Chapter 10 #3
“Take this for now.” Mr. Davis pulled off his wristband, grabbed my arm, and pushed the wristband over my hand and up my forearm.
He didn’t let go. His sweat wrapped around me, sunk into me, and everything got darker as his grip tightened around my wrist. It felt like I was doing something wrong, but I couldn’t figure out what, and why did it feel like everyone was looking at me?
Suddenly, Rory, his black hat turned backward, was walking toward the putting green with Blair, but it was Jacob and Orson who walked toward me.
“You good, Hollywood?” Orson asked.
“Ummm . . . I . . .” I looked down at Mr. Davis’s wristband wrapped around my arm and his hand wrapped around my wrist. I felt every particle, every square inch of his skin fusing into mine.
I felt his sweat from the wristband, and every word I’ve ever known emptied out of my mind.
I didn’t just lose my voice; I lost the ability to think.
“We’re just having a quick chat,” Mr. Davis answered on my behalf, then slipped back into our one-sided conversation.
“I saw your mom. I can’t believe I didn’t realize that my company does your family’s taxes.
Small world, isn’t it? She mentioned that she and your dad were going to Palm Springs in a couple of weeks.
That’ll be fun. You can have the house to yourself.
Do whatever you want.” He smiled at me again.
I genuinely could not comprehend what was happening. It felt like everything inside me was being compressed, as if I were physically shrinking. I was so deeply confused, and I still couldn’t speak. Why wasn’t I talking?
Mr. Davis’s eyes dropped, and right in front of Orson and Jacob, he brought his hand up to the sweatband he’d put on me.
His finger hooked underneath and lightly swept my skin.
“I’ll hold on to the jewelry box for when you’re ready.
” When he finally let go of my arm, the tips of his fingers trailed down my side to lightly graze my hip and leg.
Was it an accident? Was I standing too close?
Jacob stepped into my personal space. “Let’s go, Ellie-Bee.” Jacob’s voice was low.
Mr. Davis didn’t drive away. He stayed in his golf cart and watched me standing awkwardly on the putting green, shrinking, and shrinking, and shrinking, until I felt like I had disappeared entirely.
Jacob brought me back to the juniors and stood me next to Rory. I think. I wasn’t entirely sure, as everything looked blacked out around the sides, like I was in a dark tunnel, and I could only see the putting green at my feet.
“Hey. Do you want to do something with me tonight? Just us? Like . . . a date?” Rory asked. I think it was Rory’s voice, at least. Whoever it was sounded nervous, but I couldn’t be sure.
I shook my head, barely, more to try to shake off this feeling than to say no to whoever was speaking. My body still wasn’t working. My mind felt as if it had shut off. And I walked away from whoever was talking to me, to try to collect myself, and I didn’t turn back.
Rory didn’t know why I walked away from him without a word. He didn’t know why I went to find my dad and sister in tears. He didn’t know that my dad spoke to the club’s board of directors, and the only question they asked him was “But what did Albert Davis actually do that was harmful?”
Rory didn’t know about the countless people who said that if I felt so uncomfortable, it was up to me to do something about it. It was up to me to choose not to see Mr. Davis again. “Just don’t go back to the golf club,” they said. “What’s the big deal?” they asked.
Rory didn’t know that I tried to go back but started having panic attacks, or that I constantly questioned myself.
I started to believe I had blown it all out of proportion.
I must have misunderstood his intentions.
Maybe it wasn’t a “big deal” that a middle-aged man I barely knew had been confusingly, uncomfortably observing me since I was fifteen.
Maybe it wasn’t a “big deal” that he wanted to buy me presents and have me wear articles of his clothing.
I told myself that everyone was probably right; maybe I was just a dramatic, ridiculous, stupid, silly little girl.
Echoing through my imagination, every single junior was saying the exact same thing: “Did you hear what Ellie said about Caleb’s dad?
Who does she think she is? She’s not that special. ”
I was paralyzed at the thought of the people at Juniper talking about it, about me, people I had grown up with making fun of me, judging me like everyone else, like every audition I’d ever gone to.
Juniper was my childhood. It was the safest place in the world.
And then it wasn’t. It was my happy place.
And then it wasn’t. It was at Juniper where, for the very first time, I felt like I belonged.
It was at Juniper where I fell in love before I knew what love was.
And it was there, on the putting green, where I grew up.
My life at Juniper was everything to me, and then everything was gone.