On Wednesday, Sebastian invited me to come over to his house. No one would be home but us. I couldn’t help but think that suggested too much, but I agreed to come. Even through my nerves, I had to admit I was eager to see where things would go.
“You’re awfully quiet,” he said during the car ride from the school.
I looked at him with a shy smile. I was always quiet, I wanted to say. But he got the picture and laughed.
We parked and he led me up the path to the front door. The three-story house seemed very large and empty and dark when we stepped into the front hall. I’d thought James’ family was well off, but it was clear Sebastian’s family made the big bucks. I stared around me at the very big room in awe.
Sebastian rubbed the back of his neck and shrugged. “I don’t usually invite people over… they end up thinking I’m a snobby rich kid.”
I shook my head. “Your house doesn’t make you a snob.”
He squeezed my hand. “My room or the basement?” He asked innocently enough. But I knew he was giving me an opportunity to say how far I wanted to go without really saying it.
“The basement,” I answered after only half a second of hesitation.
Sebastian tugged on the hand he held and led me down a flight of stairs. The basement was three large rooms; a laundry room, a game room complete with arcade machines, and a huge media room with squishy couches and recliners. He gestured for me to sit on the couch and he flopped down next to me so we could pick a movie.
As he flipped through the options, I wondered what Jacki had said to him to get him to invite me over. I hoped it wasn’t anything too ridiculous like, ‘she wants to bang you, man, take her home.’ But knowing Jacki, it was probably something just like that.
The movie started and I felt Sebastian staring at me and my cheeks warmed at his attention. I wished he’d turned the lights off so he couldn’t see me blushing, but he didn’t comment on it.
He leaned over and kissed my cheek. And then my neck. And then he tilted my chin and kissed my lips. The passion I felt warmed me right to the core.
“So, I guess we’re not watching this movie then?” I said when he pulled back for a second.
He smiled and shook his head. Then kissed me again. Slower. Deeper. I moaned into his mouth. This was most definitely better than kissing in his mom’s car.
Sebastian leaned into me and suddenly I was laying down with him half on top of me, our legs entwined. He slid one hand up my shirt.
So far so good, we were at our usual place. Only laying down instead of in the front seat. I told myself to relax, but my heart was racing.
With his free hand, he took one of mine and slid it down his body to rest on a hardness under his jeans.
I froze up. And my lips must have stopped moving because he pulled away and looked down at me with a raised eyebrow.
“Are you okay?” He whispered, his voice husky.
I nodded. Not sure what I would say if I tried to speak.
“Are you sure?”
I nodded again, but he must have seen the panic in my eyes, because he eased to the side and took my hands in his. He kissed my fingertips and my palm before moving his face back to mine. We returned to kissing and I slipped my hands under his shirt to clutch him to me. I’d wanted to do more, but I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t want to admit it out loud, and I was relieved that he was okay with this instead.
This… this I could do.
A while later, I found it hard to detach myself from him, but the movie credits were rolling on the screen and I knew I’d need to get home soon. I mentally patted myself on the back for being able to keep the situation under control. But I also worried next time it wouldn’t be so easy.
—
The next day, I had an appointment with Dr. Jean at five thirty. But Sebastian invited me over to kill the time in between. I didn’t see the harm in it, thinking if there was a time limit, we couldn’t get into too much trouble.
But I was wrong, of course.
The second the basement door closed behind us, Sebastian tugged at the edge of my shirt as he kissed me hungrily. He had the shirt over my head and on the floor a moment later, pushing me onto the couch and climbing on top of me.
The moment my skin was exposed to the light, I was self-conscious and panicked he’d ask about my scars and still healing cuts from the week before. But he didn’t even seem to notice, lips trailing along my collar bones and over the tops of my breasts.
Then he kissed my bellybutton and undid my jeans, staring up at me with a look that turned my insides to jelly. He pulled them off of me when I didn’t protest. Even if I’d wanted to say no, I don’t think I could have brought myself to do it. I loved that hungry look in his eyes.
He kissed my hipbones slowly, tenderly, giving the left one a small bite that made me gasp. The next place he kissed me made me arch my back off the couch and an unfamiliar noise came out of my mouth, but I couldn’t even be embarrassed.
Wow.
When he crawled back up the couch to lay next to me, my entire body felt like a wet noodle. I stared at the ceiling, catching my breath and trying to connect the dots on what had just happened. He traced lazy circles around my stomach and then kissed my shoulder. Right above my healing cuts.
“Can we talk about these?” He whispered and I realized he was now tracing the scars along my ribs.
“Um.” I turned onto my side so I didn’t have to look at his face. “What… do you want to know?”
He sighed and his breath was hot against my back. “Anything you want to tell me.” He kissed gently between my shoulder blades and I relaxed a little.
“I’ve always done it. I… I get so caught up in everything and my head gets so loud… it makes it quiet again. Reminds me I’m only one person in one place.”
I’d never really put it into words before, but that was as close as I could get it without sounding totally nuts. Or did it sound nuts? Probably. I waited with my lips pressed together to see what he had to say about it.
“Okay.” He kissed my spine again.
And then my alarm went off to tell me to get to the bus stop for my appointment. How I wanted to ignore it… But I knew if I didn’t show up, I’d be in even more trouble at home. I couldn’t take that right now. Not with the awkwardness in the air every time I saw James.
I dressed quickly without looking at Sebastian’s face and then he walked me to the door. But before I could leave, he pulled me into him for a kiss and I was surprised to feel tears on his cheeks when he pressed his face into mine.
