Deeper (Caroline & West #1)(94)
“It’s because Monica Lewinsky didn’t have an iPhone, Dad. Are you kidding me with this? Do you know how many senators have been caught sending pictures of their penises to staffers?”
“Enough that you should have known better.”
That catches me up short. Catches my breath in my lungs.
I should have known better.
Of course I should have. Things with Nate were never quite right, and I should have known that I liked him for the wrong reasons, that I had to work too hard for his regard, that he didn’t care about me the right way. I think that was always part of his mystique—the sense that I might never be quite enough for him, that he’d picked me out but I was a little too brainy, a little too na?ve, and I needed to prove myself in order to make his deigning to go out with me worth his while.
I figured it all out eventually. I broke up with him because it wasn’t working, because at Putnam I had more confidence that I might find someone better. Someone like West.
I just didn’t figure it out soon enough.
Be careful what you put on the Internet. I’ve heard it a hundred times. Be careful what you do in this digital age. Don’t let yourself be made a victim, because if you do, it’s your fault. Your mistake.
I knew the pictures were a bad idea. I had my mouth on Nate’s dick when he lifted the phone in the air and took the first one, and it didn’t feel sexy. It didn’t feel risky or clever, a secret shared between us. It felt wrong.
I decided to give him what he wanted so he would be nice to me. So he would approve of me, act like he loved me, like he was proud of me.
He took that picture. He came in my mouth.
Afterward, he wanted to do body shots. One, two, three, four. My cleavage sticky, my senses dulled, my jaw sore, I did what he asked me to.
I was eighteen years old, and I thought I loved him. I should have known, but I didn’t.
And I don’t deserve to be abused for it. Judged for it. Called names.
I don’t deserve to have my life ruined.
“I trusted him.”
“You shouldn’t have. Do you think Professor Donaldson will be able to write you a recommendation letter for law school now, with these photographs on his mind? Do you think he’ll be able to attest to your intelligence, your drive, when he’s seen this?”
“Probably not.”
“Do you think you’ll be able to get an internship this summer, next year? That you’ll be able to apply for scholarships with this on your record?”
“I know it’s an embarrassment, Dad, but—”
“It’s not an embarrassment. Embarrassment fades. This is a black mark. You might as well have committed a felony, Caroline, and all because you didn’t use your head.”
“Nate is the one who posted the pictures.”
“And you’re the one who let him take them.”
“I trusted him.”
He makes a disgusted sound. Looks away from me. Wipes his hand over his mouth.
“You shouldn’t have,” he says, for the second time. And he looks at me, more sad than angry. “I thought you had better judgment than this. I’m disappointed in you. I’m … I’m disgusted with those pictures, and I’m disappointed.”
It breaks something inside me to hear him say that.
It hurts.
But I think the thing it breaks—it’s not my heart. It’s some last delicate fragment of the bubble. It’s the part of me that was still my daddy’s girl, living in hope that if I were perfect, he would love me best. Love me most. Love me always. And his love would make me powerful.
It hurts to hear that I’ve disgusted him. It hurts to know that from here on out, he’ll never love me in quite the same way, if he finds a way to love me at all.
But I don’t need his love to be powerful.
I’m already powerful.
And there’s enough work for me in the world, just trying to fix this one thing, that I could spend the rest of my life doing it.
“I’m sorry you’re disappointed,” I tell him. “But I’m human. I’m nineteen. I make mistakes sometimes. And I think … you know, maybe I should have told you right away. Maybe that makes this harder for you, because I’ve had seven months to think about what these pictures mean and you’ve had, like, seven hours.”
I step closer to him and put my hand on his arm.
If he flinches slightly—if my heart contracts—I ignore it.
I’m not disgusting. I’m his daughter.
“But, Daddy? Here’s what they mean to me. They’re an act of hate. They’re vengeance against me, from someone I never treated badly. They’re undeserved. And even if they were deserved, what does that mean, exactly? That if someone takes naked pictures of me, I’m a bad person, so they get the right to call me a slut on the Internet? Are you trying to tell me that just because I didn’t stop Nate from aiming his camera, I deserve whatever happens to me, forever? I deserve this attack because I asked for it? Do you hear how ugly that is?”
“I never said you asked for it.” He sounds different, his voice choked and unsettled.
“Yeah. You did.”
My father has always told me that the first step toward getting what I want in life is to know what I want. You figure it out, and then you go after it.