Spilled Milk: Based on a true story (12 page)

There were
special bed times, special Christmas gifts, and other things they never got.
Adam made me realize that I had a little more control over Dad than I thought I
did. Anything I wanted to keep his secret was mine.

“I guess I
didn’t notice that before.”

Adam pulled
into Paul’s driveway and unlocked the car doors. “Well, now you know.”

I gripped the
door handle and looked into Adam’s sea blue eyes. He looked worn, like me, but
he didn’t have that spark. There was a spark that pushed me to start
questioning and probing; to start re-evaluating what was going on, and to
figure out what to do with the new information.

“Yea. I do
know, now. Thanks Adam.”

He looked
confused as I hopped out of the car.

Paul was
propped up on his bed with the TV on when I walked into his room. He looked at
me and his eyes told me he was sorry. I didn’t call or text for two days after
he had yelled at me, and I think my silence scared him. He held out his arms
without saying anything, and I more than eagerly fell into them.

“I’m sorry.” He
kissed my forehead. “The guys have been giving me a lot of pressure lately. I’m
the only virgin and they keep asking for details.”

I ran my
fingers over his arms. “I know. I just don’t feel comfortable with them knowing
details like that about us. It’s private, between us, ya know?”

He nodded and
pulled my face closer to his. After a few minutes of kissing his hands caressed
my sides and flowed down to linger over my zipper. I held my breath as his
fingertips slid under the top of my jeans and I pulled his hand away. “Your mom-”

“Won’t be home
for another hour,” he finished.

“Do you have-?”

“Yes.”

With one arm he
slid me underneath him and put his other hand through my hair. His lips were
searching, needing, all over my face and down my neck. I pulled at his shirt
and it dropped to the floor.

He lifted me
upward and slid his hand underneath my shirt. His chest pressed firmly against
mine. My skin danced with every detailed movement he made. I moaned, softly,
and it made him rise against my leg. We both wanted it. When I felt him inside
me I eased into his rhythm and sank deeper.

We sprawled
across the bed afterwards, smiling, holding each other’s hand. He brushed a
piece of hair from my face and took my lips into his. “I love you, Brooke.”

I closed my
eyes. I didn’t tell him, but I wanted to hear him say those three words,
sincerely, before I gave myself to him. The timing was perfect.

“Hey, let’s get
our clothes on. My mom’ll be home soon.” He reached for my shirt and threw it
towards me, facing away as he slid his pants on.

“Hey. Wait a
minute.”

I pulled my
shirt on. “Yea?”

He looked down
at himself. Then at me. “Something’s different.”

“What do you
mean?”

“I don’t know.
I mean I guess everyone is different but-” He continued to look down and check
things out.

“Something
wrong?” I started to panic. Did he know?

“No. I mean,
the guys just all told me how cool it was to pop a girl’s cherry. And since
we’re both virgins, I thought it would be like what happened with them.”

“It’s not?”

“There’s no
blood.”

“Huh?”

“I don’t have
any blood on me. There’s no blood.” He pointed into his boxers.

I realized he
was talking about me not being a virgin. What could I say?

“Yea, um, I
mean I don’t think that happens to every girl. Just some of them.”

“Really?” Paul
pulled his shirt on to hide the disappointment in his face.

“Yea, I’m a
girl. I would know.” It wasn’t a total lie.

“Oh. Well,
okay. You feeling all right?”

I sighed at his
change of subject. I could have told him about everything that was going on; my
dad, the house I grew up in. I didn’t want to remember my first time like that.
My
real
first time. Instead I vowed to tell somebody soon.

There was
something wrong about what was going on in my life, I wasn’t sure to what
extent but the only way I would find out is to see what somebody else thought. I
nodded my head and pulled him closer.

“Never better,”
I said, kissing his lips.

“Did it hurt?
Were you scared? Were there weird noises? No one was home right?” Cristin and I
were playing twenty one questions for over an hour at that point.

