CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
on purpose
•••
{TW}
• depression
• Disordered eating? Body image?
• Self-harm?
• Lots of words!!!
ɴᴏʟᴀɴ ᴍᴜʟʟᴇɴ
"Where were you today?" my dad asked. It was weird having him home with me again. He kinda came and went, just like Mom. Either way, I saw him more often than usual, and I didn't mind it at all. He was easier to talk to than mom, even though we barely spoke either.
"Oakley and I went out to get ice cream," I mumbled, staring at my phone. There wasn't much interesting happening online, but what bothered me were people saying stuff about Oakley because he'd lost some weight.
"Good. How is he doing?"
"Fine." Another article popped up about how it might even be my fault. People even speculating that I got him to do heroin. Maybe I shouldn't be looking at this. I definitely shouldn't be doing this. I couldn't let rumors tear me apart like that.
"Hey, how was dinner with his family yesterday? Your mom told me—"
I got distracted as a message popped up on my phone. It was my mom asking if we could talk about some things tonight.
You:
Yeah ok
"Nolan."
"Yeah. Sorry. Dinner was good."
"No, something smells like it's burning."
Fuck, he was right. I got up from the couch and ran to the kitchen. I couldn't really see through the glass of the oven because it was all smoke in there—some of it escaping through the oven door. If I opened it now, the alarm would definitely be triggered. Hell, I was surprised it wasn't triggered already.
"You need help?"
"No, it's fine. I'm fine." I turned off the oven and opened all the windows. I also put the ventilation on the highest setting, but I didn't open the oven door. They were ruined already and I didn't feel like fixing the alarm too.
"I- I don't know what happened. That's never happened before. Well, not with it being my fault, I guess."
"I didn't know you baked."
"You don't know a lot of stuff," I mumbled, trying to clean up the mess I left behind earlier. It was quiet for a while before my dad's phone rang.
I knew he was just trying to be a good dad and whatnot, but I felt like I was being watched. I hated it because my entire job already revolved around being watched. I didn't need my home life to be the same. In fact, I needed it to be the opposite.
I sat down at the table, grabbing my phone from my pocket. Of course it opened on the people complaining about the way my boyfriend looked again, but this time I got smarter and closed it all off. Oakley was going to be alright. Neither of us needed this kind of negativity.
You:
I messed up the cookies :(
Dimple💞:
You were baking cookies?
You:
Yeah the red velvet ones you loved so much
You:
But I almost set the place on fire.
Dimple💞:
You're amazing
Dimple💞:
I love you
You:
I love you too
You:
How are you doing?
Dimple💞:
Terrible headache :/
You:
I wish I were there
I was in trouble. I wanted to be with him constantly. Maybe to make up for the fact we were gonna be apart a lot. I wasn't even sure how me having an 8 PM curfew was supposed to keep me from doing drugs or whatever.
I texted my mom, asking her when she'd be home so maybe I could ask her to re-evaluate that curfew again.
Mom:
I'll be home before 11
I decided to kill time by going through my script again. Maybe I could spend the next hour or so at least halfway useful.
•••
"What did you want to talk about?" I asked. "Where's dad?"
She handed me a bag. I looked at her skeptically.
"What's this?" I asked. She smiled as I looked inside the bag. It was some fancy packaged whiskey decanter set.
"Is this a test?"
"No. I just want you to be comfortable with me. I want you to feel like you can tell me anything."
"Is this about me being gay? Because that wasn't supposed to be a secret."
"Not just that, Nolan. It's everything. I know you've been keeping things from me and your dad since... well, since you became a teenager. I don't expect you to talk to me about it now, but I hope one day you will."
I've never heard my mom act like she cared like this before.
"Okay." I wasn't sure what to do with the whiskey though. I definitely wasn't going to drink it so she could change her mind and ground me or whatever. "By the way, what's the curfew about?"
"You're legal to take alcohol in most of the world, but I don't want you having cocaine and LSD and whatever else anymore. I'm still a mother."
I just knew she'd done cocaine before, though. She must've found her fuck buddies somewhere. I tried to not press on it because I didn't want to have that kind of conversation with her. In fact, I was actually fine with having no conversation with her at all. We could go back to how it was, and I'd turn to dad for anything more serious.
