“Um, Dad, this is Wesley Rush,” I said, trying to stay calm. “He’s a friend of mine.”
“A ‘friend.’… I bet.” He grabbed the whiskey bottle before taking a few unsteady steps toward us, his eyes squinting at Wesley. “Did you have fun up in my little girl’s bedroom, boy?”
“I sure did,” Wesley said, clearly trying to sound like one of those innocent oh-gee-whiz! boys from fifties TV shows. “We played three games of Scrabble. Your daughter is really good with words, sir.”
“Scrabble? I’m not an idiot. That must be some new code for… for oral sex!” Dad snarled.
I must have turned scarlet. How did he know? Could he see right into my mind? No, of course he couldn’t. He was just drunk and making accusations, and looking guilty would only make things worse. So I laughed as if it were ridiculous. As if it were a joke. Wesley, following my lead, did the same.
“Sure, Dad,” I said. “And intercourse is Yahtzee, right?”
“I’m not being funny!” Dad snapped, swinging his bottle and sloshing whiskey onto the carpet. Wonderful. I’d be the one cleaning that up. “I know what’s up. I’ve seen the way your slutty friends dress, Bianca. They’re rubbing off on you, aren’t they?”
I couldn’t force the laughter any longer. “My friends aren’t slutty,” I whispered. “You’re drunk off your ass, and you don’t know what you’re saying.” With a surge of bravery, I reached forward and swiped the bottle from his hand. “You shouldn’t have any more, Dad.”
For a second, I felt good. That was what I should have done all along. Just taken things into my own hands and removed the bottle. I felt empowered. Like I could fix things.
“I should go,” Wesley said behind me.
I started to turn around and say bye, but the words never left my mouth. I felt the bottle slip from my hand and heard it smash on the floor beside me. I was knocked to the ground, but for a second I didn’t understand what had happened. Then the delayed pain in my temple stunned me. It was like I’d been hit by something. Something hard. Something blunt. Something like the palm of my father’s hand. I reached up and rubbed my head in shock, barely feeling the actual pain.
“See!” Dad yelled. “Boys don’t stay with whores, Bianca. They leave them. And I’m not going to let you turn into a whore. Not my daughter. This is for your own good.”
I looked up as he reached a hand down to grab my arm. I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting to feel his fingers clamp around my forearm.
But they never did.
I heard a loud thud, and Dad grunted in pain. My eyes flew open. Wesley moved away from Dad, who was massaging his jaw with a shocked look on his face. “Why you little shithead!”
“Are you all right?” Wesley asked, kneeling in front of me.
“Did you just punch my dad?” I couldn’t help but wonder if I was delirious. Had all of this really just happened? Totally bizarre.
“Yes,” Wesley admitted.
“How dare you touch me!” Dad screamed, but he was having trouble balancing enough to approach us again. “How dare you fuck my daughter, then hit me, you son of a bitch!”
I’d never heard my father swear like that before.
“Come on,” Wesley said, helping me to my feet. “Let’s get out of here. You’re coming with me.” He wrapped an arm around me, pulling me close against his warm body, and ushered me out the open door.
“Bianca!” Dad yelled behind us. “You better not get in that damn car! You better not leave this house! You hear me, you little whore!”
The ride to Wesley’s house passed in silence. Several times I saw him open his mouth like he wanted to speak, but he always shut it again. I was in too much shock to say anything. My head didn’t hurt that much. I just couldn’t wrap my head around what Dad had done. But worse was the embarrassment. Why? Why did Wesley have to see that? What did he think of me now? What did he think of Dad?
“That’s never happened before,” I said, breaking the silence when we pulled into the driveway of the almost-mansion. Wesley cut the engine and looked over at me. “Dad’s never hit me… or even yelled at me like that before.”
“All right.”
“I just want you to know that wasn’t normal for us,” I explained. “I don’t live in an abusive house or anything. I don’t want you to think my dad is some kind of psychopath.”
“I was under the impression that you didn’t care what people thought,” he said.
“About me. I don’t care what they think about me.” I didn’t know that was a lie until the words had left my mouth. “But my family and friends are different… My dad isn’t a psychopath. He’s just having a rough time right now.” I could feel the lump rising in my throat, and I tried to gulp it down. I needed to explain. He needed to know. “My mom just filed for a divorce, and… and he just can’t handle it.”
The lump wasn’t going away. It just kept growing. All of my worries and fears had been leading up to this moment, and I couldn’t fight them back anymore. I couldn’t keep them bottled up. Tears started gushing down my cheeks, and before I knew it I was sobbing.
How had this happened? It felt like a bad dream. My father was the sweetest, nicest man I knew. He was naive and fragile. This wasn’t him. Even though I’d heard his reasons for sobriety before-even though I knew, in the back of my head, that his drinking was dangerous-it still didn’t seem real. It didn’t seem possible.
I felt like my world was finally spinning out of control. And this time, I couldn’t deny it. I couldn’t ignore it. And I definitely couldn’t escape it.
Wesley didn’t say anything. He just sat with me in silence. I didn’t even realize he was holding my hand until after the tears had stopped. Once I’d caught my breath and wiped away the few salty drops from my eyes, he opened his door and walked around to open mine. He helped me out of the car-not that I needed it, but it was still nice-and led me up to the porch with his arm tight around me, like the way he’d guided me out of my house, keeping me close. As if he was afraid I might slip away in the darkness between his car and the front door.
Once we were inside, Wesley offered me a drink. I shook my head, and we went upstairs like we always did. I sat on the bed, and he sat down next to me. He wasn’t looking at me, but he seemed to be deep in thought. I couldn’t help wondering what horrible things were on his mind. I didn’t ask. I didn’t want to know.
“Are you all right?” he asked, turning to face me finally. “Do you need an ice pack or anything?”
“No,” I said. My throat was sore from crying, and my words came out kind of croaky. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
He reached over and brushed the hair away from my face, his fingers barely grazing my temple. “Well,” he said quietly. “At least now I know.”
“Know what?”
“What you’re trying to escape from.”
I didn’t respond.
“Why didn’t you tell me that your father has a drinking problem?” he asked.
“Because it’s not my place to tell,” I said. “And it’ll pass. He’s just going through a hard time right now. He hasn’t had a drink in eighteen years. Just since the divorce papers came in… He’ll get better.”
“You should talk to him. When he’s sober, you should tell him that it’s getting out of hand.”
“Yeah,” I scoffed. “And make him think I’m against him, too? When my mom has just handed him the divorce papers?”
“You’re not against him, Bianca.”
“Tell me, Wesley, why don’t you talk to your parents?” I asked. He was being a hell of a hypocrite, wasn’t he? “Why don’t you tell them that you’re lonely? That you want them to come home? It’s because you don’t want to upset them, right? You don’t want them to blame you for their misery? If I tell Dad he has a problem, he’ll think I hate him. How can I hurt him more? He just lost everything.”
Wesley shook his head. “Not everything. He didn’t lose you,” he said. “At least not yet. If you don’t talk to him, he’ll just end up driving you away, and then he will be in far worse pain.”