Chapter Thirty-Six October 10
Chapter Thirty-six
Senior year. Time moves quickly and also stands still.
I went from the greatest high of my life to living through my worst nightmare.
Every morning, I wake up and want to scream when I remember I’m still living through this.
This pain. This grief. Sometimes I wish I could feel less, and on my worst days I wish I could just make it all stop.
From having almost everything I wanted to losing it all. In an instant.
Like every morning since that day in June, I force myself out of bed because I don’t have another choice.
I wipe the sleep from my eyes and walk slowly to the bathroom to wash away the crusted-on tears that have become like a new layer of skin I grow every night and shed with the sunrise.
I shower, return to my room to get dressed in whatever is clean or comfortable, preferably the latter, throw my too-long hair into a ponytail, and make my way down the steps.
I find comfort in the routine, in forcing myself to go through the motions, because every second I do is a second that I’m not being yelled at. Or being reminded of how ashamed they are, with just a look. Letting me know that my worth has been lost. How I’m lost.
My feet come to an abrupt stop a few steps from reaching the main floor. Dad is at the front door, key and wallet in hand. We don’t typically come face-to-face in the mornings. He’s usually gone before I come down.
Mom steps out of the kitchen to find the two of us, still, frozen. “Lennon, why are you just standing there? Yalla. You need to catch the bus.”
I don’t reply. Just shake my head and make my way down the final few steps, forced to pass my father on my way to the garage, where my shoes are.
“Do you need lunch money?” he asks, his voice even.
I stop and force out a silent breath. His question surprises me. Not because he hasn’t been paying for my lunches for the last three-plus years, but because he’s speaking to me at all.
“No, thank you,” I reply. “I still have money on my card.”
“How about breakfast?” Mom pipes in. “To go. I made those oat bars you love so much.”
“I’m not hungry,” I reply, and as it turns out, that was exactly the wrong thing to say to my father this morning.
He mumbles to himself, a familiar string of curse words in Arabic about how I’m being silly and milking the situation.
How it’s been long enough and that I’m only starving myself to punish them.
“Eat something, damn it,” he says in English.
“You’re killing yourself. It’s not enough what you did, now you have to make your mother worry, watching you shrink away? ”
“I’ll get something at school,” I lie.
“You can’t keep doing this,” Mom cuts in, standing in front of me and blocking access to the garage door.
“I’m not doing anything. I’m not,” I say, eyes downcast. “I just want to go to school.”
“Fine. Go to school. Starve to death,” Dad says, walking out the front door and slamming it behind him.
The silence following his exit steals all the air from the room.
“Do you want me to drive you?” Mom asks, her frown deepening.
“No, thanks. Picking me up after school every day is more than enough,” I say dryly, reaching for the doorknob.
My dad is still sitting in his car, idling in the driveway, when I step out of the garage. His eyes lock on mine, and I shake away the intensity of his stare before making my way toward the bus stop.
When the bus arrives a few minutes later, I watch out the window as my dad finally pulls out of the driveway.
He still doesn’t trust me. I doubt he ever will again.
“Hey, baby girl,” Andie says, her warm, comforting smile greeting me when I get off the bus.
She does this every day. I think she’s afraid of what I might do to myself if I don’t have constant supervision.
All I want is to be left alone, but Andie remains by my side—as much as someone who doesn’t live with you can.
She’s the only one I listen to. The only one who reminds me on an almost daily basis that I didn’t do anything wrong.
The only one who keeps me from sinking further into depression.
“Hey,” I say, swallowing down the searing lump in my throat.
She holds my hand as we walk into the building. The benefit of “the event” happening at the end of last school year means most of the people who were involved are gone now. Word got around, of course, as it does. High school is a silo.
Dad made it “easier” on me by forcing me to finish out the end of the school year at home. The only reason they let me return this year is because John’s in college now.
“Why’s it so dead around here?” I ask, gripping the strap of my backpack with my free hand.
“They’re giving seniors the morning off to work on college applications if we chose not to attend the alumni presentations,” Andie reminds me, as if there aren’t signs everywhere, as well as an internal email that circulated to all of us every day this week.