I made the
mistake of telling her about Paul and I having sex. Summer started a week ago, technically
I lost my virginity a month ago, but Cristin would never know the difference. I
wanted to dodge the probability of people talking about my sex life, so I
waited until school was over to tell my best friend. I munched on a tortilla
chip and twirled around on the chair in her bedroom. We always made it a point
to have a sleepover as soon as possible when the school year ended.

“Geeze, you
would think this concept is new to you,” I teased. “You would think you
never
had sex before.”

Cristin rolled
her eyes. “Well of course
I
have had sex before, I just never thought
you
would.”

“We waited ten
months.”

“I know.” She
shook her head. “Poor kid.”

We both laughed.

“Why’d you wait
that long anyway?”

I shrugged. “I
don’t know. I wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to get what he wanted and
bail. If he stuck around this long, I know it’s not for the sex.”

Cristin twirled
a piece of her hair like she often did when she considered something. “True.
Good point. I should try that sometime. So anyway, when is your mom due? I saw
her at the grocery store last week and she looked like she was about to burst.”

“Any day now.
Hopefully not before I get back from my aunt’s though, I want to be there.”

“You’re going
for a week?”

“Yea. Just to
get away. She paid for the airline ticket and
then
asked my parents if I
could go to Florida. She said she needed help with my cousins. So they didn’t
really have a choice but to say yes.” I tapped my foot thinking about the warm
weather and ocean. “I’m excited.”

“To scope out
the cute guys there?”

“To see my
cousins.”

Cristin slid
off the bed and cocked one hip to the side to study the library of movies she
had on her shelves. “Wanna watch something? I’m not tired yet.”

“Sure. Pick
whatever.”

I crumpled up
the chip bag and set it on the floor next to her bedroom door so we’d remember
to bring it down to the kitchen later. Cristin’s mom inquired about my mom’s
pregnancy earlier. “So there’s almost fourteen years between the baby and Kat
huh? It’s almost like he’ll be an only child, everyone else will be all grown
up by the time he’s your age.”

She smiled as if
this was pleasant news, but she brought up a point I hadn’t thought of. This
baby was going to be on his own, living in the house by himself while I was off
at college and starting my life. There would be no one there to protect him. We
would all be too old. He would have to go at it alone. It gave me a sense of
urgency that maybe I should start to see what people thought about what was
going on in my house. The thought turned my stomach.

“You okay? Too
many chips or something?” Cristin slipped a DVD in and grabbed the remote
before joining me on the bed. She propped up some pillows and crossed her
ankles.

“Yea, maybe.
I’m okay.” I clenched my hand in a fist and rehearsed what I was about to say
one more time. “Cristin, can I ask you something?”

“Sure. Shoot.”
The remote jammed on channel four and she pressed the input button with hatred
to get the TV to switch over.

I couldn’t look
at her when I said it. “Have you ever had a dream that your Dad comes into your
room?”

She looked at
me. “Hmm, my dad coming into my room?”

The time she
took to consider the question was agonizing.
What if she asks me why? What
if she doesn’t believe me? Her dad is so nice, there’s no way she could
understand.

“I had a dream
my dad showed up to school with a My Little Pony lunchbox once. Horrifying.
Does that count?”

Her response
confirmed what I was dreading. For anyone who wasn’t experiencing what I was,
it was hard for them to even consider the question I just posed to have any
deeper meaning than it did. The last thing on her mind would be that something
sexual or physical was happening. Instead, she took the question as innocently
as I had given it to her.

If Cristin had
asked me if I ever had a dream my father was in my room, my first question
would have been ‘To do what?’ Our minds were in completely different places.
For Cristin’s sake, I was glad they were.

A similar
feeling to the one I had when Adam wouldn’t understand what I was saying presented
itself. It was like every person I told, when they didn’t take the bait I was
trying to throw out, gave me one more reason to try someone else. Say something
different. Try again to find someone who knows exactly what I was asking, and
exactly what I meant without even needing to say it out loud. There had to be
someone.

I gave her a
crooked smile. “Could have been worse. He could have shown up with a Barney
lunch box.”

She figured out
the remote and clicked the lamp off next to her. “Ah, very true.”

