A Midsummer's Nightmare

I rolled my eyes. “Christ, no. It’s just stupid rumors.” Cyber-bullying. The word felt so dramatic, like the kind of thing you might see on Oprah or Dateline or something. I wasn’t one of those crying girls who’d been tortured by my classmates. I didn’t even know these people.

“Are you sure?” She was dead serious about this. “Whitley, if this is getting to you, I need you to tell me. There’s legal action we can take. Cyber-bullying can be very damaging.”

Damaging. I wondered if Theo would have touched me if he hadn’t seen that page, those pictures. I hugged myself tighter.

“It’s nothing. I mean, I don’t even use Facebook, so what do I care? Just leave it alone, okay? My dad’s a local celebrity. People are always going to talk, right?”

She sighed. “Okay—if you’re sure. But if this gets worse, if you feel like it turns into bullying at any time—”

“Yeah. I’ll tell you.”

“Okay.” She started to stand up.

“Um, Sylvia?” I hesitated. “Has Dad said anything about it? The Facebook page?”

“I’m not even sure if he knows,” she said. “Maybe it was wrong of me, but I didn’t show him. I didn’t know if you’d want him to see.”

When the photos first came out, I hadn’t wanted him to see them. But he had to have. I tried to tell myself that he’d untagged himself only yesterday, that he didn’t check Facebook often, that if Sylvia cared enough to talk to me, surely he’d be up here in a few hours, too.

So I waited. After Sylvia left, repeatedly telling me that I could come to her if I needed to, I sat in my room and waited for Dad to come. I watched from the window as his car pulled into the driveway after work, heard the front door shut when he came in. I thought he’d come up soon.

Trace called me that afternoon while I was still upstairs, hoping Dad would come.

“Have you talked to Mom lately?”

“No.”

“You should call her,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because she’s your mother,” he said, exasperated. “But also because she called me the other day and told me how much she misses you right now.”

“She misses having someone to bitch to.” I snorted. “Not me.”

Trace sighed. “You’re too hard on her. I mean… Okay, I don’t live with her. I know that. I know she fucked up a lot. But she loves you, and it just kills me to see you putting Dad up on a pedestal when he’s just as bad as she is.”

“He is not,” I argued. “At least Dad’s fun to be around.” Not that he’s around often anymore.

“He uses you as a drinking buddy, Whitley,” Trace said. “You grill burgers with him, and you drink together and hang out on the beach and drink together and, oh yeah, drink together. Whatever; I’m fine with a parent allowing his kid to drink at home, but the way you talk about your summers together, it sounds like he’s more of your brother than your dad.”

“Well, Trace, you’ve been gone for a long time. Maybe I need someone to act like my brother.”

There was a long pause.

“Sorry,” I said. “That was me being defensive. I’m kind of hungover and bitchy.”

“I can tell.”

“Look, no matter how Dad screws up, it’s still better than Mom’s bullshit. At least he didn’t tear the family apart.”

“Yes, he did.”

“No, he didn’t,” I said. “Mom’s the one who left him. Mom’s the one who moved to another state. It’s her fault, Trace.”

I heard him let out a long breath. “I shouldn’t tell you this,” he said, “but you’re eighteen years old, and that’s old enough to know, and, God, I’m just sick of hearing the way you worship him. Whitley, Mom left because Dad cheated.”

“He… what?”

“A few times,” Trace said. “You were too young to know, but I figured it out. Mom asked me not to tell you then, but… Look, I know she bitches about Dad a lot and has told you things she shouldn’t have, but she didn’t want you to hate him, even if she does—even if he deserves it.”

I didn’t say anything. I just sat there, stu

“Mom left, but she wanted to reconcile,” he continued. “Dad said no, that he’d rather be single for a while, anyway. She got pissed and moved far away. Which was wrong, I know, but… This was Dad’s fault, Whitley.”

Still, I couldn’t say a word.

“Sorry,” he said. “I know I shouldn’t have told you that. Don’t tell Mom. She never wanted you to find out. She’d kill me.”

“I… I have to go.”

“Whitley?”

“I’ll call you later, okay?”

I hung up the phone before he could answer. I just sat there for a long time, staring at the blank wall. I didn’t know what to think or how to feel. Trace wouldn’t lie to me, I knew that, but as the clock ticked the hours past and Dad still didn’t come up the stairs to see me, I really wished that I didn’t know the truth.

20

I didn’t leave the guest room until two o’clock the next afternoon, when I finally decided waiting on Dad wasn’t doing any good—and I was hungry. When I came downstairs, I found Nathan sitting at the dining room table, hair still wet from the shower, working on his laptop. My stomach tightened.

“Are there more pictures?” I asked him from the doorway.

He looked up at me. “What?”

“On the Facebook page—are there pictures from Harrison’s party?”

He sighed. “A few, but nothing too bad.”

“But I bet the comments—”

“Whitley,” he said, cutting me off. “Don’t. Don’t think about them, okay? Fuck those people and whatever they have to say.”

“You agreed with them,” I reminded him. “A few days ago, you called me a whore, too.”

He looked down, staring at his lap for a moment. “Well,” he said at last, “I was an asshole.”

“No, you weren’t.” I walked over to the table and sat beside him. “You were worried about your little sister. I get that now. After last night… Christ, I’d hate myself if something like that happened to her. I hate myself as it is for what little did happen to her that night. Maybe I’m not as slutty as those comments make me out to be, but…”

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I’m still pissed at you for not watching her that night. You screwed up. But that doesn’t give these idiots the right to say the shit they’re saying. I mean, seriously? How lonely and pathetic do you have to be to waste time gossiping about some girl you probably haven’t met? That’s pretty lame.”

I smiled a little. “I guess.”

“It’s the truth.” He paused. “So, are you okay? After what happened the other night? Harrison filled me in, but do you want to…?”

“I want to forget it ever happened,” I said. “I know I won’t, but I just need to think about something else for a while.”

He nodded and cleared his throat, leaning back a little and clicking a few buttons on his laptop. “So, I’m looking at UK’s course catalog online—checking out some classes I might want to take.”

“I should do that soon,” I said. “And pick a major.”

“You don’t have one yet?” he asked, surprised.

I shook my head. “Nope. What about you?”

“Yeah. I’m going into computer science—hoping to focus in web development.”

“Oh… that’s cool.”

He looked at me, one eyebrow raised. “You’re not going to make fun of me? Call me a nerd or anything?”

“No. Why?”

“I don’t know. It just seems like something you’d do.”

I laughed and stood up, walking into the kitchen. “Yeah, well, I probably would normally.” I opened the fridge and pulled out an apple. “But I’ve decided to try this new thing and be nice to you.”

He gri

“Mostly,” I said, chewing on my apple.

“Wow. Pity kindness. I’m flattered.”

Nathan nudged my arm playfully, but the truth was that I really did feel guilty. I knew what it was like to give up something that intimate and have the person completely abandon you. I knew how shameful and hurtful it could be.