Chapter 67
— Chapter 67 —
For the longest time, I believed that if I worked up the courage to tell Step what happened, he would be on my side. From way back when Charlie first kissed me, I imagined Step somehow turning into the kind of father who would chase Charlie down and punch him in the mouth. But I think I never found the nerve to talk to Step because deep down I knew he wouldn’t stick up for me, and believing I had an ally was better than knowing I was alone.
Steena called our mother while I was driving home from her house. She gave her account of Charlie with my lipstick on his face and sold her interpretation of the crisis with absolute conviction. My mother and Steena were still on the phone when I walked in the door, but Step, who had heard it all, was waiting for me in the living room. For the briefest of moments, I felt relieved, as if I were about to fall into my father’s arms, and he’d hug me, tuck me into bed, bring me two Tylenol and a glass of water. But then I saw his face.
According to my sister, Charlie had tearfully confessed that this wasn’t the first time I’d thrown myself at him and that I appeared to have a drinking problem.
“You need to fix this,” Step said, handing me a yellow legal pad and a blue ballpoint pen. “You’re going to sit down at that kitchen table and write an apology to your sister. To Charlie.”
“Why would I apologize to Charlie?” I said, dropping the pen and paper on the coffee table.
“You should have known better than to be so drunk.” Step gestured to me, his hand flailing through the air. “He’s a man , Freya. What did you expect?”
Those words sounded like they could have been fed to him by Charlie himself.
My whole being ached. If I could’ve screamed or cried actual tears, it might have hurt less, but I felt frozen, the pressure building and building like it would never stop.
I pushed past Step.
“Where are you going?” he shouted. “Get back in here and—”
“Can’t I fucking go to the bathroom?” I yelled, locking the door behind me.
Step’s yellow safety razor was in the glass by the sink, his whiskers scattered around it like sand. I picked it up and held it against the skin on my wrist. Closed my eyes tight, wondering if the end would just feel like darkness. I thought about Step finding me—about how long he would take to knock on the bathroom door, how much longer he would take to open it. Even if I made strange noises. Even if I fell with a thud. His embarrassment always mattered more than anything else.
I pushed hard enough for the pressure of the blade to pinch my skin, but not hard enough to break myself. And I scrambled to think of all the things I loved in life that I could still have if I kept trying. Pine trees and water and the crackle of dry leaves underfoot, tree frog songs, the smell of old books, and the taste of wild blueberries picked on a long hike. I wanted to see the ocean again. I wanted to go to Maine. I wanted to watch the sunset over the ocean from the top of a mountain. Get one last road trip in with an old mixtape blasting and a big bag of Combos from the gas station held between my thighs while I ate them all, and every last bit of salt from the bottom too.
I threw the razor in the sink, the cheap plastic clattering against the drain cover. And then the tears came in a deluge. My neck wet, the collar of my sweater growing darker. I promised myself that if I could make it to summer, I’d walk on hot sand in a cold breeze and look for sea glass and eat lobster rolls and get a sunburn on my back. And I thought that if that was all I had left, it could still be enough.
So I went into the living room and got Step’s legal pad, and I sat at the kitchen table to write a letter, my face reflected back to me in the window as I wrote. Defeated, but not completely.
I stayed at the table, scribbling and crossing out and writing more, pretending I was laboring over every word, until my mother and Step finally went to bed.
I left the letter on the kitchen table for them to find the next morning. It read:
I took the emergency cash from Step’s desk.
I am the emergency.
I am not coming back.
Tell Aubrey I love her more than anyone I’ve ever met.