Little Battles (26 page)

“How the
fuck
should I look at you then? You’re a fucking stranger who’s basically saying that you want to send me away. You could have just said ‘don’t do it in my house,’ you ass.”

He tightened his grip around the arm of his chair. “I don’t want you doing it
outside
of my house either, and I
don’t
want to send you away. I just got you back.”

“Fuck you,” I practically shouted. “You say that you just got me back like you
wanted
me or something. I was sitting in the room when she called you. I could tell that you didn’t want to take me.”

He leaned forward and glanced at Wallace, who nodded to him, and then back to me. “I was
shocked
. I hadn’t seen you in years and then your mom calls up and tells me that I have to take you or you go to
jail
! How should I have reacted? I mean—”

“You should have told her that you weren’t interested! You should have told her the truth. You didn’t want me when I was little, and you don’t want me now, and it’s cool, Tom, but don’t pretend that you—”

“I
love
you, Sophie. I loved you then and I love you now. You have no idea how happy I was when your mother told me she was pregnant. I didn’t care that I was eighteen. I
wanted
a family.” He looked at me pleadingly. “It wasn’t my choice for your mother to take you from me. I came home from work to an empty house. All her stuff was just gone. All
your
stuff was gone.
You
were gone. Everything was just gone. It took me three months to even find out where she had taken you, and the only reason I did was because of the divorce paperwork.”

He ran a hand through his hair and then smoothed down his goatee again. I turned away because I was tired of looking at him. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t a better father for you, but by the time I finally got visitation rights, you were a little girl and I thought little girls needed their mothers. I didn’t…”

I shook my head. He had no clue. “Just shut up.”

“See? That right there!” Tom’s voice was so loud that I had to turn to look at him. “That’s what I’m talking about,” he said to Wallace. “I don’t understand what I need to do. If I would have told my father to shut up, I wouldn’t have been able to sit down for a week.”

“Then hit me, Tom! Or are you too busy banging another man’s wife to care?”

He snapped his mouth closed. While I knew that I’d slept with another woman’s husband, it didn’t stop me from condemning him for boning that chick.

“Yeah, I fucking
know
,” I said in response to his shocked expression. “Know how?
Olivia
told me.” Tom looked down at his lap. “Didn’t think she knew, did you? Well, surprise! She was aware you were pumping her mom before her dad died. She and Jamie aren’t stupid, you idiot. Maybe you don’t think about how your actions affect other people, especially people who can’t change their situation. You can’t just go around fucking people’s mothers without there being…” I trailed off, a little out of breath from my outburst.

“For someone who lives in a glass house, you sure do like to throw stones, Sophie.”

I ignored him. “Did you ever stop to think that maybe Olivia tried to kill herself because of that shit?”

“Clint was one of my
best
friends. He was sick for a long time and—”

“I don’t want to know
why
you’re fucking her. I don’t care.”

“I’m not
fucking
her. Clint knew that I loved her and I didn’t
touch
her until…”

“Until he was too sick to kill you for touching his
wife
?”

“I’m sure it makes no sense to you, but it’s not your business. It’s not a
Leave It to Beaver
situation and I’m not perfect, but he knew what she needed and realized she stayed with him out of obligation, and not the lovesick need she had for him when they were in high school.”

“That’s sick,” I spat.

“I don’t think this is the most productive use of our time together,” Wallace interjected, cutting us both off. “Sophie? What is your major complaint about your father’s love life?”

Oh, yuck. His
love life
? Whatever. “Maybe he should have tried to be a better father with all the energy he put into someone else’s wife!”

“I did my best. How was I supposed to know that your mother was—”

“I told you when I was twelve that I didn’t want to go back there, but what did you do? You put me on a plane and sent me back.”

Tom looked up at the ceiling and shook his head. “You didn’t tell me
why
, baby. I thought…I thought that you just…I mean, how was I supposed to know that your mother was…I had no idea she could hurt you that way…”

“Just shut up. Just shut the fuck up, and stop talking about shit you clearly have no clue about.”

“Sophie,” Wallace said using her “listen-to-me” voice. “You have to allow your father to speak his mind, just as you speak yours.”

“Why? He clearly only has bullshit to spew.”

“What the hell am I suppose to do with that?” he asked. “It’s no wonder she’s got one foot in jail. She won’t control herself long enough to listen to anything. The only thing she does is hide.”

I didn’t hide. He could go to hell. He was the one who’d hidden in his safe little town for seventeen years. Yeah, maybe he came home to an empty fucking house, but it wasn’t like he worked real hard to get me back.

“She smokes pot.” He turned to me. “And don’t think I don’t know who the hell is supplying it to you,” he looked back at Wallace, “and her attitude is for shit.”

She leaned forward. “Tom, victims of sexual abuse usually…”

“
Sexual
abuse?” he yelled as he looked at me like I was just diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Wallace faced me, took a deep breath, and then said, “Yes. She was raped repeatedly as a child.”

“
Raped
? What are you...?”

I kept my eyes trained on her. The feeling in the room had changed completely.

“You didn’t tell him?” I gaped at her, extremely surprised. I assumed after that Saturday night, by the way he was avoiding me, Tom was clued in. When she had called just to check in with me a few days ago, I could swear that she said she was going to tell him about what happened to me when I was little.

Or had she told me that she thought
I
should tell him?

