Page 56 of Give My Everything
My smile completely disappears, the shock that Ben has heard anything about this rippling through my body and leaving me immobile. I don’t want to play this game anymore.
“What was it again?” he says, his eyes facing toward the movie screen, lost in thought, a grin on his face.
“Ben, stop. It’s not funny.”
“Oh yeah,” he says, snapping his fingers, his eyes coming back to mine. “The Bicycle Award.”
The pain lances through me swiftly, and I know I can’t hide the wince on my face. I swallow awkwardly, my face feeling flushed, and I can see the moment when Ben realizes what he said.
His eyes widen, a sudden expression of bewilderment filling his features.
I turn my head away from him, looking off to my right, to the large crowd surrounding us, everyone completely unaware that I’m dying inside.
“Remmy,” he says, and I can feel his hand taking mine into his. “Remmy, I’m sorry. I didn’t…”
I look up at the sky above us, only able to see a few twinkling stars because of all the light pollution. It’s mostly just a vast open mass of blackness, and I wish it would swallow me whole.
That fucking award. Given to me at the Christmas party in my freshman hall by my RA who hated me.
I’d already known she didn’t like me, but giving me that award in front of everyone was…it was like swallowing a piece of hot metal. It scalded me on the inside and left me sick for a long time.
The Bicycle Award…given to the most ridden girl.
I was completely mortified.
It wasn’t until later that I found out I’d slept with her boyfriend. It didn’t matter to her that the guy didn’t tell me he was dating someone. He sure hadn’t had to deal with the brunt of her rage after fucking me in a gazebo behind his fraternity a few weeks before.
So why the hell had it beenmyfault?
“I didn’t think about it all the way through before I said it, okay? I’m sorry.”
Ben’s still apologizing, and I can tell he feels bad. Like, really bad. But that’s the thing about wounds, right? You can say all the nice things you want after the cut has been made, after the scab has been ripped off, after the infection has grown.
But that doesn’t mean the resulting scar will just go away.
That doesn’t mean it doesn’t still hurt.
I had a teacher in my mass communications class give us an example of apologies by bringing someone to the front of the room and handing him a plate.
“Throw it on the ground,” he said, so the student grinned and smashed the plate into bits on the carpeted flooring.
“Now tell it you’re sorry.”
The student laughed uncomfortably. “Um…sorry.”
The class giggled, myself included.
“Did your apology fix the fact that the plate is broken?” the teacher asked.
Everyone remained silent, probably the most silent we’d ever been.
“That’s the thing about words—once you say them, they can’t be taken back. Sure, you can use glue to try to put the plate back together, but it will always carry the mark from having been broken in the first place.”
I’d never felt so fucking seen in my entire life.
Because that plate was me.
Smashed up and broken into little bits on the floor.
