Letter Fifteen
In the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, we kept finding ourselves crossing paths late at night. You, warming up milk at the stove or reading in the Garland Room. Me, refilling my water bottle or letting you make me a cup of camomile tea, not wanting to be alone.
But I didn’t talk much—if at all—and you definitely noticed.
“Are you okay?” you asked me one evening.
I roughly flipped a page of my book, which I’d been reading for the past thirty minutes without registering a single word.
“We can talk about it,” you said softly.
“What’s the point?” I asked with a huff. “They did what they wanted to me. You did what you wanted to them. My dad did whatever the hell he did. And now it’s over.”
“It isn’t over,” you said. “You’re barely eating.
You aren’t texting your friends back. I’ve been giving you extra biscuits with your tea, and you don’t even touch them.
You’ve left my cardigan sitting on that chair”—you gestured at one of the wingbacks—“for several days now. Which makes me think you’re probably mad at me. ”
I lifted my gaze to yours.
“Okay,” you said, wincing at the hard look on my face, “you’re definitely mad at me.”
“I’m mad at the whole situation, Casey. And, yes, that includes you.”
I just wanted to go to a party with my friend. To dance and have fun. To see a boy. To act like a normal eighteen-year-old.
Instead, it had turned into a nightmare that reminded me I had no power whatsoever—not over any aspect of my life.
“I got carried away,” you said, your wretched gaze searching mine. “I’m sorry that led to your dad finding out when you didn’t want him to.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, slamming my book shut and pushing up from the sofa. “I’m fine.”
I hurried from the room before the tears fell. Before you could clearly see that I wasn’t.
At school, I stopped giving a shit.
I skipped class and assembly. I walked out on a quiz. I even snapped back at my physics teacher when she caught me texting in class, which earned me a meeting with the head of school.
At dinner that night, Nic brought it up. “Elliot, I know what happened at school today.”
“Big surprise there,” I said, stabbing the chicken breast on my plate.
“You can’t talk to your teachers like that.”
I laughed. “Actually, I can—and I did. So.”
“That’s not acceptable.”
“What will you do about it? Ground me?” What I didn’t say was: I’m already grounded. I’ve been grounded for the last ten years. “Send me back to therapy? For calling someone a bitch?”
I caught you watching me from across the table, that concerned crease forming between your eyebrows.
“I could take your phone away,” Nic said, “since you were using it in class.”
“You want my phone? Here. Take it.” I slammed the phone on the table between us, and you had no way of realizing it, Casey, but the wary look on my dad’s face was all too familiar to me.
From experience, he knew I was at a snapping point.
He knew to tread carefully. He knew better than to reach for the phone, to even look at it.
Instead, he kept his eyes on me. “Take my phone, Dad. Take it away permanently. I don’t give a fuck. What do I need it for, anyway?”
When he didn’t take the phone, I stood and chucked it as hard as I could at the mirror above the sideboard.
And I bet you remember that moment vividly, Casey, because the mirror in question hung right behind the dining table—right behind you.
You ducked, and the mirror shattered. Shards of glass fell to the sideboard as my phone bounced to the floor.
It was such a juvenile thing to do. But that rage I felt? It had nowhere to go, no way out. Breaking that mirror had quelled the rage a little, but the only way to truly quell it was to physically hurt myself.
Only I couldn’t do that. Not in front of you.
I could barely face you as it was. I tried not to see: your concern, deeper than before. The wariness—in your eyes, too, exactly like my dad’s—as you gazed back at me.
Nic shoved my plate out of the way. “Look at me,” he said, gripping my arms. “Look at me, Elliot.”
So I did, trembling with rage.
“Deep breaths,” Nic said, breathing in through his nose. He filled his lungs. Held his breath. Slowly breathed out. “Take deep breaths.”
You see, everyone had a way of dealing with the fiery force of my rage, and this was my dad’s way: deep, calming breaths. Michael’s, in the past, was to sometimes give in to it, to give me exactly what I craved: the pain. Yours, I’d learned, was to tug me back by using that nickname: Wednesday.
I mimicked my dad’s breathing while you sat back and watched, silent.
Nic nodded, a little less wary. “Honey, you need to talk to someone about what happened to you at that party.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to go to him.”
“Not him,” Nic assured me. “Someone else.”
I shook my head again, faster this time. No way.
Nic swept a piece of hair out of my face.
“What you experienced, sweetheart? That was traumatic. You’re not coping very well, and that’s okay.
