Seashell Season (20 page)

That's okay.

Chapter 58

I
was really tired, but I just couldn't fall asleep. I kept replaying the time at Cathy's, remembering every word and every laugh and every time I felt like an alien. At least none of Cathy's friends had asked me any stupid questions about how it felt finding out your name wasn't really your name or meeting your mother for the first time at seventeen. Either Cathy had told them not to be idiots or they're smart or sensitive enough to keep their mouths shut.

Smart. Sensitive. Those girls are just so totally unlike the kids I used to hang out with, they're almost a separate species. Seriously, I'd bet any money I had that not one of those girls has done anything more exciting or dangerous or against the law than crossing the street when the light is blinking or drinking milk that expired the day before. The guys in their crowd are probably just as bad—by which I mean good—but the only one I've met is Jason, Cathy's soon to be ex-boyfriend, and there was a look in his eyes when I was coming on to him that made me think maybe he's at least
thought about
doing something he'd have to keep a secret from his parents. There's no way anyone could expect me to be friends with that group, assuming they'd want to be friends with me, and I'm pretty sure that after tonight, they don't. I make them uncomfortable. I'm good at that, making people uncomfortable, though sometimes—and I'd never admit this out loud—I don't know why I do it, set out to rub people the wrong way. Yeah, I like to be left alone mostly, but that can't be the whole reason, can it? I mean, it's a bit aggressive of me, isn't it, to assume it's okay to make a perfectly nice person feel bad.

But it's not hard to see that with Cathy and her friends, there is a lot of caring going on, if sometimes in a way that makes me, personally, nauseous, all that girly-girly
oh my God, no way!
squealing sort of bonding. Maybe those friendships won't last much after high school, or maybe some of them will last a lifetime. Who knows? The point is, I guess, that in the here and now those girls—and maybe even some of the guys—really care about what happens to one another. They've got someone to turn to if they're having a crappy day or whatever. They've got people to have fun with. Even I have to admit that's probably a good thing.

I wonder if Cathy is going to tell her mother I've had sex. Annie will tell Verity, I'm sure of that. Oh well. I don't know why it should be a secret.

The first time I had sex was when I was only fourteen. I know. Now it seems insane, but then . . . Anyway, it was pretty awful, as you might imagine, totally all about him, and I only did it because I'd had an insane crush on this guy for months, and when he finally noticed I was alive, I was so blown away by the attention he started to pay me that I lost what was left of my mind. Of course, once we'd done it—in the backseat of his car; how clichéd—he never bothered with me again.

You'd think I'd have learned my lesson. I mean, I felt like such a complete loser; I swear it was the only time I've ever been seriously depressed in my life. You'd think I'd have waited around until someone who really liked me for me and not for what he could get came around, but how do you tell if a guy's decent? I mean, they're all full of lies, and even though I was always pretty street-smart, as the saying goes, I was still a kid. You know crap at fourteen and not much more at fifteen or sixteen, and I had no one older I could turn to for advice. I certainly wasn't going to talk to Dad about guys. He probably would have dropped dead of a heart attack if I even mentioned the word
dating,
let alone
sex
. I'd learned the facts of life the way every other kid I knew had—from older kids. Needless to say, the information we got was bad all around.

Anyway, after making another stupid decision, this time with a guy who swore he was into me and who even gave me a silver bracelet (which wasn't silver after all) but who turned out to have a girlfriend who found out about his affair with me—if you can call five minutes on a bench behind the high school one night an affair—and who then threatened to cut me if I didn't back off, I finally got the message. All guys, at least the ones I was likely to meet, were untrustworthy. That's a nice way of saying they were shits, so if I wanted to have sex for whatever reason, and I did, sort of, then I was going to have to drop any expectations I was stupid enough to have had in the first place and just focus on getting out of it what I wanted.

Momentary connection. Temporary attention. Oblivion for about thirty seconds. Whatever. No complications, at least of the emotional kind.

But back to tonight. It's not that I had a bad time at Cathy's. No one was openly nasty. It's just that it was pretty obvious I'm an outsider. Then again, I've always felt like an outsider, even when I was hanging out with the other outsiders!

I wonder if I'll ever feel like I belong.

A lot of the kids I knew from school—from all the schools I went to over the years—got in trouble by doing stupid things, like stealing from the convenience store or spray painting private homes or knocking over every garbage can in a neighborhood on collection day. But I wasn't stupid. I never stole. I never skipped school. Well, only once or twice. (I'm smart. Missing a few days here and there—without Dad knowing, of course—made no difference. I always got an A. And here's the kind of schools I went to. No one ever called Dad to ask where I was, was I home sick, had I been run over by a truck or something. No one ever bothered to care.)

Anyway, about stealing, a few times over the years I wondered where we'd gotten the money for the flat-screen TV (not a very big one) or for the brand-new microwave Dad brought home once. But I never asked. I decided I didn't want to know. The fact was that we always needed money or something that it could buy. I figured Dad did what he had to do, and as long as he didn't get caught, well . . . And if he did get caught, it would be easier for me to lie to the police the less I knew.

Like I said before, stealing was one thing I wasn't stupid enough to do, but I did make some stupid decisions about other things, only some maybe weren't that stupid, I guess. I mean, nothing bad ever happened to me because I smoked dope for the first time when I was thirteen and had my first beer at twelve. And both were easy for me to take or leave because I'm not an addict like my mother was. I mean, like I was told she was. Anyway, getting high is fun. That's all. And you can't have fun all the time, right? That's just common sense. So it was all under control, and I was always careful.