"I just want to make sure Oakley is okay," I tried to argue.
"No."
"God, you're unbelievable." I got up in frustration.
"Nolan, I'm still—"
"Yeah, yeah. My mother." I rolled my eyes. Of course.
"Good. Now for the other things, Ava has brought to my attention that you don't like doing interviews. Why is that?" She motioned at me to sit down. This talk was apparently not over yet, so I did as I was told.
"Because I hate people."
"Many people in the industry have anxiety. Do you want to go see a therapist again?"
"No." I mean, I wasn't opposed to the idea, but that meant I had to talk to someone. And share my thoughts.
"But it might help," she said. "Do you remember Dr. Hillier?"
My parents always made sure I had a therapist when I was younger. I told Dr. Hillier nearly everything, until Kylan happened. He gave up gave up because I tended to be in character during all my sessions.
"Yeah. Even he couldn't help me."
"He always said you were doing great until you went into puberty. He tried to prescribe you Xanax so I fired him." My eyes grew wide. He didn't even give up. He was fired by my own mom. "Maybe I should've listened when he said you tried drugs to cope."
So basically, she knew about my problem and only punished me now that it was out in the open? Suddenly I started questioning her morals.
"I'm not going back to Dr. Hillier." It would be embarrassing to go back now.
"Then what do you need, Nolan? How are we going to fix this?"
"I don't know."
"Well," my mom said with a sigh, "you have another interview this week. Well, three. Two of them for Rule Number One and one individually."
"I can't, Mom."
"Then go to therapy," she said, getting up and tapping my head before leaving the room. I threw my head back and groaned. She was basically threatening me. And even if I went, she said this week. I mean, if the other two were gonna be with Maria, I might just be able to live through it. But individually? I wasn't so sure.
Of course the interview had me stressing out so much that I couldn't fall asleep at night.
You:
I can't sleep. How are you doing?
Dimple💞:
I thought you were already sleeping
Dimple💞:
Why can't you sleep
You:
It's nothing. Just can't fall asleep :(
Dimple💞:
I know you're lying Nolan
Dimple💞:
If it's about me, just stop worrying ok? I'll be fine
You:
How about you? Why can't u fall asleep?
Dimple💞:
I sleep all day
Dimple💞:
I don't think I need any more of it
•••
Oakley wasn't getting any better. He had one good day, and it felt like he was getting even worse the next. It had gotten to the point where he wasn't even really talking anymore, despite me being in the room and asking him questions and telling him stories. He'd turned into a zombie, but all I wanted was my boyfriend back.
It had gotten so bad that I resorted to googling how to deal with this. But nothing helped.
"I want to go grab some food. You wanna come with me?"
"No. Have fun," he said turning his back towards me.
"I could also order something, if you want me to."
"Go get your fucking food, Nolan. You're not my prisoner." He snapped at me, and it wasn't the first time. So I sucked it up, straightening my back.
"Do you want me to leave?"
He didn't answer me. I knew he didn't want me to leave. But sometimes we both needed our space.
"I'm gonna go for... for today. I'm gonna grab some food and then I have some work stuff to do." I had two interviews today. Two interviews with just Maria. She was cool. I could handle that.
Oakley just sat there in silence, not caring about what I had to say. I kissed his temple. "Please don't talk to me like that, okay?" I whispered in his ear. He closed his eyes, but he nodded. I'd asked him before. I wasn't sure how long I could take it before falling back into old habits.
"I'm sorry," he whispered back.
"I know." I smiled at our little interaction. "I love you."
"You too."
I kissed him goodbye once more before I left the room. It was like a weight fell off my shoulders when I closed the door behind me, and all I could do was lean against it to grasp my thoughts back together.
"He hasn't come out of there since last week," Trisha said. I hadn't noticed she was even there. "How is he doing?" Even she looked like she hadn't had a proper night's sleep.
"Not good," I told her honestly.
"My parents think we should help him see a doctor. Not just for the mental stuff, but he passed out yesterday in the kitchen too. My dad caught him right before he hit the counter. Said he was light as a feather. He's been doubling up on sweaters so we wouldn't notice."
"He what?" I asked. He hadn't told me about that, but I honestly shouldn't expect him to. I just was surprised I hadn't noticed. Maybe that was why he was curled up in his blanket like a burrito.