I wouldn’t expect you to. You must’ve been so scared, all alone in that room.
It might help to talk to a woman this time—someone who can help you process trauma like this. ”
Don’t think I didn’t notice the hopeful expression plastered across your face, Casey. You wanted this, too. Had probably even discussed it with Nic.
“I don’t want to talk to anyone,” I said, jerking my arms free, “and you can’t make me.”
Later, you brought the broken phone up to my room. “Your dad says he’ll get you a new one,” you said, placing it on my nightstand.
“Don’t want a new one,” I replied, straightening against my headboard, nails digging into the cover of my history book. “I don’t even care. If he sent you up here to try to convince me to see someone, don’t bother. I won’t go.”
When you didn’t respond, I glanced up to find you worrying at your bottom lip as you plucked a ceramic bunny off my bookcase.
“I can’t stand this,” you said, tracing his ears.
“I can’t bear to think of what you must’ve gone through, let alone how it’s haunting you now.
I can’t stand the part I played, and I want to take it back—prevent you from ever going to that party in the first place.
I know what it’s like to spiral, and I don’t want you going down that road because of a choice I made.
I blame myself for what happened to you that night—for what nearly happened—and if you self-destruct because of it, I’ll blame myself for that, too. ”
“Is your little speech supposed to make me change my mind? I don’t need help, Casey. I’m not like you. I won’t self-destruct or spiral. I’ll be just fine.”
“You’re already doing it,” you said. “I’ve done it myself, so I know all the signs.”
“And did you go to therapy for your issues?”
“Well”—you shifted uncomfortably, hands jammed in your pockets—“no.”
“Then why the hell should I?”
“Because everyone needs you to be okay again. I need you to be okay.”
“Your sister needs you to be okay, but you spiral, too—like what you pulled on your birthday.”
Your expression hardened as you turned to put the ceramic bunny back where it belonged. “We aren’t talking about me.”
“Maybe we should. Maybe you need help. Here’s an idea—you go to therapy for your issues, and I’ll go for mine. We can go together. It’ll be great fun.”
“My issues are a bit more complicated than yours,” you said, cutting your eyes at me.
“Are they? Or are you just afraid to talk to someone? Afraid to sit in a room with a stranger and cry?”
“You know what?” you said, jaw working as you strode toward the door. “I can see you’re not in a place to be reasoned with right now, so I’ll leave you to it. Alright?”
“Oh, I see how it is,” I called, causing you to pause in my doorway. “We’re allowed to talk about my issues, but not yours. I mention yours, and you run away. What’s the deal with you, Casey? What really makes you spiral so hard on your birthday? And why can’t you tell the Harrises who you are?”
“What, like I’d tell you anything while you’re hell-bent on making me feel like shit?”
You stormed downstairs to your room, and then I felt like shit.
Right before Thanksgiving break, Nic went out of town for a couple of days, but instead of leaving me at home with you, he left me with the Harrises. You were being punished for breaking his trust, but it felt like a punishment for me, too.
That Friday, John had instructed me to meet Bree in the library after school so we could walk home together, but I left school early, sneaking off with Willoughby instead. Willoughby wanted to apologize for what had happened to me at his party, but I only wanted to forget.
I wanted, more than anything, to be okay again.
We stumbled into his bedroom, kissing and pulling at each other’s clothes. Caught in the tangle of his sheets, I let him unhook my bra and explore my body with his mouth. It was heart-tingling, maddening, and actually kind of wonderful.
Until I glimpsed that door across the hall from his bedroom—the room where the assault happened—and flashed back to Halloween night. The harsh beat of the rap music pounding through my chest. The awful weight of Greer’s body on mine. His hand around my throat. His pale blue eyes.
The fear. The complete lack of control.
Suddenly, Willoughby’s mouth wasn’t the distraction I craved.
I needed pain.
Pain, to blot out the guilt.
Pain, to push back the creeping darkness.
Pain, the only sure thing—the only true release—when all else failed.
Pain never failed me. Pain always set me free.
So I told Willoughby to hurt me.
“What?” He lifted his head, breathless and confused.
“Hurt me,” I said. “Pull my hair or something. Bite me. Hard.”
Willoughby hesitated, still hovering above me. “Elliot…”
“I’ll like it,” I whispered. “I promise.”
The mood shifted, going from hot to cold in seconds. He sat back, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t know.”
“Why not?” I asked, lifting up, too.
“I just want to keep this nice, you know? Simple.”