Dreams of 18(17)

The P word.

There are a lot of words that start with P: pizza – I like pizza; prickles – the start of my anxiety; perv – the guy who was staring at me at the coffee shop a couple of days ago.

There are a thousand words with P as the first letter. But there’s this particular word that I despise the most.

I hate to think about it. I especially hate to think about the fact that people used it in relation to him.

First of all, it’s not accurate. He is not that. He can’t be that. I was eighteen when I kissed him, and he didn’t even kiss me back.

He didn’t seduce me. He didn’t violate me. He didn’t lead me astray.

It was a ten-second kiss, for God’s sake. It wasn’t supposed to mean anything. It wasn’t supposed to be life-changing.

It was a stupid drunken mistake. Mistake like my crush on him was.

It wasn’t supposed to turn me into a slut and him into this vile, defiling, sexual predator.

That’s what people have been calling him. That and the other P word: pedophile.

If I was crucified in the dark corners of social media, Mr. Edwards was in the local paper, along with the kiss, the photo and an article that I want to set fire to.

The headline read: “The celebrated coach of Cherryville High caught after-hours and on camera.”

The article blasted his reputation. They called him an alleged sex offender. They said that I was a teenage student and that the best coach that high school had ever seen was taking advantage of me. They knew he was my neighbor so there were speculations. They said that maybe he’d had his eye on me long before he made the move.

The article went on to list all the other places Mr. Edwards had worked at, mostly in Denver, and that even though there was no indication of any misconduct on his part, the board should have a formal inquiry. The truth should come out. Because really, how safe were the kids if we had a teacher like that?

It was a tabloid piece. I don’t even think anyone reads the Cherryville Chronicle but that week, they sure did.

The article painted me as innocent, though. An innocent, na?ve high school student caught in the clutches of a lecherous coach, eighteen years her senior.

If anyone’s lecherous in this scenario, it’s me. I’m lecherous. Moi.

I tried to fix it, too. I called the newspaper people and demanded that they print a retraction. I told them the whole story. I even went to Principal Jacobs, and told him everything.

He thanked me for coming forward with the information, but he said that I should let the adults handle it.

Yeah, those were his exact words – let the adults handle it, Violet.

I wanted to punch him in the face and tell him, check your facts, moron. I am an adult. I’m fucking eighteen.

None of that seemed to matter anyway because a week later Mr. Edwards was fired. He packed up everything and left town.

I’ve never seen anyone disappear so fast. Like he wasn’t even there. Like he never came into my life and everything was a dream.

An elaborate, two-year-long dream that my fevered, lonely brain came up with.

But I’m glad that he left when he did.

I’m glad he wasn’t there for the worst of it. When the rumors started to catch fire and more and more people started to know.

So, it’s a good thing that he left town.

Only I never saw him after that night.

Mr. Edwards was always so good at making himself scarce and I was so good at avoiding him myself that I hardly ever saw him except in the night. I didn’t see him after the kiss, either.

Not even when I went to their house, banged on their door so Brian would let me in.

Sometimes when I focus on all the bad stuff that happened, especially with Mr. Edwards, I almost forget what Brian went through.

Almost.

He was my best friend. He wanted to surprise me on my birthday and look what happened. I broke his trust. I hurt him so much.

After witnessing my crime, he got into his car and left for the night.

He didn’t come back until the early hours of the following morning. I went over to his house to try to explain. He didn’t give me a chance. He wouldn’t listen to me, no matter how much I groveled.

I decided to try again the next day and the day after that and then yet another day after that. Either he wouldn’t open the door or he’d make an excuse and walk away from me. Calls, emails, everything went unanswered, which was so surprising because no matter how much we fought, he’d always say something.

Brian always had something to say. He was always so open and talkative even when he was upset.

And then, he left early for college a week later.

I haven’t heard from him since, either.

But I do hear about him. I do hear about all the things that he does. Although, I never – not in my wildest, wildest dream – could have ever imagined the source of my information.

I shouldn’t be surprised though. She does seem to know everything about everything.

Fiona. My sister.

And of course, she knows everything about Brian too because he is dating her now.

Yeah, they’re dating.

They started dating last fall. Actually, that’s when I snapped. Fiona called me to brag about it and I lost my shit.

That’s when I got drunk and lost control of my car.

When they put me in Heartstone, I had a lot of time to think about why Brian would do such a thing when he hated Fiona more than me. She would deliberately try to make my life difficult back in school and Brian never liked her. So it was a shock.