"Yeah," she said, looking down at the floor. "I haven't told my parents but... after he woke up, I tried to talk to him and he like... he said and he—"
Her eyes turned glossy somewhere halfway through and I didn't really know what to do. I didn't have sisters. The closest I did have was Ava, and Ava never cried.
"Hey, you don't have to tell me," I reassured her. She should tell their parents. They could probably do a lot more than me too.
"No, I have to," she said, taking a deep shaky breath and looking up to try and prevent the tears from falling. "So after he woke up, I was right there. And he started freaking out immediately. So I told him what happened and started asking why Dad had to catch him. And that he hoped he hadn't been caught so it would all just be over." She spoke very quickly, but compared to Oakley in his 'better' moods, it was nothing. She just wanted to get it over with. And though her words didn't surprise me much, they still made me feel some type of way I didn't like. "He took it back and said he didn't mean it, but what if he did?"
I felt my heart drop. I tried not to panic. I was pretty sure I didn't look like I was panicking. But on the inside, I couldn't stop stories from forming inside my head. But I forced myself to remain rational.
"Hey, don't go there, alright? He'll be okay. He might be depressed, but he's also really scared. And he cares about everyone way too much. He wouldn't... do that."
I truly believed in that.
She wiped her tears away. "This is the first time it's been this bad," she said, shaking her head.
"You should probably tell your parents," I said. She nodded.
"I know."
"Do you want me to help you?"
She nodded again, and I took a deep breath, trying to stop my tears from falling.
"Okay, I have to go do something first, but I'll come back tonight then we'll tell them. Good?" Oakley seemed a lot more important than that stupid curfew today.
"Yes. Thank you," she said, smiling a little through the tears.
•••
Of course during the interviews, I was distracted as fuck. I couldn't put up a happy face either because my thoughts kept drifting back to him.
"Nolan, are you okay?" Maria asked. I constantly kept checking my phone seeing if he'd texted me. Every time I checked, the answer was no.
"Yeah, I'm good," I said, still checking my phone. I hadn't even realized the camera was rolling already. My cheeks turned red as I looked up. "I- I'm sorry."
I swore I saw some creative director guy roll his eyes and walking away. God, I was really fucking everything up today.
"Can we start?" the producer asked, smiling instead. Maybe she saw how nervous I was. I nodded and tried to focus on the interview.
•••
"What do you like to do in your free time," was one of the frequently asked questions.
"I like b- baking," I said. The entire time I sounded like a broken record. I was getting frustrated. Why was I stuttering?
We didn't dwell on the question any longer, but I wished we did. That was because I could talk about it for hours to anyone. Other things just seemed to end up in short answers, and no amount of media training could help me.
"Have you always had a stutter?"
I wasn't sure how to answer that question because I didn't actually usually have a stutter. Or if I did, it wasn't usually noticeable.
"I d- d-" I groaned internally, trying to keep my composure. It always got worse if someone pointed it out. "Don't usually." And then as if the whole world was against me, my phone buzzed. I grabbed it quickly without thinking, hoping for a message from Oakley.
Dimple💞:
Hey, are you done?
"Nolan?" Maria whispered.
"Oh, uhm, it's important," I mumbled, typing out a reply. I hadn't forgotten what Trisha told me that day. I was still planning on talking to his parents today, even if the thought made my stomach knot up in impossible ways.
You:
I'll be done in fifteen minutes. Something wrong?
Dimple💞:
Oh, ok I'll wait.
"Nolan?" Maria tapped my shoulder.
"I'm sorry. Some things going on with... at home."
"Do you need to go home?" the producer, whose name I learned was Mila, asked. Her eyebrows knitted together as she spoke. "If it's important, we have enough material."
"Oh, n- no I don't think so." I was hoping so. I checked my phone once more.
You:
They said I can leave now if I have to
You:
Do you need me to?
Dimple💞:
Just call me when you're done
You:
Okay. I love you
"I think it's fine," I said, still frowning at my phone. I put my phone away and tried to focus on the questions again.
"Your most desirable trait in a potential girlfriend?"
"Someone I can trust," I said, quickly moving on to the next question.
•••
I quickly got my stuff together as soon as we were done.
