“I appreciate your concern, Mom, but I don’t want to come over.” I sound stiff. Wooden. Like how I used to talk to Dad.
“How about Brenna and I come over there,” she suggests.
“Please, Mom.” I sigh and close my eyes, searching for patience. I don’t want to get angry. She means well. “I’d rather do this alone. I swear if I feel sad or get scared or whatever, I’ll call you.”
“Okay.” She huffs out a long, tired breath. “Okay. I just—I want to be there for you.”
“You always have been.”
“Your father . . .” Her voice drifts and she sighs. She misses him. So does Brenna. They’re both very fragile and don’t talk about him too much because his death is so fresh.
I don’t feel the same. I’d already lost him long, long ago.
Saying nothing, I wait for her to continue.
“He may not have reacted the way we wanted him to, but you need to know he loved you the same. Before it happened and after,” she says.
She’s defending him and I get it, but she’s lying. He may have loved me, but not the same. He viewed me as tainted. Not his little girl anymore. A woman in a little girl’s body.
I’m almost thirteen . . .
I remember thinking that seemed so old at the time. That I was about to cross that magical bridge from twelve to thirteen, where I’d be transformed into a woman with breasts and curves and her period and maybe even . . . eventually . . . a boyfriend.
That never happened. I starved myself afterward, believing I wasn’t worthy of food. Of life. I was down to ninety pounds and didn’t have my period until I was sixteen. Never had a boyfriend. Never went to my prom or any school dances. No football games, no parties, no sleepovers, nothing. All of it scared me. Boys scared me. Worse, men petrified me. The male teachers especially. They always looked at me. Examined me. I could feel their gazes crawl over me like tiny ants marching in a line up my legs, over my hips, across my stomach, around my breasts.
The tears spill from my eyes before I can stop them.
“Um, thanks for that, Mom, but I gotta go.” I don’t let her speak. I end the call and set my phone very carefully beside me on the couch, letting the tears continue to fall.
I’m not okay. I believed I was, but I’m not. I assumed that by telling my story and getting it out of me once and for all, I’d be done. I’d finally feel clean. After spending the last eight years of my life feeling like a dirty, filthy whore—thanks, Internet, for putting those thoughts in my brain—I’d be scrubbed and wholesome and pure again.
But I’m not. I was violated in the worst way.
Mentally.
Emotionally.
So much that the physical violation doesn’t even matter any longer.
I sit on my couch, anticipation setting me on edge as I wait for News in Current to come on. It starts at nine and runs to eleven. Two solid hours of watching Katie and me feel bad, guilty, all of those things, but I’m also excited. And nervous.
They have to mention me. I’m an integral part of this story—of her story. Will they make me look bad? I’m sure of it. I hate Lisa Swanson, and she doesn’t like me much, either.
I’d shoved Katie Watts out of my brain so forcefully that I hadn’t allowed myself to think about her for years. I couldn’t. But now that she’s back, she’s consumed me. I’ve spent hours on my laptop looking up information about her, trying to figure out where she is, what she’s doing, who she’s become.
Unfortunately I couldn’t find out much. She’s private. No surprise. She didn’t change her name beyond shifting to her more formal full name of Katherine. She didn’t graduate high school, at least not publicly. Her sister is a teacher. Brenna Watts has a Facebook page with really shitty privacy settings and I scoured it like a stalker, looking for images of Katie, any mention of her, a link to her own profile.
There’s no profile for Katie. Not many mentions of her on her sister’s page, either. But there’s one photo from a year ago of a housewarming party for Brenna and her dopey-looking boyfriend, Mike, celebrating their moving in together. It’s a group shot, lots of people crowded in a cramped living room, holding up their glasses in a toast for the camera. Whoever took it must’ve been standing on a piece of furniture or a footstool or something because it was shot from high above.
I saw her among the sea of people, no cup in her hand but a faint smile on her face. Her hair piled on top of her head in a messy topknot, little tendrils brushing her cheeks, her gaze direct. She looked . . .
Beautiful.
Lost.
Sad.
Lonely.
Broken.
I stared at that photo for a long time. I right-clicked it and saved it on my hard drive like the stalker I am. What would she say if I reached out to her? Would she be happy? Would she hate me? Would she think I was an asshole or would she still believe me her hero? Her guardian angel?
You saved me from him. You’re my hero.
Her words ring in my head. Still. Always. They break my heart, pierce my soul like she’s never left it.
Which she hasn’t.
I glance at the TV and see that the show preceding it has ended, and Lisa Swanson’s image fills the screen, her gaze full of false sincerity, her expression one I like to call serious bitch news reporter. I turn up the volume so her voice fills my living room, fills my head, my thoughts, and I want to tell her to shut the fuck up.
But I don’t.
Because even though it kills me to admit this, I want to watch.