***

My plane
touched down in Florida and I cruised through the airport toward the baggage
claim signs like my Aunt Nikki told me to. I spotted her waiting and quickened
my pace.

“Ohh beautiful,
how was your flight?” She wrapped her arms around me and then held me back.
“You’re stunning, and so tall! I haven’t seen you in almost two years.”

“I know!” I
beamed at her. Aunt Nikki was Mom’s youngest sister. There wasn’t much of an
age difference between us, so she knew all the latest music and style trends. I
could guarantee a shopping spree was in my near future.

“Uncle Jake has
the car waiting so let’s grab your things and hurry hurry.”

I shut the car
door and Uncle Jake turned to look at me. “Wow look how big you are. Geeze,
everyone grows up so fast. Sorry I couldn’t get out to give you a hug, they
were giving me a hard time just sitting here with the car.”

Once on the
highway we chatted about school and work until we pulled into their
development.

“The boys still
have one more week of daycare.” Aunt Nikki turned and winked at me. “I figured
it would give us time during the day to catch up and do some girl things.”

I nodded and
winked back at her. I knew when she told my Mom and Dad she needed me to visit
to help her with the kids it was a ploy. She was always a more than capable
mother.

After the boys
went to bed that night Aunt Nikki and I caught up out on her deck

“You’re sixteen
aren’t you?” Aunt Nikki took the recliner next to me and passed a glass of
white wine to me.

“Fifteen.
What’s this?”

“Expensive.
Just drink it.”

I had been here
before. She had on pressed khakis and a tailored blouse. She wore minimal
makeup and you would never guess that she was Irish with her sun bronzed skin.
Her tennis rackets leaned against the house on the other side of the porch. I
imagined her with her trainer that morning gushing about her favorite niece
that was coming to visit later that day. The house was immaculate, dinner was
perfect and the wine was dangerously smooth.

We sipped and
made comments about the gorgeous weather and my aunt’s ten pound weight gain.
It trailed off into talk of boys and honors classes, and ended where it always
did.

“So your mom is
due any day now huh?”

“Probably next
week. Hopefully. I don’t want to miss it.”

“I know you
don’t.” She swirled her glass. “It was definitely a surprise to the family that
she was pregnant again. We all told her we didn’t think it was a good idea.”

I only knew of
several times Mom had asked my aunts and uncles for money. Since she broke her
back we lived off of Dad’s income. Money was a main issue of the family not
approving of the pregnancy, but so was her health.

“She smokes
like a banshee and has a broken back. I’ll never understand her.” Aunt Nikki
cracked her neck. “We all told her, you know, that we would pay for your mom to
take care of it. When she first found out she was pregnant. Health wise, I
don’t think she can manage another pregnancy and baby.”

Mom never told
me that my aunts and uncles offered to pay for an abortion, but it didn’t
surprise me. My Uncle Bruce was shocked when he found out, and called my Dad a
number of names before telling my mom she was making a big mistake. No one seemed
happy about the pregnancy except me.

“She’s
stubborn.” I wet my lips with wine. “You know I’ll be there to help her though,
everything will be okay.”

Aunt Nikki
turned towards me and put down her empty wine glass. She held up both hands.
“Ah, Brooke you’re so…” She smoothed her hair and her eyes glimmered with
almost tears. “You’re so mature. And together. I envy you.” She sighed. “How
are things with your dad?”

I sucked in a breath.

Great. Fine.
Wonderful. It’s okay.

As I tried to
figure out which lie to use, I realized I paused one second too long.

“Brooke?”

I twisted my
hands around my wine glass. “They’re…okay.”

Whenever Dad
got brought up in any conversation I would offer the answer that everyone
wanted to hear, that things were great. I looked at my Aunt. This time, I
didn’t want to try and mask it.

 I forced her
to recognize the change in my demeanor. My eyes pleaded with her to probe
further, to ask me more questions. I wanted her to serve more wine so I could
tell her the truth. I couldn’t say what I needed to out loud on my own. I
needed her to ask. I needed someone to notice the changes in my face, and run
with my hints. The questions never came though.