"Hey," he said. I paused. He sounded tired when that simple 'hey' came out as a weak whimper.
"What's wrong? What happened?" I asked.
"I know you have a curfew but could you please come over? My thoughts are killing me." His throat sounded scratchy and like there was no energy left.
"Oakley, have you been crying?"
"I'm at the hospital. They said you can come. Please?"
"Wh- what? Why? What happened, Dimple? Are you okay? Why are you at the hospital?"
"It's nothing. I just really need you."
The stubborn fuck should've just let me come fifteen minutes ago.
"I'll be there in ten minutes."
I hung up the phone and wanted to leave, but Maria stopped me.
"Hey," she said. I looked around, but no one was really near. "You dropped this," she said, handing me my bracelet. My eyes went wide as I saw it, and I instinctively grabbed my empty wrist. How hadn't I noticed it was gone?
"Thank you!" I said, taking it from here and securing it around my wrist again.
"You look like you're in a hurry, so... until next time," she said, smiling. I sent her a tight-lipped smile back before quickly walking back to my car, making my way towards the hospital.
•••
"Oakley," I said, entering the room.
"Nolan?" He sat up and turned towards me, his legs hung over the side of the bed.
"Oh my god, what happened?" I got closer and hugged him tightly. We didn't say anything for a few moments.
"I'm so sorry."
"Oakley, what happened?" I asked him, still holding him tightly.
"I passed out. Twice, actually."
"Then what are you sorry for? You didn't do anything." Now it made sense why he wanted me to stop apologizing for everything.
"I did it on purpose, okay? I just wanted to... I don't know. I'm just happy you're here."
"How do you pass out on purpose?"
"Not eating, not drinking. It's not that difficult."
I didn't know what to do or say. My head felt cloudy as he said it. He was starving himself on purpose? Why?
"Wh- What did the doctor say? How long do you have t- to stay?"
"She's giving me a diet plan. If I don't follow it they're gonna think it's an eating disorder." He rolled his eyes.
"Well, is it?" I asked. I tried to make sense of it in any other way, but I couldn't. I didn't understand it.
"No. I just..." he looked away. "I didn't feel like I deserved it, okay? Like... at first it was because I couldn't. I just couldn't bring myself to do it, despite actually trying. And then I just got mad at myself for not taking care so I just... well, now I'm here. I just fucked everything up.
"I don't even know how it happened," he said. "I was fine. I was completely fine, but then for whatever reason, the universe flipped the switch and suddenly I feel like fucking dog shit. This happens every fucking time," he said, shaking his head.
I didn't even want to imagine how bad he must've felt to deny himself something as primitive as food.
"I'm sorry," I said quietly. He didn't look at me. He was so deeply lost in thoughts that he didn't even hear me. "You shouldn't feel that way."
"They want me on antidepressants as soon as possible. And therapy too."
"Wait, but that's good, right?"
"It's not. I don't want my happiness dependent on taking pills my entire life."
"That's what therapy is for, isn't it? Dealing with it without pills if possible?"
"I guess." He dropped his head, his forehead against mine. "Thank you for coming here." He pressed his lips against mine and I got closer, wrapping my arms around him again. I could feel him twitch under my touch, so I pulled away.
"What's wrong?"
"Fuck, just look at me," he said. "How am I still alive? I'm a fucking skeleton."
"It's not that bad, Oakley. You still are beautiful to me." I dropped my hands to his waist. Yeah, he might've lost some mass, but he was gorgeous either way, and nothing was able to change my mind.
"Stop lying to me, Nolan. You don't see me in the way you see other guys." His eyes grew dark as he looked down at his lap.
"You don't see me in that way. You said looking at people in that way is weird, remember?" I pushed his chin up so he would look at me again. "I don't want to pressure you to do anything you don't want to. But trust me when I say I love your body. Every part of it in every way. But I want it to last, so we're gonna have to work on that."
He'd started crying. I wiped his tears away with my sleeves.
"You don't get it. Every time I look in the mirror I look worse. Everyone knows this, Nolan. Everyone notices."
"What makes you say that?" I knew what he meant by everyone. He was listening to the online trolls. The incels who were jealous their crushes rather masturbated to pictures of Oakley than even glance their way. And Oakley beat himself up over it.
