Page 57 of Bitter Lies

“Okay, I take it this was bad?” he asks gently.

“Yeah,” I whisper, “it was one of them…”

“Okay, and how did that make you feel?”

I can’t help my impatient look, because really? “Scared. Horrified. It’s like everywhere I turn, I’m faced with my past.”

“Everywhere? Where else have you seen one of them?”

Sighing, I say, “One of them is on the football team, so he parties at our house sometimes.”

“Halsey, you haven’t told your roommates?” I shrink under his censure. “No.”

How can I possibly explain the desperation to hide the hurt and disgust I feel? To admit it to Griffin or even my brother would expose it, and if either of them were to deny me, I might break completely and thoroughly.

Besides, they don’t deserve my truth, for they’ve denied me theirs for years. In this, I am truly alone, and it’s a cold, barren walk, but it’s one I am choosing, and since I get so few others, I’m clinging to it grimly.

“Halsey, this won’t do. You’ve put yourself in a position where you’re not safe. This worries me as to your progress because you can’t heal if you’re still experiencing the visceral emotions from that evening.”

I agree, but I refuse to tell them of my shame, so we’re at an impasse. If only my fucking mother hadn’t pushed me to live with them, this wouldn’t be an issue, at least not on this scale.

Clenching my hands in my lap, I lower my gaze. “They’re still both on campus.”

“Have you considered reporting it?” he asks gently.

“No,” I whisper, gritting my teeth.

My mom wanted me to, and she spent weeks trying to convince me, and I think with every push she made, I sank deeper into a hole until I found myself in my bed after five days of staring at a wall.

It’s not her fault, none of it is, but the specter of explaining what happened to anyone makes me want to submerge myself in a vat of acid because my skin will never be clean again. I will not budge in this, even if I can’t shake the crawling sensation that I’m failing someone else as I do.

“Do you know why?”

“Because—because of what I did,” I say, avoiding his gaze and resisting the perennial fucking urge to rub the ugly from my skin.

“What did you do, Halsey?” he asks gently, cocking his head to the side.

“I asked for it.” I can’t stop the macabre smile from crossing my face because I did. I begged Jason to fuck me because I wanted to make Griffin pay, and now I have to live in my own lies, rotting and fetid as they are.

∞∞∞

Later that evening, I’m sitting at the table eating a bowl of cereal when Max drops down across from me with a distant expression. Although my session with Dr. Marks was awful, there’s a certain catharsis in admitting my shame, and I’ve been riding that strange relief all day.

Even Griffin’s brooding in our class after didn’t faze me, and bonus, I’m eating without being told like a good little prisoner.

Thankfully, Max doesn’t look high, but I brace myself for the coming confrontation anyway as he mutters, “Look, I’m sorry if I scared you the other day.”

“Okay, thanks,” I say quietly. “What’s going on, Max?”

His mouth twists, and he looks away, clenching his fist on the table. Ignoring the fact that I shouldn’t be fearful around my brother, I wait for what I don’t know.

“Remember that one summer when Dad took us fishing?” he asks, staring at the wall behind my head.

“Yeah,” I say with a faint smile. “I puked over the side when he tried to make me bait the hook with a live worm.”

Chuffing, he says, “That day, Dad taught me everything he knows about fishing. I guess he hoped it would be something we could do together, and I didn’t have the guts to tell him I hated it.”

I smile, because I will never forget the look on my dad’s face when Max threw a temper tantrum one of the last time’s he tried to get him to go. Although reluctant to let go of his father son time, he was also amused by Max’s refusal to hurt his feelings while raging about everything else instead. “Yeah, well, I think he got the picture when you put your foot down in the seventh grade.”

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