Chapter 19
nineteen
. . .
Avoid
Fourteen years ago
desiree
sixteen years old
The ride home after leaving Mr. Carlisle’s office, check in hand, was a confusing blur.
I don’t even know how to explain it. I had been whiplashed from the adrenaline high of hearing from Taven, finally. Rushing out to see him, deciding tonight was going to be the night that I gave myself to him. It felt like a physical need, one I was sure I’d get fulfilled, forever binding me to Taven Carlisle no matter what. It felt so simple! Beautiful and pure and simple!
Until the utter humility of getting caught, wanting to withdraw into a cave and never be seen again, followed by standing there, having to face his father. Hearing Taven blurt out some lie that he had knocked me up. The spark of hope, such foolish hope wanting him so badly that I momentarily thought this was actually a good idea, which, of course, I logically knew was insane and irrational. I was locked up in a mental straightjacket of my own emotional bargaining, born out of desperation for my longing to be with Taven, no matter what.
And then, boom. A check was handed to me, and something about Taven’s reaction to it, like he understood it was some payoff, had me feeling like he had a better understanding of what exactly happened between our parents. Meanwhile, I had no clue.
None whatsoever.
I couldn’t help but think about the past three years with him, with this crush that I’d craved and longed for, working my hardest to savor each moment with him while secretly hoping that in all our time together, I could do the impossible and actually make him like me. This perfect boy, could I make him find me so magnificent and irresistible that he might reciprocate my feelings for him?
It felt so stupid to think about now. He’s just a regular old person, like anyone else. Flawed. Occasionally reckless. Afraid of my parents to the point of parking down the street to pick me up. Afraid of his own parents to the point of spinning up some lie in order to be able to see the girl he claims to love.
And apparently, a guy who was capable of keeping secrets from me.
I had the realization that I had no idea what was going on. It was like I had waltzed into an underground game and didn’t even know it or realize how long I had been there.
I felt physically sick, though I wasn’t sure exactly what part of all those emotions were to blame. A part of it was this lie thrust upon me, this child’s play of a lie that I knew deep down I didn’t actually want any part of. And my head was throbbing with the question marks of this check in my hand and what the hell was actually going on.
I started to feel like I just wanted the simplicity of our lives from years prior. When we lived in our small and modest house, when my parents’ business was just a tiny spot, offering massages and face creams and electrolysis to remove those dreaded hairs in dreaded places. Life was good then.
Now, I was starting to see that there existed some game of backhanded deals and bodies in trunks, only the body that felt like it had been thrown in the trunk was mine. It felt dark and suffocating and scary, way more than my young mind could handle, and I wanted out. I suddenly hated that my family ever got wrapped up in things with the Carlisles. Clearly, it was a dangerous thing, playing with the Carlisle fire. I wanted to be as far away from them as possible.
I felt used, that’s the term. The high of finally seeing Taven again had crashed, and reality had settled in, prompted by a hundred thousand dollars.
I did not want to be a teen mom.
I did not want to be tied to the Carlisles forever, always in their debt and never feeling secure.
I did not want to play along until some mystical pregnancy happened, peeing on sticks in front of my mother as I’m sure she’d have me do. Demanding why I hadn’t taken the birth control she had insisted on, even though in actuality, I had.
It was all so ridiculous, I fought the urge to laugh out loud. Feared that laughter would make its way to heaving sobs, fueled with shame and embarrassment at how idiotic and naive I had been.
I knew nothing, nothing about the world or secrets surrounding me, or hell—even about myself.
I looked over at Taven, driving Inferno like always, and I willed myself to still see him as the image of utter perfection. But sadly, the image had started to fade. My love for him was still there, despite it, but his pseudo-perfection was turning into something far more realistic, and that scared me a little. I felt unready for this, for the complexity of his flawed humanity.
I thought about that night of the party when my mom had brought Melissa and Taven and me home after Dylan called her. And Taven had locked himself in my bathroom. I remember staring at that door, feeling the blockage he had created. It was my first real glimpse of a vulnerable side of him. And tonight I was seeing yet another layer of it, the one that’s underneath facades created to hide his true feelings. I didn’t know what to say to him in this new light, so I stayed quiet.
