“Venice, we need to talk,” My dad decides the next day, on Sunday during the afternoon as I’m walking into the living room.
I frown in confusion because usually, those ‘we need to talk’ words mean that something bad is about to happen. “I thought you were at work.”
“I called off for a few hours,” He explains. “Will you sit with us?”
I look on the couch and see that my mom is sitting there with him and they both look like they’re about to tell me that my puppy “ran away” but I know that’s impossible because I don’t have a puppy, so I’m still incredibly confused and a little bit worried. “I guess so. What’s up, Dad?”
“We need to talk about yesterday,” He informs me as I sit down on the love seat that’s perpendicular with the couch that both of my parents are sitting on.
I suddenly start to panic because the first thing I think about is that he knows about me and Mr. Erickson. He noticed something off at the dinner last night and now he suspects that I have a past with this business executive guy. I still try to play dumb because I don’t want to admit to anything unless I’m positive that’s what he’s talking about. Maybe he just suspects that we’ve spoken before. He can’t possibly know about my unethical past with his new business friend. “What happened yesterday?” I squeak, trying not to give away how incredibly nervous I am right now.
“Yesterday morning, Venice,” He reminds me and I let out a long breath of relief when I realize that this is not about Mr. Erickson because we didn’t meet him until last night. “The conspiracy theory against the milk.”
“Oh, that was nothing,” I shrug, trying to sound nonchalant about the whole thing because I don’t know how I’ll be able to explain that to my father without telling him the whole story about what happened at that party. I can understand how that seems kind of strange to him though.
“That was definitely something,” My dad insists. He’s pretty stubborn when he wants to be so I know that there’s nothing I can really say to assure him otherwise.
“Sweetie, we think that you should get some professional help,” My mom suggests completely out of the blue.
“Professional help?” I echo incredulously with raised eyebrows. “You mean like, a therapist or something?”
They both nod at me in confirmation and then my dad continues to explain their completely ridiculous idea. “We don’t know what happened but we’re not expecting you to tell us either. You’ve been very secretive since you’ve returned. However, whatever it is that’s happened to you in the past seven months, it’s obviously hurt you.”
I open my mouth to tell him that he’s wrong when he says the ‘we don’t know’ thing because only he doesn’t know. My mom actually knows exactly what happened, she just didn’t tell him about it, but I think she knows that I’m about to call her out, so she interrupts me before I even get a word out.
“It’s for the best, Venice,” She says quickly, shooting me a ‘keep your mouth shut’ look that my dad doesn’t see because he’s looking at me and not at his manipulative wife. “Not just for the family, but for you. You need help.”
“You don’t get to decide what I need,” I snap at her irritably.
“Just try it, please?” My dad pleads, ignoring my rather rude-sounding comment towards my mom sitting beside him. “I just want you to be okay, Venice.”
“Oh, I’m just peachy,” I chirp, shooting my stupid mother an angry glare, but I feel bad for making my dad worry and in all honesty, he has enough to worry about considering he’s running a freaking state. I hate admitting defeat to my mother but I know that it’s really what my dad wants and I shouldn’t fight him on this. “I will feel incredibly stupid and I don’t want to do this at all but if you really want me to, Dad, then I will, I guess. Once a week though, not like, every day or anything. Once a week is my limit.”
“That’s a fine compromise,” He nods. “I thought that’d be a lot harder.”
“Well, I don’t think that I need therapy. I am totally fine, you know, but I’m a good daughter and if you think that it’ll help then I’ll do it and it’ll just prove you wrong,” I explain with an innocent smile. “When do you have to go to work?”
“I still have a few hours until they need me at the office,” He explains.
“Let’s go to a movie,” I suggest. “We need some father daughter time because you’re always working and I’m always out but you’re free and I’m free.”
“Okay,” He agrees with a laugh.
“That new Captain America movie is out,” My mom adds as if she’s invited but I’d rather cut out my eyeballs than actually go anywhere with that troll if I don’t have to.
