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."
The truth, free at last, brings with it a lethal silence. I don't even breathe, my tears falling without a sound as I take in a quiet that's so visceral I can hear the windchimes all the way downstairs on the porch. My heart doesn't stop pounding, nor does it stop hurting, but I'm willing to embrace it. Bravely, I sniff and dry my eyes, counting backwards from ten before I turn away from the mirror, finished with my confession, to face next my parents who are sitting stunned and emotional in the worst way over on my bed.
"Say something," I whisper, fragile, through the silent room. They hadn't uttered a single thing throughout, which is a surprise considering how many questions they had when I asked them both to come into my room so out of the blue, when I placed them there at my back so I wouldn't have to look at them when I finally told them everything. This was the only way I knew how to do it.
"How could you not tell us?" Dad asks eventually, his tone more uneven than his demeanor as he begins to process the information. Mom is no help to him, she hasn't ceased weeping into the hands cupped in front of her face, which is a far cry from his angry tears. It's been years since I've seen him cry in any capacity, but he does it so openly now as he gets on his feet. "All this time he's been walking around, perfectly free, without any repercussion? That's absolutely unacceptable, he needs to be held accountable for what he's done to you, we have to call the police!"
"Don't." I'm unusually calm in the wake of his anger, I wouldn't have anticipated anything less. "That's not why I told you, if I wanted to do anything more about it then I already would've."
"He hurt you, Drew, I can't let that slide!" He's closer, removed from the careful manner in which he regulates his emotional responses in any other situation. Right now he's nothing but a dad though, not a husband dealing with a difficult marriage or a professor in a lecture hall, and he sounds so hurt. "I should've done something, I should've got you into therapy sooner, I should've stayed here instead of going to the hotel. I should've been here for you more, my god, I'm so sorry, son. I'm sorry, but please, you can't give up!"
"I'm not giving up!" I exclaim, hoping I can make him see. That's what Cat did, she gave up, but I refuse to and I defend my actions. "This is my choice to make and I've made it. It messed me up pretty bad for a while, I admit that, to the point where I really wanted to hurt myself, but now I'm moving on. That's what I want, I'm only going to keep getting better but I can't do that if I stay stuck in the past, I need you to trust me on that. This isn't me not doing anything—this is me being brave enough to choose myself."
"By letting him go?" Dad isn't bought into the idea.
"Dan," mom manages through a sob. I hadn't noticed her get up either, but then she's behind him, placing a shaky hand on his back before she repeats what I said. "Don't."
"You're taking his side? Kristen, it's our duty to look out for him!"
"He's sixteen, if we push him now we're only going to push him away." She responds, puffing out her cheeks as she works to steady her breathing. There's something I recognize in what she tells him, but it isn't until they've stared at one another long enough that she reveals to him what that is, "you said that to me. I'm not taking any side, all I ever wanted was for our son to be okay, and him finally trusting us enough to tell us proves that he is getting better, so I think we should at least hear him out. It's not about you and me, I'm angry too, but mostly I'm just sad."
"Please don't cry, mom, none of it's your fault—I told you." My heart keeps breaking, more so that she can't get through what she wants to say without breaking down again. She accepts the comfort I extend to her.
"I'm so sorry you had to go through this alone," she squeezes my hand tearfully, "and if this is what you want, I do trust you. All I want now is to be here for you, for whatever you need. Your dad and I both will do whatever we can, won't we, Dan?"
"We can't just let him get away with this." Dad's still the smartest, and he's processed enough that it appears as though he's moved to join mom where she is, in being sad. He's the last holdout with the best intentions, but given the chance he must come to the same conclusion, because he caves and pulls me forward into a hug, squeezing me tightly in his arms. Mom does the same, and for a few, whole minutes we stay wrapped in the emotional embrace.
"He didn't." I remind dad. Right or wrong aside, Cat saw to that. The first step in resolving this crisis is complete, and in a weird way I'm relieved—I'm only going forward from here on out. Next up is my best friend, but I've already got some ideas for that too, so I look to my mom, "and I'm really glad to hear you say that, because there actually is something I want to ask you."
My parents and I spend a great deal of time talking things through, what my request will look like, and more about what happened to me, and how I'm dealing with it. With it all out in the open my aim is to be as transparent as possible, I'm only now earning their trust back and I intend to keep it that way. Once we're all talked out for one day, they agree uncertainly to let me leave, and I head to the park after sending a single text, learning after I arrive that Cat has already beat me here.
"I wasn't sure if I should come," she begins immediately when I've sat down on my usual swing. I'm appreciative of that, even though I know what I want to say to her, it's just like the confession to my parents because I'm not sure how to. The gravelly way she speaks gives it away that she's been crying, it's easy enough for me to identify now. "When I didn't hear back from you yesterday I assumed the worst. I didn't mean to blow you off when you asked me to meet you here before, I just didn't want to piss off my aunt anymore than I already did, but obviously it didn't matter either way because I'm fucked."
"You're not fucked, Cat." My calm feels out of place here too, as it had earlier.
"My life is over! What am I supposed to do now, my aunt says I have to be out of her house by tomorrow. I'm too old to go back into the system, Drew, and I couldn't take it even if I wasn't. I don't have anywhere to go." Her eyes portray a kind of real worry she never seemed capable of.
"Maybe you should come stay with me." I tell her. I am healing, and rebuilding, and making amends—full amends—with her is a part of that. It might not have been my hand that made her how she is, but I certainly didn't help by enabling her, or giving her half-truths. We did the best we could, two broken people trying to make it work, but I should have done more. This is my chance to correct that, and I'm so glad my parents agreed.
"You're serious?" Cat works through the proposal on her own time, taking her place on the swing next to mine.
"This morning I told my parents what happened to me, with Chad and last summer." It's all so new still, and the tiniest mention of it tugs at my heartstrings. "They took it sort of well, considering, we're in a good place. There will be more rules than you're probably used to, but they both said you're welcome to crash with us until we can find your cousins or you figure out what you're going to do next."
"Why would they do that? They hardly know me."
"But they know me, and they know I have to do this for you." How I look at her makes her avert her eyes, and I wonder if it's shame that I'm seeing. "You're my friend."
"Hard to tell these days," she mutters, but I gather that the statement is more directed at herself than anything, "I thought for sure you hated me now."
"What? That's crazy, I could never hate you." I reassure her gently, a bit amazed that she would entertain the thought. Even through the roughest parts, I never stopped caring about her. "We're just on different paths now, and who knows, maybe you getting kicked out is a blessing in disguise. Goodbury's never been the place for you, deep down I think we both have always known that, but I think leaving this town behind and starting fresh, like with your cousins, you can do it different. With everything we know now, and everything that's happened, maybe you can finally start to heal too."
"That's a nice thought, but I doubt I'll make it too far after what I did to Chad. I'm in pretty big trouble, aren't I?" Only now that she can see the light at the end of the tunnel does she begin to consider the depth of her actions. Or maybe it's because it's just started to matter.
"Don't worry about any of that," I reach a hand out to her, waiting until she takes it to offer another reassurance in the form of a smile. With both her and my parents accounted for, that ties up every loose end, leaving me to grapple at last with the thing at the back of my closet, the thing that will finally put all this to an end. I won't lie and say I'm not scared, because the truth is I very much am, but I've come this far and I won't stop. I won't go back—never again—so with my smile in place I promise her, more sure of this than anything else, "I'm going to fix it. I'm going to fix everything."