I was utterly unsurprised that my father would not give me a logical reason why I couldn’t ever visit my childhood home with my son. So I turned him away, and I continued returning their checks, uncashed. After a year, they got the idea and the checks stopped arriving.
Now here I am, a few short months after their deaths, back in my hometown. Despite how terribly things went wrong, I had a happy childhood until that night. This is the kind of town where you want your child to grow up.
But I can’t help feeling like this bedroom is haunted by their presence. Or really, the entire house.
I climb out of bed and walk over to the dresser across the room. When I arrived here after I got news of the car accident, I found this dresser littered with photographs of me and Josh. The photographs stopped after I cut them off five years ago, but there were dozens of pictures all over the house, spanning my life from when I was first born to that day I sent my father away because they couldn’t accept my life choices. I took most of them down, but I left a couple. For example, a photograph on the dresser from when I was about Josh’s age, posing with my parents for a Christmas card.
I pick up the photograph now, staring down at my smiling, unlined face. My parents each have one hand on my shoulder, and they are glowing with pride in our little family. I can’t even remember them ever looking that way.
Despite everything, I believe my parents loved me. I can see it in their eyes in this photograph. But their stupid pride got in the way of our relationship. They chose to sever our ties completely rather than be humiliated by having me parade around in front of their friends with my fatherless son.
Except now when I look down at this photograph, I think back to that day my father came out to see me in Queens. He drove for at least five straight hours to get to me because it was that important to him. For the first time, I wonder if his motivation wasn’t completely selfish.
Can’t you just trust us for once, Brooke? We’re doing this for your own good.
He almost seemed…
Afraid.
But that’s silly. There was nothing to be afraid of. Shane was behind bars at that point, for the rest of his life. There was no way he could get to me. I was safe from that man.
And I still am.
Chapter 21
ELEVEN YEARS EARLIER
After you have had sex with your boyfriend for the first time, the absolute last thing you want to hear him say is, “Shit.” Well, maybe “I have herpes” would be slightly higher on the list, but this isn’t good either.
“What?” I say. “What’s wrong?”
Shane rolls off of me, sweaty and flushed. I had been so scared before, but there was nothing to be scared of. He was sweet and considerate, always making sure I was okay and that everything felt good… or at least not bad. I don’t know if I would say it was mind-blowing, but it was pretty good for my first time. And now this is the part where he is supposed to be holding me and telling me how much he loves me and still respects me, but instead, he looks decidedly perturbed.
“What?” I press him.
“I think…” He frowns. “I think the condom came off.”
“What?”
“I’m not sure,” he says quickly. “But… well, it’s off. And I didn’t take it off. So I’m kind of wondering when it came off and…”
“Shit,” I say.
My head is spinning. I’m seventeen years old. I can’t be pregnant at seventeen years old. I have plans for the next ten years of my life, none of which involve a screaming child. I want to go to college. Graduate school. I want to travel the world. Oh my God, this is bad.
“Don’t freak out, Brooke,” Shane says. “It’ll be okay.”