A Midsummer's Nightmare

CHAPTER 23

“You totally have a thing for him.”

I turned to face Harrison. “What are you talking about?”

It was a hot afternoon in late July. Harrison was off work, and we were swimming in Dad and Sylvia’s pool. Nathan had just climbed out of the water and walked inside, saying something about a game on ESPN Classic.

“You watched him walk away like you were fantasizing about his hot little ass. You like him.”

“How would you know?” I demanded, splashing water in Harrison’s face. “You were watching him, too.”

“Too!” he cried. “I got you! Ha. You just admitted you were watching him. You love him. You so love him.”

“I do not,” I said. “That’s just weird, okay? He’s going to be my stepbrother.”

“I know. It’s all sexy and forbidden—like in Cruel Intentions.”

“Doesn’t someone die at the end of that movie?” I asked. “Not that it matters. I don’t like him that way. We’re just… I don’t know. Lately we’ve hung out more. He’s not so bad, really. So, I guess we’re friends now.”

“Friends with benefits,” Harrison teased.

I tried not to blush or anything dumb like that. Harrison didn’t know about my past with Nathan. I’d never told him about the graduation party or the aloe incident or the almost-hookup in the guest room. I hadn’t breathed a word, and I wasn’t planning to. Because that was all behind me. Harrison could believe what he wanted, but I was done chasing boys. Nathan and I were friends. Just friends. And future stepsiblings. That was all.

“You’re just dreaming,” I told Harrison. “You can’t have him, so you want to live vicariously through me.”

“Damn straight I do.”

“Christ, Harrison, you’re such a loser,” I joked, splashing him again.

He splashed me back, and soon a war erupted in the water around us. And the issue was dropped.

Unfortunately, Bailey wasn’t so easily distracted… or convinced.

“So, what’s going on with you and my brother?” she asked the next day. Her cheerleading tryouts were in a week, and we were out on the front lawn practicing again. I was no expert, but it seemed like she was doing well.

“What do you mean?”

“Something is up with you and Nathan,” she insisted, sitting down on the porch beside me.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, handing her a bottle of water. Christ, I just couldn’t catch a break about this.

“I’m not stupid.” She unscrewed the cap and downed a few gulps of water, letting some of the clear liquid drip down her chin. “You’re being nice to him. I thought you hated him.”

“Why would you think that?”

“You guys were just so weird around each other.” She handed the bottle back to me. “It was always, like, tense. You were pissed off—”

“It’s still weird when you say pissed.”

“Now you hang out and run errands together and smile at each other—”

“Your mom made him drive me to the bridal shop,” I said. “That doesn’t count as hanging out.”

“But you watch movies together, too. I told you, I’m not stupid. I can see that something changed. What happened?”

Goddamn, the kid asked way too many questions.

“I don’t know,” I said flatly. “Why does it matter?”

“I’m just curious.”

“Well, you’re wasting time. You should practice.”

“I have practiced.”

“Practice more.”

“Why are you changing the subject?” She raised a little blond eyebrow at me. “You act like you’re hiding something, Whitley.”

“I’m not.”

“Are you sure?”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re so annoying,” I said, nudging her arm. “If you want me to hate your brother, I will. Would that make you happy?”

“No, I just—”

“Then practice and let it go.”

She frowned at me. “Fine. But I think you’re hiding something.”

Before I could argue, she skipped across the yard and did two cartwheels in a row. “Go, go, Panthers!” she yelled, finishing with a backflip and a toe touch.

The kid was lucky I couldn’t get angry with her; even when she was being irritating, I still kind of adored her.

It seemed like the only one not questioning my relationship with Nathan was, well, Nathan. He had no issue with our sudden friendship. He invited me to go places with him, obviously aware that my social life was lacking due to my self-imposed isolation.