It was Taven that eventually broke our silence. “Tell me a secret,” he said, his voice filling the dark cabin space of Inferno, lit only by the neon glow of the dash.
I whipped my head to look at him, glaring. “Really? A Bingo square? Now?”
He went to reach for my hand, but I pulled it away. I felt cheap and I didn’t want his attempts at comfort. “Don’t touch me,” I mumbled out, my words barely above a whisper. Because still, even after all that just happened, even with my recognition of him as a basic kid in high school with darker shadows of his own, I wanted him to touch me. I only wished I didn’t. I resolved to remain strong.
“What are you thinking, Dazzle?”
I chewed on my lip, gnawing away like it might unearth some answers I wasn’t even sure I had the right questions for. I saw the lights of passing shopping centers, and wished I was one of those people in the stores right now. Quietly running their evening errands after work.
I sighed, fighting the tears that I knew were coming. “I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I just know that I feel like shit.”
He cursed, sliding his hand down the wheel and reaching for my arm, yanking with force when I resisted. “Please, just let me hold your hand,” he pleaded.
I locked my arm in place, looked down at his hand grasping on for dear life to my elbow. He had never been forceful with me, and I could feel the moment he realized he was being forceful now. Could feel his grip instantly soften before he retreated his hand completely, balling it into a tight fist and giving it a thump of frustration on the console between us. “Fuck,” he breathed out .
I scanned his face, his beautiful profile, that perfect wave of his hair, long on top like always, with an indentation from his gray baseball cap, now discarded in his room. I looked at the tension wrapped up in his fist between us, then the white knuckles of his other hand, gripping the steering wheel. He was upset. And I had just rejected him.
I caved. I placed my hand over his fist, coaxing it to uncurl, and locking our fingers together. His palm was warm and familiar, and I allowed it to warm me, even if just for a moment.
The thing was, I couldn’t stand seeing him tormented. I hated even more that I knew I was the one person that might be able to cure that. I hated it because it felt good to hold that power, and it seemed wrong of me to like that.
And I admit, I felt lonely. I wanted to be strong and choose myself and my own needs, yes. Mainly because I was starting to realize that the intensity of our feelings for one another, set to high volume with the fallout happening around us, was beginning to take us to a darker place that filled me with anxiety.
Yet having Taven and holding his hand, even with everything going on—it was better than the cold loneliness of battling my thoughts on my own.
Our fingers now linked and in their rightful place, he gave me a small squeeze. “Let me just say, I’m so, so sorry about my father.”
“Taven,” I said, attempting to be soothing. “Why? It’s not like you had anything to do with that.”
He shook his head in frustration. “Because. I just…I don’t know what he was thinking. It was fucking embarrassing, watching him give you that check.”
My tone slipped into sarcasm, though I didn’t mean for it to. “For real? So sorry it was so uncomfortable for you.”
“Stop it, don’t be like that. You know what I mean.”
The guilt swept in then, because I did know what he meant. His own frustrations with his parents’ money, the responsibilities both he and Jacqui could often feel as the heirs to the Carlisle name and fortune. The way Taven struggled to feel good enough, and his own discontent with the running theme that money is the answer to everything.
I sighed and willed myself not to direct my anger toward Taven, not on that front, anyhow. I was mad at our parents as a whole, I was mad at the situation, and I realized that of all of the hurt I was feeling in that moment, it was a fairly minimal amount stemming directly from Mr. Carlisle himself. I may not understand his reasonings behind this supposed “gift,” but I did understand that it had nothing to do with me.
Still, I couldn’t fight the unexpected frustration and irritation I had toward Taven. I wanted reassurances from him, not empty apologies on his father’s behalf. I wanted some semblance of acknowledgment that he had been keeping something from me, not avoidance and random side exits on a ramp to a fake pregnancy.
I let go of Taven’s hand and crossed my arms over my chest, willing myself to create emotional distance from this boy I so very painfully loved. It was a step, at least. I could feel a slow wave of understanding that distance would be an unfortunate necessity. I didn’t like the crippling discomfort in everything going on, and the tiny seeds of wanting out had been planted.
I wouldn’t be able to see him again anyway, that much I knew. Where the hell were we supposed to go from here? Two kids with zero control over our lives, ultimately. With a heavy heart, I realized I needed to start getting used to that. That was the bitter truth.
