When We Were Bright and Beautiful(79)

There is begging, and promises are made. “Wait a little longer,” he tells me.

“I’m done waiting, Lawrence.” Far off in the distance, Rachel is humming, singing a sad lament about beautiful things. In this moment, I realize she’s speaking to me. I walked away, Cassie, she is saying. But I wasn’t leaving you; I needed to do it for me.

I can do it, too, I tell myself. I have to do it.

I leave Lawrence, the Valmont, New York, Eleanor, Nate, Billy—my whole life. And ever since that day, he’s been dragging me back. Every conversation—my selfish behavior, his business that’s barely a business, the foundation that will never take off, my responsibilities, my obligations, my future—is about Lawrence + Cassie. Billy’s trial is about us. Lawrence doesn’t want me to meet DeFiore. He doesn’t want me to go to court. He doesn’t want me to testify. He wants Billy to plead guilty. He’s willing to sacrifice his own son. All because of us.

Lawrence + Cassie is my darkest secret and deepest craving, my festering sore. What the mind closes off, the body remembers. Memories fade, emotions die, but the skin erupts, the flesh screams.

“After the trial,” Lawrence promises. We’re alone in the car, heading to the hotel from the courthouse. “We’ll be together. I’m begging you, baby. Don’t leave me.”

“I don’t know,” I tell him as he tries again to reel me back in. His hand strokes my bare thigh. “I don’t know.” Maybe.

*

Our culture is obsessed with predators. Ever since I was a child, I’ve been warned about older men who groom young girls for sex. The details change, but never the message: girls are weak and foolish; men are dangerous and canny. Predators are everywhere.

Are there really that many dumb girls? That many violent men? (I don’t know the answer; I’m simply posing the questions.)

A predator is careful about his selection; out of a hundred girls, he’ll choose one. But it’s not as if the girl waits, passively, to be chosen. In her own way, she chooses him too. The man and the girl are familiar to each other; they share feelings they believe are uniquely theirs—strong urges, insatiable needs. Previously, these feelings were shameful, which is why the man is so relieved to find them in her. The girl is just grateful to be loved, to be seen. These feelings are their special language, their private means of communication.

Their relationship is symbiotic, a mutual experience. The man breaks down barriers, but the girl offers herself up. Each word, every gesture is calculated. So is the response. Can I get you a drink? Call you a cab? Walk you upstairs? Days pass, months. Can I touch you? Kiss you? Take off your bra? Touch your breasts? Pull down your pants? Occasionally, years. But the endgame is clear. Can I love you?

Yes, she says. Please.

I’m not suggesting predators don’t exist. But not every man is a predator and not every girl prey. Like any relationship, dynamics shift. Emotions wax and wane. But you can’t say every girl has no agency, that we’re all weak and foolish, that we don’t know our own minds. To deny me choice over my body is to deny me a self. To deny me a me.

My relationship with Lawrence Quinn evolves over years and more years. People have misconceptions about affairs between older men and young women. That they’re rooted in power and centered on sex is one. Older men push younger women into behavior they don’t want is another. But our relationship is rooted in trust and centered on love. Lawrence didn’t touch me until I was ready, despite how often I asked, how forcefully I pushed, all my ultimatums.

He loves to tease me about this: that I’m predator and he’s prey. “You picked me, Cassie,” he says in jest—in jest because he’s naked and splayed underneath me like Christ on the cross. “You picked, groomed, and broke me down. I had no choice. I had to say yes.”

“You had . . . you . . .” I’m panting. Bearing down, I fuck him harder. Sweat rolls off my skin. I lick salt from his lips. “You had . . . no choice . . .” He has no choice.

Afterward, flat on our backs and soaking in sunlight, we laugh and laugh at the absurdity.





46


I CAN’T SLEEP IN THIS HOTEL. ALONE IN MY BED, SEPARATED from Lawrence by a single wall, I ache with desire. My dreams, hallucinogenic and vivid, are Technicolor movies that I watch and experience simultaneously. They’re so immersive, I can’t be sure if they’re dreams or alternative lives. I work hard to decode the baroque symbolism and hidden messages, but nothing makes sense. All I know for sure is that we’re running out of time.

A few of my dreams feature Hawkins Cove. I’m with my brothers, who are in their twenties, but absorbed in childhood activities, like digging holes. In one, I leap over ragged rocks that are slick with blood. The water is threatening, dark red, viscous, and whirling with rage. Billy is there, too, taunting me by refusing to speak. I try to get his attention, but he backs away and then dives, headfirst, into the bloody water, as if over a cliff. Don’t leave me, I want to say, but my words are stuck. I wake up crying with my throat raw.

The night before the State rests, it’s me and Billy again in my dream. Only this time, I’m the one backing away; it’s me who’s about to fall. My mouth is filled with grime, pieces of garbage and dirt that I scrape off my teeth in handfuls. Billy is holding my T-shirt, but not tightly enough, so I lose my footing. I suspect he pushed me. I don’t want to believe this even as I know it’s true. Meanwhile, I’m screaming Elmo, stop, but my mouth is too full for him to hear me. Besides, it’s too late. My brother has already turned away, and I’m spiraling in midair.