Letter Twenty-Two #6
With Michael’s key, we entered through the front door. I went straight to John’s study, Michael trailing behind me.
On the sofa, I leaned forward, eyeing Michael hard. “When were you going to tell me our parents are sleeping together?”
Michael brushed a hand through his hair, wincing as he sat down next to me. “Shit. She told you?”
I shoved him in the shoulder.
“Elliot, you can’t make this a big deal, okay? You can’t overreact. Try to let it go.”
I gaped at him. “You can’t be serious. Our parents have been lying to us our whole lives.”
“We don’t know that. Maybe this is a new thing. Maybe my parents are trying to”—he pulled a face—“spice up their marriage or something.”
“But they’ve always been super affectionate with each other, Michael—always. I want to know what’s going on. Don’t you?”
Michael made another face. “Not really. I don’t care to know anything about my parents’ sex life.
I try to pretend they don’t have one. I mean, how would I even broach this subject with my dad?
Because no way in hell would I ever ask my mom.
‘Hey, Dad. Do you let Mom sleep with Nic, too? Do you and Nic also—do all three of you’—God, I can’t even say it.
I can’t.” He shivered. Big grimace. Hand to his forehead.
“They’re adults, right? If they want to have some throuple thing going on—or whatever the hell this is—it’s none of our business. ”
I leaned back, appalled. “How can you even say that? They raised us to believe they were friends.”
“I know, but we have to let this go. It bothers me, too, but if this makes them happy? All three of them? Who are we to tell them it’s wrong?”
“No. I refuse to let my dad get away with this.”
“Why?”
You know why Michael didn’t get it, Casey?
Why he could just…let it go? He didn’t grow up asking his parents questions they refused to answer.
He could forgive his parents for lying this one time, because he could be confident there weren’t more lies buried beneath the surface of his picture-perfect life.
“Because it’s messed up! Because it’s one more thing about my life that makes me a freak!
Because he lies—all the time—about everything!
Because if he could hide something like this my whole life, what else is he capable of hiding? ”
“You are not a freak. And we might have it wrong. Maybe they really are friends—unusually close friends—and Bree’s just…reading into it.”
“Michael, our houses are right down the street from each other. According to Bree, they hang out together while we’re at school.
We spend entire summers together, and their wing of the estate is kept completely separate from ours—so there’s no chance of us hearing what they’re up to over there.
We celebrate every holiday together, and up until the last year, they didn’t keep secrets from each other.
Your parents treat me like I’m theirs, and my dad treats you and Bree like you’re his.
The way they’ve raised us together? It’s really odd when you stop to think about it. ”
“Yeah,” Michael agreed. “It is.”
“What if they were doing this stuff in college? What if that’s when it started?
What if my mom ran off because she found out about it?
Or what if she was part of it, too—and they all just swapped with each other and shit—but she wanted no part of it after I was born, and they kicked her out of the group? ”
Michael sighed. “Elliot, they didn’t kick her out. She left on her own. Don’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“Make it about your mom. They might’ve lied to us about what they are to each other, but that doesn’t mean they lied about her, too.
Think about this: how cruel it would be for them to tell you your mother doesn’t care about you if she does, how cruel it would be for them to talk about what a horrible person she is if she actually isn’t.
Do you think our parents are capable of lying like that? ”
“I don’t know what to think anymore. My dad lies about everything else. Why not that, too?”
“Nic has kept a couple of things about me from my parents recently. It doesn’t mean he lies about everything.”
Michael had no clue, did he, Casey? I wondered what he’d say if he knew the secret Nic had been keeping about you for over a year.
“He keeps telling me I’m not crazy,” I said, “but he keeps threatening to send me to a psychiatric hospital in Arizona. And Libby wanted him to.”
“I know—and if that’s true about my mom, it’s messed up. But Nic doesn’t think you’re crazy. You mean everything to him. Remember how happy he was when you finally let us celebrate your birthday at the beach? He shed actual tears.”
I knew Michael was right about how much I meant to my dad, but I still felt like I couldn’t trust Nic anymore. He made it his business to know everything about my life, but kept vital parts of himself hidden. My own father was an enigma to me, and I felt betrayed by that.
Michael pulled out his phone, glancing down at the screen. “Nic’s texting me. He wants me to bring you back.”
I leaned back against the sofa. “Nope. I’ll go back when I want to. Tell him to fuck off.”
