Page 64 of Saving the Halfback

Bailey

“They don’t see you like I do, princess.” Ed twirled me around in the stall, dancing with me, smiling with me. “Those guys, they are just boys. You are so much more mature than them. So beautiful for your age. They will never see you like I do.” When he looked at me with those brown eyes, I felt like I was the only girl in the world that mattered. I mattered.

I couldn’t say anything. I could feel myself blush as I bit my lip, my lashes fluttering at the compliments. Ed started humming a country song as he danced with me, just the two of us in the empty stall. My heart was racing so fast I didn’t know what to do, but I knew he knew what to do. Ed would take care of me. He would make sure I knew what to do. Even when everyone else left me, he would always be there. He promised.

He twirled me around once more, pulling me so my back was against his front. My shoulders barely reached the height of his chest.

Bending down, he kissed me on the cheek, and at first, I was shocked. I turned around. “You’re so beautiful. Take it as a compliment when a friend gives you a kiss.”

“Oh, thank—” My words were cut short as he smacked his lips to mine. A small gasp escaped me, and I stepped away, covering my mouth.

“Take it as a compliment by returning the favor.” His words were smooth, soft. “You don’t want me to leave. You don’t want me to change my mind.” No…I didn’t. I wanted to matter to someone.

“If my dad sees…” I looked to the doorway, backing up until I stood against the wall.

“It will be okay. You are just thanking me, for the compliment.” Ed stepped forward, towering over me, and ground his lips against mine. It was my first kiss, and I didn’t know what I was supposed to do.

Ed grabbed my chin, pressing down and forcing my mouth open as he assaulted me with his tongue. I gagged.

He pulled away. “That wasn’t good manners. If you aren’t going to thank me for my compliments, perhaps I will find someone who will. Maybe you’re not as mature as I thought.” And then he left.

He turned the lights off and closed the barn doors behind him, leaving me, the light from a window shining down in the stall. Next time. Next time, I would do better.

I was sittingon my window seat, looking out my bedroom window at the garden shed as I remembered my first kiss. My phone was in my hand, and I flipped it around as I thought.

“You had so much to learn.” Ed stood in the far corner of my room. “But you were moldable. You were such a fast study. Eager to please.”

“It was wrong,” I whispered. They were words that were stuck in my heart for so long, and the snap I had felt last night released them.

I didn’t even bother looking at Ed. I knew he wasn’t real, wasn’t really there. I stared out into the dark of the early morning as I scoffed. “I was so ashamed of myself for not being mature. For not thanking you the way you wanted me to. For the longest time, I thought…what was wrong with me? I was so mad at myself that I gagged, but now, looking back on it, I know why I gagged.” I looked at Ed in a way I had never looked at him in my life. I glared. “Your breath smelled like alcohol, your saliva was disgusting, and you practically shoved my tongue to the back of my throat. You didn’t give me a choice.”

“You didn’t need a choice. You needed to be told what to do.” He held his ground, but he didn’t move forward.

I looked away from him in disgust. “You were wrong. Nolan gave me a choice. No—he didn’t give it to me. He respected my choice, even when I didn’t say it out loud.”

That memory. That memory of my first kiss…I used to look back on it and hate myself for not being what he wanted me to be. To the point that I practiced, so the next time he did it, I was ready, and I did exactly what he wanted. And now, after last night with Nolan, that snapping release I had felt was like a curse breaking. It was like I saw things differently. I looked back on that memory, and I saw…a fourteen-year-old child, forced into a nonconsensual kiss. How? How can the feelings from the same memory change over time?

Even though it was three in the morning, I pulled up Nolan’s contact on my phone, ready to call him. At the last second, I froze. I knew Nolan would answer. I knew he would talk to me. But…I needed someone who may have gone through this before. I scrolled in my contacts and paused for just a moment, my thumb hovering over the call button. How odd it was. Last year, I had no one but Ed, and this year, I had two friends I was pretty sure would pick up right away.

Glancing over to the corner—where Ed had been but was now empty—I pressed call. The phone ringing in my ear seemed loud after sitting in silence, but it wasn’t long until he picked up.

“Bailey?” Lachlan’s groggy voice spoke.

“Hey,” I whispered. “I’m sorry to wake you.”

There was some shuffling on his end, then I heard a door close. “It’s all right. You okay?”

“This is going to seem so stupid. I had a question and just really need it answered, and I thought you might be able to help me.”

He yawned. “Shoot.”

“I don’t even know if this is going to make sense. Is it possible to feel one way about something, then, years later, feel completely different about it?”

Lachlan cleared his throat, and then there was some rustling around, like he was sitting up in his bed. “Like, blocking out events that resurface years later?” I relaxed a little, I knew Lachlan wouldn’t judge me.

“No. I remember everything that happened. I remember how it happened. It’s just…different. How do I know which memory is right, when years ago, I felt one way about it, but now, looking back, I see how wrong it all was?”

Lachlan’s voice was calm and confident when he spoke next. He didn’t let his emotions in, which was exactly what I needed to sort through these thoughts. “From strictly a third-party observer, you have to think about the circumstances surrounding it. You saidyears later. Well, years ago, you were a young teen, right? A fourteen-year-old interprets situations differently than an eighteen-year-old. Fourteen-year-olds are often impressionable, gullible, even. Their minds sugarcoat things to make it understandable. If you were to put your eighteen-year-old self in the same situation, how would you respond now? Now that you’ve lived a bit more and betterunderstand how to read people and situations. My therapist would say my emotions back then were valid. Right. What I felt then was true, but how I feel now is also true. Youcanhave happy memories and still validate the trauma within them. Does that help?”

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