Instead of filling our summer with serious topics, we filled it with kisses. When we weren’t kissing, we created our own to-do list for a future together. I liked the way he believed in me someday leaving the house.
I liked the idea of me seeing the world with him by my side.
“It’s gonna be great, Maggie. Plus, since I’m going to college one town over, I can come see you every afternoon after school is out. It’s gonna be easy,” Brooks often said. His hope in us made me more hopeful than ever.
Then, we’d go back to kissing. Kissing, and kissing only.
I wasn’t good at the good stuff.
It wasn’t a surprise I wasn’t good at the good stuff, because I’d never had a boyfriend to practice any of the things people did when they were in relationships. Whenever Brooks came over and his hands started to wander, I tensed up—not because he touched me—I wanted him to—but because I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to touch him back.
It was embarrassing. I hated it. I felt as if I’ve read enough books with enough sex references to be able to know how to touch my boyfriend, but it was far from the truth.
“It’s fine, really.” Brooks smiled, standing up from one of our kissing sessions that always led to more kissing. “We don’t have to rush.”
I didn’t feel rushed, though. I felt stupid. Where do I put my hands? Would that feel good to him? How do I know if he really likes it?
“I better get downstairs for band practice.” He straightened out the crotch area of his jeans, which made me feel even worse. I was such an accidental tease. “I’ll see you downstairs, all right?”
I nodded. He leaned in and kissed my forehead before hurrying away.
The moment he was out of sight, I grabbed my pillow, placed it over my face, and silently screamed into it. My legs kicked back and forth in frustration. Ugh!
When I heard quiet whimpering, I looked up from my pillow to see Cheryl walking down the hallway, holding her cheek. She hurried into her bedroom and slammed the door.
I was there two seconds later, knocking.
“Go away!” she shouted.
I knocked once. No.
I listened to her groan. “Please just go, Maggie. I know it’s you.”
Turning the knob, I slowly opened her bedroom door to see her standing in front of her mirror, touching a slice under her eye that was dripping blood down her cheek.
“Goddammit, Maggie! Don’t you know how to listen?”
Walking closer, I made her face me and examined her cut. Tilting my head, I gave her a questioning stare.
She grimaced. “Jordan thought since I had him drive me back from prom weeks ago, it meant we were back together. And seeing how I hated being alone, I went back to him. But it turned out, he didn’t fully forgive me, and as the weeks went on, he became more and more mean. So, when I told him I didn’t want to be with him anymore…he got a bit…upset.”
My chest tightened.
“Don’t freak out, okay?” she warned as she slowly turned her back to me and lifted up her t-shirt. My hands flew over my mouth as I stared at her red skin, where it looked like Jordan beat her.
Cheryl…
Snickering, she said, “If you think that’s bad, you should see him.”
I frowned.
She frowned, too.
He had probably walked away without a hair out of place, leaving my sister with scars not only on her body, but also on her mind.
I walked off and went to the bathroom to get a wet washcloth and a bandage. When I came back, I led her to her bed, pulled her desk chair over, and sat down. As I started cleaning her cut, her body trembled the whole time.
“I’m not pressing charges, Maggie,” she asserted. “I know that’s probably something you’d want me to do, but I’m not. He’s over eighteen. He’d be charged as an adult, and I can’t ruin his life like that…”
I kept cleaning her face, not reacting to her words at all.
“I mean, it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have left with him on prom night. I sent confusing signals.”
I tapped her leg once. No.
She was blaming herself. I’d been there before, too. Sometimes my mind still put fault on me. I shouldn’t have been in those woods. Mama told me not to wander off. I put myself in a dangerous situation. It was my fault.
But when I took a bath and slipped beneath the water, I cleared all of those thoughts.
Sometimes our minds acted as a form of kryptonite, and we had a responsibility to our own self-worth to aggressively tell it to fuck off with its lies.
I was not to blame.
And neither was Cheryl.
A tear fell down her cheek and she wiped it away. “What’s your deal, anyway? Why are you helping me? I trashed your room. I said some shitty things to you, and still you’re helping me. Why?”
My shoulders rose and fell.
She reached over, cringing from the pain in her back, and grabbed a pencil and paper. “Why, Maggie?”
You’re my family.
More tears fell from her eyes, and she didn’t even try to hide them. “I really am sorry, ya know, for what I did to your room, to you. I just…” She tossed her hands up in frustration. Her voice filled with deep shame and loud remorse. “I don’t know what I’m doing with my life.”
I doubted most people did. Anyone who claimed to have their life figured out was a liar. Sometimes I wondered if there was anything to truly figure out, or if we were all walking around looking for a reason when no reason truly existed.
“I want to tell Mom and Dad what he did,” she whispered, her eyes filled with sadness. “But I know they’ll just freak out. They are already pissed at me for all of the other shitty mistakes I’ve made. I’ve fucked up too much for them to really care.”
I tapped her leg once more. No.
“How do you know?”
I held up the family piece of paper one more time. After that, she built up the courage to tell our parents. The moment they hugged her and told her none of it was her fault was the moment Cheryl released the breath she’d been holding for what seemed like years.
“I miss him,” Cheryl said, plopping down on my bed a few weeks after her ‘official’ breakup with Jordan. The cut on her face was healing pretty well, but I knew the damage to her mind wouldn’t be healed as quickly. “I mean, I don’t miss him. I miss the idea of him. I miss the idea of someone being by my side. Today I sat and tried to think of the last time I’d been single and I couldn’t come up with an answer.”