“I’m not telling him that,” said Michael.
I grabbed Michael’s phone, texted Fuck off myself, and hit send. “There.”
Michael’s eyes drifted closed as he muttered something under his breath. Then Bree, who’d just arrived home from school, joined us in the study, where we talked about the disturbing situation with our parents some more. She shot Michael a look. “Be honest, Michael. Tell Elliot what you told me.”
Michael hesitated a moment. “I might have…” He drifted off, wincing. “I’ve known about this as long as Bree has.”
“Are you kidding? You just tried to convince me Bree had it wrong.”
Michael closed his eyes. “I know.”
“Well?” I nudged him in the shoulder. “Tell me how you knew.”
Michael sighed. “At the beach last summer? Right after I got back from England? I went to my parents’ room, needing to ask my mom a question, but the door was shut. And behind it, I could hear…some disturbing sounds.”
“What sounds?” I asked.
“Sex sounds, Elliot—like moaning and stuff,” he said with a grimace.
“Just take my word for it, the sounds made it obvious what was going down in there, and it was horrifying. So I shoot back down the hall and jog downstairs and try like hell to forget what I heard—but I’m not doing too great.
I’m freaking out. I’m frantically searching for my earbuds so I can somehow—I don’t know—neutralize those other sounds and get them out of my head.
Then a door slams,” Michael said, looking as if he might be sick, “and my dad walks in.”
“No,” I said, clapping a hand over my mouth.
“Yes,” Michael said, rapidly nodding. “My dad, who I could’ve sworn I’d just heard doing shit to my mom.”
“No.” Hand still clamped to my mouth, I shook my head, unwilling to believe it.
“So I’m standing there, like, completely stupefied now—and I have no idea what’s going on. I mean—I obviously—I have an idea.”
“No,” I groaned.
“I’m thinking it had to’ve been, you know, your dad I heard with my mom. Which is somehow even worse.”
Way worse. Why did I have to ask about the sounds? Some things, I could’ve gone my whole life without knowing.
“I start mumbling something to my dad,” Michael said, “but he throws up one finger and says, ‘Hold that thought. I need to take care of something real quick.’ He hurries off upstairs, and I’m thinking this can’t be good, right?
There’ll be yelling and fighting—Nic’s getting hit for sure.
But nope.” Michael stopped to frantically shake his head.
“About an hour goes by, and all three of them come downstairs together, and they’re acting normal.
They’re calm and happy. They’re smiling at me—like they didn’t just completely rock my world.
My dad asks if I’m okay. He wants to know what I needed to tell him earlier, and I just—I got the hell out of there and never spoke of it again.
Until Bree told me what she saw over the summer. ”
“I can’t believe this,” I said. “Where were we when this happened?”
“You all went to that ice cream place—to get acaí bowls or some shit—and I wish like hell I’d never chosen to stay behind.”
Collectively, the three of us shivered.
Thirty minutes later, Michael walked me back to the house. I found you sitting with Garland, reading a book for school. But when I plopped down next to you, Casey, you wouldn’t acknowledge me.
My dad strode in and took a seat on the coffee table, directly across from us. He had this uneasy look on his face as he handed me my phone.
I cocked my head. “Find anything interesting on there?”
“Over three thousand dollars, Elliot? On sex toys and underwear?”
I smirked at him. Beside me, you shifted on the sofa.
“It’s all going back,” Nic said. “We’re sending it all back.”
“You can’t return sex toys,” I said, lifting my phone. “Here, let me pull up the return policy.”
“Oh, God. Stop. Just—stop,” Nic said, rubbing at his forehead. “The toys are going in the garbage. You don’t need that stuff.”
“You can’t be serious,” I told him. “I’m nineteen. Who are you to decide what I need—or don’t need, as the case may be—to explore my own body and discover what feels good?”
My dad pinched the bridge of his nose.
Next to me, you mumbled “Jesus Christ” under your breath.
My dad said it, too. “Jesus Christ. This is ridiculous—all of it.”
“What? That I might want to spice things up with Willoughby? Or that I might want to explore alternative ways to have a little fun by myself? There’s this one toy—”
“Jesus. Oh my God. Stop.” Nic covered his face with both hands. “Please stop talking.”
You weren’t doing too well, either. Glasses dangling from your hand. Huge grimace. Eyes squeezed shut.
You and Nic were so uncomfortable, and I loved it. I laughed. I couldn’t help it.