"They think it's your fault." His eyes were still glossy, rimmed with tears as he spoke quietly. "They don't see how you've changed."
"I know, Dimple," I said with a smile. "I don't care about those... those..."
"Assholes? Douchebags? Worthless pieces of shit?"
"All of the above," I said, laughing quietly. I kissed him before he could complain, and he relaxed. Finally giving up and kissing me back. And I smiled into it. He pulled me closer, hugging me tightly as I positioned myself comfortably between his legs.
The sound of a cough behind me made me jump away from him quickly—with a noise I'd never admit came from me.
"I'm sorry to interrupt, but I finished making up your diet plan and talked to the psychiatrist. We made an appointment for tomorrow," the doctor said with a clipboard pressed to her chest. I felt my face heat up, but Oakley's hand reached for mine, and I let him take it. It made me feel a lot better; like a weight had lifted off my chest. Well, I was still tense, but less.
"Awesome," Oakley said monotonously. I looked at him and he just shrugged. The doctor looked at me and then back at Oakley.
"I assume you're going to help him through the process?" she asked me. I nodded, trying to hide my discomfort as much as I could. "Okay. So we'll go through the diet plan once and then you'll let me know if there's any questions, alright?"
•••
"I'm going to throw up," he said, holding his stomach. I'd just quickly made him some sandwiches. It took him at least twenty minutes to only get halfway, but I could tell he was trying really hard.
"If you feel like you're gonna throw up, you should probably stop," I told him.
I'd stayed with him in the hospital through that night—after lots of whining to the doctors by Oakley. The next morning we went over the dietary plan again and Oakley got to talk to the psychiatrist who prescribed him antidepressants.
"The antidepressants aren't doing shit."
"The psychiatrist said it might take a few weeks. It's only been a few days."
"So you're gonna leave while I'm still feeling like absolute shit."
"Look, I'm sorry."
He got up from the chair and left, probably for his room. I decided to give him the space he probably needed.
Mom:
Nolan, you have a shoot tomorrow!!
Mom:
You can't ditch again
Mom:
It's unprofessional, Nolan. Come home.
I sighed and ignored her messages. Oakley was my priority right now.
Maybe he shouldn't be.
But I couldn't not be there for him right now.
But maybe I'd end up being taken advantage of again.
Oakley would never do something like that.
But I thought the same thing about Kylan.
I let my head fall onto the table. I wasn't sure what to do or who to talk to. Even Oakley didn't know anything about my past relationships. This was stupid.
Maybe my dad could help. I wouldn't need to share all the details. I just needed someone to talk to who wouldn't totally freak out. Or make me feel worse.
You:
Dad, can we meet up somewhere to talk? I don't want to see mom
It took him almost the entire morning to reply. In the meantime, I'd already showered, brushed my teeth and I went for a jog to kill time.
Dad:
Of course. You can come to my place.
He sent me the address—which I guess he forgot I already knew. I decided to go up to Oakley's room first.
"Oakley?" I peeked my head through the door opening.
"What?" he asked curtly. His voice sounded muffled. He was hiding underneath the blankets.
"I'm gonna go to my dad's for a moment. Are you gonna be okay on your own for now?"
"Whatever. Have fun." He peeked his head out from under the covers, his eyes meeting mine. I felt hesitant to leave, but I had to. The doctor said it too the other day. If it got overwhelming to either of us, we needed to take a step back.
"Your dad left you some spring rolls from yesterday. Make sure you eat, alright?"
"Fine. Just... get out of my room." He turned around, his back now facing me. "Don't forget to close the door."
I left and closed the door, just like he asked me.
•••
"Your mom has been freaking out. She wants to ground you," he said. "I told her something must've been going on that you didn't want to talk to us. You're an adult now."
I felt so far from an adult, though. I was eighteen. By law, I might've been an adult, but realistically, I knew I wasn't.
"It's Oakley," I said, sighing as I sat down on a chair. "He hasn't been doing well."
"Oh." My dad sat down, offering me a glass of water. He was treating me like some random guest. I didn't like it. "What happened?"
Maybe I did need the water.
"He's not too well," I said, staring at the glass of water in my hands. "The other day he passed out and had to go to the hospital. He hadn't been eating. He convinced them to let me stay the night with him so that's why I didn't come home. They put him on antidepressants but they're not really working yet, I guess."
