Page 51 of The Fool
“And how did it make you feel before what happened?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” I reply truthfully and with a sigh. “I guess I had Emma, Dean, and people who I thought were my real friends on my side, so I tried not to let it get to me.”
“But it did, at least to some extent, didn’t it?” she asks, prompting me to think back to before. I suppose it did hurt to see those words. Those nasty words all grouped together, talking about me and calling me the most horrific names imaginable.
“It made me feel segregated, cut off, alone,” I admit. “Dean and Emma might have been there to tell me not to take any notice, that those people were assholes, but they weren’t the object of someone’s venom. Nobody thought that about them, just me.”
“Did you tell anyone about it?” I cannot answer her with words for I know I will cry if I try to, so instead, I shake my head. “Do you know why not?”
“I was afraid,” I whimper, closing my eyes and allowing the tears to fall. “I didn’t want it to get any worse. I thought if I ignored it, if I played it down, it would all go away. I begged Emma and Dean not to say anything, even threatened to break up with Dean if he did.”
“Do you think you would do things differently now?” she asks.
I already know the answer, of which I’m ashamed to say, but in the end, I have to concede and admit what still feels so shameful.
“No.”
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Bea
On our third session, Sonia jumped right into what happened between Dean, Emma, and me; the incident that caused me to not only lose my boyfriend and sister but also myself.
“I didn’t initially realize at the time, but I had heard them before I saw them,” I begin, taking in a deep breath to steady my emotions. “Muffled breathing, groaning, the squeaking of a bed…mybed.”
“Why do you think they chose your bed?” she asks, her brow furrowed.
“I don’t know,” I reply with a shrug and far-off gaze, not being able to escape the image of my boyfriend, a guy who had told me he loved me on multiple occasions, grinding on top of my sister, my best friend. The girl who I used to cover for when she was in past curfew; the girl who told me about her horrible first time and who I had held when she finally admitted that it was a mistake; the girl who had snuck into my bed whenever there was a thunderstorm. The girl who gave me up in an instant.
“It seems like an added twist of the knife to do it in your bed, Beatrice, whose decision do you think that was?” she asks, poking at the wound until I bleed.
“I guess he had been waiting for me and she turned up first,” I suggest, though I think the added cruelty runs deeper than that.
“You’re not sure though, are you? Why not?”
“When they realized I was there, after a good few minutes of me staring at something I wasn’t entirely sure was happening, Emma ran to the bathroom and hid, burst into tears, or whatever. But Dean…Dean just laid back and smiled,” I recall. His smug face was one of the last things I remembered when I took the final tablet and passed out not long after. “It was like he was reveling in my pain; I gave him everything and he wanted to hurt me.”
“And what happened in the week leading up to the party?” she asks as if she doesn’t already know.
“Word got out about Dean and Emma. People either congratulated Dean for trading up, or they questioned why he had chosen my sister to cheat with.”
I smile momentarily, for the latter might have shown some empathy for me, had it not been for the rumor Dean started.
“He accused you of sleeping with someone, that he had caught you with his best friend,” she says sadly.
“Martin went along with it; said I came onto him when he was drunk. He was forgiven, and I was declared a slut who didn’t know how lucky she was to have Dean in the first place.”
“Oh, my God, what a disgusting whore! No wonder Dean finally opened his eyes and saw the true catch in that family.”
“That’s when the online attacks really started to get to me,” I admit, tears welling in my eyes once again. “Emma avoided me at all costs, or she stuck to my mom’s side, knowing full well I wouldn’t say anything in front of her. My phone was pinging with notifications all the time, all through the night and day. People would shout at me at school and accuse me of the most horrible things. Dean would just stare at me, smiling through most of it. As for my friends, who I guess were more his than mine, they all turned on me too.”
“Beatrice, your medical notes showed something else too. Were you aware of your condition? Were you aware that you were pregnant?”
I look up at her, the shame hitting me full pelt in my chest, and words escape me. Instead, I nod my head, just once.
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Bea