Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
MICAH
“Alright, that’s it.”
I lifted my head from the squashed couch pillow and turned my ear toward Caleb’s voice. “What am I doing to piss you off now?” Besides fucking Vanya, which Caleb figured out, and he was a little sore about it.
Mostly because he wasn’t used to being turned down.
“If you’re going to literally rot on my couch for all your scratched days, you have to tell me why.”
“Fuck off.”
The couch shuddered as he dropped his ass on the back, and his hand swiped out until it smacked the side of my head.
“I’m being serious. You can’t go home, but you won’t tell me why.
You don’t go impose yourself on your other friends or Jonah, but you won’t talk about that either.
You act like the fucking boogeyman is after you every time your phone rings. Explain yourself.”
My stomach twisted. “Caleb, will you just…”
The doorbell rang loudly, cutting me off, and Caleb hopped off the chair and shuffled down the hall. It was probably some dickhead buying his ugly sculptures or jewelry. Not something I had to deal with, so I buried my face back in the pillow and tried not to suffocate on my carbon dioxide exhale.
Monoxide?
Whatever non-oxygen thing humans produced. I had never been good at biology.
I could hear voices in the hallway, and I bristled. Caleb rarely let his customers into the house, so if there were people here, that meant—
“There he fuckin’ is!”
Tucker. Grand. Absolutely fucking fantastic.
“Dude, we thought you were dead.”
Ah. And there was Ford. I had to assume Killian was with him, and probably Amedeo. Hugo would probably sit this out if it were an intervention, which meant Boden would too.
But there was a good chance that…
“Where the fuck is he?”
Yep. Jonah had tagged along.
“The gang’s all here,” Caleb said loudly. “Sit your raggedy, unshowered ass up because you’re going to either come clean, or we’re going to beat it out of you.”
I felt like throwing up on my feet, which would be disgusting since I had socks on, but I really wasn’t sure I was going to be able to hold down the Diet Coke I’d managed to drink half an hour ago.
“Um…guys. He looks pale.” That was Amedeo. Quiet and sweet and very pragmatic. The couch shifted, and I was pretty sure he was the one sitting next to me. “Are you okay?”
“Nope. So you all can fuck off—”
“It’s my house. If anyone’s fucking off,” Caleb said, “it’s you. But actually—” His voice softened. “—we’re all worried, okay? You look like shit, you’re not sleeping, you’re not eating. Something obviously happened, and whatever it is, it’s not getting better.”
I wanted to cry. Or scream. Maybe punch someone.
The bigger part of me was sick and tired of this mess, and I really just wanted to unload this goddamn burden. But not like this. Not in front of a fucking crowd.
“Micah.” That was Jonah. I hadn’t heard him move, but he was next to me now. “Take a walk with me.”
Yeah, okay. I could do that. I could walk with him and talk. I wasn’t sure I’d tell him anything, but maybe I’d find a way to let go.
His hand touched my arm, and I rose, following him into the kitchen. I snagged one of Caleb’s canes from his collection by the wall. They never felt right, but it was good enough to keep me from falling on my face in a pile of jagged metal scraps, so I was going to call it a win.
We took the path around the garden, paved with stones along the sides so we could easily keep steady. It curved around his yard, half a mile in total, which wasn’t enough to really get a cardio going, but it was enough to give us some distance from the house.
It took forever before Jonah spoke, and I think in that moment, he knew if he didn’t say anything, neither would I.
“This is about the shit from last year, right?”
I lost myself in the rhythmic tap-swish-tap sound of the cane as we headed toward the back of Caleb’s property fence. I didn’t really have the courage to admit it all, but I also didn’t have much choice.
“Is this some kind of intervention?”
Jonah snorted. “I think Caleb’s dressing it up that way because he’s tired of you sleeping on his couch. But I also think he’s a little freaked-out because he’s never seen you this way.”
I stopped walking and jabbed the cane out until I found the fence to lean against. I was tired. No, I was exhausted. It was a different kind of exhaustion too. I was used to being worn down to the studs with hockey and all the other shit that came with growing up in our family.
But this was nothing like that.
“I met a guy.”
“Vanya—”
“For fuck’s sake,” I groaned. “If you don’t let me say this now, it’s not going to come out, okay?”
“Alright.” He squeezed my arm. “Sorry.”
I took another breath. “I, ah…I need to start over.”
Jonah’s fingers trailed down my arm, then curled around my wrist. “Come on. I’m pretty sure he sprayed for ants. Let’s go sit in the grass.”