Or had she told me that she was going to tell him when we had our little session together?

I couldn’t remember.

Shit. I’d been on pain pills during the conversation, so who the hell knew?

“Those things aren’t mine to tell, Sophie. I meant it when I said what we speak about in here stays between the two of us unless it could cause harm to you or someone else. I only said what I did because I thought you wanted me to tell him. I thought we’d discussed this. I apologize if I misspoke.”

I knew that she was basically handing me the right to be pissed at her. She was saying that she messed up and shouldn’t have said anything until she was sure that Tom knew by my admission. But I couldn’t be mad at her for telling him because I couldn’t even remember whose fault it was, and how the hell would
I
have done it?

Answer? I wouldn’t have. But now he knew.

I looked back at Tom. He was white as a ghost and his eyes were fixed on the carpet at her feet.

She continued when I remained silent. “But as I was saying, by way of explaining Sophie’s behavior, victims either internalize the event and become withdrawn, or they act out, immersing themselves in the world they perceive as cruel and painful, but protecting themselves with a variety of coping mechanisms that are, more often than not, unhealthy. The severity and length of time of the assault typically correlates with the severity of the reaction.”

Looking at Tom, I could tell that he was still stuck on the “R” word.

“So…that night when I was in your room…?” he let his question linger unfinished. I turned my head and laid it on my knees so I wouldn’t have to look at him anymore. “And that night in the kitchen when you broke that bowl because I…”

I felt like I couldn’t breathe and I wondered if this was what Elliott felt like when he panicked. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t keep myself from recognizing the pain in Tom’s voice. I didn’t want to recognize it. I wanted to be angry. I wanted to hate him.

There was no way of knowing how long it was silent before Wallace said, “Sophie?”

I wouldn’t look at her. My eyes were watering and I hated that shit. I wondered how long it would be until I’d be able to get high again. This was stupid. “Sophie?”

If I couldn’t get high for a while, I thought about the next best comfort that was available to me. “Can I go see Elliott now?”

Even though I couldn’t see her, I knew she was shaking her head. “We need to talk about this. It’s vital and the first step to—”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

I had barely finished speaking when Tom’s deep voice broke in. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

And the anger was back.

Lifting my head, I snapped my head toward him. “When? All those times you called? The summers you avoided having to say
anything
meaningful to me? Did you want me to send that shit to you in a birthday card? ‘Hey Tom, Happy Birthday! My mom’s boyfriend
fucked
me again last night. Hiked any good trails lately? I hope your birthday is real fucking swell,’ ” I spat.

“Jesus,” he said in a harsh exhale when I had said the word “fucked.”

“How long did…I mean, when did…?”

I fucking hated talking about this shit, and it was even worse talking about it with Tom, but I couldn’t help myself. “Eleven. I was fifteen when she broke up with him.”

“Four years? Sophie! You should’ve…” he stopped right before I could get incredibly pissed.

Wallace filled the void. “Why did your mother break up with him?”

“I don’t want to talk about that with Tom in the room.”

“Did she find him with you?”

I curled tighter into a ball as I scanned the exposed corners of the walls. Dr. Dalton kept a clean office. I wondered if he paid someone to make sure there were no cobwebs or spiders out in the open.

“What did she do when she found you with him?”

I could feel his hand buried in my hair. I could feel the painful tug as he molded his fingers to the back of my head.
“Oh, fuck, Sophie.”

He was being loud again because she wasn’t home. He liked it when I made noises. He finished quicker when I did, so I made sure to give him what he wanted.

“Good girl, Sophie, be my dirty girl.”
Then I gagged and he tightened his grip again.

“Sophie?” I shook my head, swallowing back the bile that always seemed to rise when I thought about this shit. “What did she do when she found you with him?” she asked again.

I felt defeated.

“Beat the shit out of me and called me a bunch of names.”

I finally moved, not to look up, but to rest my forehead against my knees. “I couldn’t go to school for nearly two weeks. She told them I was visiting Tom.”

“What does ‘beat the shit’ out of you mean?”

I felt sick. My stomach hurt and my head was swimming. “You want to know what she did?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t want to tell you.”

“That bad?” she asked.

I shrugged as best as I could in my position. “No worse than usual, just…just more.”

“You don’t want to say?”

I sighed. Hadn’t I already said that? “Can I go see Elliott now?”

I looked up at her and I could tell that she was going to say that we needed to “stick with it” or something like that. Maybe she was right, but
I
didn’t want to talk about it anymore, even if she and Tom did.

“I’m tired.”

It was true. My whole body was sluggish and my mind was no different. I couldn’t feel my feet, just as I couldn’t access that part of my brain that usually reassured me that I’d be okay. I just wanted to sit in Elliott’s room and hold his hand. I was so tired that I couldn’t even find the energy to be mad at myself for
wanting
to hold his hand.

“I know you’re tired, Sophie, and I understand. But we need to at least finish addressing your drug use because that needs to be dealt with now.”

I sighed and closed my eyes. “I said I’d stop, okay?”

“Is it that easy?”

This night kept getting worse and worse. I stood. “I’m done with this shit.”

“I can legally check you into rehab against your will,” Tom said.

I sat down again because I didn’t want to get shipped off to rehab. Shaking my head, I ran my hand over my eyes. “I’m not addicted and don’t need rehab, so save your money.”