Sharing Harper (17 page)

His voice was hushed again and his accent
returned to the drawn out in a slow southern twang.

“Tell me about yourself Harper, it’s your turn anyway. Why don’t you talk to your parents?”

I took a deep breath in knowing that I would have to start by telling him what happened to me in order to explain the situation with my parents. My heart started palpitating through my chest as if it was going to bust out of the muscle and skin protecting it. My hands started to get clammy and oozed with sweat as I continuously tried to rub it away with the cloth napkin in my lap.

My head began to spin as if the dark room around us was closing in. I knew I was sitting, but I thought the chair was going to tip ov
er and deposit me on the carpet so that I could sit hugging myself tightly, telling myself that everything will be okay.

Instead, I was still sitting in the chair watching Ryder stare through me.

“Go on, you can do it. No one else is here but me,” he urged on, gesturing his hands across the table opening up to show me that it was okay to tell him how I felt, that everything would be okay.

“I can
’t,” I hissed in a slurred manner, unable to form proper words.

“You can do it. I want to understand you Harper. I want to show you that I won
’t run away if you open up to me. I won’t disappear from you ever. Please, let me show you that. Tell me what happened to you when you were younger.”

“If I tell you, you
’re going to see me as a different person and I don’t want you to see me as that person. You’re going to see me for the person I was because of my past, but I am not that person.”

“I will not. You are who you are because of your past, but your past doesn’t define you who are. You are your past, your present
, and your future. I want to be a part of all of those to understand you.”

I glanced at him and noticed him looking with deep passion set in his eyes. I knew he cared and wanted to know

“What if you leave Ryder? I can’t open up to you knowing that you’re going to be so freaked out afterwards that you’ll leave me. Sure, you may have the decency to sit here while we finish our lovely dinner, but afterwards you’re never going to come back. I can’t have someone do that to me again. I can’t open up only to be shut down again.”

“I will never do that to you Harper. I told you already, there is something about you that captivates me. I can’t seem to let you go. You have made yourself a permanent stamp in my life. I want you to know that I will forever be here for you, through the good and the bad, I am here to stay.”

My breath started to quicken and my body responded to his outburst of emotion by breaking down. My head was throbbing and a migraine felt like it was about to come on. My throat was closing in on itself and my tongue was lost in my mouth, thick, dry, and unable to form words. I stared down at my fingers, picking the polish off my nails to try and buy time. I knew I would have to tell Ryder about
him
and I wasn’t prepared to visit him again. I wanted to do anything but revisit those moments, the darkest of my life.

“Okay,
” I said when I was finally able to speak.

I wanted to test myself, see if I was able to tell Ryder everything, so I figured I would start off with the beginning.

“Well I have to start from the very beginning for you to understand everything, so I hope you have time because this is going to take a while.”

“I have all the time in the world for you Harper Mae.”

I took a giant breath in and began my tale. A tale of sorrow and mourning was my story.

“It all started when I was a freshman in high school. It was the second day of class
and I was running late, which was very abnormal for me, but I was still trying to find my ropes around the school and couldn’t find the classroom I needed. I finally found my class and set out for my assigned seat, which I had been given the day before...” I felt like I couldn’t continue knowing where this story was going to head. My heart started racing, jumping around knowing I what I was about to say.

“Go on,”
Ryder encouraged, “I am listening.”

“Okay, well I noticed someone sitting in my assigned seat and I was a stickler about that kind of stuff, plus I didn’t want the teacher to think I was disobeying her, so I went up to her and told her that someone was sitting in my spot. She went over to him and quickly ushered him away. He moved to the seat directly next to mine and when I was seated I was able to take a good look at him. He was grimy looking, but in a way that was appealing. He had a lip ring on his left side, small almond eyes,
and lips that were miles wide. His hair was black and looked like a thick mop on top of his head. He was looking straight at me, but there was something missing in his eyes.” I shuddered thinking about him, knowing that look in his eyes would haunt me for the four years we were together.

“Anyway, after class he came up to me and told me his named was Tyler Rhoads but that everyone calls him Tye. H
is hair fell down his face and his eyebrows scrunched when he looked at me through his small slits of eyes. His demeanor was cool and as a kid in high school, I was instantly attracted to him. The only problem was that I came from a very upper-middle class background and he was low class, from the dirty part of the tracks. After a few days passed, we started texting each other and talking almost daily on the Internet. He asked me if I wanted to go smoke with him one day after school at the park. As a fourteen year old girl, I had no idea what he meant by smoke, I had assumed it was just cigarettes, but it turned out it was marijuana.” My eyes darted up to look up at Ryder and his face was stoic still listening to my story. When he saw I was looking up at him, he urged me to continue on with his eyes showing empathy and finally an idea of where this story was going. An innocent girl wrapped up in the wrong crowds. It couldn’t be more typical, but it was life changing for me.

“So we hung out smoking weed with his friends and I loved that I was finally being included in a group of friends. As the days passed, the style of clothing I wore went from being preppy to being more edgy. I started to wear heavy black mascara and deep black eyeliner that smudged through the bottom of my eyes. I started listening to music, if you could call it that, it was perpetual screaming. I desperately w
anted to fit in with this group. I did anything in my power to become their friends.”

“I noticed a few girls who used to hang out with them wore belly shirts with their stomachs hanging out and had sex with the guys in the group in exchange for marijuana. Well, I knew that isn’t what I wanted, so I talked to Tye about it
. It turned out he wanted to be exclusive with me and I was just overjoyed that a boy was paying attention to me. I thought I could conquer the world at fourteen and this was the best thing that could happen to me. I know this may sound so stupid but I was young.”

