Falling Under (Falling 3)
Page 40“Did you have sex with any of them, Ben?” Her voice now is sharp and accusing.
The silence is deafening.
“You did!” She’s shrill with disbelief. “Yeah, Ben. Really in love with me. Waiting for me, huh? You want to know the truth? No, I haven’t slept with Oz yet. But I’m going to. We care about each other. I’ve waited my entire life for the right time, the right guy. It just possibly could’ve been you. But now…? No. And not just because I’m with Oz. All this? Everything you just told me? Acting like ‘oh, I’m so in love with you,’ and then oh, wait, just kidding, ‘look at all the girls I’ve f**ked.’”
“That’s not fair! I didn’t sleep with all of them, only—”
“I DON’T WANT TO KNOW!” She shouts him down. “I don’t care. It’s your business. We’re friends, Ben. That’s all we were, all we are, and all we’ll ever be.”
“There’s no chance?”
“No. None.”
“Fine. Fuck you, too, then.” I hear his footsteps moving away.
“Ben! That’s not—fucking hell.” A long silence extends, and I imagine her watching him walk away. “Goodbye, Ben.”
A few seconds later, the door opens and she steps in, closing the door behind her. Her head is down, and I can tell she’s crying. She doesn’t see me leaning against the counter until she’s about to run into me.
She shrieks and drops her keys. “Oh, my god, Dad! You scared the shit out of me!” She picks up her keys, blinking, trying to act like she wasn’t crying. “Why are you here in the kitchen by yourself? At…1 a.m.? Shit, it’s 1 a.m. I’m in trouble, aren’t I?”
She seems to realize where I’m standing, and glances at the door. “How much of that did you hear?”
“Pretty much all of it.”
“You can’t just eavesdrop on my private conversations.” She wipes at her eyes with her finger.
“Yes, I can. It’s my job as your father to know what’s going on in your life.” I take her by the shoulders and pull her to me. “I’m sorry about Ben, sweetheart.”
“Did you know how he felt about me?” Her voice is muffled by my shirt.
“Not until recently. Not until Oz showed up, and he started acting weird.”
“You didn’t say anything.”
“Should I have? Would it have changed anything? And would you really have thanked me for butting into your life like that? I don’t think so.”
She sniffs. “Yeah, you’re probably right.” She pulls away and sets her keys on the counter, turns to rummage in the fridge for a can of Sprite. “If you heard the whole thing, you probably heard what I said about—about me and Oz.”
“Yeah, I heard that, too.”
“Well, shit, Kylie. What am I supposed to say? You’re turning eighteen in less than a month. It’s going to happen at some point. And I’m glad you’ve waited this long. I don’t really know how to handle this, Kylie. I don’t. Just being honest. This is one of those moments I don’t think any father is equipped or prepared to deal with. You’re not a grown-up yet, but you’re close. And I know all too well what would happen if I grounded you forever, or tried to keep you from seeing him. I don’t like it. You’re my little girl. My only child. And I want you to stay innocent forever. But you won’t, and I can’t pretend you will. So what do I do? I wish I knew. If I just let you go on with this relationship with Oz, does that make me a bad parent for ignoring what I know for a fact is going on?” I rub my eyes. “And I’m conflicted about Oz. I don’t want you to get hurt and, unfortunately, Ben could be right. I mean, anyone can hurt you, and if you’re in a relationship, you will get hurt at some point, somehow. But Oz…there’re warning signs, Kylie. He’s…I’m not saying he’s bad news, or that he’s a bad person. But—”
“I know, Dad. But there’s more to him than everyone seems to see.”
“I know that, Kylie. Like you said, I of all people should know that.” I let out a long breath. I don’t want to bring this up, but I have to. “Have you seen his forearms?”
She closes her eyes and doesn’t answer for a long time. The pain I see in her eyes tells me more than her words can. “Yes. I have.”
“Do you know how he got those scars?”
“Yes. I do.”
This is tricky. “Is it an…ongoing thing?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t think so.”
“But you don’t know for sure.”
She drinks from the can and then sets it on the counter, rotating it so the logo spins and spins and spins. “For one hundred percent sure? No. But…we talked about it.”
“This is about Mom, isn’t it?”
“It’s about Oz, Kylie.”
“I’ve seen Mom’s scars, Dad. I know what they are.”
“I know, hon. That’s from a long, long time ago. She went through a very hard time, and—look, that’s her story to tell you, not mine. But, yeah, I know this because of what your mom went through. And I don’t want to see you go through…that. Being on the other side of that. Self-mutilation is a big deal. If it’s a problem for him, he needs to get help. Help you can’t give. I’m sorry, it’s just the facts.”
Kylie’s gaze is sharp, knowing. “You know about it, too, don’t you? From your own experience.”
I sigh, and find myself unwittingly rubbing at my chest, where my own scars lie, hidden by tattoos. “Yeah, I do. I’ve been on both sides.”
Her eyes latch onto my hand, and I drop it. She looks back up at me. “So you…you understand why he’d have the—the compulsion to do that to himself.”
I groan. “Yeah. I do.” I don’t want to delve into my own history. Especially not with my daughter. She really doesn’t need to know about the darkness and the skeletons that haunt my past. “If you’re hurting inside, if you’ve been through something really, really painful, sometimes you just want to feel something else. Anything else. Even if you know it’s wrong—that you’re hurting yourself. The people in your life who care about you can find it very tough to get through to you. If the pain inside is big enough and bad enough, you don’t care. You just need an escape, a sense of relief. No matter how fleeting it is. Same with getting high, or wasted all the time. And that lifestyle? It’s bad, Kylie. I don’t want you anywhere near that. It’s dark, and it’s dangerous, and it can suck you under so fast. So fast.”