Hancock Park (16 page)

T
he next day, when I arrived at my dad's house, I found Jack, Dad, and Darcy sprawled on my dad's king-sized bed, watching
South Park
. I hated seeing Darcy in that bed. My mother used to sleep in that bed. And when I was really little, I would sneak into their room in the middle of the night and crawl into that bed, right between my mom and my dad. Now this twentysomething tart slept there instead.

“Hi, sweetheart, how are you? Oh—someone named Aaron called looking for you. He said you weren't picking up your cell phone?” my dad said. It wasn't that I was ignoring his calls. I still hadn't been able to remember what had happened on Friday night, and I wasn't sure that
I even wanted to know.

Jack sat up. “Who's Aaron, Becky?” His voice was sing-songy. He knew damn well who Aaron was; he just wanted to make me say it in front of Dad. And Darcy.

“Aaron's my boyfriend.” I looked my dad straight in the eye. I spoke quickly, before I could second-guess myself. Suddenly, I found myself feeling as though I were in some twisted position of power. I smirked at Darcy, who was lying down, wrapped around my dad. My dad could have a girlfriend. Well, I could have a boyfriend, too. And I could do inappropriate things with him if I wanted to (what things, I wished I knew). I was basically an adult, after all.

“Well,” Dad said, putting his arm around Darcy, “if he approves of you, I approve of him.”

“That…” I began. I stopped myself. Pardon?
If he approves of you, I approve of him?
That certainly wasn't how that line was supposed to go. It was backward, and deliberately so. I nodded my head. Still trying to wrap my head around the sentence, I left the room, not feeling my best. I had always imagined that when I finally told my dad that I had a boyfriend, it would be a triumphant moment. And this? This didn't feel so triumphant.

I managed to make it through the weekend without checking Facebook. I wanted to ignore the goings-on of Friday night for as long as I possibly could. So, I immersed myself—as I had many times before—in MUN work. The MUN conference was just a week away, and we were busy preparing and solidifying our speeches and arguments.

Courtney finally understood who Uganda's allies were, which was crucial for resolution writing. And I was feeling a little more comfortable about having her as my delegation partner.

 

Mr. Elwright was concerned about some of the girls in class being more enthusiastic about the boys at the upcoming weekend conference than about the conference itself. He was especially concerned about what those girls might wear. He had cocked his chin toward Alissa, whose skirt was rolled over so many times that it was significantly shorter than the striped boxer shorts she was wearing, and then had asked me to explain Western business attire to the girls, before blushing and leaving the room to “run a quick errand” (read: so he could be as far from this conversation as possible).

“So,” I told a group of tired-looking girls, “this weekend, at the conference, there is a dress code, as most of you know.” I tried to think of a way to tell everyone to look their best without looking slutty. “They call it ‘Western business attire,' which basically means that even if you are representing Saudi Arabia, you can't wear an abaya.” I paused. Blank faces stared back at me. “An abaya is what women wear in Saudi Arabia to cover themselves head to toe,” I explained. More blank looks. “Anyway, as far as clothes for MUN go, whatever you wear, make sure you look professional. We want to be paid attention to because of our brains, not our bodies. So don't wear jeans, and no
skintight skirts or low-cut shirts.”

Most of the girls laughed or snickered, but Alissa winked at me. Why was she winking?

 

“Have you and Aaron had sex?” Katie Roberts, a bubbly sophomore, asked me after the meeting ended.

“What?”

Courtney's eyes were on me now.

“You know…should we add you to the list?” When I didn't respond, Katie added, “You know, there's that picture up of you with a condom in your mouth, so some people have been assuming…”

What?

A condom? In my mouth? Did that mean…? Fuck. What the hell had I been thinking, getting so drunk?

“No.” I shook my head, my heart racing. “No. I shouldn't be on the list,” I said. I hadn't had sex. I would have remembered that, or at least part of that, right?

That night, I browsed through the pictures that Alissa had added to Facebook from the past Friday's festivities. I searched for a photo featuring me and a condom, and before long, I found it. I squinted my eyes at the computer screen, looking at a girl I could barely identify as myself.

There I was, my eyes dilated, sitting on Aaron's lap. Indeed, there was not one but two condoms in my mouth—both of them in their wrappers. And next to me, on the other side of Aaron, was my little brother.

My little brother? What was he doing there? I
concentrated for a minute and tried to dedicate my brain power to remembering what had happened that night. Bits and pieces were coming back to me.

