“Why not?” Ethan demands, and for the first time since we started the discussion he seems truly frustrated. “That chain is more than just a piece of jewelry and we both know it. So why would you object to something that’s a symbol of the commitment we have to each other? Something that helps ground you and makes you feel more secure in yourself and in our relationship?”
“Don’t talk about it like it’s a collar,” I tell him.
“That’s exactly what it is and you and I both know it. And I don’t appreciate you pretending otherwise. You want to talk, we’ll talk. But I’m not up for bullshit right now.”
It’s probably the toughest Ethan has ever talked to me and it gets my back up a little. Then again, a look into his stubborn blue eyes tells me that that’s exactly what he’s going for. He’s trying to piss me off. Trying to get me to react when I’m trying so hard to be calm about this.
But even knowing what he’s doing doesn’t stop me from reacting to it. “And I’m not up for this macho act you’ve got going on, either, so you might want to reconsider it,” I say with a definite bite.
“If you don’t like it, then tell me what’s really going on. Don’t hand me some bullshit line about liking sea glass but not being able to accept anything that costs over twenty bucks.”
“It’s not bullshit!” I tell him, and for the first time, I’m getting angry.
“It kind of is,” he answers. “And I’m getting damn sick of it. So tell me the truth. What do you have against my money?”
“Nothing!” I assure him. “I know how hard you’ve worked for everything you have. You deserve everything you’ve got.”
“Okay, then.” He eyes me skeptically. “If it’s not the money you’re upset about, then what do you have against me personally?”
“Seriously? Now you’re just being stupid.”
“Am I? I don’t think so. Because it has to be one or the other—you don’t like my money or you don’t like me. Nothing else makes sense.”
“I’m completely in love with you, Ethan. You know that.”
“Then I don’t get it, Chloe. If it’s not the money and it’s not me, what is it?”
“Your family bought my silence for three million dollars.” The words come out before I even know I’m going to say them. But it’s the truth and if we’re going to make this thing work, Ethan might as well know exactly what it is he’s dealing with. Exactly what it is he’s up against.
“They threw their money at me to get Brandon off the hook and it worked, just like they knew it would. I mean, I took it, right?”
“Your parents took it—”
“Yeah, but they weren’t the ones who had to go to the police station and recant their statement, were they? No, that was me. I’m the one who had to walk in there all alone and tell them I’d made the whole thing up. I’m the one who had to sit there and be threatened with being charged with filing a fake police report while your brother just walked away. And I’m the one who had to sign the non-disclosure agreement, promising that upon payment I would never speak of the rape in association with Brandon’s name again. And I never did, not until he showed up on your doorstep three weeks ago. But you already knew, so I guess it didn’t count.”
Ethan looks stricken when he reaches for me. “Baby, I’m sorry. I swear, I’ve never thought about it like that. If I had—”
“There’s nothing for you to be sorry about.” But still I shrug him off. I can’t stand the idea of him touching me while I tell him just how low I sunk. Just how pathetic I was. “You’re not the one who sat there watching them hand your father a check for three million dollars. And you’re not the one who went home, climbed in the bathtub and tried so hard, so hard, to work up the nerve to slice your wrists wide open.”
“Jesus Christ. Chloe. Jesus Christ.” He reaches for me again and again I shrug him off. “You can’t tell me and then not let me hold you.”
“I’m okay.”
“I know you are. But I’m not. Baby, I’m not.” He looks like he’s going to try to touch me again, try to hold me, but at the last second he lifts his hand to the back of his neck and rubs at it instead. I’m not sure whether I’m grateful or devastated.
In the end, I figure it doesn’t really matter either way. I just want to finish this story. Just want to get it over with. “I was never strong enough to do it. I’d go to school every day, listen to your brother and his friends call me a whore and a slut. I’d fight them off in the stairwell when they groped my breasts or tried to shove a hand up my skirt. When they pushed me onto my knees and told me how much I wanted it. When they unzipped their pants and tried to make me—”
My voice breaks and I realize it’s because I’m crying. Again. Damn it. Why is there always more? More pain. More tears. More stupid, psychotic shit I’ve got to wade through because I was once an idiotic fifteen-year-old girl who made a lot of idiotic mistakes.
After I fell for Ethan, I thought it was over. Thought I’d moved past it, gotten over it. And now, here I am in the middle of a goddamn parking lot in fucking Napa Valley and it’s all right here between us again. Where it always is.
Where I’m desperately afraid it always will be.
I look down at the ground now, because I can’t tell the rest of the story if I’m looking at Ethan. Not this, after everything else. Not when I still don’t know which part I’m most ashamed of. The fact that I wanted to kill myself or the fact that I was too chicken to go through with it.
“Every day for a year, I tried. I got home, went upstairs to the bathroom, got out the straight edged razor I’d bought for just that purpose. And I’d try. I’d try and try and try until my arms were covered with shallow little cuts. Hesitation wounds, the shrinks call them. That was me, always hesitating. Never able to get the job done, no matter how hard I tried.”
I brush impatiently at the last stray tears sliding down my face as I wait for Ethan to say something, anything. He hasn’t said a word since that muttered, Jesus Christ, when I first started talking. I’m not sure what his silence means but I figure it’s probably not good.