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It’s last summer all over again. I’m trying so hard to be like the Allens, but somehow, Luke manages to ruin everything for me, even when he’s not fucking here.
* * *
Over dinner on Danny’s last night home, the pastor revisits his thoughts on indulgence. He suggests we all look at 2014 as the year of restraint, the year we don’t give into our whims. I wonder if Danny told him what happened at the sorority house.
And it seems like an easy thing for the pastor to say. He’s an older guy in moderately poor health. He doesn’t drink or smoke and I’m not sure other vices call to him. I’d like to see what he’d do, though, if Donna followed him to the letter and didn’t offer dessert every night.
“I like what my father said tonight,” Danny says later as we walk through the neighborhood, hand in hand, enjoying our last moments alone before he leaves. I brace myself for another of his mini lectures on how we need to behave—there’ve been several since he got home—and I feel that wedge between us as if it’s palpable.
Is Danny at fault for it because he’s insisting on doing things his way? Am I at fault because I’ve kept so much to myself? Even Luke knows things about me that Danny does not.
“I need to tell you something,” I whisper.
He squeezes my hand, encouraging me to continue.
“Last summer, I told you I had to read for school but I would sometimes…play guitar instead.”
He frowns. “Why’d you lie?”
“Because I thought if I told you the truth, you’d try to convince me to come out with you guys. It felt like every minute of my day was taken.”
His mouth presses tight, his jaw locks. My reasons don’t justify the lie, I guess. Or maybe he just doesn’t like the implied criticism—that my days were too full, that he tends to push me to do things I don’t want to do.
His nod is slow and reluctant. “I appreciate you telling me. But from now on, I just want the truth, okay?”
My breath holds. I hadn’t planned to tell him everything, but maybe this is the issue—that I’m worried he won’t like who I am if he knows it all.
I slowly exhale. “The thing that happened this fall—”
“I know it’s hard, watching everyone else get something you’d like for yourself. I mean, it’s hard for me too. But that’s what will make it so special when—”
“Danny,” I say, cutting him off because I can’t listen to another word of this, “I’m not a virgin.”
We’re nearly back to the house. He comes to a dead stop, staring at me, his face blank with shock.
“What?” he asks with a small, nervous laugh.
He wants it to be a joke. He assumes it’s a joke. That makes me feel worse.
“You never asked me, so it’s not like I’ve been lying to you about it,” I whisper. “You just assumed, and I let you assume it because I was worried you’d judge me.”
Even in the dim light, I don’t miss the way his shock is quickly turning to disgust. “With who?” he asks. “I thought I was your first boyfriend.”
I wince. “You were. You are. It doesn’t matter.”
“I don’t understand. You were fifteen when we met. How could you have already done that?”
I could probably strip a lot of the judgment from his voice if I told him the truth, but that would just make things worse.
“It’s complicated.”
His eyes flash. “You should have told me. That was a gift I was saving for you, and I thought you were saving it for me too.”
“Danny, I’m not the outlier here. You are. I’m fine we’re not having sex if that’s something you value, and yes, I should have told you, but it’s bullshit for you to act like I’m intentionally depriving you of something.”
He slaps both hands to his face in frustration. “Well forgive me for not handling it perfectly, Juliet. I’ve just discovered you’ve been lying to me the entire time we’ve been together and, yes, I’m mad. It feels like you’ve stolen something that was supposed to be mine.”
Fuck this. He’s mad? Fuck this. “Yeah? Well, it was stolen from me, too, Danny. I’m not thrilled with it either.”