Jack had entered the lounge holding a cell phone in one hand and pulling up his pants with the other. “Mom says I can do whatever you guys are doing before she takes me to Dad's,” Jack said. “So pass me the booze.”

“Hey,” Aaron said, eyeing my brother, his eyebrows furrowed together. “I know you. I mean, I've met you before. I don't know where, though.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “I'm in your computer science class.” Aaron's face was blank. “I sit one row behind you, idiot,” Jack added.

“Oh!” Aaron nodded his head eagerly. “That's right!” His hands were wrapped around my waist, and he pulled me back to kiss him.

“My brother!” I hissed, pulling away. Kissing in public was one thing, but kissing in front of my little brother? Well, that was something else entirely.

Jack smirked and pulled up a chair. He sat down and dug a hand into his jeans pocket. “Here,” he said, holding up a couple of condoms. “You might want these.”

“Why do you have condoms?” I asked Jack, sitting back upright and smoothing out my hair.

“Why wouldn't I?” He took a swig from the vodka bottle. “No glove, no love.” Jack tossed the condoms to me.

Suddenly I was starving and a little queasy. I had been
drinking on an empty stomach. “Unless this is edible, I don't want it,” I said.

Alissa took out her camera. Or maybe she'd had it out the whole time. I was too drunk to tell. “Put it in your mouth. Pretend it's food,” she said, cracking up as if she'd just told a really, really good joke.

“That is so funny. Yeah, Becky, do it!” Kim added.

So I did.

 

It wasn't that I was nervous about sex itself; I was just nervous about being naked in front of someone else. Because after you had sex, when you were just going about your normal, clothed life, there that other person would be. And he would have seen you without your clothes on; he would know what you looked like underneath that dress.

And there was something intrinsically terrifying about that.

So when I had woken up minus my shirt and next to Aaron, I had been nervous.

Although my memories of that evening took a few days to resurface, eventually they did. I was pleased to discover that I hadn't had sex with Aaron. I had come pretty close, though. Aaron and I had been sitting side by side on one of the twin beds in my room, our backs up against the headboard, surfing channels on the television. Alissa had decided suddenly that she had to have an ice cream sundae, and Courtney and Kim had accompanied her downstairs to instruct the kitchen—under no circumstances were
there to be any nuts on top of the whipped cream.

“My feet hurt,” Aaron had said, wriggling the toes within his white socks.

“Mine, too,” I'd said, emphasizing the patent leather heels that I hadn't removed when we had sat down on the bed, simply because I thought they made my legs look longer, and Aaron hadn't noticed them yet.

Aaron had looked down toward my feet, nodded, and looked back up at the TV. A few minutes later, he had clicked the
OFF
button on the TV remote and turned his head toward me.

“You're beautiful,” he had slurred. Even though he was drunk, the compliment meant a lot to me. Aaron's lips had met mine as he'd leaned in toward me, pushing his hand down on the bed for leverage. His eyes were closed even before our lips had made contact. Once we were touching, I'd closed mine but then proceeded to open them again, just to make sure that Aaron's were still closed. He'd put his arms around me and kissed me, his hand wandering to the small of my back. My insides had felt fluttery and my sense of control had faded—in a good way, for once. But that, too, might have been because of the alcohol. Aaron had reached up my back to unzip the dress. I knew where his hand was headed, but when it had touched my back, a shiver had shot down my spine and my arms had fallen to my sides.

“Okay?” Aaron had asked.

“Yeah.” I'd nodded, looking up at him. His hair was
rumpled and his cheeks were flushed. It was moments like these when I couldn't believe I was actually going out with him. I'd felt weightless and giddy. He was unzipping my dress, pulling it all the way down past my waist. I was nervous, afraid that Aaron wouldn't like what he saw. That extra fat right below my belly button, my none-too-large breasts, everything. But Aaron, kissing my neck and then downward, had just taken a breath, looked up at me, and said, “Beautiful.” I had relaxed into him, enjoying his touch and my light-headedness. We'd fooled around until we were both too tired to kiss. I'd fallen asleep in his arms.

We both slept in that twin bed, and I had felt entirely at peace. The warmth of Aaron's body behind mine protected me. I was desired. I was happy.

T
aylor had posted some pictures from my party, too. Aaron told me about them over the phone.

I balanced the phone on my ear and leaned forward to type Taylor's name into the search box. Sure enough, she had a new album up, entitled “Tipsy.” Most of the pictures were ones that Taylor's father had taken, before we were all drunk, while we still had the capability to smile like normal people. The best picture was of Taylor and her dad. Taylor's dress looked pretty (albeit out of place), and the color saturation on her dad's salmon-colored pants was intense. They were both smiling. I scrolled down the page to leave a comment on the photo:
Adorable
.

