“Oh. Okay. I’ll make sure not to ask you.” He rolls his eyes. “What else?”
“There was a beer keg.”
“And?”
“And then . . . Sean Nessel. He walks into the party.”
“Hold up. Sean Nessel, from your collage book? With all the roses and the hearts, the kid in the school newspaper, Sean Nessel?”
“That one.”
Buzz in my back pocket. A text from Sammi.
Just want to know if you’re alive or dead
Can’t right now. Talking to my dad.
“And you’re not going to like this next part. At all. So close your eyes or something.”
“I’ve always told you that you’ll never—”
“I know, Dad . . . I’ll never get in trouble for telling you the truth, but that was before, when I had nothing to tell you. Except for things like I didn’t brush my teeth. Or I didn’t do my homework. But what I’m about to tell you is not like that.”
He rubs his eyes, weary.
“I need you to shut your eyes.”
“What? Ali—”
“Please, Dad. I can’t look at you.”
So he shuts them. “I’m ready.”
I tell him about how Sean Nessel started opening those little airplane bottles of vodka.
“Wait a second—” My father clears his throat and shifts in his chair. “Go ahead.”
“I thought I could tell you the truth— Why are you getting all uncomfortable like I’m going to be in trouble?”
“You can,” he says, “but it doesn’t mean I’m not going to react strongly. You’re not in trouble. Whatever you tell me, you’re not in trouble. But drinking vodka? You’re not in trouble—but I’m upset.”
“Well, there’s more,” I say. I focus on the furrow between my dad’s eyebrows that’s been there for the past couple of years. I don’t remember seeing it before then—it wasn’t in pictures. It’s something that grew out of worry. Fear. First with my mother. Now it’s going to deepen like a valley after I tell him this. I wring my hands and surrender my head to the table.
“You can tell me anything, Ali,” he says, his eyelids squinting open.
“I don’t want to say it,” I wail. “And I want you to shut your eyes!”
“You want to write it?” he says, and rummages for paper in the junk drawer, coming up with a pink Post-it Note and a pencil.
So I look at the paper. I squeeze my hands together.
This is what I write:
SEX
I push the paper close to him.
“Can I open my eyes?”
But when he opens his eyes, I’m going to be a different girl. I want to warn him. I’m not your daughter anymore. I used to be. Until last night.
“Ali—I’m opening my eyes.” And he does. He sees the note. Sighs. Rubs his fingers over his face. No matter how hard you rub, Dad, this isn’t going to go away. I feel bad for him actually. I want to hug him, apologize. Explain more.
He trails his finger over the paper and then flips it over. That word SEX is gone.
“Do you love this boy?”
I can’t talk now because I just told my father my biggest secret ever. And he’s a man. I can’t imagine what he thinks. My stomach knots up.
I shake my head. No.
“Does he love you?”
I laugh, tears spilling down my face. My body erupts into a crying fit, and I cover my eyes with my hands. I’m so ashamed. It was such a mistake. Such a stupid, stupid mistake. And now I’m going to pay for it forever.
My father comes around the table and kneels on the floor, wrapping his solid arm over my back as I grunt and snort.
“Is that why you mangled your bangs like that?”
“Yeah, sure,” I say. Because it’s as good of a reason as any.
“It’s okay, honey. It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay,” I scream. My face fires up, my whole body full of angry heat. But I can’t say any more. I’m not ready to. Because this is what it would sound like if I spoke: I didn’t want to have sex with him.
He cups my face in his hands like I’m a little girl again and I’m choking on something awful.
“Look at me, Ali,” he says. I stare at his furrow. “Are you telling me everything?”
“He’s never going to call me. He used me,” I say, stuttering. “That’s what I’m telling you. And now all the girls who drool over him are going to start bashing me on social media. I’m going to be the school slut, and you’re probably going to have to homeschool me.”
The TV is on in the other room. A breakfast cereal commercial. All the vitamins you need to live a healthy life.
Sammi texts again: Now?
No. Later.
I pray that my father doesn’t think I’m disgusting.
My father is processing this. This is what he tells me: “Of all the talks we had about sex. Of letting the first time be with someone you love and who loves you back. About drinking. I’m so open about all of it. And this is how it goes down?” he says. But he’s not asking me. This is a rhetorical rant to the teenage gods.
He needs to shut off the TV. He needs to process more. He’s not mad at me, he promises. I didn’t do anything wrong—though I beg to differ, because according to the laws in this country, I was drinking, like, a shitload. And though I have no problem admitting that yes, I will most likely drink again at some point soon before I reach the legal age of twenty-one (though never again around a boy I’m obsessed with), it was most certainly illegal.
He keeps telling me that it’s okay. But I’ve broken my father’s heart.
* * *
My father calms down. Apologizes for making me feel bad. But I know what it is. It’s not like he expected me to lose my virginity when I’m married or anything ridiculous like that. But he expected me to lose it to someone I at least had a relationship with. He expected something better for me than this. He holds me