The next Friday night, while Bailey went to sleep over at Sherri’s, Nathan asked me to have a Back to the Future movie marathon with him. He claimed that I had to join him because it was a travesty that I’d yet to see these movies—which, I might add, came out way before I was born. I didn’t put up much of a fight, though. It was the third Friday night in a row that I’d stayed in, and a little company, even if it was just Nathan, was preferable to lying on the guest bed, listening to my iPod for hours on end.

He tapped on the guest room door around nine. “Are you ready for the epicness you are about to witness?” he asked.

“When you say epic, are you describing the movies or your shocking level of nerdiness?”

“Hey,” he said, folding his arms over his chest, only barely obscuring the image of a hand making the Vulcan salute on his T-shirt. “I thought you were giving this whole being-nice thing a try.”

“I am,” I told him. “But come on. You want to major in computer science, you’re practically swooning over some ancient movie about a time-traveling car, and you have a freaking Darth Vader bobblehead in your room. I thought jocks beat up geeks, not aspired to be them.”

“What can I say? I’m a complicated guy.”

“If that’s what you want to believe…”

I followed Nathan into the hallway, but instead of heading downstairs, he turned toward his bedroom. When he noticed me staring, he said, “Mom and Greg are watching something in the living room. I figured we could just watch the movies on my laptop—is that cool?”

I shrugged. “Fine by me.”

We sat side by side on his bed, our bodies turned toward the desk, where his laptop played the film on its small monitor. I had to admit, Back to the Future wasn’t so bad. I even enjoyed parts of it.

“But Marty McFly is, like, the worst name ever.”

“Says the girl whose parents couldn’t spell Whitney. Can you really judge?”

I jammed my elbow into his ribs. “Whitley is a real name, thank you. Christ—and Bailey thinks I’m the one who’s mean to you?”

He winked. “The tables have turned, it appears.”

“And payback is a bitch.”

“Just like you.”

I stuck my tongue out at him.

“You’re so mature,” he said. “I’m just blown away by your maturity.”

“Shut up and watch your movie.”

By the time Nathan wanted to start the sequel, I was feeling tired. Since I’d had nowhere to go and nothing to do for weeks, I’d gotten into the habit of going to bed kind of early. It was barely eleven now and I was exhausted. But Nathan insisted I had to stay up for the whole thing.

“This one is my favorite,” he said. “Come on. In bed before midnight? On a weekend? Even my mother isn’t that lame.”

“I’m not lame,” I snapped, taking the DVD case from him and hopping off the bed. I took out the disc and popped it into the laptop.

“But you are easily swayed by peer pressure,” he teased.

I hit play and joined him on the bed again. “I convinced you to give up your virginity within two hours or so of knowing you. Let’s not talk about caving to peer pressure.”

“Touché.”

But no matter how I tried—or how many times Nathan poked me in the ribs to keep me awake—I just kept nodding off, my head bobbing up and down as I tried to hold my eyes open.

I didn’t realize I’d dozed off until hours later when I opened my eyes. The lights were still on in the bedroom, and the menu screen for Back to the Future Part II showed on the monitor. The clock on the desk told me it was just after three in the morning.

Nathan and I were lying crookedly on his bed, huddled together in a way that, even half-asleep, I knew could only be described as cuddling. My head was propped on his chest, its rise and fall a gentle lull, calling me back toward sleep. My left arm was stretched loosely across his torso. He was snoring softly, with one of his hands resting on my hip. How we’d ended up this way, I wasn’t sure, but somehow, between both of us conking out, we’d managed to twine together like this.

I sat up, easing myself out of Nathan’s grasp and climbing off his bed. He looked so peaceful sleeping there. I backed toward the door. It had felt good to have him next to me like that.

I’d liked it—cuddling with Nathan.

And I wasn’t sure I was supposed to like it.

I hurried back to the guest room, shutting the door silently behind me so as not to wake anyone. Now I was questioning my relationship with Nathan, too. How did I feel about this guy? Did it cross the line between stepsiblings? Future stepsiblings? Did I want it to?

Shit, shit, shit.

I was going to kill Harrison and Bailey for putting these ideas in my head.

