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“What did he do?” I ask.
Dad’s cryptic answers don’t inform me. “Olivia, this isn’t the best place to have this conversation.”
“We rarely have conversations, and I don’t want to let the topic go.” I lower my voice, but it stays firm. “Was he locked away? Did he go to jail?”
“He went to juvenile detention,” he replies.
The revelation knocks me back against my seat. “When did he go?” I ask.
“I don’t remember exactly when, maybe four years ago.”
“Was it the summer after he didn’t return to the lake?” I ask.
Dad nods and then takes a large bite of his meatloaf sandwich. No topic could keep him from eating, no matter how awful. And he can stall while his mouth is full of food.
“Why?” I ask. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He calmly watches me while chewing thoroughly, no doubt waiting to move onto something else.
I scoff. “Okay, pretend we’re in the military, and I’m not your daughter. I’m in boot camp, and you need to tough love me into believing the worst of people, that people can be sick. And not some abstract person in the news that I’ll never meet but someone that I could run into, someone that doesn’t look like a monster. Someone that I could trust.” I sigh, looking out the plate glass window. “Elijah was the sweetest boy I ever met. I could never believe anything bad of him.”
Dad’s face contorts into a hideous mask of pain. “He molested you, Olivia. He touched my little girl, and I don’t even want to imagine what he did to you. Confinement will never be enough if I ever see that trash again.”
His knuckles turn white as he squeezes the handle of his fork. Dad shoves his plate across the table, and it bounces off the wall with a loud crack. The meatloaf sits in a lump on the table, and shaking, I have to speak out.
My eyes are big with astonishment. “That’s not what happened.”
“How would you know?” he snaps. “You were a child at the time.”
“And so was he,” I reply.
My father stares keenly as if he’s dissecting my thoughts into pieces. He analyzes me as if I’m a stranger, as if he doesn’t want to know me. He doesn’t want to acknowledge that I may have been willing. I didn’t even know he knew what we had done. Well, almost. My breathing picks up as I try to imagine what my father thinks he knows.
“Dad, we never—”
He cuts me off. “I don’t want to know. Olivia, listen to me. What he did was wrong, and he was punished. Stop worrying about what happened to that sick, twisted boy.” He sighs and then smiles. “I met Lucas. He stopped by while I was waiting at your apartment. He seems like a nice guy.”
***
We don’t speak as we walk toward campus, and I hold it together as best I can. We say goodbye, and Dad pokes my cheek with his lips. He feels ice cold, or maybe it’s me that feels that way. I watch my father walk across campus and head toward the gates. He refuses to take an Uber to his car and marches off as if he’s going into battle.
I practically fall onto a bench on the campus green. I don’t know how long I sat there just staring at nothing as my eyes fill with burning hot tears that soon singe my throat. We didn’t do anything wrong. Once, we touched while playing doctor, but it wasn’t sexual. I poked his dick with my fingertip and laughed until he pulled up his shorts. Elijah never molested me. After he hit puberty, he spent more time by himself, and it made me jealous. I did stupid things to get his attention, but he never touched me.
Whatever they did to Elijah, it was because of me, and he didn’t deserve it.
***
We lay in the grass far away from the lake, out of sight where we won’t be found. Elijah looks up at the sky while I stare at him. I move closer, craving his attention, but I have to compete with a perfect blue sky. I pick a long blade of grass and tap it against his nose. He pushes it away and uses his hand to cover his nose.
I laugh and do it again. He scowls, turning his face away. I tap the blade against his ear. He reaches out. His hand sweeps up, grabs the grass, and yanks it out of my hand. I stop giggling when I see the anger flashing in his blue eyes, turning them to ice.
“I was just playing.” I roll onto my back to avoid that vicious look.
“You play too much,” he says.
“I said I was sorry.” I avoid looking at him, not because I’m afraid but because I don’t want him to see me cry. Hurting him hurts me. I sigh forlorn and lay motionless in the grass.
His finger traces my cheek, wiping away a lone tear. “You didn’t say you were sorry.”
