“Well, you’re lucky then. My stepfather tried to sexually assault me when I was a teenager,” I said. “Nothing ended up happening, but it’s basically ruined our relationship, which I think is kind of a given.”
“Have you talked to your mother about it?”
“I tried. And since nothing happen
ed, and because it was so long ago now, she doesn’t believe me. I don’t know if she would have believed if me I told her right when it happened, either, but it makes things difficult. I just have no desire to be around him.”
“That’s understandable. You know, something sort of similar happened to me when I was a freshman in college,” Amy said. “I went to this party, and there was this guy there that I sort of knew from one of my classes. I had a little too much to drink—okay, I had way too much—and he kind of ended up taking advantage of me.”
“Oh, shit,” I said. “What an asshole. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. I felt pretty messed up about it for a while. I even went to see the campus counselor and everything. For almost six months, actually, but it was helpful.”
“That’s good.” I wondered if maybe it would’ve been helpful if I had gone to talk with someone, if that would’ve helped me move past it. It seems a little late for that now, though.
“It was. And I actually ended up talking to the guy about it. I didn’t feel threatened by him or anything, like he was going to hurt me physically, so I confronted him about it. And he apologized.”
“He did?”
She nodded. “He was drunk, too. I’m not saying that makes it better or anything, but it definitely helped me get over it. Maybe if you talked to your stepfather about it, it might help. I can understand why you wouldn’t want to, either, though. I think it helped me. Confronting him about it.”
“Yeah, I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll have to think about it.”
And I did continue to think about it. We stayed at the lake all day, going in for a swim when we started to get too hot, then returning to our towels to work on our tans. The whole time, in the back of my mind, I was weighing the pros and cons of bringing this up with Bill. Would it make things better, as Amy seemed to think? Or would it make things worse? Or maybe it wouldn’t change anything at all.
By the time I got home later, my skin felt warm and tight, and I could tell that my shoulders were slightly burned. But it had been nice to relax all day, to have a girlfriend to talk to. And I’d been thinking about what she’d said and what Cole had said the other night, and maybe they had a point. Maybe I was being too stubborn about this whole thing.
After I took a shower and changed, I called my mother.
“Finally!” she said when she answered. “I was beginning to think that you were ignoring me.”
“I’m not ignoring you. I was at the beach all day with my friend from work.”
“That sounds lovely! I went to the pool for a while. It was really too hot for me to be sitting outside for too long, though, so I didn’t stay for a while. But the lake sounds nice.”
“It was.”
“So... what do you think about coming down here? Maybe on Saturday? If we set an actual date, then I think it will happen, instead of just talking about it and saying that we’re going to plan something. How does that sound?”
“I gave it some thought,” I said. “And really, you should be thanking Cole because I don’t actually want to be doing this.”
“Well, that’s certainly a way to make me feel appreciated,” she said huffily.
“I’m just letting you know where I stand with this, okay? And that it’s not necessarily going to be easy for me. But I’m going to try, all right?”
“Sheesh,” my mother said. “You’re making it sound like you’re going off to a torture chamber or something. I just want to do something nice for you, okay? Isn’t that allowed? Why are you trying to make me feel bad for doing this?”
I sighed. “I’m not, Mom,” I said. “It’s just... it’s just more complicated, I guess, than you realize.” Or want to realize, I thought. “But I appreciate that you want to do this for us, and Declan is really looking forward to going to LEGOLAND.”
“I thought he would be. I think we’re all going to have a really nice time. We can go out to lunch, maybe see a movie, do a little shopping...”
She kept talking, unable to contain the excitement. Part of me found it a little hard to believe that she really was so excited about it, but she seemed genuine. Was she really just happy for me?
“This is going to be so much fun, just you wait and see,” my mother was saying.
“I’m sure it will be. Okay, well, I’ll text you when we’re leaving on Saturday, okay?”
“I can’t wait!”