Page 9 of Fall From Grace
“Cooking,” I answered and watched as the devilish grin returned to his face.
He took my hand. “Come on, we can’t let your parents see,” he said as he led us up the stairs. I studied the color of his ear as it grew red. Noah was up to no good, too bad I didn’t care. Once inside my room, he shut the door and hurried to the TV.
“What are you up to?” I asked.
After pushing the tape into the VCR, he turned around and looked at me. “Promise me you won’t scream or tell your parents what I’m about to show you?”
The question in his eyes unnerved me. I swallowed. “Just what’s so bad on the tape that you are acting so sneaky?”
He smirked, turned the volume almost completely down, then pressed play.
Adults. A woman. A man. Her legs spread open while the man… inside.
A felt nauseous, scared, freaked out, disgusted.
Thankfully, I made no promises about not screaming. Because I did.
He quickly stopped the tape and ran to cup my mouth. He stopped my scream and said, “Turns out there’s a lot more to being an adult than you realize, huh, Grace?”
I jumped away from him. “Why would they?” I squinted my eyes. “Why would you show me that?”
His eyes widened momentarily before glaring. “Don’t worry, I would never want to do that with you. You don’t even have boobs!”
My mouth fell open. “I’m only eight!” I hissed. “Like you have that big ‘thing’ between your legs, either!” I felt a pang of fear just bringing it up again, but Noah always made me so fighting mad that I talked about it aloud.
His face turned bright red. “You have—”
“Is everything okay?” Mom peeked her head inside the door and asked.
“Yeah,” I said immediately. “Noah was just leaving, weren’t you?”
“Yeah,” Noah hid most of his grumble in front of Mom as he walked back over to the VCR and took the tape out, then left.
Mom tilted her head at me. “Did you two fight?”
“Yeah,” I mumbled. “Boys are stupid.”
Mom snickered. “I give you guys a day before you make up.”
_____
Mom had been wrong. Noah and I were at odds for weeks after that. I no longer knew how to hold a conversation with him without thinking of the redhead’s bouncing breasts and her privates being ‘invaded’ by that guy’s ‘thing’. What was worse was I couldn’t even look at my parents normally anymore without thinking that they did that to each other. Adults were suddenly a mystery to me when I was so confident I knew a lot as a kid.
I was wrong. So wrong.
I blew Noah off every time he came over to the house. I was lonely and bored the month of June because I didn’t want to give in and play with him even though I wanted to. I hated that he showed me that tape. I hated that it changed the way I looked at people, especially adults.
I was never going to do any of those things when I grew up. It looked disgusting and how would it even fit… I shook my head.Don’t even think about it.
The only problem was even though I was upset with Noah, I missed him. School was out for the summer and I was lonely, and he was my best friend.
So, when he tapped on the door that day, I was more than ready to put the tape behind us. Mom answered the door and greeted him. “Gracie, Noah’s here!” she called through the house. I moved from the couch and slipped on my shoes before heading toward the door.
“I’m going to the treehouse with Noah,” I told her.
Mom looked at us with a smile before shaking her head. “It’s about time,” was all she said.
Noah followed behind me quietly. That was another thing that changed after seeing those few seconds of the tape. I stopped wearing dresses. I was extra glad as I climbed up the rope with Noah behind me. I was suddenly fearful of everyone seeing my body through a pair of eyes like mine—one that suddenly saw everything anew. I knew I shouldn’t feel this way over a tape. I was only eight, but that was my problem; I saw too much. I thought too much. I felt too much.