"Oh, I'm sorry," my dad said. "I'll talk to your mom. I'm sure she'll understand."
"Mom's fucking crazy," I said, not caring about what I said about her. "She treats me like one of her clients. She always has. She doesn't care about me."
"She does care about you. We talked about this, Nolan."
"I know. She thinks this will make me happy or whatever..."
I fiddled with the bracelet around my wrist, refusing to meet his eyes.
"So is Oakley eating again?"
"Yeah," I told him. "It's just... I don't know how much longer I can do this."
"How do you mean?"
"Do you think he's good for me, Dad?" I finally looked up, wanting to know what he was thinking.
"You know him better than I do."
"But I'm really bad at relationships," I said, looking back down again. "It's like I lose myself without even realizing. Like I want to be their dream boyfriend and I end up putting up this big act. But it gets tiring. What if it's too much for me?"
"Look. I think you need to look past this for now. He's having a hard time and maybe he's pushing you away, but he's not hurting you, is he?"
"I thought Kylan wasn't trying to hurt me, but he was," I said.
My dad was quiet, and suddenly I started to feel really uncomfortable. I'd never told anyone about him. I knew he'd freak out if he knew I'd told someone. The guy completely tore me apart, yet I was still afraid of hurting him too much.
"You were together?" my dad asked, pressing his lips together.
"I- I mean..." It had always been complicated between us.
"When was this?"
God, I didn't think this through. I knew where this was going.
"A few years ago," I mumbled.
"A few? Like, two?"
"Four," I said, afraid to look up. I knew it was stupid. I knew he was taking advantage of me. I didn't need to hear it from someone else.
"You were a kid, Nolan. You'd just started puberty and he was already ending it!" I squirmed back into the chair, trying to push the thoughts away. I knew all of this already. I knew it was stupid. I could hear my dad sigh and tapping his foot on the floor. "How did it happen? What did he do?"
"I don't wanna talk about it," I said.
"Then I'm gonna have to talk to him," my dad said, pulling out his phone and finding a contact.
"N- no!" I said, suddenly standing in front of him. "Please don't, Dad."
"Then you're going to have to talk to me or your mother."
I shouldn't have told him anything. I should've kept my goddamn mouth shut like Kylan said I should.
"I'm sorry, okay? Please don't talk to him."
"Tell me what happened, Nolan."
I wiped my sweaty hands on my jeans, taking a shaky breath as I sat down.
"It's really not that bad..." I said, my eyes looking around frantically, trying to find something other than my dad to look at. "He just... he'd tell me some mean things and I took them to heart. E- especially when he felt bad he could be mean. That's all. I was just overreacting it's not—"
"That's not the full story, Nolan. What did a seventeen-year-old want from a fourteen-year-old?"
"H- he was still sixteen," I mumbled.
"I don't care! What did he want from you?" I'd never really seen my dad get this angry. I'd never really pissed him off like this.
"I don't know what he wanted from me. I don't care. It's been for two years."
"Nolan." My dad shook his head in disapproval. "How was he trying to hurt you?"
"He just said hurtful things."
My dad's face showed signs of disbelief. His mouth was slightly open as he ran his hand through his graying hair.
"Listen, son." He calmed himself down, his elbows leaning on his knees as he spoke to me. "Your mom and I have been trying to protect you this entire time. You wanted to be just like me so badly that we decided to support you. But every single day, I feel like I'm regretting it more and more."
I was confused. Why would he regret letting me do whatever I loved?
"I've always made sure to keep an eye on who you're working with and your mom did the same. It has always been our number one priority, because we wanted you to be safe.
"I didn't want to tell you this, but I didn't want you working in The Children. But your mom was convinced you'd love it. And I'm sure you did."
I nodded. Apart from the fact that Kylan ruined the way I saw myself back then, I loved the project. It was more serious and showcased my talents as an actor much better than this stereotypical dreamboy trope. Especially looking back on it, I could see how much I actually loved it. How much I could've loved it if it wasn't for him.
"Your mom and I... one of the reasons we divorced was because I didn't want you around Neely. There had been a few rumors going around about him and I didn't want to risk it, but he was a close friend of your mother so she got angry with me for believing such things."
