Dear Jon (15 page)

Even then, though, I wasn’t ashamed of what we’d done, and I didn’t feel the need to apologize to anyone–not for us being together, anyway.

Jon, I am so ashamed of what I did with Finn. I am so sorry it happened. I am so sorry that you’re not here for me to tell you this in person–that you haven’t been here every day to hear me tell you, because I say it every day as I paint. I pour my remorse into each droplet of pigment, and I coat every bit of each canvas with my regret. Every brush stroke is penitence. There have been thousands, Jon. Tens of thousands. Before this is said and done, there may be hundreds of thousands.

I feel cleansed at the end of a painting, and then I write you. I have tried to write you with a clear conscience, not wanting to dwell on the few seconds that could represent the biggest mistake of my life. I haven’t wanted to remind you of that, in case there was any way you could get it out of your mind. I know how much that must have hurt you. I hate that I hurt you in that way.

I am so, so, so sorry.

This summer, I have felt more exposed than I felt the day that photo was leaked.

Because the exposure was an act of betrayal? And the whole world knew it?
I don’t want to feel sorry for her, but I do. It had to be so much worse for her, being the notable person she is in New York. Had it been any other seventeen-year-old kissing a friend, it would have been overlooked by others.

Still, the loyal boyfriend would hurt just as much as I am hurting.

I pour my emotions and thoughts and memories onto these soft, linen pages, and I hear nothing from you. I wish you would either confront me or comfort me. I would take either one. I deserve the former; I prefer the latter. But hearing nothing makes me feel naked and scared. I feel like I’m standing here, with you peering at me though a telephoto lens from far away. You see me–all of me–but I have no idea what you actually see. Or if you are getting a glimpse of anything at all.

Are you reading my letters?

Does she think I’m not? What if I hadn’t? What if I just threw the first one away, and every one that followed? How would I feel about her today?

If you are, should I have been apologizing all this time? I am that sorry. I am more sorry than that. I will never love anyone again like I’ve loved you, Jon. I will never hurt anyone again like I’ve hurt you. I promise you, I will be honest and loving and loyal.

I can’t explain what happened that day, in that moment. I know that’s probably what you’re waiting on. I was confused. I was upset.

What guarantee can you have that it won’t happen again? I’m sure that’s what’s going through your mind.

She’s exactly right.

I wasn’t myself, Jon.

I am myself again now. I see the difference. I know what I have to do to be myself now. I know what I have to continue to do, and I vow to you, I will keep doing it.

I’ll keep painting. It keeps me level. It makes me happy. It’s an outlet for my emotions and a spigot that feeds me energy and life and confidence, all at once. I drink it in.

I’m sorry for being someone you think you don’t want anymore… but please don’t throw me to the side. Don’t throw away the years we’ve had.

We aren’t finished.

Exposed

I stare out at what remains of the sunset, and it’s a beautiful sight. Low-lying, pink, wavy clouds overtake streams of yellow, but above all that is a blue sky already prickled with glistening stars. Livvy would love to see this.

I snap a picture with my phone and save it, wondering if I might take the opportunity to show her some day.

I’d told my brother I’d wait in the car while he and his date, Ellen, went to the cheesecake restaurant in the mall, but it’s too hot without the car running, and it’s wasteful to leave the car on just for that.

Plus, I kind of want to see how he’s doing.

Mom had given him thirty dollars before she dropped him off at his religion class, but before he said goodbye to me, I slipped him another twenty, just to make sure he had plenty.

Ellen talked non-stop once she got in the car. I wondered if she was just nervous, or if that’s what she was normally like. Her voice was still very childlike, and I was glad the car ride was only three minutes long.

Regardless, I will say nothing to my brother about how annoying she seems to me. I’ll support his choice in girls, provided they’re good for him… and she seems harmless.

I wait for Will and his date to be seated before I pass the restaurant, heading up to the shop where I got my glasses. Audrey smiles from behind the counter as she helps a customer. I wave at her, taking a seat in the chair I sat in when I first saw her.

She really
is
charming–with the people she’s with, with my brothers, and with me. She’s been one of the highlights of my summer, even though I’ve only known her a few weeks. There’s just something so…
unburdened
… about her. She’s weightless. She’s effervescent. With her, she’s exactly as she seems. She’s uncomplicated.

I realize immediately that’s why we’ll never be anything more than friends. I
like
complicated. I like being challenged. I like having someone who pushes me farther.

Livvy always did that for me. Her view of the world is different than mine, and in art, and design and theories, she always made me examine things from her point of view… and it was always fascinating what–together–we could see, and create.

“Hi,” Audrey says, sitting down in the leather chair next to me. “I’m surprised to see you here.”

