Part II
Wednesday, March 16th
Cat
I slept in my childhood bedroom last night. The same bedroom where I cried myself to sleep the night after Adam’s final act of violence against me, when my throat felt raw and my eyes were weary. I cried last night, too, because once my dad and I returned home from Durham, he did what I had expected him to do since arriving in North Carolina on Monday: he let me have it.
He didn’t yell, scream, or shout at me. He doesn’t do that. He doesn’t raise his voice, but sometimes I wish he did because that would surely be better than the disappointment. The way he spoke to me, the things he told me made it feel like my missteps, my lack of judgment were a personal affront to him. Like I sent nudes photos to my ex-boyfriend to spite my dad somehow, to make him look bad.
“After all these years of us trying to set a good example, of guiding you and setting you up for success, you go and do something like that, Cat,” my dad said to me last night. “You went to parties, you got drunk, you put yourself in situations that you should have known were risky, and you allowed yourself to be taken advantage of. You let some boy take photos of you. And then you didn’t come clean to your mom and me. Instead, you got yourself into an even deeper hole.” He shook his head as he paced the floor of our living room while I just sat, meek and guilt-stricken, on the sofa. “I’m really disappointed. And, yeah, I guess I’m ashamed. I thought you knew better, Cat. I thought we had raised you to know good choices from bad.”
I didn’t argue with him then. There was no point in trying to explain myself. I just asked for his permission to turn in for the night, then disappeared into my bedroom and crawled under the covers.
How did I get to this point? How did I get to the point where I allowed some guy to manipulate me so completely, to brainwash me into acting against my own self-interest, and to continue doing so, day after day until there was no way out?
I have asked myself these questions over and over again, wondering, pondering, replaying the days, the weeks, the months. I did it last night, lying awake for hours, unable to come to rest. And then, just before sunrise this morning, it came to me.
This didn’t start with Adam. It will end with him, yes, but it didn’t start there.
“Do you still love me, Daddy?” I ask into the quiet kitchen. I’m at the table, a cup of coffee cradled in the palms of my hands, providing comfort and warmth, even though it’s a comfortable temperature in the house.
My dad’s head snaps up as he tears his attention away from his tablet and to me. He doesn’t respond right away, his eyes bouncing between mine. I’m about to repeat my question, but his brow creases.
“Of course I love you, Cat. There will never be a time when I don’t love you.”
I nod, then break our eye contact, moving my attention to the toast on my plate. “Do… do you think I’m a bad kid now, though? Like, I’m just another statistic?” I tentatively lift my gaze to meet his. I’m afraid of the expression I might find on his face, scared of my dad’s rejection. He hasn’t exactly been shy about dishing out judgment.
But his face is soft. “Kitty, is that… Are you really worried that I would think you’re… that you’re bad?” he asks, obviously taken aback.
I feel the tears pricking the back of my eyes and nod.
My dad doesn’t hesitate. He gets up from his chair and comes around the table, where he crouches down next to me and pulls me into his arms. “God, Kitty, of course I don’t think you’re a bad kid. I… Is that the impression I gave you? That I think you’re…” He trails off, the words getting stuck in his throat.
“Yeah,” I croak with the strain of trying to hold back the sob. “You’ve always told stories about kids… about girls who do bad things—things that get them in trouble. You always talk about those girls as ‘bad kids,’ and it was always so obvious how, just, disgusted you were. And last night… I know you’re ashamed of me. You said so yourself.”
He moves his head back, his brow contorted with deep sadness as he lets me talk.
“Those pictures, Dad”—a sob breaks from my chest, unwilling to be contained— “I was so ashamed. I didn’t want… I know I messed up, Dad. And I’m so embarrassed. And I thought it was my fault. All of it. And then everything happened, and Adam was put on probation. I thought it was all over,” I cry with desperate tears rolling down my face. “But then Adam started to blackmail me with them and I just… I didn’t know what to do, I—” I want to explain myself, want to tell him how we got to this point in the first place, why things turned out the way they did, but he interrupts me.
The reminder of the photos I “allowed” Adam to take of me cause my dad to go rigid, and he stands. “You should have come to me, Kitty!”
But I will not hold my tongue any longer. Good girl be damned. I, too, stand from my seat and face him.