I simply nod. Words strain to come out. After months of shouting and crying, fighting and arguing, I have nothing left.
I check my phone out of habit, and I guess because I keep hoping to see a message from John.
But I was forced to block his number months ago, as well as disable my old email account.
My eyes squeeze shut, and just like every day since June, uninvited thoughts play out in front of me, like a movie I can’t turn off.
I don’t want to be here. I never want to be here but today, more than ever, it’s like I can’t be here.
“You ready?” Andie asks.
“For what?”
“The first session,” she replies. Andie has been so patient and kind. But sometimes I just want to be alone. It’s easier to suffer when you’re alone. “Remember signing up for them together?”
“Vaguely. Don’t we have to go to homeroom for attendance first?”
“Attendance is optional today. Come on, the first session starts after morning bell.”
I allow her to lead me through the atrium and past the gym hall. We arrive in front of a classroom. The bell rings but no one else is here.
“Are you sure we’re in the right place?”
Andie doesn’t answer. Instead, she walks past me to the doors that lead outside and pushes one open.
A moment later John walks through, nodding a thanks at Andie.
I begin to back away, but then his eyes find mine and I stop.
Everything stops. My racing heart serves as the only proof that this isn’t just a fever dream.
Andie goes to open the classroom door and turns back to us. “It’s empty. If you need anything, I’ll be right outside,” she says, looking at me.
“Lennon?” After months of not hearing his voice, John saying my name awakens something I’ve been failing to silence.
Without responding to either of them, I enter the classroom. John follows, and I watch as Andie closes the door behind us.
“I’ve been trying to get a hold of you,” he says, cutting into the quiet.
“My parents made me block your number. They monitor everything I do.”
“I came to school in September. Waited for you at your bus on the days I ended class early,” John confesses.
“I know. Andie told me. My mom picks me up.”
Eventually I had to ask Andie to block John’s number because he kept trying to reach me through her and it was just too hard. Too tempting.
“I came to your house. I came every day for a week after we got back. I only stopped coming because my sister told me I was making things worse for you. That, and your dad threatened me with legal action if I didn’t stay away.” His words come out through a pained laugh.
“I know,” I say again, because it’s all I can manage to say.
“I just wanted to be able to fix it.”
I shake my head, the tears threatening to spring loose. “You can’t, though. The second Mrs. Morales told him what happened, we were done. We had to be.”
“But you didn’t do anything wrong,” he says, taking a cautious step toward me.
I take one back.
He’s always watching. He always knows.
“It was crazy of your dad to pull you out of school last year.”
“He was trying to protect me,” I say, studying the hole on the linoleum counter.
“From what?”
“You. And all the people who were talking about me and you and what happened.”
“I would have defended you.”
“I know,” I choke out. “But you and I both know that guys don’t bear the brunt of the carnage in these situations. No one saw you as a slut who let a boy into her hotel room. No one would look at you the way they looked at me.”
“Fuck,” he says, raking his fingers through his hair. “Was it bad?”
I swallow, then nod. Nothing will ever hurt the way it did when my father looked me in the eyes as Mrs. Morales told him about what she’d found. She made it all sound so seedy. So intentional. But it wasn’t like that.
“My parents didn’t speak to me for two days. And then, the bomb went off. All I could do was sit there and take it.”
I had become my worst fear—a disappointment.
I fought back at first, trying to explain how none of it was planned, but there was no way out of the situation.
So I stopped.
They didn’t care that I loved John.
They didn’t think I was capable of knowing what love is.
I wanted to shout that I hated them.
I wanted to scream that I felt like a prisoner.
I wanted to blame them for forcing me to become this person even I didn’t recognize.
I hated lying.
I hated sneaking around.
But I had no other choice. They’d left me no other choice.
“I know you don’t understand, and I don’t think you ever really will.
It’s like, you spend so many years doing what you’re supposed to do,” I say, forcing myself to look at John.