“Will is on a date at Cheesecakes, Etc. I’m the chauffeur, and I thought I’d stop by and make sure we’re still on for our picnic Saturday.”

“Why wouldn’t we be?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” I tell her. “Yesterday was just… a little weird, I know. I’m sorry.”

“You were fine,” she says.

“Okay.” I smile at her, happy that things aren’t strained between us. “I’ll pick you up at five… that’s when you get off, right?”

“Yep!” she says, getting up and nodding at another awaiting customer.

“Any food allergies?”

“Nope!”

“Any food dislikes?”

“Oysters. And olives,” she says, walking toward her customer.

“So all aphrodisiacs are out,” I mumble to myself.

“Huh?”

“Nothing,” I say with a grin. “Have a good night at work. I’ll see you Saturday.”

“Bye!” she says with an eager wave.

I stop by the bookstore before going back to the restaurant, picking up a fresh copy of
Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist
for Will and a book about Mars for Max. At the cheesecake place, I ask to be seated at a table across the way from my brother and his date.

I pull the letter out of my backpack that I’d found in the mailbox just before I left the house.

I love you, Jon.

I know she does. Emotions stir deep within my body, awakening me to her sentence. I know she loves me, still.

“Can I take your order?” a waiter interrupts, killing my buzz.

“A soda and… just a regular slice of cheesecake. No, make it strawberry. To go.”

“The soda, too?”

“The soda’s for here.” He nods and walks away, leaving me to my letter in the tiny, two-person booth in which I was seated. I imagine Livvy sitting across from me.
My Olivia
.

On my seventeenth birthday, you were allowed into our private family dinner to celebrate with me. It took about five years for me to convince my parents to let Camille come. They trusted no outsiders… but they were finally starting to trust you.

I don’t really think that’s true. Maybe Emi trusted me. I always felt like Emi was on my side, but not Jack. I got glares and snide comments for what felt like a year after the night in Mykonos. I know he knew we were lying to him. Maybe Matty told him, I don’t know… but I don’t think he trusted me after that.

He’d coached me before we went inside. I wasn’t allowed to discuss anything personal with any waiters or to let my phone out of my sight. He also reminded me that people are always watching, no matter how private the party may seem.

I didn’t need to know any of that. I knew it all already. He’d acted like it was the first time I’d been around his family, but that wasn’t the case. Because of this conversation, I was a little stand-offish to him all night, causing Livvy to have her defenses up a little, too, although she didn’t know why. She just seemed to feed off my prevailing emotions that night. She was already becoming too attached at that point. I felt it then, but at the time, I wanted it, because that meant she was choosing me over her father.

Do you remember my dad’s toast to me?

I really don’t, either, but I’d wished I had been listening. You were distracting me, though, as your fingers dragged slowly up my thighs. You were cautious in your movements, careful not to give your actions away, but I could tell Dad knew something was up at that one part of his toast. Everyone sighed and ahhhed–and I didn’t know what he’d said. I didn’t react the way he’d expected me to, and I saw his disappointment.

I acted like I heard him, though, and he had my attention for the last part of his speech.

“Don’t be in such a hurry to escape your youth, Contessa. Mark my words, you’ll wish you had it back once it’s gone. Knowledge and experience will steal it from you without you even realizing it’s happening… and then you’re simply left with a silly wish for the rest of your life. And–God-willing–it’ll be a long life. There’s plenty of time to grow up. No need to rush into it.”

He’d then wished me a happy birthday, and I cried, feeling like I’d already grown up… like I’d ignored his advice and gone against him. I didn’t need to tell you that’s why I cried. You knew. After I hugged my dad, I returned to you, and you tried to dry my tears with your shirt sleeve… but when they wouldn’t stop, you gave me my present–a nice pair of sunglasses– that hid my emotions from everyone else. Then you kissed me so sweetly… and my decision to “escape my youth” with you didn't seem like such a horrible decision.

Sex isn’t synonymous with adulthood, though. They say that’s when a girl becomes a woman, but I don’t believe it. It’s my dad’s definition, but it isn’t mine. I think mine will be when I leave their home and stop being fully dependent on them anymore. It has nothing to do with sex. It has nothing to do with a boyfriend. It has everything to do with me. Me, supporting myself. Me, making all the decisions. Me, taking risks. Accepting new challenges. Doing things no one expects me to do.

I hope to surprise a lot of people at college next year. I’ll become the adult they assume I am now. I’m ready to start this new life… and I know it will be different than anything I’ve known, with or without you.

We aren’t finished.

Youth

“Sir? Did you need anything else?”

