Sins of the Flesh (Exposed Series Book 1) (14 page)

“I used to.”

I exhaled slowly, trying to decide whether I owed it to Ian to
defend him. But by the time I blew the smoke out, something in my body shifted.

“Whoa.”

“You okay?”

I laughed out loud. “I feel… I feel like-”

“Like what?”

“Like my head is really light and my body is really heavy…”

Kevin shook his head at me and smiled. “You’re baked.”

“Ha!” I let my head fall back and looked at the gray blue sky
for a moment. When I righted myself again it felt like I was moving in slow
motion.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I actually feel really good.”

“So the coughing was worth it?”

“Yeah.” I turned to smile at Kevin and my eyes fell to his fat
bottom lip. I felt a warm wave in my stomach and turned back to face the woods.
“Sorry. I’ll try and keep it together.”

“Don’t feel like you have to for my sake.”

I folded my arms on the edge of the table, laid my head down,
and stared at the porch. I was only going to rest there for a second, but I had
never seen such interesting wood grain. I pursed my lips to keep from being
swept away in the silliness of it all.

Kevin didn’t say another word. Instead, he picked a song on his
phone. When the music began to play, he put it down on the iron table, and I
could feel the vibrations of the bass in my whole body.

Later, he told me the song was called Roy G Biv by Boards of
Canada. Which I never forgot. Because when I listened to it, I could see color
on the back of my eyelids.

I thought I was seeing things
when I looked at the caller id.

“Hello?”

“Dawn, it’s me.”

“Carol?”

“I know it’s been a while, but do
you seriously not know my voice?”

“No, I do. Of course, I do,” I
said, sinking down onto the couch. “How are you?”

“I’m sorry to bother you-”

“It’s okay,” I said. “Don’t
apologize, really. What’s going on?”

“It’s Kate.”

I scooted to the edge of the
couch. “Is she okay?”

“Yes- No- I don’t know.”

“Well, Jesus, Carol. Is she okay
or not?!”

“She’s sick, Dawn.”

“What kind of sick?”

“Bulimic sick.”

“Shit.”

“I know.”

“How long has she-”

“I don’t know. I only found out last
week when I went to confront her about her drinking.”

“Her drinking?”

“She’s totally reckless.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. It’s not just
beer. She drinks hard liquor, too. And she leaves empty bottles in her car
and-”

I tilted my soft pack so a
cigarette would slide out onto the coffee table.

“And she’s smoking, Dawn, and
lying about it. I know she is, and you know how I feel about smoking.”

I left the cigarette where it was
and leaned back on the couch. “What can I do to help?”

“I don’t know. You were wild.
You’re the professional. How can I get through to her?”

I didn’t know what to say.

“C’mon Dawn. Tell me how to help
her. Tell me what to do.”

I sat forward and took a deep
breath. “Well, the drinking and the smoking-”

“Are completely out of control.”

“Calm down, Carol. Listen,” I
said. “I would relax a bit about that stuff, okay. She wouldn’t be doing those
things if she didn’t have friends.”

I could practically hear her eyes
rolling on the other end of the phone.

“Even if they aren’t friends you
approve of, it could be worse. It’s not like you can lock her up and keep her
from experimenting.”

“But she’s-”

“Being reckless. I get it. But
you’re not helping anything with your unrealistic zero tolerance policy.”

“But-”

“She’s about to go away to
college for Christ sakes. What then?”

Carol was quiet.

“Carol?”

“I’m listening.”

“I know you don’t condone that
stuff and I’m not telling you, too,” I said. “But the most important thing is
that she’s safe.”

“Agreed.”

“Good. Because the only way you
can keep her safe is if you stop being so black and white about everything.”

Carol sighed. It was the kind of
sigh I only ever heard from parents with teenagers.

“Think about it. If she was at a
party and her choices were to get in the car with someone who had been drinking
or call you for a ride, you’d want her to call you right?”

“Of course.”

“But she’s never going to call
you for help if she’s just going to get in trouble. Does that make sense?”

“Yes.”

“I know that’s not what you want
to hear, but-”

“No. It’s okay,” she said. “I
appreciate it. I don’t have anyone else to ask. I don’t want people to think
she’s a bad kid or that I’m a bad parent.”

“Nobody thinks that.”

“She’s really not a bad kid.”

“I know,” I said. “And you’ll get
through it. You just have to choose your battles.”

“Okay.”

“As far as her eating disorder, what
have you tried so far?”

“I took the lock off her door.”

“How did that go?”

“She threw a fit.”

“No surprise there,” I said.
“Anything else?”

“I made her go to talk to a
counselor.”

“That’s good. And?”

“She said she didn’t see how the
woman could help her when she obviously couldn’t sort out her own food issues.”

“What do you mean?”

“She was fat.”

I shook my head. “You sent her to
an overweight counselor?”

“I didn’t know. It’s not like her
weight was listed next to her credentials.”

“Well, I’m sure the woman is good
at what she does, but surely you can see Kate’s point.”

“Yes.”

“She’d probably be more receptive
if you found someone that was a healthy weight and knew what she was going
through.”

“Is this my fault, Dawn?”

“How could it be your fault?”