“Focused on the goal. Their goals. You hit milestones. Applause. You reach achievements that separate you from the pack. More applause. Coupled with pride. It becomes this high, this goal of nirvana that you yearn to reach again and again. But it gets harder to find new ways to make your parents happy. Then one day you start to want different things. Things that set your soul on fire, but it’s not in line with the vision they have for you.
So you hide that part of yourself and you go on trying to find ways to make them proud. But in the end, you lose you.”
“You don’t have to hide who you are, Lennon. There are people who love the real you.”
“But why does it have to be that way? Why does it have to be this push and pull of who I want to be versus who they want me to be? There’s no way to win. You pick one, you lose the other. Either way, you lose.”
“Or,” John says, “you break the chain, and you set yourself free.”
“What if I don’t want to be set free? At least not completely.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know if you can have both.”
“I can’t,” I say.
“So that’s it, then?” John asks, his even-keeled tone almost jarring. “You’re just going to give up on us?”
“You think I’m giving up?” My throat is raw, like I’ve just swallowed a handful of razors, each word a sharp edge.
“I went to hell and back for you. I fought a war where I lost not only you, but my dad’s respect.
I fought hard. The fact that I’m still here, still standing, I’m still…
” My voice cracks. “I’m still fighting.”
John studies me now like he sees me for what I really am: a soaked-through piece of paper, one miscalculated touch and another corner will tear off.
“I’m so tired,” I say, looking right at him. “But I fought. Nothing I could ever say or do would be able to fix the damage I inflicted. I broke his trust. He has every right to be disappointed in me.”
“You’re not the only one who loses in this scenario, Lennon. I’ve spent the last four months trying to find ways to get to you, to get through to you. But I can’t do it anymore. My family needs me. I can’t let myself fall further behind in school.”
“So you came here today to let me know you’re moving on.”
“That’s not fair.” John lets out a breath, his face softening. “I could spend the rest of my life fighting for you, but it won’t change the truth: you will choose your parents’ happiness over your own every time.”
I throw an arm up in the air, my calm exterior slipping away. “What do you want me to do?”
“It’s not about me telling you what it is I want. It’s not even about us. This is about you. You need to choose yourself. If you don’t, nothing will ever change.”
He watches me, his expression still. He’s stalling.
He doesn’t want to tell me what he’s about to tell me.
It doesn’t matter how much distance or time is put between us, I know this boy in front of me.
Maybe better than he knows himself. And he is mustering up whatever strength he has left to tell me something he thinks I need to hear.
But it’s only going to break both of us.
His jaw clenches as he takes a step closer. “I can’t just stare at my bedroom ceiling every night thinking about you. It’s not healthy.”
I want to yell back, Why not? Because I do. I come home from school and I go to my room and lie in bed and just stare at the nothingness that surrounds me. But I guess John doesn’t feel it necessary to punish himself. He just gets to continue existing.
“I wanted it to be you, Lennon.” My eyes widen at his words.
My name on his lips. His gaze on me. A spark of hope lights up the dark, narrow cavity of my heart.
“I wanted it to be you, more than I’ve ever wanted anything.
But I think it’s time we both admit to ourselves that this thing between us isn’t working. ”
The light goes out.
The thought of putting more distance between me and John both steals my breath and paralyzes me.
It’s like sticking my heart in a cage and throwing away the key.
I want to scream. I want to grab his shirt in my fists and tell him he’s got it wrong.
He’s so wrong. I want to explain. I want him to understand. I want to do all these things.
But there’s no point telling him he’s wrong. It won’t change anything. It won’t reverse the damage.
He’s afraid. Of hurting me. Of hurting himself. Of getting stuck in this back-and-forth where we lose a piece of ourselves every time we break apart.
Fear makes us behave in ways we never would have thought possible. I’ve seen the result of what fear can do. How, if you allow it to, it can destroy you from the inside out before attacking the people in your life.
I am the result of my father’s fear.
He created this.
It took a baby for Georgie to put an end to her cycle of fear.
I don’t know what it will take for me, but I’m not quite ready to throw it all away. There’s still some fight left, and I am not going to let fear steal my hopes, my dreams, or my life.