A Midsummer's Nightmare

CHAPTER 28

The photos didn’t stop popping up on Facebook. Ever since the night at the Nest when I’d finally decided to ignore the stupid shit people were saying about me, I hadn’t checked the page or even asked Nathan about it. I didn’t want to care about it anymore. Still, Sylvia had pulled me aside after dinner one night to check in.

“Are you okay? I know the page is still up. Are you sure you don’t want me to pursue this, Whitley?”

“I’m fine,” I said. And, for the most part, I meant it. “It probably was cyber-bullying, but I’ve stopped letting it get to me, so I’m pretty over it.”

She nodded and touched my arm. “I’m glad, but let me know if you change your mind. I just want to be sure you’re okay.”

And, really, I was. Nathan, Bailey, Harrison—they’d all shown me that it wasn’t important what the idiots in this town thought of me. They loved me, and that’s what mattered.

As Sylvia walked away, though, I wished she hadn’t been the one talking to me about this. It had always been her. But it needed to be Dad. I wanted him to discuss the issue with me instead of just blowing it off.

The next morning, after a new picture appeared online, I got my wish. Just not in the way I’d hoped.

The photo had been taken at the Nest. On Tuesday night, the day after Bailey’s tryouts, Nathan, Harrison, and I had decided to take her out to celebrate.

As soon as we got to the Nest, the four of us found a booth close to the dance floor. Bailey was bouncing up and down excitedly, her little white sandals tapping along to the music. I didn’t think she’d stopped smiling since the tryouts. And it was pretty goddamn contagious. We all had grins smeared across our faces because of her.

“Bailey, sweetie, I love your dress,” Harrison said as he slipped into the booth beside her. “You can really pull off pastels. I’m so freaking jealous.”

“Thanks.”

“You know,” I said to her, “Harrison is a real fashionista. He’d probably be good help on that shopping spree you were talking about earlier. The one after your birthday? If you’re still up for it, I mean.”

“Um, of course I am!” she said. “Harrison, my birthday is this Monday. Can we go shopping sometime that week? Before Whitley leaves on Friday? You have to come.”

“Shopping? I’ll be there.” He looked across the table to Nathan. “You coming with us, babe?”

I couldn’t help but smile at Nathan’s lack of reaction to being called “babe” by another male. Any other guy might have freaked out. Or at least raised an eyebrow. It didn’t seem to faze him, though.

“Bailey doesn’t want me picking her clothes,” he said. “I’d be trying to put her in turtlenecks and long pants all year long. Hiding as much skin as possible.” He nodded at his sister. “I don’t like how short that little cheerleading skirt is, either.”

“You’ll get over it,” she replied.

“I doubt that.”

“Come on, sweetie,” Harrison said, grabbing Bailey’s wrist. “Dance with me. Let’s show everyone in this club those moves you’ve got. We’ll have every straight boy in Hamilton begging for your number by the end of the night.”

Bailey let him drag her onto the floor, giggling the whole way.

I laughed and turned to smile at Nathan.

He looked worried.

“What?” I asked.

“I don’t know if I like the idea of every boy in Hamilton chasing my sister,” he said. “I have the sudden urge to lock her in a closet… until she’s twenty-five.”

“Well, look on the bright side,” I said, squeezing his hand. “There aren’t that many boys in Hamilton. Only about… two hundred or so? You can fight off two hundred, can’t you?”

“Of course I can,” he scoffed. “See these muscles? I work out, remember? I’d just rather not have to. The closet idea seems easier.”

I grinned at him, my fingers trailing up his arm. It felt good to be allowed to do this, to touch him without feeling embarrassed or guilty “You know,” I whispered, leaning in, “you could lock me in your closet. I wouldn’t mind.”

Nathan’s worried expression turned into a sly smile that matched mine. “Oh, is that so?”

“Yeah.” I licked my lips, shifting so that my thigh was pressed close against his.

He looked down at our legs, shaking his head. “You know,” he said, resting a hand on my knee. “That little move? It doesn’t work every time. Not all boys are that easy.”

“It worked on you once, didn’t it?” I moved in closer so I could kiss him.

It was innocent. No groping. No hands sliding under my shirt. There wasn’t even tongue, for God’s sake. It was just a kiss.

But it changed everything.

Because as his hand moved up my arm to touch my hair and my eyes slid shut, neither of us noticed the camera phone pointed our way. Neither of us had a clue that we were being watched.