I look at her and try to be as polite as I can since my dad is right here too but it’s kind of hard because I just hate her so much. “Father. Daughter.” I say, pointing from my dad to me and then I leave going into the garage before she can snap at me for being rude or something like she did the other night.
“I wish you two would get along,” My dad tells me, meeting me at his car.
“Hey, I’m going to the crazy house but I will not get along with her. I’m sorry, Daddy, but just no,” I shake my head at him.
“You two used to be close, didn’t you?” He wonders with a sad sigh as if my bad relationship with my mother makes him sad. That sucks, but reconciling with my mother isn’t something that I can do even if it upsets my dad.
I shrug, remembering the time in my life when I absolutely loved my mother like most daughters do but then in one night- on that night- everything changed as quickly as everything changed when Eli did what he did. “I guess so. She did have a point about that Captain America movie, I’ll give her that.”
◊◊◊◊◊
“He thinks that I’m just a big bag of crazy,” I rant five hours later as I sitting on the edge of Benson’s bed.
“Well, I mean, you did totally freak out on a jug of milk yesterday,” He reminds me sheepishly.
“Yeah, but I had my reasons. And I was sleep deprived. Everybody goes insane when they’ve only had half an hour of sleep,” I defend my actions.
“Maybe the therapist will like, help you get over whatever it is that’s keeping you from sleeping though,” He offers me. “And you seem like you could use any help that you can get.”
“You help me sleep,” I say softly, wrapping my arms around his waist. “I don’t need anything else to help me sleep.”
“It’s not me, it’s sex that you need to sleep, and you have to admit that that’s not the most mentally healthy thing to do,” He corrects me. “I don’t know, Venice, I just think that it might help. I know that you want me to take your side but it’ll be good for you, I think.”
“I don’t have any deep dark secrets,” I deny with a shake of my head but we both know that that’s a terrible lie. “So I won’t have anything to tell a freaking therapist.”
“You don’t have any dark secrets?” He echoes incredulously. “Venice, you are like, the most dark, secretive person I know. You are also the most traumatized person that I know.”
“Okay,” I sigh. “Fine, I just… I feel so crazy but I’m just not, you know? I just… I don’t know. I’m not crazy, Benson.”
“I know that you’re not crazy,” Benson assures me. “You just have a lot inside of your head is all.”
“Be honest,” I tell him. “Do you really think that I’m not crazy? Completely honest here, Ben.”
“Completely honest, Vi,” He repeats. “You really aren’t crazy. I promise.”
“Everybody is going to think that I’m crazy once they hear that I’m going to a freaking therapist,” I mumble quietly.
“Fuck everyone,” He says with a shrug.
I smirk and rest my head on his shoulder. “I have you for that, Ben.”
He laughs and wraps his arm around my waist. “Seriously, Vi, it doesn’t matter what they think. It’ll help you and that’s really all that matters.”
“Yeah,” I mumble.
“But you’re not worried about everyone thinking that you’re crazy,” Benson accuses. “You’re just worried about what Nate will think, right?”
I shrug and fumble with my fingers awkwardly. I open my mouth to tell him that we’re not allowed to talk about Nate and to remind him that he’s breaking one of the rules of our arrangement by bringing him up, but I decide against that and then let out a sigh and say, “Yeah, I guess so. I… I don’t know about him.”
“What do you mean?” He wonders.
“I mean like, I miss him. I miss him a lot. But I’ve changed so much and he’s changed so much. This whole time that I was gone, he was convinced that I’d cheated on him with Sam which is incredibly ridiculous and I can’t believe that he’d think that I’d do that. I know that I’m rather promiscuous now but back then… I was basically the Virgin Mary,” I inform him. “He’s such an asshole for thinking that I did that to him but I still miss him.”
“You were a virgin when you left?” Benson asks me with a somewhat shocked frown on his face.
“No, I…” I trail off when I don’t realize how I can explain not being a virgin after I just explained to him how incredibly innocent I used to be without telling him about Sam and Cole. “I-I mean, I guess it’s complicated.”