My feelings would dissolve in time, I hoped. I tried to tell myself they would. Over and over again I repeated that line in my head, while staring out the window as the world swooshed past us.
My feelings will dissolve.
My feelings will dissolve.
It won’t always feel like this. It won’t always hurt so much. I gripped with all the might I could to those phrases, jumping through mental hoops to sit in the decision to let Taven go, knowing it was the right choice.
My feelings will dissolve.
They had to. That’s what happens with young crushes, right? Hot and heavy intensity that dissolves with time and distance? I had held Melissa’s head in my lap several times, telling her the same thing when some boy or another broke my best friend’s heart. Don’t speak to him, create space so you can get over him. Talking to him will only make it worse and stretch out the time it’ll take to heal. And she always did, she always healed.
I wished Melissa was with me now. I told Taven to take me there, that I wasn’t ready to go home yet.
“Why?” he asked. “Talk to me, Desiree. Please.” His voice was strained, and I knew he could feel that I was pulling away.
I tried to keep ahold of my anger toward him. This would all be easier with anger as my fuel, as opposed to the love I felt for him. I was mad at him, right? He said something dumb and now roped me into a bigger mess than everything had already been. I clung to that. “What were you thinking, telling your dad I’m pregnant?” I asked.
Even the word itself felt disgusting in my mouth, like a kid trying to sip her parents’ Scotch. Bitter and something you recognize you’re just not ready for yet. You feel like a fool when everyone’s looking at you and laughing, going, “Told you so!”
My tears started flowing then, quietly spilling out of my eyes and down my cheeks. The pain of realizing you’re not as mature as you think you are, and that you have far too many years and life lessons ahead of you before you can call yourself a grown-up. I may have been only a year and a half from officially being one, yet I felt inexplicably small and inept.
“Wishful thinking, I guess?” he said, his voice teasing, which made my tears fall even harder. I heard him curse under his breath, looking over to me and realizing I was crying.
I covered my face with my hands and sobbed into them, embarrassed. Yet at the same time, I felt vindicated that he could see firsthand how much he was hurting me. “ Please ,” I sobbed. “Don’t joke like this is nothing.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Fuck, I’m an idiot. I’m so sorry. It just blurted out of me, I don’t know.”
I sucked in a deep breath, staring up at the ceiling of Inferno and willing myself to push out the jumbled thoughts in my brain. “What am I supposed to do now, Taven?” I blubbered. “Pretend I’m pregnant? That’s your big plan?” I was raising my voice in strangled cries, unused to feeling anger like that, but finding some joy in it, too. There was a sick power in my emotions tumbling out of me like this. It was confusing.
“Look, it’s gonna be fine. Not a big deal. We’ll just say you had a miscarriage or something.”
I turned my head to face him, sure my face look liked a wild mess of hysterics. “And if your parents tell my parents?” I was queasy at the thought. “Don’t you think they’ll want me checked out, and then surprise! Your daughter’s still a virgin, Mrs. Hatson,” I added, in case he had some grand idea of changing that fact. Like hell would I be giving up my body to him now. “Oh, and she’s definitely not recovering from a miscarriage.”
He banged his head against his headrest, and I could see his chest rising and falling. “Fine, I fucked up, is that what you want to hear? Does that make you happy?”
“Admitting it is a start.”
“What are you so mad about? It’s not a big deal! I’ll tell my dad I made it up.”
“Yeah, right. No, you won’t.”
He glared at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He wouldn’t admit he made it up. I knew him better than that. Taven would spin truths that were fitting to his narrative, always finding ways to get himself out of trouble. I thought back to the little fabricated tales I heard him tell his parents to escape punishments. That test he failed was given on a day he left early for a game, and the makeup one was ten times harder. I remember looking at him in sympathy for his bad luck, but when his parents weren’t looking, he turned to me and grinned with a wink.
I thought about that time he told me his dad had found a bottle of booze in his room. How he assured Mr. Carlisle that it must have been from his friend’s girlfriend, he didn’t even realize it was there. Definitely not his, he believed him, right?
