elizabeth sighed. “You didn’t
go, did you?”

I nodded.

“I did go,” I said, regret filling my
words. “And I wish I hadn’t. When we got to the cabin he opened the door for me
and led me inside. I thought it was chivalrous and charming. I loved it. But
the moment that door closed he grabbed me and started kissing me on the lips. I
kissed him back because I liked the attention but then he started to try and
take my shirt off and I told him no. He didn't listen though. He pulled and
tugged at my shirt while I tried to stop him but he was too strong. He was able
to get me completely naked and he raped me. At the end he held my arms down
with his legs and came all over me. I screamed and cried but I'm sure no one
ever heard me because we were in a place that was secluded.”

I stood up and walked around, not able
to sit there and watch my friends’ faces change from happy to horror. This was
the whole story behind why I was so scared to go in Nash's house with him. I
was afraid to be alone with guys ever since that moment. Then I was finally
able to break out of my shell once I started college, but it was still
difficult.

When Turner held me down and came all over
my chest it brought back memories that I didn't want to relive. I would never
be able to look at Turner the same again and it wasn't even his fault. It was
just that my past had so much pain in it and one stupid sexual incident with
him caused it to all come back.

“Go on,” Sabrina urged.

“Once it was over he told me he would
give me a ride back into town as long as I didn't tell anybody about what
happened. He said if I ever tried people wouldn’t believe me anyways. And
that's what I thought would happen so I never told anybody about it. I lost all
my friends because I was in constant pain and could not handle being around
anybody. I would just hide in my room and study.”