“I don’t know. Because I’m always
on a diet, and I bring all those women’s magazines into the house.”

“I wish it were that simple.”

“What should I do? It’s not like I
can police her all day.”

The pain in my sister’s voice was
strangling my heart.

“I just don’t understand why
would she do this to herself? To her body?”

“I can’t say in her case, Carol,
but I’m sure it has something to do with stress.”

“What can I do?”

I felt a lump in my throat. “Be
supportive. Be kind. Don’t buy junk foods that will tempt her or that she’ll
feel guilty about eating. Keep as much healthy stuff around as you can.”

“Okay.”

“And don’t give her too much space,
but try not to suffocate her either.”

“How long will it take for her to
get better?”

“Maybe two months,” I said.
“Maybe a decade.”

“Jesus.”

I felt a tear roll down my cheek.
“Look I have to go,” I lied. “But don’t worry, okay? Everything will be fine.
Just hang in there, and I’ll talk to you soon.”

I didn’t wait for her to say
good-bye. I just hung up. I felt like if I didn’t, I might say something
selfish. Something I’d regret.

I was starting to like Kevin.

Like,
like
him like him.

Which was weird because he was nothing like Ian. He wasn’t
blond, he wasn’t popular, he wasn’t always trying to get in my pants, and he
wasn’t an asshole.

Not that Ian was a “bad boy.” On the contrary, he’d probably
never done anything bad in his whole life. Unless you count sissy attempts at
hazing and premature ejaculation.

And to be honest, I think the fact that Ian was an asshole is
what made me like him in the first place. Because when he was nice to
me
,
it made me feel special. Which sounds stupid now that I think about it.

And I know I gave into to him too often. But only because I
thought being submissive was supposed to feel good. Like in Fifty Shades. But
it didn’t for me. Not once.

So I must have been doing something wrong. Or he was. Or maybe
that book was just good to be true. The parts I read anyway.

I mean, I wanted to believe that a sexy billionaire might swoop
me up in his helicopter and give me my first orgasm. But the reality was that I
was much more likely to get picked up by someone on a skateboard, someone whose
sexual confidence was the result of an unhealthy obsession with porn.

But Kevin wasn’t like that. With his shy eyes, his thick curls,
and his deep voice. He never tried to guess what color underwear I was wearing or
stared at my chest. At least when I was looking at him.

He was different. And not just cause he was a pot smoker. Though
I have to admit I liked how he would take a drag and hold it in, how he would
really savor the moment before he blew the smoke out. He always made this
specific face when he exhaled, too. Like he was blowing out something ugly. And
he never took his eyes off the smoke until it disappeared.

I tried to figure out why he was such a gentleman. I thought it
might be because he had so many sisters. Or maybe it was all the college
parties he went to. Maybe he was just used to hanging out with smart girls.

And I wondered what he knew about sex that Ian didn’t know. I
mean, even if he didn’t have more technical skills, his dick had to be bigger
than Ian’s. It just had to be. Everything else on him was bigger.

And wasn’t a bigger dick supposed to feel better? Maybe that was
why sex sucked with Ian. Cause he was too small.

And yet Kevin was so shy. For all I knew, he was a virgin. Maybe
he was one of those guys that wanted to wait for the right girl. So it would
really mean something. Then again, I think nowadays that type of guy only
exists in fairytales. And maybe rural, fundamentalist neighborhoods in areas
that aren’t actually accessible by motorized transportation.

Regardless, I could tell I liked him because I didn’t want to
talk to my friends about him. I wanted to keep him all to myself. I couldn’t
believe how normal and relaxed I felt with him.

Usually I felt edgy outside the house, preoccupied with how I
was going to stuff my face and throw up. Which I was now getting away with
again by purging in the shower. It was great because no one bothered me in
there or suspected anything. I didn’t even have to worry about flushing because
everything went right down the drain. And since I was lathering soap the whole
time, it didn’t smell like vomit either.

Of course, I told myself I was getting better because my new
strategy only allowed me to binge and purge once a day. But it didn’t suck any
less.

When I wasn’t with my friends, my life was consumed by it. It
felt like a full time job. And it took a lot of energy to make sure I was always
starving, binging, or purging.

Which is why whenever Kevin passed me a joint, I welcomed it for
the much needed distraction it provided.

“Thanks.” I rested my elbow on the arm of my chair and raised it
to my lips.

He nodded and turned his eyes back to the woods behind his
house.

“Going out tonight?”

He shrugged. “My friend’s band is playing downtown.”

“Cool,” I said. “At a bar?”

“Yeah. You want to come?”

“I don’t have a fake,” I said. Which was the truth. Not that I’d
be allowed to go in a million years.

“I don’t know if I’m going to go anyway.”

“Why wouldn’t you go?”

He scrunched up his face like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to
tell me.

I passed him the joint.

“There might be someone there I don’t really want to see.”

“Who?”

“Just this girl.”

“Oh.” Huh. “A girl…?”

“A girl I used to go out with.”

“An ex?”

“You could say that.”

“And you still like her?”
Please say no.

“No,” he said. “I’m over it. But sometimes she gets drunk and
tries to convince me we should get back together.”

“A college girl?”

“No. Yes. Well she’s in college now, but I’ve known her for a
few years.”