“Sorry if I made you late,” he whispered into my hair.
“It’s okay. It was worth it.”
He kissed me again and I pulled away. Needing to get away before I started crying too. The bus stop was at the street corner by his house and I hurried to get on the bus before it pulled away.
—
I was late. The bus and traffic. So it wasn’t really my fault. But that didn’t matter.
“Danny…” Dr. Jean frowned when he opened his office door to me knocking.
“It’s just ten minutes! There was traffic.” I said quickly. I felt bad, but it wasn’t something in my control for once.
“It’s still late. My receptionist already called Mr. Stockton.”
I scowled and sunk into the chair across from his desk.
“I’m sorry. But it’s what he asked or he would insist on being here with you each time. I’d much rather call him when you’re late than have him here interrupting everything you say.”
“Okay.” I could see his point. Even if I didn’t feel better about it. “It won’t happen again.”
“Despite your tardiness, you seem to be in a bit of a better mood today?”
“Yes.” I said. Even with the strange turn of conversation before I’d left, my time at Sebastian’s had been wonderful. And in fact, the question from Sebastian hadn’t made me feel guilty or wrong or any of the other negative emotions I usually had once someone asked me about cutting. He’d genuinely cared.
“Well,” Dr. Jean continued, “what’s different about today?”
“I didn’t go home after school today,” I said. In my head I added, ‘and I had an orgasm…’ But I was sure he wouldn’t appreciate that.
“I see. So, you don’t like to be at home with your foster family?”
“Not particularly.”
“Do you not like any of them or is it just Jack?”
I sat up straighter and folded my hands in my lap, resigned to the conversation despite my best efforts to daydream instead of focus, I could tell it wasn’t going to happen.
“Jack is the only one I don’t like. But only because of the way he has treated me from day one. But the others frustrate me when he’s around because they don’t stand up to him. Maddie is nice to me, and I can tell she really cares, but she follows Jack’s orders like he’s God. Allison is… well she’s ten. She’s nice and cute and fine to spend time with once in awhile, but she doesn’t know anything that’s up with me and it’s not like we can have a real connection.”
“And James?”
I hesitated. I didn’t want to tell him about what had happened before the car accident, but I also didn’t want to lie. “James… was my friend. He seemed to be my only ally in the house. But he also won’t outright disobey his parents. So it feels like I’m all alone.”
“Was your friend?”
I looked away.
“Okay, well what is it about Jack that bothers you so much?”
“The way he tries to change who I am. He won’t even accept my nickname. I’m not the perfect daughter simply because he adopted me and gave me a ‘better’ home. It’s too late to fix me.”
“Why do you think it’s too late?”
“You know why.” I sat back in the chair and folded my arms. I hated the way he made me say things that he already knew. “Bad things happened to me and they think they can make it all better by taking me to church and praying for me. I don’t believe in God and they think I should just because they do. They’ve tried to change my beliefs, my interests, and my wardrobe. But I’m a person, not a barbie doll. They don’t care if they actually make me better, they just want me to behave and be a good christian girl. But all that is just not going to happen. It’s too late.”
I was surprised to feel tears leaking from my eyes and I stared at the floor to hide them.
“But what if-”
“No. The only what if is what if someone had cared to help me when I was little. I grew up like this. It’s just me now.”
My head was starting to hurt. I put my forehead in my hands and closed my eyes. I hoped he didn’t want to talk about my poems after this. My emotions had done enough summersaults, I didn’t think I could handle any more.
“Okay.” He said it slowly and I looked up, surprised to hear the fight go out of him. “Danny… I understand why you think it’s too late. But it isn’t fair to not give it a chance. True, it is hard to change a person’s belief, and I’m not going to ask you to suddenly believe in God or any other deity. All I’m asking is you give your family a chance. They mean well, even if Jack doesn’t know how to show it.”
“Right.”
He sighed and rubbed his eyes. I felt tense all of a sudden. I wanted to ask him not to give up on me. He was wearing down, I could see it. I felt so helpless and I wrapped my arms around myself and squeezed as hard as I could.
“And you have to give me a chance, Danny. You have to try to let me help you, okay? Because we’re wasting our time if you won’t even give it a chance.”
Tears burned at the corners of my eyes again and I nodded hurriedly. I’d try to give it a chance. I really would. It was just so hard.
He started talking again and I listened to him in a daze. He said he was looking into my options past therapy. He wanted to help my mental stability and he had begun to worry that just talking it out wasn’t going to help me.
So… he was like the parents in that regard. He wasn’t giving up on me, just on himself. He wanted to find me something that would make me all better. That thing just didn’t exist though, I thought sadly and slumped in my chair.
But then he said something that made me snap to attention.
“What? What did you just say?” I dug my nails into my palms hoping it wasn’t true.
“I was just thinking about the possibility of you checking into a hospital for — ”
“Why would you think I’d want to go to a hospital? I would be stuck in my own head twenty-four hours a day! You think I’m crazy now, that would make me insane. I can’t go. Don’t make me go.”
“Relax. It was just a suggestion. For observation, not for anything severe. I didn’t say we had to do it.”
“Good. Because I won’t go.”
He looked at me sadly.
He could make me go. If he thought there was no other option. He would send me there if he had to. I’d have no choice. He knew it and I knew it. I sagged in the chair again, defeated.
“Well.. it looks like we’ve run out of time for the day. We’ll talk about your poems next session.”
“Okay.”
I walked towards the door, arms still wrapped around myself.
“And Danny,” he said and I turned back. “Don’t be late.”