Right when I’d started to like—or at least not hate—Sylvia Caulfield, she decided to go and piss me off again.

On the last Saturday in July, Dad was ordered to go pick out his wedding tux. And I, for some reason, was required to go with him.

“You know he has horrible taste. You’re the only one I trust with choosing something this important,” she said.

She was hoping to make it sound like a privilege or something. Yeah, right. Dad had great taste in clothes. He picked out all of his TV suits. She was just making shit up to persuade me.

“You’ll be saving the whole family from a world of embarrassment.”

“Why can’t you go with him?” I whined.

There were a multitude of reasons why I didn’t want to go shopping with my father. In particular, the overwhelming desire I had to punch him in the face every time I saw him came to mind.

I’d spent the last two months attempting to talk to my father. The summer was almost over now, and my frustration had morphed into pure anger. He’d cheated on Mom, he’d let me spend the last six years blaming her, and he hadn’t cared enough to confront me about my behavior or let me live with him four years ago, when my world first started falling apart.

I didn’t want to talk to him now. I didn’t want anything to do with him.

“You’re off today,” I reminded her. “You can go.”

“You two need to spend some time together.” She said it so forcefully that I knew arguing would be pointless.

“Fine,” I muttered, poking the waffle in front of me with the tip of my fork. Sylvia made real waffles, not the toaster ones Mom always made for us. I would have never admitted it to Sylvia, especially that morning when I was so pissed at her, but she really was an amazing cook.

“Whitley.” Sylvia sighed. “Honey, you’ve been here since May, and you haven’t even unpacked your bag.”

I didn’t look at her.

“I know you’re not happy and that you must be frustrated,” she said. “But you’re only here for a few more weeks. I don’t want you going off to college with regrets about your relationship with your father.”

“He’d be the one with regrets,” I mumbled.

I didn’t think she’d heard me, but apparently she had. “That might be true, but you need to put forth a little effort, too. He loves you.”

“Whatever.”

“I’ll take that to mean you’ll go with him.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Not really.” She smiled and took my plate of syrup. “He’ll be ready and in the car by ten.”

So, when I climbed into the SUV an hour and a half later, Dad was all pumped and ready to go. He grinned at me from across the cab. And for a moment, I thought maybe Sylvia was right. Maybe this time together would be good. Maybe we could work things out….

“Hey, munchkin. Nice to see you up so early.”

“I was forced.”

He laughed and started the engine, humming along with the country music on the radio. I frowned. At one time, we’d both hated country music. Jimmy Buffett was the only exception. But I guess that was just one more thing to show me how much my dad had changed. We didn’t even hate the same things anymore.

And if I had hopes of getting to know the new Dad on this little outing, they were dashed the minute we got to the tuxedo place. It was like I wasn’t there anymore. Just him and the tuxes—and there were lots of tuxes. He insisted on trying on all of them. Because nothing was good enough.

That coat was too tacky.

That bow tie was too small.

Those pants had a strange shape.

My father shopped like a woman, which made Sylvia’s whole pretense of me saving him from wardrobe embarrassment even more laughable. Laughable was also a great word to describe the bonding idea. This was real quality time, with Dad locked in a dressing room and me sitting on the bench outside, texting Harrison about how the store attendant was just his type.

But I couldn’t get Sylvia’s voice out of my head, and I knew that it was still my job to try. So, after three hours of shopping—during which time Dad wound up buying the first of the twenty-two tuxes he’d tried on—I swallowed my pride and made my attempt to talk to him.

I suggested we go get ice cream together, and I started the conversation.

“So,” I began, swirling the plastic spoon around in my Dairy Queen Blizzard. “We, um, haven’t really had a chance to talk in a while.”

“I know,” Dad said. “I’m sorry about that, munchkin. I’ve just been so busy. Between work and preparing for this wedding and just getting used to everything. Becoming part of a family can be difficult.”

You were already part of one.

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess it probably can be…. But the Caulfields are nice, I guess.”

“I thought you’d love them.”