All those little white lies I knew he told his parents were coming back to me in one fell swoop. I thought about when he had told all his friends he had been making out with Evelyn, only to later reveal to me the real time he had his first kiss with her. Was he telling his friends the same thing about me? That we’d slept together, that he’d taken my virginity and all the details of some makeshift beautiful moment? Did it matter, did I even care? Previously I might have thought not, let him do whatever he needed to do. I loved him blindly like that.
But now I wasn’t so sure.
It felt like the glass was shattering on the three years of affection I had held for Taven.
I remembered when he was the perfect guy in my eyes. The dreamy veil of rose-colored glasses I wore that found each and every thing about him nothing but alluring. The glasses were off, and in their place were spectacles that held lenses of mistrust securely in front of my eyes.
There were probably all kinds of little white lies I didn’t know about. It sickened me to realize that.
And then tonight. He knew something I didn’t about the Carlisle-Hatson blow-up, something concerning my family . Wouldn’t I have a right to know about that? It was clear back in his dad’s office, the way Taven said, “Holly.” And his dad didn’t correct him. It was odd. Taven knew what was up.
“What’s really going on with our families, Taven?” I finally asked. “Tell me the truth.”
Another bang of his head on his headrest. I looked at him as if seeing him for the first time while he kept his head held back against the black leather, and I darted my eyes to the road .
His voice was quiet. “I can’t tell you.”
It wasn’t a denial. That was a start. “Why not?” I asked. “And how do you know about what’s going on?”
I studied his face for a reaction, trying to understand what was on his mind. I saw the frown of frustration mixed with something else. “My parents told me.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me?”
“It’s not that simple, Daz. I can’t explain it,” he said, glancing over to me. “And please don’t ask me to. It’s private.”
I placed my hand on his arm, hoping that would coax him into opening up. “But it’s me . And it’s my family.”
He looked down at my hand on his arm, probably confused by my emotional pushes and pulls. When his eyes met mine, I saw the tenderness in them. “It’s to protect you, Dazzle. Trust me on this.”
I pulled my hand back, frustrated at the locked door I was facing. I longed to understand what the hell was going on, but the kid side of my brain was feeling almost frightened to.
And most of all, I was heartbroken that whatever it was, Taven had kept it from me. Me, someone I thought might be the one person he was ever truly honest with.
I finally shared the fear I had on my mind. “Are your dad and my mom having an affair?” My tears had stopped by then, and my throat was dry. I took a deep breath in, inhaling the leather and pine-scented air freshener swinging from the cardboard tree on Taven’s rearview mirror.
He surprised me with his response. “God, I wish.”
I looked out the window, confused and unsure how to respond. It was a no, that much was clear. I didn’t bother asking if his mom and my dad were having an affair. Lynda seemed to barely tolerate my father at times, and I didn’t think it was any sick sexual tension there. She was cold and stoic, far from a seductress.
My head hurt, the throbs of a post-cry settling in. I remained quiet and we wound our way into Melissa’s neighborhood. I stared at the rows of small split-level homes looking tidy and peaceful, the cars in the driveways like little soldiers, awaiting their service.
He pulled up in front of Melissa’s house, and I felt a smidge of trepidation at showing up like this. My face was a blotchy mess, I was sure. Like a foolish teen with a broken heart, how cliché. I prayed Melissa would answer and whisk me away to her room so I wouldn’t have to face the mayhem of her family.
I looked down at my hands, realizing this was probably the last time I’d see Taven for who knows how long. Maybe forever. We had no way to speak to one another. He’d go back and tell his dad yet another lie—that I’d had a miscarriage, that my parents would kill me if they knew. She went to a doctor’s office and took care of herself, all is fine. I could already see it. Taven would tell his father that as a way to protect himself, I knew. And I would let him. Because flaws and all, I still loved him, and I understood. That was what would work best for him, and it didn’t really matter anyway. I almost envied the way he could fabricate his own realities.
I turned to face him and leaned over to kiss his cheek, remembering that time he had kissed mine at New Years. “You’re never going to tell me the truth, are you?” I eked out, my voice quiet. Your family comes first, not me—that’s what I really wanted to say.
“Trust me when I say that you don’t want to know.”
I nodded, told him good-bye.
As I walked up to the brown door and outdated Easter wreath of Melissa’s house, I realized that there was one thing I truly did trust about Taven at that moment. That some things were best for me to not know.