Page 154 of Drown Like Heaven
“For four years.”
Mason’s fingers tightened on me for a moment, his entire body rigid. He was barely breathing, just holding me firmly, steadily. I was too afraid to pull back, to look at his face now. I couldn’t even imagine what he must be thinking. My fingers curled in the wet cotton of his t-shirt as I clung to him tighter, more tears tipping over my lashes, mixing with the bathwater on my cheeks.
Anthony was my half brother, older by three and a half years.
God, I loved him.
I loved him more than I’d ever loved anyone in my whole entire life. He was the first person who ever made me really feel chosen. Safe. Precious.
And then he ruined it.
I was fourteen when he took my virginity. He was eighteen.
Back then, I told myself it wasn’t wrong if I wanted it. If it felt good. If he smiled at me like I was the only thing that mattered.
Now, I knew that was wrong.
Stupid. Naive. Starving for affection.
The bath water was still sloshing around me and Mason, my face hidden in his chest, my tears adding to the wetness of his t-shirt. Thinking about what I’d done made me feel sick to my stomach, giving me a twist in my gut that I wasn’t sure I could articulate to anyone else. Because…fuck. I never actually did anything to stop him. So what did that make me?
Worse, I fuckingbeggedhim.
I swallowed hard, nausea rising in my throat.
The summer between middle school and high school, when my life was shouting and slammed doors, the sharp edge of hunger and anger, and Anthony was my shelter. When he was the only gentle thing in my life. I clung to him, because even poison can look like medicine when it’s the only thing keeping you alive. And I wanted him to take my virginity, to be the first person to know me like that.
He told me it would be better if I did it with him—he’d be nicer and safer than the other high school boys. He’d make it feel good.
I believed him. Fuck, Ibelieved him.
I didn’t fully understand how wrong it was then.
I know that now.
I’m constantly tormented by how much I know that now.
Without saying another word, Mason moved, reversing our positions, laying down fully in the tub now, his head resting on the edge, and laid my tired body on top of his.
All Mason’s clothes were still on, and the hem of his t-shirt floated loosely in the water. Quiet cries and sobs kept escaping me, my shoulders shaking and my vision blurry. I leaned back against him, feeling his clothes on my bare skin, his arms loopedaround my stomach, my hair swirling around us. Disgust twisted in my gut, shame heating my chest, hatred clawing my throat.
“I’m so sorry. For everything,” Mason said, his voice strained and close to my ear. “I won’t stay under too long.”
Then he slipped below the surface of the water, his spine flat to the bottom of the tub. I didn’t stop him.
Laying on top of him, I could still keep my head above the water.
I tilted my head back to submerge just my ears, listening to my own shaky breathing, tears slipping down the sides of my face now, tracking over my temples and dissolving into the bath.
My relationship with Anthony hadn’t been strictly sexual; sometimes he actually felt like an older brother. He teased me with the sole purpose of annoying me, or he took me out to get fast food, or he stole shit from my room when he came over.
But at some point, I started feeling really weird about it. Ashamed.
Because he didn’t act like my brother most of the time.
My friends in high school would talk about boys they had crushes on, boys they’d kissed, boys they’d let touch their chest or between their legs, boys they wanted to give handjobs to, and I started to realize that I couldn’t tell them I’d been doing all those things with my brother for years.
It made me quiet. Made me pull back. Made me feel like an outsider. Made me never want to speak another word ever again.