“I couldn’t, Dad,” I say. “I would have had to tell you about the other pictures Adam already had. Tell me honestly, Dad, how would you have reacted?” I ask, my eyes trained on him. “If I had told you that, yes, my ex-boyfriend had photos of me with my breasts exposed, while I was drunk, maybe passed out, what would you have said? Or if I told you that Adam blackmailed me with those photos and my only way out was to send him more pictures, pictures in which I’m completely nude, Dad, how would you have reacted? How would you have reacted if I had told you I did those things while I was already seeing Ran, that I did it behind his back?” My expression has hardened, my tears drying rapidly.
He considers me for a long moment, then just nods. He and I both know it wouldn’t have gone over well. My dad isn’t like my mom or my friends, and he definitely isn’t like Ronan. My dad has never learned to be open-minded, was never required to pivot on a moment’s notice or forced to leave room for other people’s perspectives and circumstances. He’s had it pretty damn easy all his life. Things always turned out well for him; he’s never had to struggle, not even when he and my mom eloped right out of high school. It’s not like they defied their parents. Both sets of my grandparents knew and approved of my parents’ relationship; my parents were set to attend Duke. My mom and dad didn’t exactly “run away” to start a life together. They did these things with their parents’ blessing and full emotional and financial support. Nothing has ever not gone my dad’s way. He was never required to bend, and that shaped him into a loving and protective, yet rigid and controlling, individual who couldn’t possibly understand why some people can’t just make things happen with the snap of their fingers.
Where “my boyfriend,” young as he may be, has been forced all his life to expect the unexpected and consider all the angles, my dad has never had to take things as they come. And I know it would have taken a lot more work to convince my dad that the entire situation wasn’t my fault, just like it took him a long time to acknowledge that I didn’t invite the abuse I endured at Adam’s hands. Of course, my dad never said I deserved to get hurt. But he did make it clear right from the very beginning that Adam was bad news, and that my failure lay in not listening to my father.
“It just… It all escalated from there,” I say. “I lost complete control. I was so scared of Adam, but honestly, Dad… I was more scared of you.”
My dad’s gasp is audible, the air whooshing from his throat as if I just drove a sword into his chest.
“I did what I could to keep Adam at bay and to keep those photos from being posted. I did horrible things, Dad. I stole from my friends…” I trail off, fresh tears threatening to spill from my eyes. My heart hurts to know that I sold the only thing Ronan ever gave me—those beautiful skates that held so much meaning, were his unspoken expression of love, of how much he enjoyed spending time with me. And I sold them to prevent the people I care most about from being disappointed in me. Only I didn’t make it better, I made it worse. “I didn’t want you to know what I had done,” I say. “I didn’t want you to see the pictures because I was afraid of your reaction.”
My dad releases a heavy sigh. “God, Cat. I never meant to give you the impression that you couldn’t come to me with… with uncomfortable things. I didn’t want you to think that you weren’t permitted to make mistakes.”
There’s sadness in my dad’s eyes, but I don’t let him off the hook because it occurred to me last night that the reason Adam was able to manipulate me the way he does… did, was because my dad had been manipulating me all my life. Sure, he didn’t do it with malicious intent like Adam, but he taught me what was expected of a “good girl,” which was to acquiesce, to stay sweet and quiet and not make a fuss. I was to be self-respecting in all things, even in situations I had no control over. It was up to me to ensure I didn’t get hurt or taken advantage of. If bad things happened, it was obviously because I did something to invite it.
My dad has been controlling so many aspects of my life, has been steering me in directions I didn’t feel like going, and when I defied him, he made sure to let me know it was a mistake.
“But you did, Dad. You are so dismissive of my feelings. You are dismissive of anything that isn’t your idea. You tell me not to let others guide me, yet you do exactly that. You always try to guilt me into doing what you think is the ‘right’ thing without ever asking if that’s actually what I want. You don’t allow me to try myself out, you don’t give me room and grace to experience life and, yes, to make mistakes.” I realize I’m no longer crying. My voice is even but firm. I feel empowered. I love the feeling.
Time to bring it home.
“And you are always so dismissive of Ran and how I feel about him, even though you haven’t met him and… I don’t know, it just feels like, maybe I shouldn’t talk to you about these things, you know? I just… It doesn’t feel safe when I do.”
