12. Michelle
12
MICHELLE
Every muscle in my body is tensed up to the point where I’m sure I’m going to get a terrible knot or a painful cramp and won’t be able to walk anymore. Maybe that would be a good thing. Then I wouldn’t be able to finish the journey from my room to my father’s study to deliver the news I’m about to give him.
Dad, I’m pregnant .
Is that what I should say?
Dad, I had sex. I don’t know if I can just say it like that. Maybe Dad, I’m no longer a virgin is somehow better?
These are things I never thought I’d have to say to my father. I mean, what girl would ever want to?
But this is the day I tell him. Just like Casey and I discussed. He’s going to be angry. He’s going to more than likely fly off the hinge, but our plan will work. I’ll no longer be the perfect little unsullied virgin he can marry off to his buddy Richard’s son. I’ll be just another slut in his eyes. Especially when I tell him who fucked me.
The morning rays of sun coming through his window seem somehow even more blinding as I step into his study. Like always, he’s seated at his desk. He’s on the phone with someone, and I wait patiently for him to finish before speaking.
“Dad,” I say. “I have something to tell you.”
“Can it wait, Michelle?” He stands, getting his things together as he brushes past me. “I’ve got a meeting with Richard in five minutes about finding a new lead contractor on your house with Jerry. Turns out the one we had picked just came down with something–”
That’s all I needed. Hearing him discussing my future life he has all planned out with no regard for me whatsoever just causes me to snap.
“I had sex with Casey.”
The words slip from my lips without hesitation. Without anxiety. Without regret.
In fact, I am filled with a sense of power as I watch my father, a man whose world revolves around him, stop in his tracks and turn to face me. His eyes study me intently. I can see him trying to determine if I’m lying, just trying to hurt him, or if what I’m saying is the truth.
I just stare back at him, betraying nothing.
“You what?” His jaw is clenched so hard he nearly breaks his teeth on his words. “What did you just say?”
“Casey. The guy you fired? I had sex with him. And I didn’t use protection either.”
My father’s eyes narrow like a predator, and his face grows red as a radish as he takes his first step toward me. I should be terrified, but somehow, I’m not. I hold my ground and don’t move as he advances on me.
“What are you saying, Michelle?” he asks. “And be clear with me. Are you honestly telling me that you gave away your innocence? That you did not wait until you were married to the man to whom you are betrothed? And that you sullied yourself with that lowly filth who–”
“Yes!” I shout, unable to listen to this any longer. I step right up to him and stare up into his face fuming down at me. He looks like a giant ready to crush me. “That’s exactly what I’m saying, Dad! I fucked him, and he fucked me, and I loved every second of it! And if God is great, like you’re always telling those people who believe that you’re not a liar and a thief like I know you are, then I’m pregnant with his child right now!”
The world might as well stop right there. My father stares down at me, and I stare back at him. I thoroughly believe that if I was born a son and not a daughter, he’d have hit me by now.
He opens his mouth to say something, but at that precise moment, our confrontation is interrupted.
“Reverend?” Lynn, his personal assistant, says from the door. “I’m sorry, but something’s happened you need to see.”
“Not now,” he growls.
Dad’s desk phone and his cell both start to ring at the same time.
“It’s quite important,” Lynn replies before stepping out of the room. Dad continues to stare at me while his phones continue to ring.
“You gonna get that?” I ask defiantly.
Dad gives in and rushes to his desk and snatches up his desk phone, which he only uses for business.
“Yes? They published what?” he roars. He quickly sits down at his computer and pulls something up. When he sees what it is, he goes ballistic. “Those sons of bitches! Does Robert even know what I’ll do to him? Yeah, I’ll call you back.”
Dad hangs up and quickly makes another call back on his cell. “Frank!” The name of his lawyer. “Yeah, I saw. Skimming church funds? Where the hell did this come from?”
My stomach sinks, and I feel a sweat begin to break out all over my body.
He did it. Casey somehow did it without me.
I rush from the room, leaving my father shouting behind me, and climb into my car. I pull out and immediately floor it, heading for Casey’s.
How could he do this to me?
My phone rings, and I look down to see Jerry’s name and instantly ignore it. No way I’m talking to him right now. I quickly pull up Google and type my father’s name in. And that’s when I see it, an article from the Holebeck Daily Times.
Evidence Points to Reverend Patrick Tuttle Skimming Church Funds for Personal Gain.
“Fuck!” I shout.
I tap my fingers on the wheel all the way to Casey’s apartment, leap out, and race up to his unit as fast as I can, feeling like my heart is about to explode. I rap on the door like a mad woman, and he pulls it open almost instantly.
“Hi,” he says, a hesitant smile on his face.
“Hi? That’s all you have to say?” I brush past him into his unit. He closes the door behind me. “What were you thinking, Casey? I mean, what the fuck!?”
I hold my phone up for him to see this morning’s article, a photo of my father right next to the highly destructive headline. “I thought I made it clear I didn’t want this!”
“You said you didn’t want to be involved,” he replies. “I found another source. Someone from the church.”
The only thing I can do is laugh and pull my hair. The insanity of the situation hasn’t even fully hit me, and I’m barely able to process what’s going on.
“I. Didn’t. WANT THIS, CASEY!” I scream, the air scraping my lungs on its way out.
“We have to get you away from him, Michelle,” he replies. “Getting you pregnant, it might not be enough. We have to be together–”
“Oh, stop pretending like this is all about us , Casey! You hate him. He fired you, you’ve got it out for him, and you want to get back at him. Admit it!”
Casey’s eyes shift, and an expression takes over that I’ve never seen from him before.
“Michelle, this is a story that needs to be out there,” he replies. He’s speaking slowly, but there’s no concealing the anger in his voice. “He’s been stealing from people for years, maybe even decades. Not rich donors either. The little people.”
“Oh, like you?” I scoff.
“Yes, like me!” he bellows. “Not everybody in this world got to grow up with a silver spoon in their mouth like you, Michelle!”
My stomach twists. My body goes tight. I clench my nails into the palms of my hands and purse my lips back at him.
“Oh, is that right? Now I’m just some rich bitch?”
“Did I say that?” he snaps back.
“You might as well have!”
“What I’m saying is that the money you grew up on came from the pockets of innocent hard-working people, donating that money to what they thought was a good cause–”
“And then I just lived it up on that cash with my Louboutin pumps and silver spoon in my mouth while the rest of you innocent hard-working people suffered?”
Casey looks back at me and simply shrugs.
I feel the tears welling up in my eyes. The last thing I need right now is to break down in front of him.
“You shouldn’t have done this, Casey. You went behind my back. You betrayed me!”
Then I’m out the door and rushing back to my car, tears pouring down my cheeks.
What did I do? Did I really just screw everything up because I thought I was in love?
Do I even know what love is?