“It doesn’t sound stupid, you were young
. We all made mistakes when we were young.” Ryder exhaled. He looked at me intently when he spoke, lending me comfort in the fact he was still listening to me and maybe even understanding where I was coming from.

“Please continue your story,” he said with ease.

“Okay.” I took a deep breath hoping to rush the words out as fast as I could to get this whole thing over with. Although I must say, I already felt some burden lifted off my chest and my air capacity finally lending me some more room to breathe.

“One day
the group and I were sitting outside at night in this park. My parents really didn’t care where I was because they were too concerned with their conventions, cocktail dinners, or some other bullshit party they just HAD to attend. So, we were hanging at this park smoking some pot and Tye told me that no one was home and he was alone in the house. I was nervous about the whole thing, never going farther than kissing a boy, but everyone in the group howled urging me on to go home with him, so I did. That’s where everything started going downhill, little did I know then that was the turning point in our relationship.” I sucked in the air, desperately trying to catch a break, but Ryder’s stare was laced with urgency for me to continue and comfort to try to understand how difficult this is for me.

“When we went back to his place we had sex. It was painful and awkward. He shoved himself on top of me, grunted a couple of times and shoved his hand in my mouth when he was done. I didn’t think anything of it, but it was an action that I won’t ever forget. When someone wants to make sure that your pleasure is being suppressed so that his own pleasure was enjoyable
this is what ended up becoming the basis to our relationship.”

“We dated for a good year and everything was fine, we did our thing together and ended up being branded as an “it” couple that everyone knew
at our high school. After about the first year, I realized that Tye was a drug-dealer. He took me along on one of his deals because we happened to be together, normally they were at night when I was home. We walked to this kid who lived a couple blocks down from me. He was from an extremely wealthy and prominent family in the community. I was shocked to see that he and Tye knew each other. I stayed back in the car, but it was clear there was a white powdered substance being distributed through them. When I brought it up to Tye it was the first time he ever stood up to me.” Small teardrops escaped my face as I was brought back to the day that it all started with Tye. I couldn’t look up, so I kept telling my story in a low hum with my head hanging low, ashamed of how disgusting I let myself become.

“What happened to you Harper?” Ryder interrupted and suddenly I became grossly aware of the silence that was escalating itself through the room.

“We were at his house. We went back and I confronted him about dealing drugs. I told him he was better than that and dealing drugs would only lead to bigger problems, but he wasn’t hearing any of it. He told me that just because I had money didn’t mean that the entire world had money. He belittled me, calling me names like snob, cunt, and whore. He told me that I should use my body to help him out instead of sitting around on my ass all day. I felt trampled on emotionally. Everything I thought I was suddenly disappeared deep into the ground where I stood. I was meek and little in contrast to his dominant behavior.”

“After he screamed at me, he raised his hand which violently c
ame down on my cheek. I reacted by pulling my hand to the spot where he hit me. That made him even angrier and my nose was introduced to his fist, which came down like a hammer on a nail. I heard the tiny bones crack slightly and felt the pain, which exerted hopelessness throughout my body. I thought it couldn’t get worse, but he started crying in the corner like a little boy who was just punished. I went over to console him. I don’t know why I did. I feel so stupid right now.” I felt like this was all getting dumb. This whole story made me look like a pathetic loser. The loser who I was is not the loser who I am now. At least now, I am stable, but all Ryder is going to see is a pathetic girlfriend to a drug dealing abusive ass.

“Harper, I am listening. Right now I am not doing anything but listening and I would love for you to continue.” His hand went on the top of the table and I slipped mine into his
, holding onto him tightly. I finally was able to look up and saw the sentiment of a man who truly cared and wanted to help. I mustered up enough strength and continued.

“We ended up having sex again that night. I was frightened he was going to smack me across the face again or punch me, so I fucked him or rather I let him fuck me. Afterwards, he wrapped me in his arms and I felt empty. It was the beginning of
my phasing out my emotions. My body began to feel like a living breathing organism, but it was completely disconnected from my mind. Sometimes I felt like I was watching over from above what was happening to me, but nothing came from it. After that moment, he showered me with gifts. I got a beautiful diamond and sterling silver bracelet from a fancy independent jeweler in town. I thought everything was okay so I stayed with him.”

“The days c
ontinued but nothing got any better like he promised. When he showered me with gifts he lilted words of sorrow and swore he would provide a better life for me, but none of that happened. Every day for a year he would bruise me in some way. Some days it was just emotionally, beating me down as a person telling me I was worthless and that if I left him I wouldn’t find anyone else like him. When I talked to a guy once in the hallway about what homework was due, he beat the guy to a bloody pulp sending him to the hospital and needing stitches all over his face and scalp. Tye was kicked out of school, which left a lot more free time for him to sell his drugs.”

“If it wasn’t being beat down emotionally it was the physical pain, but with time that became less and less of a burden. I was able to gain a higher pain tolerance. He would sink his teeth into my arms
, biting as if I was a juicy steak screaming into my arms yelling for me. His hands would violently meet my skin ripping it to shreds sometimes. There was one time I remember almost vividly.”

“There was a
n elliptical work out machine in the living room and he had just come out of the bathroom screaming at me for whatever reason it was that time. His eyebrows glistening with the sweat that dripped slowly down on them. His face was red and blushed with anger and resentment. He came barreling towards me. I noticed nothing in the room but that elliptical machine and the dingy white wallpaper. The sun was setting so the light was slowly receding. I kept thinking about the time we walked on the beach together at sunset around this time. I let him run up against me and slam his hands into my chest. He started screaming at me, but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. I never really understood what he said when he was in one of his moods. I learned to tune him out and ignore him.”