My dad isn’t the kind of dad who would show up at Mike’s house with a baseball bat to break his car windows for hurting his daughter. You know, If you ever lay another finger on my daughter, I’ll kill you, that kind of thing. He’d be mad, sure—he’s not a terrible father or anything like that—but he’d probably be confused too. He’d wonder about how much Mike and I seem to love each other, how I light up whenever Mike’s around. (We all went to dinner together when Dad visited last month, and that’s what Dad said: “You light up around him.”)
He’d ask me—like Mom asked me—how long it had been going on, and if I told him the truth, he’d ask why I waited so long to speak up. Don’t people realize that question is a sort of accusation—why didn’t you speak up sooner? how could you keep quiet?—like it’s my fault for letting things go on as long as they did, go as far as they did.
Of course, Dad would support my decision to speak up, but he’d probably be sad for me too—not just that I’d been hurt, but that I was losing the boy who (he thought) made me happy. A boy I seemed to love. A boy I did love. Maybe Dad would be the one person who’d understand that was part of why I didn’t say something sooner. Not because I was scared of what Mike might do—but because I wasn’t ready to give Mike up.
Or maybe he’d think I was sick for wanting to keep a guy who hit me.
Anyway, Dad would ask why I didn’t go to the police. Dad probably doesn’t know how little the police can do, in circumstances like this. I looked it up last night and all they really do is issue a restraining order, but Mike and I go to the same school, so how could that possibly work, like, mechanically? Anyway, that’s not why I didn’t go to the police. I didn’t go to the police because going to the police seemed so much bigger than going to Principal Scott. Keeping matters within the school felt more manageable, more contained.
* * *
When he hit me for the first time, I was startled but not surprised. Until that moment, I hadn’t known it was possible to be startled but not surprised. Startled because being slapped is shocking, in and of itself; unsurprised because at the very moment it happened, I realized I knew it was coming.
We were in his room—his parents both worked, and we’d always felt lucky that we could be alone in his house after school each day. (My house was empty in the afternoons too, but Mike never wanted to go to my house.) His parents hadn’t bothered to declare some rule like No Girls in the House Unsupervised because they knew they had no way of enforcing it. Mike’s little brother, Ryan, has after-school activities scheduled every day of the week—Ryan goes to a series of occupational therapists and tutors—so Mike never even had to babysit.
Mike’s room is on the second floor of his parents’ house. He has an en suite bathroom, which meant a bathroom that was attached to his bedroom. Ryan’s room is on the first floor, which means his bathroom is also the guest bathroom.
Mike and I were fully dressed, but we hadn’t been a few minutes earlier. The bag I’d filled with ice for his ankle was on the floor. Mike walked across the room normally. I guessed his ankle didn’t hurt anymore, and I was relieved for him. He was getting ready to drive me home.
I remember all that, but I can’t remember what I said, what he said, right before it happened. Did I ask about his ankle? Had we been arguing? Had I made him angry? I think there was a college basketball game on. Of course I rooted for Mike’s favorite team.
I can’t remember any of the details someone else would think was important: What happened? Why did he get so upset?
I hated that I couldn’t remember. Maybe I could have stopped it from happening again, if only I’d remembered what made him do it.
It was a slap. It made my cheek burn, but it wasn’t hard enough to leave a mark. (I wonder now: Did he do that on purpose? A slap is enough to shock you, even when it’s not very hard. Did he think: How can I make an impact without leaving a bruise?)
I shook my head, not because I was trying to say no to Mike, but because I was saying no to what had happened: This couldn’t happen to me, not with Mike, the perfect boy, the best boyfriend.
Should I have hit him back? It didn’t occur to me to hit him back. Maybe if I hadn’t been an only child—if I’d had a big sister or little brother that I’d grown up wrestling with—maybe then, my instinct would’ve been to fight back. Maybe that’s what Mike used to do with Ryan—maybe that’s what made him hit me, some muscle memory left over from horseplay with his little brother. But a slap isn’t like wrestling and hair-pulling.
In my head, I narrated what happened next as though it were happening to someone else.
She started to cry.
He apologized before the first tear had time to fall as far as her chin.
He apologized but he didn’t beg.
In movies and books, sometimes the man gets on his knees, pleads for forgiveness, promises it will never happen again—Mike didn’t do that. Maybe if I’d been angrier—but I hadn’t felt angry. All I felt at that moment was that I wanted to go home. And Mike was my ride home.
I could’ve called my best friend to come and get me, but then I’d have had to explain why Mike couldn’t drive me, come up with some cover story: Mike has to study, Mike’s parents don’t want him driving at this hour (it wasn’t even dinnertime yet). Nothing seemed like a good enough explanation. And a weak explanation would just invite more questions.
It never occurred to me to tell the truth. It would ruin Mike’s reputation when it had only been a fluke, an accident, a mistake. Not that he said it was a fluke, an accident, a mistake. But what else could it be?
And, I knew that if I asked someone else for a ride home, I’d have to wait—first for that person to respond to my text, and then for that person to drive from wherever she was to Mike’s house. There was no telling how long all that would take.
I remember wishing I had my own car, thinking how my mom said we couldn’t afford it, but Dad had hinted he might give me one after graduation, and then wondering how Dad could afford it when Mom couldn’t, and then wondering why I was thinking about any of that at all. Anyway, it wouldn’t have mattered if I did have a car, because I wouldn’t have driven myself to Mike’s house. Ever since we had gotten together, Mike had driven me to school every morning in his gray hybrid SUV, he had driven me to his house after school was over or after track practice ended, and he had driven me home in time for dinner, before his parents got home.
She swallowed the lump in her throat and wiped away her tears.
She asked him to take her home.
He walked down the stairs two at a time. His steps were so heavy that the railing shook.
She followed behind slowly.
The stairs in Mike’s house were carpeted with a plush, creamy rug. Mike’s parents asked guests to take off their shoes before going upstairs, a request I always tried to remember even though Mike almost never did. I had to stop at the front door to put my shoes on. There was still a wreath on the front door, because Mike’s mother hadn’t taken down their Christmas decorations yet. I’d spent Christmas Day with Mike’s family, and Mike gave me my first-ever Christmas present—a soft, warm scarf that I wound around my neck before stepping outside. My parents had always run out of presents by the fourth or fifth night of Hanukkah, and since the divorce, my mom didn’t even bother lighting the candles.