“This picture of Taylor and her dad is pretty cute,” I
told Aaron, still balancing the phone on my shoulder.

“You mean the one where he looks gay?”

I gulped and grabbed onto the phone. “Don't say that,” I said.

“Why not? It's funny.”

“Not really,” I said.

“Whatever, Miss Serious.”

“I have to go.”

Aaron didn't know, I reasoned. He was a guy—a lot of guys called things “gay,” no matter how inappropriate it might be. He had no idea. He didn't know that Taylor's dad actually was gay. I threw the phone across my bed and pressed the
COMMENT
button on Facebook. I was just glad that Aaron had made the “gay” comment to me, not to Taylor.

The next day at school, I was careful to be extra nice to Taylor. I thought being nice might make up for the fact that, unbeknownst to her, Aaron had been such a jerk.

But then it all went to shit. After school, I received an e-mail from Taylor. The e-mail had no subject and had only one line in it.
Your boyfriend is a jackass
, it read. I switched into my instant messenger application and searched for Taylor's screen name in my buddy list. She was online, so I sent her a message. I asked why she thought my boyfriend was a jackass, and did she understand that I didn't really appreciate her calling him a jackass?

Check Facebook
, she told me.
Then you'll understand. And thanks for blabbing.

What? I went to her page and saw that Aaron had left a comment on the photo of Taylor and her father.

It read:
Your dad looks so gay in this picture
.

“Shit,” I said to my empty room.

I didn't say anything
, I wrote to Taylor.
He doesn't know. If he knew, he'd never have said that.

Maybe
, Taylor wrote back.

Can I tell him?
I asked.

NO.

Why?
I messaged back. Taylor had said that it wasn't a secret; so why couldn't I tell Aaron?

Because I said so. Because he wouldn't get it.

I should have said something to Aaron. I should have done something to stop it. I should have, I would have, I could have. But I didn't. Instead, I just ignored Aaron and his calls while the online drama exploded.

Everything happened over the Internet—no phone calls, no face-to-face meetings, just uncensored, online viciousness. That's the problem with the Internet. Online, people have the courage to say things they would never dare say to someone's face. Typing sort of takes away responsibility for the situation; you are detached from what you're writing—the computer screen acts as a buffer.

June would say that this is why I like to write so much—because when I write something down, I automatically become one step removed from the incident. But this is different. I just keep a journal and write papers from the viewpoints of different countries.

I don't go around harassing my girlfriend's friend online.

The problem was that Aaron didn't know about Taylor's dad. He was obnoxious, sure, but everything he said was made worse by the fact that Taylor's dad actually
was
gay.

Over the next few days, Taylor and Aaron had an increasingly heated online conversation, all of which was published on Facebook for hundreds of people to see. Because I was the first person to comment on the photo, I received an e-mail notification any time someone else commented on it. And because my e-mail came to my phone, which I never turned off—even during the school day, when cell phones were strictly off-limits—I was constantly in the loop. Although, more than once, I wished that I wasn't. Taylor's first message was a very calm response to Aaron, chastising him for believing that political incorrectness was “cool.”

Then the trouble started. My phone buzzed in math class the next day. Aaron had responded to Taylor's message.
I didn't mean to imply that he looked gay—as in bad—but rather that he looked gay—as in homosexual. Therefore, it is entirely politically correct,
he wrote. I winced as I read through the post.
We all know he isn't gay, so quit making a big deal about it.

Wrong. So wrong.

It just got worse and worse until it finally hit a low, and this message popped up:

Say sorry, you self-righteous do-gooder freak. What the hell is your problem? Obviously, you're wrong. Oh—and it's pissing me off that you're singling me out (and Becky, too, I assume) simply for a comment. I don't like you, and I don't think she does either. Give me a break. Seriously, what is your problem? I say that a stupid picture looks gay and you go crazy? Get a life. And quit harassing me.

By the weekend, the first day of the MUN Conference, Taylor and I had stopped speaking. I knew that, if I wanted to be a good friend, I should have commented on the photo on Facebook to say that Aaron was a jerk. But I didn't—I couldn't.

Every time I saw Taylor begin to walk toward me in the hallway, I would swing my tote bag over my shoulder, turn around, and walk in the opposite direction. I could have just told her that what Aaron said wasn't true—that I did like her—but I was too scared that Aaron might get mad at me, and that I might be forced to choose between the Trinity and Taylor.