I’ve spent the last five years or so learning how to deal with people in a more direct way. A healthier way. I’m getting better at it. But when it comes to my parents or my sister, it’s like all that progress instantly collapses. Whenever I’m with them, within minutes, I sink into the sullen dysfunction that defines the Charles family.
Libby deserves better than that. Better than our dishonesty, better than my neglect.
Worst of all—beneath Chloe’s anger, beyond the chill in her voice, I hear genuine hurt. Chloe and I got along well, growing up. She was five years older than me, and I thought she was the most sophisticated, glamorous person in the world. We sat on the bathroom vanity while she taught me how to apply mascara. She would hold my hand while we stood in line for sno-balls on hot summer days. Chloe didn’t tease or bully me. I knew I had a good big sister.
We were never really confidantes; our ages were too far apart for that. And I doubt Chloe ever adored me the way I worshipped her. Still, we were sisters. Playmates. Friends. She doesn’t understand what changed.
But I do.
Anthony changed everything.
• • •
That March I was fourteen. Just got my braces off. My breasts were finally making their belated appearance. Right before Christmas, I had finally been kissed for the first time (by Javier, an exchange student from Barcelona, which as first kisses go was pretty awesome). When I looked in the mirror, I no longer saw a gawky kid. I could glimpse the woman I would become.
Not that I was anything compared to Chloe. To this day she outshines me as brightly as the sun outshines the moon. She’s a couple of inches taller, so she looks more svelte. Her hair is one shade lighter, but it’s the shade that takes it from brown to blond. While my eyes are an uncertain hazel, hers are pure, piercing green. No doubt about it: Chloe’s the beauty of the family.
But I’d finally realized that didn’t make me ugly. Not by a long shot. I began playing with my hair more in the mirror and reviewing Chloe’s makeup lessons more carefully. I thought of my prettiness as a tool I could use to get what I wanted.
(That’s screwed up, right? Welcome to the world as seen by my mother.)
Then, that March, for spring break, Chloe brought home her first serious boyfriend. She was so proud of him, and I didn’t blame her. Anthony Whedon wasn’t especially tall—average height, no more and no less—but he was built. Turned out he was on the Sewanee lacrosse team. He wore the uniform of the Southern male—khakis and polo shirts—but they hung on his frame as though they’d been tailored for him. Sandy hair, a dimple in his chin, lips almost indecently full on a man: Anthony could get any girl he wanted. Clearly he wanted Chloe.
His arm was always around her waist. Her eyes were always on his face. To me, no celebrity couple had ever looked half as glamorous.
Anthony didn’t treat me like the annoying brat kid sister, either. “Come on, Mrs. C.,” he said to my mother. “It’s just Frankie and Johnny’s for some bell pepper rings. Not like we’re dragging Vivienne out to Tipitina’s with a fake ID.”
“Well, I don’t know,” Mom said, but she was smiling. If Anthony had won me over, he’d conquered my mother. Though honestly, I think she was sold the minute she found out the Whedons were one of the wealthiest families in Tennessee. “You two don’t want some time alone?”
“Aw, we don’t mind taking her along,” Anthony said. “It’ll be fun. And Vivienne can tell me all her big sister’s secrets.”
“Stop.” Chloe shoved at him, but she was laughing.
That week I hung around them every chance I got. Occasionally I got on Chloe’s nerves—but Anthony never seemed to mind. Chloe never stayed grumpy for long, either. I knew that was mostly because Anthony sneaked into her room every night.
On the last evening of their stay, though, Chloe didn’t feel good. She’d had a headache all day, and around eight P.M. she announced she was going to bed. “To sleep,” she said, with an emphasis that was only for Anthony. The message: No action tonight. I hid my smile behind my hand.
“No problem,” Anthony said easily. “Vivienne and I can have a movie marathon ’til dawn.”
Some cable channel was showing Titanic. Although I felt very grown-up, hanging out with a college boy until after midnight, mostly I was focused on the movie. In those days I had a serious crush on Leonardo DiCaprio.
Anthony kept talking to me, though. “Can’t believe you don’t have a boyfriend yet.”
“I kind of had one.” I figured Javier’s kiss at the party counted. “But not anymore.”
“How come a pretty girl like you isn’t out there breaking all the hearts?”
I was so flattered. Blushing, I said, “I don’t know. Talking to guys—it’s hard. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what guys like.”
He laughed. “We’re not that complicated, trust me.”
It wasn’t that I had a crush on him; Anthony seemed to belong to Chloe as firmly as Ken belonged to Barbie. But nobody had ever told me I was pretty before, much less a college guy. It wasn’t even like I had on any makeup, and I wore just some old leggings and a giant T-shirt of my dad’s.
For a couple hours more, I felt beautiful. Grown-up. Ready for the world.
Then—just after midnight, in my own home, with my parents and sister asleep upstairs—Anthony raped me on the living room couch.
It happened just after Rose jumped out of the lifeboat back onto the ship. While I was still focused on the TV screen, Anthony shifted closer to me, his hands going to my waist. I was innocent enough to think he was trying to tickle me. As I laughed and tried to scoot away, Anthony pushed me down, until he was on top of me.
When he pushed up my shirt, I honestly believed it was an accident. I yelped and tried to tug it down—but Anthony put one hand over my mouth as he tugged the T-shirt up even higher, exposing my breasts completely. “Shhhh,” he said against my cheek. “You don’t want them to catch us, do you?”
Catch us. Like any of this was my idea. But he’d made me afraid. If Mom or Chloe walked in, they would think I wanted to be with Anthony. They’d see me partly naked with a boy, and that meant I’d done something wrong. No, I didn’t want them to catch us. So I didn’t say anything, even when Anthony took his hand away from my mouth and slid it into my leggings.
“You want to know how to get all the boys to like you?” he murmured as he tugged my leggings down. I’d never been naked in front of a boy before, not even close. “I’m gonna show you.”
He peeled my leggings off one leg; they dangled around my other ankle as Anthony pried my thighs apart. Only then did my stunned mind realize what was happening, and it seemed like it was too late to say anything. Why did I think that? How could I believe that it was ever too late to scream, or hit him, or just say no?
I don’t know. But I believed it.
So I lay there, paralyzed with fear and confusion, as he got between my knees. He gave me his best good-ol’-Southern-boy smile. “Good girl,” he said, and then he thrust into me.
It hurt. Not as badly as some of the girls at school had said it would, but still. My hands balled into fists at my side, hard enough that the next morning the indentations of my fingernails lingered as red marks on my palms. I started to cry. I thought when Anthony heard me he would stop. He didn’t.
At the time it seemed to last forever—Anthony on top of me, panting, heavy. He was a twenty-year-old guy; probably it didn’t take three minutes. But I felt like it was never, ever going to end. As I stared up at the living room ceiling, the fan dissolved behind a blur of tears. When the tears trickled down from the corners of my eyes, my vision would sharpen for a moment, then go liquid again.