I wasn't always so careful with sex. (Here I am, talking about sex again!) That's where I made more than a stupid decision. I made a seriously
bad
decision. I was careless. The condom was old, and I didn't even recognize the brand. I mean, the package was
dirty
. The guy, who was actually sort of a buddy of mine, must have had it in his pocket or whatever for years. I should have known there was a chance the condom was defective but okay, I'd had a few beers and let's face it, booze doesn't go well with good decision making. When my period was a day late, I freaked out. When it was two days late, I really freaked out. There was no way I could go to Dad and tell him I might be pregnant. No. Way. As far as he knew, I was still his innocent little girl. And yeah, I was a bit afraid of what he might do. Not to me but to my buddy (not that I would have told Dad his name). Honestly? I was a bit afraid of what Dad might do to himself.

Think about it: I was fifteen and very likely facing a life of raising a kid on my own with only my father for help. Not good. The kid would have been doomed from the start.

I had no girlfriends I could talk to; though I knew of some girls at school who had been pregnant, I wasn't at all close to them, and I wasn't about to go advertising my situation to strangers. So I told my buddy (note I'm not calling him a friend), and he was no help, not that I'd really thought he would be. First, he denied a baby could be his. When I asked him why, was he sterile, and if so how did he know, had he been tested? Of course he had no answer. Then he told me he had no money, so I'd better not bother to ask for any. Then he said he knew someone who knew someone who'd had an abortion without her parents knowing and that was what I should do. Nice advice. Very helpful. “Maybe,” he said finally, his face brightening, “maybe you'll, you know, lose it.”

In the end, I was lucky. My period showed up a few days later, and I was spared having to make what totally would have been the most difficult decision of my life.

Lesson learned. I was insanely careful after that. Not careful enough to stop having sex, but careful enough to keep beer out of the equation and to provide the condoms myself.

I probably shouldn't have told Cathy and the others I've had sex. I mean, not that I'm ashamed or anything. That's so old-fashioned and totally antifeminist, and I'm a feminist. But it's also not like I want people to think I'm bragging about it. It's not something to brag about. It's not like it takes any skill!

And all the
activities
Cathy and her friends are involved in!

Most of the schools I went to had no real money for after-school programs like soccer and orchestra, though most schools were able to afford some sort of crappy little band. Which was fine by me, because sports bore the life out of me, as you know; I have no interest in learning how to play an instrument; and I've always liked, ever since I was little, to be alone or, at least, not supervised by some annoying adult. And supervising me was something my father was always doing. Trying to control me, being overprotective, breathing down my neck. I had enough of that sort of thing at home, so I learned early on how to escape by blocking him out (that's a nice way of saying
ignoring him
) and by walking away (that's another way of saying
sneaking away
).

Sneaking away, sometimes at night, when Dad was asleep.

Compared to Cathy and her friends, I'm wild and crazy, I guess, but I don't really see myself as a risk taker. I mean, I've taken risks (I'm not talking about sex here), but mostly because I was forced to. Like, there was the time—a few times, actually—when Dad forgot to pick me up after school when I had to stay late for detention, and I lied to another kid's mom about him waiting just around the corner and then I walked home alone in the dark along some pretty empty roads where there was no place to hide if some creep pulled up alongside me in his car.

Okay, I bet you're saying, so if your father was such a control freak, so overly possessive of you and always so concerned for your safety, how could he possibly forget to pick you up from school? And how could he have neglected to take me to the dentist a few years in a row, which he did neglect to do, not that I like going to the dentist but parents are supposed to make you do the stuff that's good for you even if you put up a stink. The answer to those questions is that I really don't know.

I mean, I can't really explain my father, not even now, except to say that somehow this weird and annoying obsession with my safety existed right alongside this weird and only sometimes annoying habit of almost forgetting I was even in the room. To be honest, as time went on and I turned twelve and then thirteen, I preferred the times he got all broody and preoccupied because it allowed me
space
. I could be on my own and do what I liked until suddenly, and it was like someone had snapped two fingers in his head, he'd remember I was there in his life and freak out about every little detail of my day. Who did I talk to between classes? How many potato chips had I eaten at lunch? (I mean, have you ever known anyone who counted potato chips? Unless they're anorexic or something and then it's just sad.) Did anyone suspicious follow me home? I remember thinking:
What? Is he for real? Who the hell would want to follow me home?
Okay, a psycho stalker might trail a teenage girl, but every time Dad asked that question, I got the impression he meant someone—official. Someone wearing a suit and driving a fancy car. Someone wearing those so not discreet earphones.

Now I know I was right.

Like I said, seriously annoying stuff but nothing worse than that. He never once hit me. He tried to punish me a few times that I remember—no video games for a week, stuff like that—but he was never able to go through with it. I think he was afraid I wouldn't love him anymore, but seriously, where would I have gone if I suddenly decided I didn't love my father? Could he really have been worried I'd leave him?

The times I'd fight back and tell him to leave me alone, he'd get all sad looking, and sometimes his eyes would get wet. (I started to wonder if he could cry on command, if it was an act.) Once or twice he raised his voice with me, saying things like,
I'm the parent
and
I know best
, but his bark was way worse than his bite and I'd just stand firm, and the next thing you know, he was apologizing to me like crazy and telling me how much he loved me and asking me if I wanted to go out to my favorite place for dinner (if we had the money) and almost groveling.

In the year before our life together completely fell apart, I'd come to see it all—Dad's behavior, I mean—as pretty pathetic, but I didn't take any pleasure in that. I felt bad about thinking my father was pathetic. I know a lot of people probably think I'm cold, but I'm not. “You're all I've got,” he'd say. “You're the only one who loves and understands me.” And at those moments I hated not him but my mother for putting me in this position by being a violent drug addict. Which, of course, she seems not to have been at all . . .

Anyway, the point is that it's a seriously heavy burden to bear, meaning so much to someone, especially when you're only a kid and he's an adult and should be able to stand on his own two feet.