Page 52 of Under One Roof

Griffin places his hand on top of mine to stop me from picking at my nails and links his fingers with mine. With the tip of my index finger of my other hand, I follow the veins of his forearm and his knuckles, rubbing the few scars and tapping on his short, square nails that seem too nice for his work-rough hands.

“What did happen?” he asks, and I lift a careless shoulder, still avoiding his gaze.

“I loved him. Or, at least, as much as I could back then. He made me laugh a lot and was really sweet. We were together for a long time.”

When I stop, Griffin prods me along. “How long is a long time?”

“He asked me to be his girlfriend at the homecoming dance of sophomore year. He was my first real kiss. And as we got older, we started…fooling around.”

“Having sex?” Griffin guesses, and I nod.

“It was toward the end of senior year, and the first time lasted, like, three seconds. It was bumbling and awkward, and Robbie felt so bad. He promised it would get better.” I laugh at the memory, out of fondness for the boy who was only ever sweet to me. A great first boyfriend. If it had turned out differently, Robbie and I might be happily married now.

But I live in this timeline and grew up with my parents.

“My dad is not great. He has this old-school mentality when it comes to men and women and work and home, and… I don’t know what my mom saw in him when they got together. I suspect it was stability since she was raised by a single mom. That’s probably why she didn’t like that Mimi and I were so close. She thought I was too much like her mother, who she didn’t like. Didn’t respect, to a certain degree.”

When I pause for a breath, Griffin lifts our linked hands to kiss the back of mine, and I finally slant my gaze his way. I’ve written songs about love, but now I know what it actually feels like. It’s not pretty words on paper. It’s safety and comfort, silent promises to always be there, and not-so-silent ones about taking care of each other.

I continue with my eyes on his, that unblinking stare holding me steady. “We were kids, barely eighteen. We loved each other the best way we knew how, and I didn’t think we were doing anything wrong. I mean, I knew it was wrong. My pastor said so. My youth group leader was this granola crunchy dude who said it was cool to wait until marriage, even though he was probably having a lot of sex when he went home at night.”

Griffin agrees with a grunt.

“It was the third time we had sex. We were up in my room because we were let out of school early, and I assumed my parents were out working, but they walked in on us. I’d never been so embarrassed in my life,” I say, my skin heating at the memory, like it did that day when my father screamed at us to get up, but both of us were naked. Robbie tumbled out of bed, covering himself with his hands, and ran out of my room, snatching up his clothes on the way out. I wrapped my blanket around me as my father yelled in my face, called me names I never expected to hear from him.

“My dad lost it.” I swallow thickly, the harsh words echoing in my mind. “He called me a whore. Told me he didn’t raise me to be a slut, and that no man would want a used-up piece of trash like me.”

“What?” I feel Griffin’s muscles coil beneath me, and his jaw works so hard, I fear for his teeth. “Your father… No one should ever say that, let alone a father to a daughter.” He tugs me to him, wrapping his arms around me, cupping one hand at the back of my head, the other smoothing up and down my back. “That’s really fucked up, and I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”

My eyes burn with tears. I know what my father said about me wasn’t true, but that didn’t stop it from hurting. From making me afraid to be with anyone else.

Still.

It still hurts. It still makes me afraid. Whoever said sticks and stones can break bones but words can never hurt was wrong. Words can do more than hurt. They can build up religions, tear down governments, speak truth to power, and break a young girl’s heart.

“The worst part was my mom just stood there. She didn’t try to stop him or say anything to defend me. After he left my room, I was crying on the floor, and my mom came over. She hugged me, and I asked why he would say those things to me, and she said…” I sniffle, chin wobbling, and I bite the inside of my cheek in an attempt to stop it. “She said, in her sweet Southern accent, that he might have used the wrong words, but he was right.”

I wipe a tear but another falls in its place, and Griffin kisses my head, telling me it’s okay to cry. So I do, my words broken on a sob. “He called me a whore and a slut, and she said he was right.”

“No. No, he wasn’t right. She wasn’t right either. You are none of those things. But even if you were fucking the whole football team, no one has any right to demean you.”

I rest my cheek against his bare chest as I catch my breath, and he continues to soothe me with his warm hands stroking me. “I’m not sure what I would do if I ever walked in on Logan or Grace having sex, but I know it wouldn’t be that. You didn’t deserve that.”

After a few moments, I wipe my face and raise my chin, tired of being so ashamed about something that happened ten years ago. I needed to hear from someone else that it wasn’t right. That it wasn’t true. And, no, my parents should not have treated me that way. My father shouldn’t have called me those names. My mother shouldn’t have defended him and later told me to stop being so dramatic about it.

“If you want to be an adult, you have to live with the consequences,” she’d said over breakfast a few days later when I still didn’t feel like talking to either one of them. As if my being hurt over my parents calling me trash was the problem.

“It was difficult growing up in that house,” I tell Griffin, and he holds my cheeks in his hands, frowning at my words. “But that day felt like something ripped away. Like I lost something I knew I wouldn’t be able to get back.”

“You still talk to them?”

“Occasionally. I left as soon as I graduated. Mimi gave me some money she’d saved, and I packed up my car to drive to LA. So, on top of being a slut, I was also a disappointment because I didn’t stay to work on the ranch. I wasn’t doing anything to keep the family business going.”

“But you were doing what made you happy,” Griffin says, as if all men are as logical and even-keeled as he is.

“My parents never cared about my happiness.”

“Apparently not.” He places a soft kiss on my lips, barely backing away when he says, “That’s why you’re uncomfortable with sex.”

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