He laughs and kisses my cheek. “I think you’re warming up to me because when I used to ask you questions that you didn’t want to answer, you’d just tell me that you love mysteries or that it was a story for another day but now you actually try to answer them and then stumble over it.”
“That didn’t make any sense,” I inform him with a slightly awkward laugh.
“Well, you don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to,” He assures me.
I look up at him and randomly kiss his lips before I lean back and press my palm to his jaw. My thumb runs over the metal ring in his bottom lip. “Do you use your lip piercing to pick up girls?” I wonder randomly.
He nods with a laugh of his own, letting me change the subject with ease which I am incredibly grateful for because I don’t want to talk about the war in my mind anymore (maybe I just referenced Lana Del Rey). “It works too.”
I laugh again, harder this time and this laugh is actually real, which I’m grateful for. “Oh wow, what do you say?”
He smirks at me and then leans over and he starts kissing me and it turns into a serious make out in a few seconds before he pulls away and whispers in my ear. “This is where you say something about how weird it feels making out with a guy with a piercing.”
I clear my throat and in a breathy voice, I say, “It feels weird making out with a guy with a lip piercing.”
I feel him chuckle against my ear and then he mumbles, “It feels even better when I go down-“
“Oh my, gosh,” I interrupt him, seeing exactly where this is going and I don’t need to finish his sentence. “You actually say that to girls? And it works?”
He nods and then grins sheepishly. “Every single time.”
“That’s really weird,” I inform him, biting my bottom lip a little bit.
He laughs again and leans back in his bed. “You’re thinking about it now, aren’t you?”
I actually blush- I didn’t think that I had the ability to blush anymore- and turn around so he can’t see my blushing face. “I’m definitely not doing that.”
“I can show you,” He suggests, pulling me closer to him but I’m still facing away from him and he presses his lips to my neck.
“Tempting,” I breathe with ragged breaths. “But let’s watch a movie or something.”
“Okay then,” Benson laughs. He bites my shoulder lightly before standing up off of his bed to go over to his TV where his Xbox is hooked up. “What do you want to watch?”
“Surprise me,” I tell him. “Nothing scary though.”
We watch the movie- I’m not really sure what it is that we’re watching- but we watch it for the first hour just platonically sitting on his bed but then it’s not so platonic and we’re making out a lot and our shirts are gone and he starts kissing my neck, causing me to moan a little bit.
“Where does your family think that you are?” Benson asks me, coming up for air after a while.
I shrug. “Random much? They don’t really ask questions, they just text sometimes to make sure that I’m not on like, gone gone again. When I get home, they’ll probably ask but I’ll improvise or something.”
“One more question,” He pipes. We’re laying down on his bed facing each other with our faces about a centimeter apart.
“Better make it a good one then,” I say with a small laugh.
“I thought you said we could only do this once a week, but we did it yesterday and you’re giving me some strong signals that say that we’re about to do it right now too,” Benson reminds me.
“Not a question but I’ll go for it,” I sigh. “I know this is going to sound crazy but you already said that you don’t think that I’m crazy and you can’t take that back. I just have a lot on my mind right now and I just need it more than once a week for now but if you can’t keep up...” I trail off teasingly.
“Don’t insult me,” He scoffs. “I know that it’s wrong to do this,” He informs me. “To let you use sex as a type of mental release but I suspect that you’d go somewhere else if I turned you down so by saying no, I wouldn’t really be helping you out at all. And I want to be there for you.”
“You don’t have to explain yourself to me, Ben,” I say with a soft laugh.
“I just don’t want you to think that I’m like, taking advantage of you or anything,” Benson tells me. “I mean, maybe I am, but that’s not why I’m doing this with you.”