I look up at the waiter, and then at the table. Water droplets of condensation drip from the glass. The cheesecake sits in a bag next to it. I have no idea when he brought them.

“No, just the check,” I say, checking my watch. I glance across the restaurant. Will and Ellen are gone. After paying, I rush out to the car, expecting to cross paths with my brother on the way. Checking my phone, I see a text message from him.

It’s going great. We’re going to walk around the mall. Another half-hour.

That’s my brother. I grin proudly, getting into the car and cracking the windows.

I tuck Livvy’s letter safely in my bag, and remember back to her birthday. I was listening to Jack intently.

He was reminiscing about the time when Livvy, at the age of three, before she was officially adopted, had asked Jack if she ‘
had
’ to call him Daddy then. She had just moved into their house for the state-mandated supervisory period that they had to endure before the courts would make the adoption official.

Jack said the question moved him to tears–not because she wasn’t ready, but in anticipation of the day that she would be ready… the day she would
choose
to call him Daddy.

Emi had told her she could wait until they’d done a good job at parenting first… but reiterated their desire to be her mother and father.

Since her adoption was finalized on her fourth birthday–something that Jack, Emi and Donna had begged the courts to accommodate–he had said that he wasn’t celebrating Livvy’s 17th birthday that night.

He said, for him, it was the 13th anniversary of being a daddy to the most precious little girl he could ever even hope to meet. Then he told her he’d hoped he and Emi had done a good job of parenting.

Livvy didn’t have to stop my hands from creeping up her skirt anymore. I felt guilty at that, feeling suddenly that my parents must have done a horrible job for me to be so sexually aggressive at the dinner table with her family. And why? To prove to Jack that I didn’t need to be coached to be a part of their family? That his daughter was mine?

I spent the rest of her birthday trying to encourage her to interact with her family more. Without her parents, I’d never have had the chance to know her. Without their good parenting, she wouldn’t have turned out to be the girl I loved.

As much as I didn’t want Jack Holland to be an influence in her life or in her decisions, I was suddenly grateful he had been. I respected the man for how he raised his
princess
.

“Knock, knock!” my brother announces before banging on the back door of the car, startling me.

“Well, get in,” I tell him after unlocking the door. “Wait!” I say, stopping when I see him climbing into the car before Ellen. I get out to show him how it’s done. I have to nod at Will to get him to get back out of the car. “Ladies first,” I tell Ellen, watching my brothers skin turn a dark shade of pink.

“Thank you, Jon,” she says. Will stands there, as if waiting for her to scoot over. I shut the door.

“Go around to the other side, man,” I tell him, knocking him gently upside the head.

“Oh, okay.” He rushes to the other side, getting in and closing the door gently.

“Where to?” I ask, starting the car.

“I live in the Nottingham neighborhood,” Ellen says. “It’s not far from your place, right?”

“I believe that’s on the way home… just tell me where to turn when I get close.”

“‘kay,” she says, and the back of the car becomes more silent than I expect. She’d been so chatty before. I look in the review mirror cautiously.

“What are you doing?!” I yell, stopping the car abruptly in the parking lot. I turn around, staring at the white sticks hanging out of each of their mouths.

“They’re candy cigarettes,” Will says.

“They still make those nasty things?” I ask.

“They make us look older,” Ellen says, taking the stick between her fingers as if she was smoking a joint, and not just a cigarette. She blows out air between her lips, looking utterly ridiculous.

“Mmhmm,” I say simply, judgmentally, putting the car back into gear. Before I put my foot on the gas, I glare in the backseat at my brother, causing them both to start laughing. “Someone once told me, ‘
Don’t be in such a hurry to escape your youth. You’ll wish you had it back once it’s gone.’
”

“Sounds like an old man,” Will says. I shake my head, beginning to drive toward the freeway that will take us home. It
does
sound like something an old man would say, but no one actually gave
me
that warning when I was younger. In fact, my youth disappeared one night when I wasn’t watching… one night when Max was a baby, sick with colic. When I went to take him to my mother to stop his crying, I was met with a locked bedroom door. Mom said something to me that was entirely unintelligible… just before a man started grunting, repeatedly. I wasn’t positive what it was, although I’d heard it before and had my suspicions. I’d asked if my mother was okay. She’d said,
‘Go away, Jonny. Mama’s fine.’

Unable to get in touch with my dad, I had gone next door with Max and Will, and we had stayed with a neighbor that night. She taught me how to feed Max properly. I’d been feeding him too much, and wasn’t holding the bottle right. She showed me how to soothe him, too.

And that was the night I stopped being dependent on my parents. That was the night I became an adult, a parent to my brothers. I was
eleven
.