My dad seemingly crumbles. “You don’t feel safe with me,” he chokes, and buries his face in his hands.
My instinct is to reach out, to comfort him, tell him I didn’t mean it. But when the sun rose this morning I knew I could no longer allow myself to be manipulated. Neither by people who try to take advantage of me, nor the people I love. I have to stop looking out only for others. I have to start looking out for myself, too. I have to protect my peace.
I shake my head at him. “No, I don’t. Not emotionally,” I say. “I don’t trust you with my feelings, my wants, my needs. You don’t see me as… as a woman. You don’t look at me as a full person who can make her own decision, as someone who should get to make mistakes and know that her parents are there to catch her if she falls.”
“But, Kitty, we are here to catch you when you fall.”
I shake my head again. “But you will make damn certain that I know how much I screwed up. You let me fall, you let me faceplant, you will let me lie in my blood for a moment before you pick me up, and then you will look me straight in the face and say, ‘You knew better.’ That’s not helpful, Dad. It makes me not want to open up to you. When you talk about my ‘boyfriend,’ or dismiss my deep love for him as just a silly little crush, that hurts, Dad!”
“But—”
“Was what you felt for Mom at seventeen a silly little crush? When you decided to get married right out of high school and move to North Carolina together, was that a silly little crush? Are you going to tell me that you ‘threw away your life’ when you decided you’d follow Mom to the end of the world?”
His eyes are wide as he studies me with the expression of someone who just had his entire worldview turned upside down. Slowly, he shakes his head. “No.” He takes a deep breath. “Kitty, I never meant… I never—”
I’m not done. “I’ve decided to turn down my acceptance to Duke.” There. I said it. Nail in the coffin. Whatever happens now, at least I spoke my truth.
My dad is rendered speechless, at least momentarily. He opens his mouth as if to speak, then closes it again. Finally, he nods, his nostrils flared the smallest bit. He’s trying to maintain his composure after I just told him my emotions aren’t safe with him. “Why?” he just asks. I’m gaining ground and I’m proud of myself. “Is this… Is your decision because of your boyf… because of Ronan?”
I have to actively stop my lips from quirking up. For the first time in my life, it feels as though my dad heard me. Actually, truly heard me.
“Ran’s not the only reason for my decision, but he absolutely played a part,” I say, noting the crease briefly trying to settle on my dad’s brow, but he once again resists.
“Cat, I want to be supportive of your choice, but just because a boy tells you not to attend college in a different state—”
I shake my head. “You want to know what Ran said when I opened my Duke letter with him on the phone? When I told him I got in? He said the only thing he cares about is that I’m happy, and if Duke is where I see myself being happy, then that’s where I should go.”
I cross my arms in front of my chest as I study my dad, waiting for his reaction to the fact that Ronan is more protective of my heart than my own father has ever been.
My dad’s eyes are wide, incredulous. “He said that?”
I nod. “He did. Ran has never made me feel unsafe with him. Not physically and not emotionally. He was the only one to tell me that what Adam did to me was abuse, and he”—my voice suddenly cracks—“when I told him on Sunday what Adam was doing to me, he immediately got off the phone with me and made sure my friends came to the house and I wasn’t alone,” I say, my heart aching in my chest at the thought that I still haven’t spoken to Ronan since then, at my betrayal of him, and the terrible hurt I inflicted on him. But I shake it off for now. “Last night, I spent a lot of time thinking about what I want. And I really tried to take Ran and my feelings for him out of the equation. I went back and forth, the pros and cons—Duke, NYU, Duke, NYU. And, Dad, it was a total wash,” I say with a shrug. “I didn’t care either way. And then I thought to myself: so what if the deciding factor is Ran? What if I stayed in New York so I can be with him? Is that such a bad thing? That I’ve found a guy who’s good to me and who loves me and whom I want to spend my time with? I’ll get an amazing education from either university, but if I can get that education while simultaneously being close to someone who makes me truly, deeply happy, why shouldn’t I do that, Dad?”
“But, Cat, you’re so young. And so is Ronan. What if it doesn’t last?”
“And what if it does, Dad? You and Mom were young, too, and look at you guys! I have the chance to do what you and Mom did. Don’t you want that for me?”
My dad’s eyes well up with tears, and I know with absolute certainty that I’ve made my point.
Mic drop.