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I envy her for it. I'm not naive enough to assume that Kate has a perfect life, I know she has her fair share of problems. But it's the way she handles them that I'm jealous of. With a grace and clarity and sureness that I could never achieve in a million years. The epitome of control.
I'm the opposite. Rash and angry and impulsive. Incapable of rationally solving something even if my life depended on it. Always opening my big fucking mouth when it's not wanted. My mom blames it on my diagnosis. Kate and Amelia say it's because I'm a Leo. But the scary thing is I'm pretty sure it's justme.
“I fucked up,” I whisper into the darkness. “I keep fucking up.”
Jackson doesn’t say anything but I can tell he's listening, waiting for me to keep talking.
“I knew what was happening and I let her stay with him. I didn't do anything.”
“What could you have done?”
“Something.Anything.”
“Luna,” Jackson says quietly, coaxing me to face him, a hand on my chin directing my eyes to his. They're alight with a fierce sincerity, an essence of pleading, like he's desperate for me to hear him. “There isn't anything you, or anyone else, could've done.”
That’s not true. I could've pushed harder. I could've prevented all of this. But he doesn't know that because he doesn't know everything. No one knows everything. No one knows just how much I could've put an end to this. Months ago, before it got so fucking bad.
“He hit on me.” The confession spills out, my chest constricting from the weight of it, an automatic wince curling my features.
“The other night?”
“Before that.” I swallow down the guilt rising like bile in my throat caused by the secret I buried. “At the end of sophomore year.”
The only time, besides the other night, I've ever been alone with Dylan.
The reason I made an effort to never be alone with him again.
What happened in my apartment. The apartment I share with his girlfriend, who was on her way home from work. A place I'm supposed to always be safe in,myspace.
“He was drunk. Or high. Honestly, probably both. I can't even remember what he said exactly. I brushed it off. I thought I was imagining it or that I misunderstood what he said or something.”
My head shakes at my own naivety.
I might not remember what he said but I can still feel the effect it had on me, the revolt that trickled down my spine and left me feeling dirty. Maybe if I'd been smarter and shut it down, it wouldn't have gone any further.
Hindsight. A wonderful thing.
“He grabbed my ass.”
Jackson stiffens, and I avert my gaze. I don't want to see the look in his eyes. Pity or disappointment or whatever, I don't want it.
“I pushed him away and he grabbed me again, by my wrist this time.” Fucker has a thing for wrists. Words can't describe how ill I felt when I saw those familiar marks on Amelia. “It was so quick. I didn't even realize what was happening until he was trying to kiss me.” A bitter laugh escapes me. “He touched my boobs. Fucking honked them like a horny teenager.”
I recoiled immediately. Pushed him away. Yelled at him to get his greasy paws off me. I was halfway out the door, ready to intercept Amelia on her way home from work and tell her everything when Dylan's voice stopped me.
“She won't believe you.”
I swear I can still hear him sometimes, and my snorted laugh that followed. “You wanna bet?”I'd sneered but all my confidence had been knocked in an instant by a snickering laugh and cocky, downright evil smirk.
“He said he'd tell her it was me who came onto him,” I croak out, shame coating every syllable. Word for word, I repeat his threat.“I'll tell her you were desperate and jealous and begging for me. Who do you think she'll believe? Her loving boyfriend or her little whore friend who fucks anything that moves?”
Jackson flinches and I'm not sure if it's from the words themselves or my tone. Harsh and spitting, mimicking Dylan's that night.
I had flinched too. And I faltered. I believed him. Dylan and Amelia were good at the time, or as close as they ever were to it. Amelia was happy. She was so fucking in love, or at least she thought she was. Sheworshipedhim.
So, I stayed quiet. I acted fine when Amelia arrived home barely ten minutes later. I acted fine when Dylan kissed Amelia with the lips he'd tried to kiss me with and grabbed her with the same hands he'd grabbed me with. I acted fine when I slinked off to my room and turned up the music to a thumping volume to cover the sound of me sobbing.
I acted fine when everything went to shit after that.