I push my lips into his and we start making out again. “You’re so hot when you’re concerned,” I mumble into his neck as he rolls over and then he’s on top of me and we get even more intense. Hooking up with Benson is not the same thing as hooking up with Mr. Erickson. Being with Benson is like gently exhaling all of my problems out of my body for a little while. It’s nice and calm and relaxing and perfect. With Mr. Erickson, every time I did what he said- every time I got into bed with him, it was slitting my wrist and I was bleeding out my problems instead of exhaling them. It was painful, humiliating, and it was always full of hatred. I hated him so much- and I still do. But I don’t hate Benson. I don’t love him either, but I really like him. Platonically. I actually look forward to seeing him where as with Mr. Erickson, I cringed every time I heard him walking into a room.
When we’re done, I decide that I shouldn’t sleep here because I feel like my family will worry. Mainly my dad and Emmett because even if my mom and Eli worry, I just don’t care. I get out of his bed and get dressed in the clothes that I came here in. It’s not that late so I’m tempted to stay for a little bit longer, maybe go for a second round, but I think that I should get back early because it’s a school night and I might have some homework to do.
When I’m fully dressed, I lean over the bed and press my lips to Benson’s soft ones. “Thank you for listening, Ben. You’re seriously amazing, you know.”
He smirks at me and then kisses me again. “Yeah, that’s what they all say.”
I laugh and jokingly push his shoulder a little bit. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Yeah, see you tomorrow.”
When I get home, Emmett is sitting in the kitchen waiting for me. I know that he’s waiting for me because when I get in there, he looks up at me and then opens his mouth to speak as if he’s been planning what he’s going to say. “I want to know what happened last summer.”
“Okay, well then ask Eli,” I inform him.
“I did. I’ve been asking him for the past two days and he won’t tell me,” He explains. “And after what happened yesterday morning with the food and then you were acting really weird at dinner, I want to know.”
“I can’t tell you, Em,” I sigh apologetically.
“Yeah, well that’s bullshit,” Emmett snaps, obviously irritated at being the only one that doesn’t know. I mean, he’s not the only person that doesn’t know, but I can understand how it feels like that because out of the three of us, he is the only person that doesn’t know what happened those seven months ago. “If he hurt you, Vi, I should know about it, don’t you think?”
I sit down at the table beside him and start chewing nervously on my tongue. I’m getting the sense that he’s not going to let this go anytime soon so I have to think of a version of the truth that doesn’t tell him everything. “It was at that party- the graduation one that I talked you guys into letting me go to- and I was in a room by myself because I wanted to call Nate. So, I called Nate and after I hung up, I was about to go back out to the party but there was a knock on the door. It was Eli and he came into the room. He was tripping on acid but I didn’t know that at the time. He seemed kind of normal, I guess, and I was already tipsy so I didn’t notice how weird he was acting. Anyway, he gave me a drink which was fine by me because even though you guys told me not to take drinks from anybody, I figured that it’d be okay because it was Eli. But yeah, it had roofies in it.”
“He fucking roofied you?” Emmett all but shouts at me incredulously.
I nod with a sheepish shrug. “He didn’t like, do anything. God, gross, no. He stayed in the room with me for a little while because those drugs take like, twenty minutes to set in, and so he stayed with me until I started feeling dizzy and then he got up and left. That’s it. That’s the story.”
“Why would he do that?” He demands.
I shrug again. “I don’t know- like I said, he was on acid and he didn’t know that I was me. He thought that I was some other girl, I think, but yeah. So that’s why I freaked out because he was on drugs Friday night, I freaked out and I was so sleep deprived yesterday morning that I apparently figured that he drugged everything in our fridge because that’s just what he does when he’s on drugs. That’s what my sleep deprivation thought anyway. Are you satisfied now?”
He frowns as if he feels like he’s missing part of the puzzle, which he is, but that’s not something that I’m going to tell him. No matter how mad he gets at the world for not knowing something, I will not tell him about Sam and Cole. “That doesn’t make any sense. There has to be more to it than that,” Emmett insists.
I stand up and start walking towards the stairs. “That’s all I’m telling you, Em.”
“Fine, at least it’s something,” He mumbles. “Goodnight.”
I walk back over to him and hug him tightly. “You’re the best brother ever, Emmett, and I love you to death. Goodnight.”