Cat & Drew's Whirlwind Adventure

35. Unquieted

Our fate is decided. I'm unusually well-rested considering I've been up most of the night, combing through the finer details of the decision I've arrived at. I didn't have the nightmares, and whether that was from lack of opportunity, or resolve for what I'm about to do, only time will tell. The first step before I do anything though will be to come full circle and tell my parents about everything—the truth they've been after from the moment I decided I wanted to die. That's a huge undertaking, for whatever reason it feels harder, more monumental, than when I had told Troy, or even my therapist, but I don't think it really matters all that much why. I just have to do it, for them, for me, to put this entire ugly thing behind us for once and for all.

To that end I'm positioned in front of the mirror in my room like I've practiced, legs shaky and like rubber while I look at my reflection and pretend it's them. I've practiced this part too, though I haven't quite figured out the best way to say it yet, the speech I've drafted again and again changes each time. Looking at me now, and taking into account every manner in which I've changed too, and continue to change, that seems right. So in the natural light of the early morning, filtered peacefully from the window over my bed, I begin from the heart as I have so many times before.

"Last summer, something bad happened to me and I'm still learning to deal with it." That's how the speech always starts, and I take comfort from its familiarity. Then I'm on my own, "I didn't say anything because I was scared, and I was trying to deal with the changes it forced on me, on my body, inside me. But if I'm going to be totally honest with you then I'd say there was a part of me that felt like I was somehow responsible too, and I didn't know how to talk about it. So I didn't, I kept it to myself until it completely consumed me and I couldn't see any way out other than to kill myself."

My heart pounds, not the whole story yet but close enough that the blanks can be filled. A sharp pain shoots through my chest, and I have to remind myself to work through it, not bury it, so I don't fight the tears that form in my eyes.

"I regret that. This last year has taught me so much though, about what I would've missed, about all the things I still get to be. Meeting Cat, and just having someone who had gone through something similar helped more than I probably even realized at the time, I don't know that I would have made it passed the first few months back if not for her. Then Troy—who's kind of just been whatever I needed him to be—he made it safe to love, to be attracted, to want...other stuff. They both showed me that I could trust again, and for better or worse I owe them everything."

It's important to talk about them, with all the unsavory business as of late it's been easy to lose sight of what matters. Not that it's their fault—my parents or Coach—how could any of them, when their only concern is saving their children, know the whole score? That's on me, but that's the point of the speech I've been rehearsing, never able to get it exactly how I want. With tear-stained cheeks I continue speaking to my reflection in the mirror.

"I owe you guys, too. You did exactly what any parents should in this situation, and while you maybe didn't ask for much, I didn't make it easy by any means. I guess I regret that too, I hope you believe me that I never set out to lie or hurt you on purpose, I just didn't want you to know what was going on because then it'd be real, and I'd have to deal with it. Mostly I didn't want anything to be different. But now I've let it go on long enough, and I think it's time I set the record straight—you were right that everything that's been going on is about me, Cat and Troy just got swept up in it."

Total honesty hurts exactly as I expected it would, but I hold my ground, making myself face the mirror, face the truth.

"All they've ever wanted to do is help me, it just got out of hand this time. When Cat spraypainted that locker and Troy defended me, even back when you caught me shoplifting from Coach and you thought it was because I was being bullied, it all goes back to one summer ago," my voice goes weak, and I stop. Despite the safety in my room, rehashing the same speech I've revised endlessly to the same reflection, it's so hard to say. Yet I must, so with my future at stake, and my friends, I put aside Resthaven and the room at a lake house where I'd gone to escape a drunken party, and say the words. "When I was raped by Chad Keller."