At least, not until Dad slammed his laptop down in front of me while I ate breakfast the next morning, his face beet red and his eyes practically popping out of his skull.

“What the hell is this?” he demanded, jabbing a finger at the screen. “Start talking, Whitley.”

I glanced at the monitor and realized I was staring at Dad’s Facebook page. At the very top was a new post. Greg Johnson has been tagged in a photo. My eyes found the image, and as I looked it over for a moment, I actually had to think about why he was angry. It was just a picture of Nathan and me. To be honest, it was kind of cute. Well shot. It looked a bit like a screenshot from a romantic movie. One of those perfect kisses.

“What’s the problem?” I asked.

“Damn it, Whitley.” His fist hit the table so hard that my cereal bowl shook.

I flinched.

“What the hell are you and Nathan doing? Why are you kissing him?”

And then I got it.

Dad didn’t know about Nathan and me yet.

No one did. Well, except Harrison… and Bailey, if she’d managed to figure it out on her own, which I was sure she had, since we weren’t doing much to hide our relationship now.

“We’re dating,” I said, picking up my spoon.

“No, you most certainly are not,” Dad snapped, making me flinch again.

We were the only ones in the kitchen. Nathan was at the gym. Sylvia had taken Bailey shopping for a new pair of athletic tennis shoes. And I’d only just rolled out of bed at eleven in the morning. I’d been halfway through my breakfast when Dad stormed out of his study, laptop in hand.

Now I wished I’d gotten up early. Gone shopping with Sylvia and Bailey, or even to the gym with Nathan. Anything to avoid this conversation. Which clearly wasn’t going to go very well.

“How could you do this?” he asked, still furious.

“Do what?” I asked. “I didn’t do anything.”

“I want you to end things with Nathan,” he said. “Whatever is going on with you two, I want you to put a stop to it right now.”

“No.”

“Don’t argue with me, young lady.”

I stood up so fast that my chair toppled over behind me. “No!” I was the angry one now. “We aren’t doing anything wrong. We’re just dating. It’s not like he’s actually my brother, so why should I have to end it?”

“Because I said so,” he snarled.

“That’s not a good enough reason.”

“Don’t talk back to me like that,” he said, his palms smacking the table again. He leaned forward, his eyes burning into mine. “You are my daughter, and this is my house. You will do as I say. You won’t see Nathan. You won’t date him or kiss him or do whatever it is you two are doing. And that is final.”

He straightened up and turned around, ready to leave the room.

“No,” I said again.

He stopped in the doorway to the living room. “Whitley,” he growled.

“No,” I repeated.

In a sick way, I was glad we were fighting. Glad he was yelling at me, paying attention to me. But now he was walking away. Not even listening to me. Not even bothering to hear my side of the story. I thought I might do anything to keep him in the room. Even fling myself on the ground and throw a two-year-old tantrum. Whatever it took to keep him here. To make him turn around. To make him see me.

And I thought the way to make him stay was to say something dramatic. Something that would shock him. Only, the words that came to mind happened to be the truth.

“I’m falling in love with him,” I said. “I’m not going to stop seeing him. I won’t.”

“Then pack your things.”

“What?”

“I’ll have someone fill in for me at the station, and I’ll take you back to your mom’s tomorrow afternoon,” he said, his back still to me. “I won’t deal with this behavior in my home.”

And he left the room.

It didn’t sink in at first. I sat down, my eyes on Dad’s laptop. I clicked the picture, read the caption: Whitley seems to have a thing for brotherly love.

“Fuck them,” I said quietly. “Fuck them. They don’t matter.”

But Dad did.

He mattered because he could take them away. Nathan, Bailey, Sylvia, Harrison—he could take away the only people who cared about me. The words sank in slowly. I was basically being kicked out.

Kicked out of my home.

At the beginning of the summer, I swore this place would never become my home, but it had. I didn’t realize it until now, until it was being taken away, and yet, somehow, this house felt safer, more real, than my mother’s house in Indiana ever had. The Caulfields had made this my home.

I didn’t want to leave.

I ran upstairs, hot tears stinging my eyes and burning the tops of my cheeks. I pushed open the door of the guest room—my room—and threw myself onto the bed—my bed.

