Page 27 of Our Moon
“He didn’tdoanything,” she spits out.
“What did he say?”
“Nothing that wasn’t true.” Her voice wavers and part of the armor she put on in the bathroom melts away.
“You know you can’t believe anything he says. He’s a tool; he doesn’t know shit.”
“He might not be the brightest guy, butthishe knows.” She sniffs again, and she’s looking down so I can’t see her eyes, but I bet she’s crying again.
“What did he say, Al?” I rest my hand on her back and she jumps. “Did he fucking hit you?” I roar.
“What? No! God, no! He didn’t lay a hand on me. I guess that’s the problem.” She laughs through her tears. “I wouldn’t let him lay a hand on me. He said I was frigid. He called me frigid when I caught him cheating on me with some bimbo. We’d been together for nearly two years and never had sex. So he went and got it somewhere else.” She lets out a big sob and starts shaking with her cries.
I put my arm around her shoulders and pull her into me, not knowing what else to do. I want to get up and drive to Blake’s house and beat the shit out of him for hurting her, but instead, I just hold her tighter.
“Told you he was a tool,” I say, and I think I hear her laugh a little. “You’re not frigid, Ally. He just wasn’t the right guy for you and deep down inside, you knew it.”
“But we were together two years,” she says. “If I knew he wasn’t right for me, why were we still together?”
“Because you were comfortable? Shit, I don’t know. I don’t do relationships.”
“Right,” she scoffs. “You and my brother just have microwave relationships. Love ‘em and leave ‘em. Thirty seconds and their done.”
I know that’s what she thinks I do, sleep with random chicks and then blow them off. But that’s not entirely true. Sure I’ve fooled around with a lot of girls. It’s easy when you’re a good-looking guy in a band. And yeah, I probably sound conceited for referring to myself as a good-looking guy, but it is what it is. I’ve been told I’m hot enough times that I believe it.
I don’t know what makes me tell Ally my deepest, darkest secret. Maybe it’s the look in her eyes, the look that tells me she really does believe that she’s pathetic for not sleeping with her boyfriend of two years. Maybe it’s the fact that I don’t want her to feel so alone. Maybe I just want her to stop crying. Anyway, I don’t know what it is, but I tell her.
“I’m a virgin, too, Al.”
She lifts her head up and looks at me, then she laughs. “Yeah, right. Nice try, Chase.”
Well, that’s not how I saw this conversation going. “I’m serious,” I tell her.
She shakes her head, “Chase, I appreciate what you’re trying to do here. But you don’t have to say that.”
“It’s the truth. I’ve fooled around with a lot of girls, but I’ve never slept with any of them.” I look straight at her as I tell her this, willing her to see the truth in my eyes.
“You’re not joking,” she states as she looks into my eyes.
“No, I’m not.”
“Why?” she asks.
“Why what?”
“What’s your reason? For still being a virgin?”
Now, this, this I didn’t want to talk about. I look down at my hands in my lap. “I just haven’t met the right girl.”
“You’re lying,” she says quietly. My eyes meet hers again. “That may be part of it, but it’s not the whole truth.” How can she read me like that? “I know what you guys deal with at shows and stuff. If there wasn’t some serious reason stopping you from having sex, then you would’ve just done it already with one of your many groupies just to get it over with.”
She was right, but did I want to tell her that? Not really. Was I going to anyway? Probably.
“You can tell me, Chase. If you want to. I’m a good listener, and maybe I will understand better than you think.”
I highly doubt that. But it seems like talking is getting her out of the funk I found her in, so what the hell. “You know my home life is shit,” I begin and she nods. “Well, after my dad left, I grew up watching my mother parade men in and out of her bedroom.” I see her eyes widen before I continue. “Our house was the ‘it’ place for drugs, alcohol, and sex. No one ever messed with me directly, but the situation messed with me.”
“I’m so sorry, Chase.” She rests her hand on my knee in a gesture of reassurance. “I had no idea your home life was like that. I mean I knew it wasn’t good, but I didn’t know what went on.”