Neely was the director for majority of the show. It was unusual for one director to work on every single episode with a show like that, but he was there to give us some sense of routine since we were all still young. I'd never heard of any rumors, so it must've been a pretty small one.
"What was the rumor about?" I asked.
"He said some stuff about young members that were... crude. I also heard some stuff about him having certain relations with cast members of other stuff he worked on. They never said anything about it being without consent or anything, but it never sat right with me. It's like me taking advantage of an extra or something. I just wanted to keep you in a safe environment, so if anything did happen between him and someone else, it wouldn't impact you."
"But what does this have anything to do with Kylan?"
"I'm getting the same energy from him. He was older than you. It might've been consensual in your eyes, but he had this kind of power over you. Even if he said the most horrible stuff to you, you felt flattered that he was even giving you the slightest bit of attention."
So he was basically calling me an attention whore.
"It's pretty ironic, actually." I snorted. "So you wanted to protect me from Neely—who barely even breathed in my direction, by the way—but because mom disagreed, you decided to leave me all together. And then I think I find someone who finally understands what I'm going through and then I end up being hurt even worse."
"I'm sorry, Nolan. I didn't want to—"
"Why else did you leave?"
My dad sighed. "I wanted to take custody, remember?"
I remembered something like that vaguely, but I'd spend my nights getting wasted in Kylan's attic. That, and from what I understood, dad had already left me.
"Your mom got it because well, you already made your mind up about me. She wanted you emancipated as soon as you turned sixteen so you could work longer hours, but eventually you wanted something else. And she agreed because she wants you to be happy, but sometimes she forgets about what's healthy for you."
I felt like I was fourteen again. All I wanted was my parents' attention. My dad was always some other place in the world for work. My mom only cared about work, whether it be mine or hers. Kylan gave me attention.
God, my dad was right. He had power over me. I was an attention whore.
I still am.
But what did Kylan want from me? I could be thinking about it so hard, yet I didn't understand. Why me?
"He just wanted to fuck me," I said, suddenly finding it harder to breathe. "And he hated me for it." He hated me because he felt attracted to me, and he fucked me and swore at me because he felt in control of it. I thought he was giving me attention, but he was just trying to gain control over his feelings.
Maybe he was jealous of me being able to be open about my sexuality. So he convinced me I shouldn't be. It made sense.
Kylan was already not casted easily because he was Asian, and he had a birthmark on his face, and being gay would be the last nail in the coffin. To me, it would merely be an inconvenience.
He didn't tell me much about his private life, but I knew that no acting career was a huge issue for some reason. Bigger than just being unhappy for not doing what you want. I always imagined it had something to do with his parents, but I was too afraid to ask.
My dad and I sat in silence. I knew he had lots of things in his mind, just like me.
"Neely never did anything to you or your friends, right?"
Neely was honestly the least of my concerns. If the rumor even were true, he'd be all talk. Though this entire thing made sense of why he never gave me the attention he gave the others. He didn't want trouble with my parents.
"No," I said.
I wondered how a conversation about Oakley had turned into one about this mess. And then I remembered I was scared. I didn't want Oakley to be the same, but this made me realize he wasn't. Oakley was a good guy, going through a hard time, and I needed to help him the way he helped me.
"Oakley isn't the same," I said. "He really does love me, right?"
"Oakley is head over heels for you. I don't know what he's going through, but he wouldn't try to hurt you."
I smiled a little again, playing with the bracelet on my wrist.
"I never formally apologized for walking out on you," my dad said. "So I'm sorry for everything. I should've been paying closer attention. I should've assured you that I wasn't leaving you. And I'm incredibly proud of you."
Fourteen-year-old me would've sold my limbs just to hear my parents tell me that. But eighteen-year-old me, right now, already knew this.
My eyes started flowing like rivers and I smiled. My dad got off the couch and moved over to hug me.
So much for keeping the details.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Idk how I keep introducing more drama when the story is already coming to an end lol
Also, as we'd say in Dutch: dit hoofdstuk is tering lang.
Question of the update: what's your aesthetic? Either of your room your outfits?
I don't really have one but I love really wide leg pants because they don't cut off my circulation when I sit on my leg 😂