11. Sorry Not Sorry #5
I won’t look at him, but I can hear every step, every gesture he makes as he moves over to me.
I try to angle my entire body away from him, but he isn’t having it.
Jase is in front of me, his hands cradling my face.
He whispers for me to look at him, but I can’t.
He’s being too gentle, too attentive, too…
everything decent. It feels wrong somehow, like seeing the sun during a hurricane.
He suddenly goes still and I know why the second his thumb brushes over where Blythe’s had just been. With the pressure she applied, the skin has to be red.
Jase’s hand drops from my face, and to my horror, he’s charging out of the room!
My body feels disjointed with itself, my movements clumsy at best, but I run after him, catching hold of his arm just before he reaches the stairs.
I don’t dare raise my voice above anything more than a whisper, but I plead with my words, my eyes, my trembling hands. I plead for this to go away, for him not to make this worse…
Because that’s precisely what will happen.
If Jase confronts my stepmom, he isn’t going to hold back. I can’t imagine he would ever physically go after Blythe, but he’ll do a damn good job of scaring the shit out of her, making Blythe believe that he very well could.
And she’d call the cops.
She’d accuse him of trespassing.
She’d accuse him of harassment.
I wouldn’t put it past her that she’d hit herself and accuse him of doing it.
She truly would make my life a living hell, and I’d be taking Jase down with me.
Minute after minute passes, and his temper isn’t relenting. It’s like coaxing a wild animal into a cage. Not until I manage to get us both back into my bedroom do I dare let the air fully drain from my lungs.
To my surprise, the first thing Jase asks when I shut the door behind us is, “What’s Camp Zurich?”
I shudder at the mere name.
After my dad married Blythe, I was sent away to a summer camp—something that had never happened before, to me or any of my siblings.
Admittedly, I wasn’t comfortable with the situation, since I hadn’t camped a day in my life, but I was reassured I wouldn’t be spending my nights on the ground in a sleeping bag.
Lake Zurich, Maine accommodated its campers with cabins and mess halls and plenty of fun outdoor activities.
Too bad someone forgot to mention to me that the eight-week retreat was exclusively for Christian and Catholic teens.
To say I made a less-than-stellar first impression when I arrived wearing my AC/DC Highway to Hell t-shirt would be an understatement.
Even though I barely talked the entire trip, my faux pas had branded me as a spawn of Satan right out of the gate. I had spent time with some of the kids from the Catholic private school across town back when I was in first grade, and they had all been pretty nice for the most part.
These people, on the other hand?
Not so much.
For so-called “Children of God,” they were downright assholes.
Worse yet, the evening “games” were used to determine who would get stuck with lavatory duties each night.
All the trivia questions were Bible-related, and since my family’s religious convictions go only as far as attending mass on Christmas and Easter, I got saddled with the nightly tasks of cleaning the showers and sinks, dumping the garbage, and scrubbing the toilets.
Yes, welcome to summer camp, where you will be interning as the new janitor! (insert sarcasm here)
After two weeks, I finally broke down when I returned to my cabin one night to find that someone had filled the cot of my bunk bed with leaves, stuffing them between the sheets and all over my pillows.
I refused to cry, even as all the other girls in the cabin snickered and turned out their lights.
Taking great care to throw away all the foliage, I went to the linen closet to grab clean sheets…
only to find the entire stash was gone. Resolute, I climbed into bed regardless and did my best to fall asleep.
It wasn’t until early the following morning that I realized something was seriously wrong. At first, only my palms were itchy, but the sensation worsened and spread to my arms, bare legs, and even the part of my face where my cheek had been resting on the pillow.
Unlike the other kids, who were seasoned campers, I was the resident dumbass who never spent an hour in the wilderness and therefore didn’t know what poison ivy looked like.
Those “leaves” had left enough plant oils to soak into my skin until nearly my entire body broke out into a severe rash that quickly turned to blisters.
I didn’t care how pathetic I sounded. I called my dad, sobbing, begging for him to take me home.
He and Blythe were on a cruise, which meant I was stuck waiting another week until they got back.
When I had the “gall” to ask why the hell they’d send me there, Blythe started crying, telling my dad that she thought she had been doing me a favor.