I just lay there for a while, my face in the pillow, trying to calm down. When my heartbeat finally slowed, I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling. My head hurt. My stomach ached. Dad’s decision to send me back to Mom’s house put me in a serious state of pain. What was I supposed to do? I didn’t want to go back. I didn’t want to leave now. I had a week and a half left here. A week and a half left with Nathan. With the Caulfields. With my family.

Not anymore.

The house was eerily empty around me now. Dad was somewhere downstairs, I knew, but the TV was off. And the others hadn’t come back yet.

I needed to talk to someone. I needed advice.

I reached over to the nightstand and picked up my cell phone. The screen flashed one missed call from Mom and a voice mail, but I ignored it. She was the last person I wanted to talk to. We hadn’t spoken since our last argument a few days ago, and I was sure she wanted to bitch at me for bitching at her. Whatever. I couldn’t deal with her now.

I dialed Trace’s house number. L.A. was two hours behind, so I hoped he’d be awake.

“Hello?” Emily’s voice said when she answered the phone.

“Um, hey, Em,” I said awkwardly. My voice cracked, still not recovered from the crying.

“Whitley? Hey, girl. How are you?”

“Not… not good. Can I talk to Trace, please?”

“Sure. He’s playing with Marie right now. She just started laughing for the first time!”

“That’s great.”

“I know. We’re so excited. It’s almost ridiculous, I guess. Okay, here’s Trace.”

The phone crackled as it was passed to my brother, and a second later Trace said, “Hey, sis. What’s going on?”

“I have a problem,” I told him. “And I really just need you to listen and tell me what to do.”

“Oh-kay,” Trace said. “I’ll do my best.”

I took a deep breath, let it out, and started talking.

I told him everything. About Dad. About the Caulfields. About Nathan, the graduation party (in minimal detail), and Facebook. Trace never interrupted. He just listened until I got it all out. Listened while I ranted and nearly started crying again and wallowed in self-pity. He listened and listened until I finally got out the last few words of my story.

“… and now he wants to send me back to Mom’s, and I don’t want to go. What do I do, Trace?”

“Wow,” he said. “Seriously—wow. I mean, what are the odds that of all the people Dad might marry, the chick’s son is someone you’ve—”

“Trace!”

“Sorry. Okay, advice… hmm.”

I waited through his thoughtful pause, half expecting him to tell me that the best plan would be to just end things with Nathan. Logically, that probably seemed like the solution, but I couldn’t. And I shouldn’t have to.

I guess Trace knew that, because he said, “Really, Whitley, all you can do is try to talk to Dad again.”

“About what?”

“About how you feel,” Trace said. “You should talk to him and to Mom. You clearly have issues with both of them, and who knows? Maybe just telling them how you feel could fix things. Or at least improve them a little.”

“I doubt it.”

“Well, I don’t know what else to tell you,” he said. “I’m sorry. I hate that you’re having to deal with this.”

“Yeah, it sucks.”

“You’ll figure it out,” Trace said. “Just do whatever will make you happy. That’s what’s important. Don’t forget that, okay?”

“Whatever.”

Everyone said that to me. That they wanted me to be happy. That it was the most important thing. But just when I started to figure out what I wanted—what would make me happy—it was squashed.

Talk about goddamn mixed messages.

“Hey, don’t ‘whatever’ me,” he said. “I mean it. I’m sorry my advice is unoriginal, but I’ll do whatever I can to help. I could call Dad if you want. Make him listen to me. Or Mom. If you can’t talk to them, I can.”

“No.” I sighed. “That’s okay. You don’t have to.”

There was a short silence before Trace said, “I’m sorry, Whitley. I know you’ve been having a horrible summer, and I haven’t been there for you as much as I should have. I’ve just been so—”

“Busy,” I said. “I know. It’s fine. You have a family to worry about now.”

“You are my family,” he said.

The tears almost started up again. Those four little words meant so much to me—which was stupid, really. They were just words. But they were words I’d been wanting to hear, wanting to believe. You are my family.

“You sure you don’t want me to call Dad?” Trace asked.

“I’m sure,” I said. “Really. I don’t think there’s anything anyone can do.”

“Okay,” he said. “But call me if you need me. I’ll be here.”

As I hung up the phone, I tried to comfort myself with that thought. Trace would be there. He wouldn’t judge me or abandon me. Even if I lost Dad. Even if I never fixed things with Mom. Even if my relationship with Nathan didn’t work out and I screwed things up with the Caulfields, I had Trace. He was my family.

But I wasn’t sure that would be enough.