Page 66 of The Fool
“Nate, I catch Ubers all the time, I’m perfectly safe,” I reply with a roll of my eyes. “Regardless of what my brother says, I won’t break.”
My words have him freezing in his culinary duties before turning to face me with a serious expression that has me feeling uncomfortable. I stare right back at him with my glass poised, ready for something intense to come out of his mouth.
“He, er, told me what happened after Evan,” he says quietly. “Have you ever felt like doing anything like that since?”
I wasn’t prepared for this so take a gulp of liquid courage before shaking my head to answer his question. Averting my gaze to the kitchen countertop, I begin fiddling with a stray thread from my top.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry,” he says, making me smile.
“Liar,” I whisper, “but it’s ok. It’s in my past and always will be. I’ve grown a lot since then and I know how to protect myself.”
“By not going near predators such as myself,” he teases. I throw a stray bean at him and smile, just as he deflects it with his hand.
“No. I’m just not as naïve or trusting as I was as a teenager, like most people, I guess. I bet even you would say you are more reserved with people than you were at eighteen.”
“I suppose, but I never wanted to hurt myself when I was that age either,” he says matter of factly. His response makes me feel shameful, but I don’t think it was his intention.
“The bullying crept up on me. At first, I didn’t notice it, just assumed it was something all kids went through. Then, when I realized I was being targeted, both in the open and online, I had Dean, Emma, and a few guys who I thought were my friends to help me through it, so I brushed it off. I didn’t think I needed anyone else, so I leaned on them and pretended it didn’t exist. Funnily enough, when it didn’t bother me, I rarely went online. But when everything came to a head with Dean and Emma, and I began to let it all get to me, began to believe what they said about me, I found myself looking at it all the time. I don’t know if it was self-harming, hoping to see someone standing up for me, or because I felt so utterly alienated, but I couldn’t stop myself from looking. It was impossible not to.”
“I almost don’t want to ask, but what the hell did they find to say about you?” he asks, looking genuinely confused.
“Anything. Absolutely anything. I was ugly, short, fat, a slut, a bitch, smelly, stupid, whatever ugly thing you can think of to say about someone, they said it about me. I don’t know why it started, but I do know that choosing to remain one of the boys and ignore what the girls deemed important, really exacerbated things. The final straw was when Dean, our year’s answer to God, chose me of all people.”
“And then he crapped all over you…for no reason?”
“I thought Dean loved me. I did all the things I thought a girlfriend was supposed to. I dressed how he liked, I was nice to his friends, I let him have his own space, and I was interested in the shit he was interested in. I wore makeup, did my hair the way he liked it, and even slept with him when he wanted to,” I admit, feeling ashamed all over again.
“Jesus, Bea!” I barely hear him say as it all floods back in.
“And yet he had sex with my best friend, my sister. There’s only about a year between us and we were inseparable. I confided everything in her, especially about Dean, even the really personal stuff. And they both betrayed me in the worst possible way.” I pause to gulp back more wine as he stands before me, motionless, as though he wants me to get it all out. “When I found them in my bedroom, in my bed, I stood for about five minutes in shock before they finally realized I was there. It was like a steamy porn film but with a running commentary of dirty talk; things he had never said to me. I just froze, feeling completely sick.”
It's only then that I realize Nate’s knelt before me and is now holding my hands. His wide brown eyes stare into mine as I feel a well of tears forming on my lower lashes.
“Emma was the first to jump up and ran straight into the bathroom. But he just laid back, looking at me before shrugging his shoulders. The action made it as if what he had just done to me was absolutely nothing. I was nothing more than a throwaway item.”
“Beatrice Summers, you are not nothing,” he whispers before taking one of my hands to his mouth to kiss, then repeats the action with the other hand. “You are everything and neither of those assholes deserves an ounce of you. I hope your father beat his ass with a baseball bat.”
“Actually,” I sigh heavily, “Dean and Emma are now engaged and I’m pretty sure I’ve been asked around to dinner to be told I have to go to the wedding.”
“Seriously?! He was allowed to live after that?”
“They weren’t told the full story, Nate, I couldn’t do it to them or myself,” I tell him, which only makes him look all the more horrified. “I needed some form of closure and a new start; you think that would have happened if my parents had found out? That horrendous period of my life would have been argued about for months, if not years. I just wanted to forget about it as much as I could.”
“So, why are you going tomorrow? Can’t you just blow them off?” he asks, still struggling with my silence over it all.
“I can only blow them off for so long; I’ve avoided Emma for years,” I sigh. “Besides, I don’t know, I’m beginning to not care anymore. It didn’t actually take me long to get over Dean, but…”
“Your sister?” I simply nod when he correctly guesses the real source of my pain.
“But if she’s truly happy, then maybe I should let bygones be bygones. I don’t think we can ever be like we once were, but if she really loves him, then…”
I shrug my shoulders as my words trail off, for what else can I say about it all?
“I could come with you?” he offers but I shake my head vehemently.
“God, no, you do not want to come into the middle of that shitstorm,” I explain before he can take offense to my response. “Plus, Ben will be there, and I think he may need some warning before I show up with you…anywhere.”
“I understand,” he says as he begins prepping food again.