I followed him, and we found a spot, and both of us waited a few moments to make sure we weren’t being piled on. When it was safe, I leaned back on my elbows and turned my face up toward the sun.
“Until very recently—and I mean very recently—I didn’t like sex.”
“Micah,” Jonah groaned, “please take this seriously.”
“I am. When we were at school, everyone was getting really into it, and the first guy I’d tried to hook up with, I…” The words died on my tongue, so Jonah found my hand and squeezed it. “I kept telling him I didn’t want to do it, but he wouldn’t stop.”
“Micah,” my brother whispered, his voice tight and ragged. “How did I not know this?”
I let out a thready laugh. “I didn’t tell anyone.
I knew he was going to tell everyone what a slut I was when it was over, so I just…
I don’t know. I decided to lean in. But when I tried it again with someone I actually liked…
” I trailed off, struggling to find the words.
“Fuck. I couldn’t get it up. And even when I felt safe and I could, you know, make it happen…
I lost it after. I fell apart. And therapy didn’t help with anything. I felt like a freak.”
“You’re not a freak,” he said very softly.
I scoffed. “I know that now, but back then, I was so goddamn lost. But it was easier to pretend, you know? Every time someone assumed I was getting laid, and as long as I wasn’t fucking people we both knew, no one would ever find out.
I could lean into this weird personality I’d created for myself, and for a while, it was fine.
I sent everyone weird porn that didn’t actually do anything for me.
I let you and everyone else call me a slut, and I had terrible dates that fell apart, but at least I could sleep at night. ”
“Jesus,” he breathed out. “I am so fucking sorry.” His hand tightened on mine.
I squeezed back. “Look, I wasn’t ashamed of my reputation.
I was terrified of being found out that my entire thing was fake, and I was ashamed of the lie,” I said.
I detached from his hand and ran my fingers over the tops of the freshly cut grass.
“I toyed with the idea that maybe I was asexual, but that never really seemed to fit. I wanted to have sex. I craved it. I craved having that connection with other people…”
“But what that guy did ruined it?” Jonah offered.
I tilted my face down. “Yeah. And it didn’t help that the people who came after were too careful, you know?
They thought because I couldn’t see, I was fragile.
They infantilized me in bed, and it made me feel like shit.
It made me feel like I wouldn’t ever be able to get past the trauma weighing me down because no one ever gave me the space to figure out what I wanted. What made me feel safe.”
Jonah scoffed. “I wish I didn’t know what that was like.”
I smiled softly. “I know you get that part.”
He’d come to me when he first started getting brave enough to date, and how many times he’d taken women out and they got weird with him, like trying to feed him and holding his arm like he was a hundred and four with bad knees and talking in loud voices like blind meant deaf.
“Anyway, after that one dickhead punched me, I backed off dating internet strangers for a while. But then I got a message from this guy. Hunter.” It was hard to say his name right now. “He seemed really nice.”
“They always do.”
I swallowed heavily. “It was a bad date from start to finish. I left right after dinner, but he convinced me to give it another shot. I was…I don’t know, lonely, I guess. Bodie, and Tucker, and Ford were all falling in love, and it was making me feel like some kind of loser.”
Jonah laughed. “Yeah. I know that feeling too.”
I managed a smile, though I didn’t really feel like smiling.
“I knew it was a bad idea. He was weird the second he picked me up. He was nice through dinner, and he invited me to his place. I thought maybe he really was having a bad night that first time. But then he got pushy, and I got freaked-out and kind of…froze? I started panic-explaining why I couldn’t get it up and somehow babbled the truth, and at first, I thought he was listening… ”
“But he wasn’t,” Jonah offered darkly.
Swallowing heavily, I fought back a tense laugh. “No. He was hiding a laugh. I felt like a freak all over again, and I tried to leave, but he pinned me down and wouldn’t let me go.”
“Jesus, fuck. I am going to kill him,” Jonah spat.
This time, I snorted. “Yeah. You’ll have to get in line because you’re not the only one who wants that.” I leaned back on my hands. “He didn’t actually manage to hurt me though. Once I was able to collect myself, I got dressed, told him to fuck off and never talk to me again.”
“Not to be a dick,” Jonah said carefully, “but how did all that lead to all this? I mean, you didn’t go out with him again, did you?”
Biting my lip, I took a cleansing breath, then said, “Fuck no. And for a few months, I thought he was willing to respect me. But it didn’t last. He started stalking me right around the time that Mom left.”