“I wish you’d told me about them.”

He sighed. “I suppose I probably should have. It just didn’t seem right, you know? To tell you over the phone or in an e-mail that I was engaged.”

“You could have told me when you started dating her. You could have called.”

“Oh, you know me, munchkin.” He laughed. “I had no idea how serious it would be. I didn’t see any need to waste your time by telling you about another girlfriend when I figured she’d be gone in a month or two.”

I gritted my teeth. Whose time did he really think he’d be wasting by calling me? Mine or his?

“Then we were serious all of a sudden,” he continued. “And I just thought I should give you the news in person.”

“Right. Well, I like them. Nathan and Bailey are nice, and Sylvia… She’s been really great support through all of this online-bullying stuff.” I waited to see if he’d even admit knowing about it, or if he’d feign ignorance.

“Yeah,” he said. “Well, Sylvia says you’re holding up well.”

Fuck that. Holding up well? He hadn’t spoken to me about the pictures, hadn’t acknowledged them. He’d just untagged himself and ignored them, never even asking if I was okay. Sylvia shouldn’t have been the one talking to me about cyber-bullying. It should have been him—my father. He didn’t even care.

But like an idiot, I just kept trying.

“The things they said—most of them weren’t true,” I told him.

“Good.”

“Do… do you want to talk about it?” I asked. “I mean, I know some of it was on your Facebook page. Did you want to ask me about any of the pictures or… anything?”

“No, munchkin. I have faith that you can deal with it,” he said.

I stared at him, trying to fight off the tears springing to my eyes. Even if he wasn’t angry, couldn’t he have given me a hug? Comforted me? I wanted to throw my ice cream at him. To scream, Everyone in this fucking town thinks I’m a whore because of that web page! I was almost raped a few weeks ago because of some of the things it says about me! The least you could do is tell me you give a shit.

But I didn’t say anything.

“We should get back,” Dad said, standing up. We’d been sitting in the booth for barely ten minutes. “Sylvia will be wondering what’s taking us so long.”

“Wait—I need… Can I ask you something?”

“Sure, munchkin. What’s up?”

I swallowed. I couldn’t believe I was going to ask him this. I was such a moron.

“A few years ago, when I asked to live with you, you said no. Was it really because of Mom? Because you didn’t want her to be upset?”

“Of course.”

“Really?”

“Well… why are you asking me about this?” he asked.

“Just because. Because I should know. Was there another reason you didn’t want me to live with you?”

He let out a long breath and pressed three fingers to his temple. “That was a big part of the reason, yes. Because I knew your mother was very upset about the divorce and if you came to live with me, she’d be even more upset. I felt guilty, and I didn’t want to make things worse.”

“But this was two years after the divorce,” I told him. “It was over with. She was still mad, but… What was the other reason, Dad?”

“Whitley, I don’t—”

“Just tell me.”

“To be honest, I was happy. I was a bachelor with a good job and a great life. I’d just gotten out of a marriage I’d been in since I was twenty-one, and I was having fun. I didn’t think it was the right time.”

“Right time for what?” I asked. “For me to live with you?”

He shook his head. “Having a teenage girl live with me would have complicated things.”

“So… you just… didn’t want me?”

I’d already figured this out, but hearing it out loud still hurt like hell.

“I wouldn’t say it like that. It was more just… I know I was a bad father for feeling that way, but I thought, in the long run, life would be better for both of us if you just stayed with your mother. I was sure you were just going through a phase—wanting to live with me. You were fourteen. You’d change your mind. I shouldn’t have lied to you. But it all worked out in the end, right?”

“Right,” I muttered.

“Okay, let’s get out of here.” He stood and picked up his empty cup of ice cream. “I’m sorry, munchkin. I wish I could have told you the truth then, but I was a selfish asshole. I’ve changed, though.”

No, I thought, watching him toss his cup in the trash can and head for the door. I stood up and followed, throwing away my unfinished Blizzard. That’s one thing about you that hasn’t changed at all.