“Ali needs more social interaction, and I thought Christian children would be more sympathetic to her anxiety.”
Even if that had been true then, the fact that she’s using it as a threat now speaks for itself.
That summer set a new tone going forward. According to my stepmom, I suddenly lacked the “self-sufficiency” someone my age should already have, I “dwelled too much on the past,” I was always “lost in [my] thoughts,” I “always played the victim.”
Blythe insisted I needed professional help. I was forced to attend therapy sessions, which gave birth to my stepmom constantly using phrases like “chronic anxiety” and “social phobia” and “familial dependency” to label me.
Whenever I was supposed to meet someone new, she always made sure she’d fill this person in on my “condition” ahead of time.
This was supposed to “put [me] at ease,” knowing I wouldn’t have to try and explain why I was so awkward.
Teachers stopped calling on me in class out of fear of embarrassing me, and my peers distanced themselves, unsure of what might set me off.
I had always been shy, yes, but I had never been a social invalid. Not until Blythe had made it so.
I know relaying the story could very well set Jase off again, so I opt to tell him about it later…when he’s back home and not within a minute’s walk of strangling my stepmom.
It’s not until his arms wrap around me that I realize just how badly I’m trembling.
And he may as well have split open a dam, because my face ends up buried in his chest as my tears fall freely.
“I just don’t get it.” My voice is so weak I may as well have just mouthed the words. It takes another moment for me to gather up enough strength to say what I’ve never dared before. “She…hates me.”
It’s no secret that Blythe finds me cumbersome, but what I just saw there—the spite—I can’t deny it.
I’ll be the first to admit I stand a snowball’s chance in Hell of being perfect.
I’ll never be Homecoming Queen, or the lead ballerina of some fancy dance show, or the envy of every girl in town.
But I at least made an effort with Blythe.
She’s always had a particular way of doing things around here (a way wholly unfamiliar to what previously existed), and I always made sure to abide by the new changes.
I never talked back.
I never questioned her motives.
I never badmouthed her to anybody, not even my own brother.
And yet I can’t ever do anything right by her. Blythe has an endless fuse when it comes to tolerating people…except me. Everything I do or don’t do always sets her off.
With every passing year, her lack of tolerance towards me seems more and more like it’s moving into the realm of veiled disgust.
All I can do is focus on the words printed in gold calligraphy on the ends of my black comforter, watching them go in and out of focus as I blink through my tears.
Jase follows my line of vision, looking confused. “‘God will give me justice’?”
I reach up behind me and grab the hardcover volume from the desk, handing it over.
The Count of Monte Cristo.
My ultimate escape.
Somedays, it feels like those five words are all I have. The hope that a higher power is watching, that He will eventually intervene.
Because it’s pretty fucking obvious no one with any real authority will.
Not until my trembling subsides does Jase pull away. His hands are back cupping my jaw, purposely tender, making sure not to touch where Blythe’s fingers had been.
“Fuck her,” is all he says.
I try to smile, try to pull back, but he isn’t letting go, his gaze unyielding.
“I mean it,” he whispers. “Don’t let some bitch define you. She’s just jealous.”
Now I actually do laugh, because, well… “That’s ridiculous.”
“Oh yeah?” Jase takes hold of my hand and makes his way to the door.
Fear spikes once more when he heads out in the hallway, but to my relief, he doesn’t head for the stairs. I’m directed to the back of the house on the north side, and Jase only stops once we’ve reached my dad’s home office, slipping inside.
The Craftsman-style interior of the house had all but been updated, with everything painted white and accented with sleek modern furnishings, save for my father’s office.
The walls are all dark oak with built-in bookcases and cabinetry, and matching beams stretch across the ceiling.
Despite the curtains always being closed, the office doesn’t feel uninviting.
If anything, the limited sunlight makes it appear cozier.
The room had somehow become my father’s unofficial man cave, where no one was allowed to touch anything, let alone make changes to his so-called sanctuary. I haven’t even dared come in here for what I realize has been years.
“Should I ask how you know your way around?” I whisper, even once I’ve closed the door behind us. Jase hasn’t been in any part of the house except my bedroom.