Without Merit(48)

I go to my room and grab the bottle of liquor and don’t even bother with the cup this time. I need these feelings to stop. I need to forget, forget, forget. What in the hell did I just see?

I squeeze my eyes shut. I can’t be that oblivious. Then why were they naked? Together? In bed?

Luck almost had sex with me yesterday. He said he couldn’t finish because I looked like Moby, but Utah looks more like Moby than any of us! Now he’s having sex with my brother? If this isn’t the ultimate form of rejection, I don’t know what is.

What’s wrong with me? Luck would rather have sex with my brother than me. Sagan called me an asshole right after we made out on the couch. Drew Waldrup broke up with me with his hand on my boob. WHY AM I SO REPULSIVE?

“Merit!”

Utah is knocking on my door as I pace my bedroom floor. What in the hell did I just interrupt?

I swing open the door and Utah pushes himself into my room and closes the door behind him. He looks angry and a little bit worried when he points at me. “Keep your mouth shut,” he says. “What I do is none of your business.”

I stop pacing and step closer to him. “Have I ever spilled your secrets before this?”

His anger fades with the mention of his past indiscretions.

“You think I forgot about that, Utah? Well, guess what? I didn’t. And I never will.”

He winces and I can see the guilt in his expression. I want to punch him, but I’m not a violent person. I don’t think. I’m not sure, because my hand balls into a fist right before he slips out of my bedroom and shuts the door.

I hate him. And I hate myself for never telling anyone the truth about him.

I sit down on my bed and squeeze my eyes shut. I feel like I might puke and I’m not even sure why, exactly. I think it’s everything. It’s Luck, Sagan, Utah, Honor, my father, Victoria, my mother.

This family is just as terrible as everyone in this town believes it to be. Maybe even worse. I’m sick of it. I’m sick of the secrets and I’m sick of the lies. And I’m tired of being the one person in this house who has to hold on to all of them!

I have Utah’s secret.

I have my father’s secret.

My mother’s secret.

Honor’s secret.

Luck’s secret.

I don’t want any of them anymore!

Maybe if I let all the secrets out, they wouldn’t make me feel like drowning anymore.

Yes. Maybe that would help. Maybe getting it all out will help me feel like I’m not about to implode.

I reach to my nightstand and grab a pen, then open the drawer and sift through it until I find a notebook with enough empty pages to hold all these secrets.

It still hurts. All of it. The entire past few days. I grab the bottle of . . . what the hell am I even drinking? I read the label. Tequila. I grab the bottle of tequila and slide to the floor because I’m starting to feel dizzy. I grab my pen and notebook and open to the first blank page I can find. I squeeze my eyes shut until my vision feels sturdier. I feel wobbly. My hand feels wobbly when I start writing.


Dear inhabitants of Dollar Voss. Every last one of you. Except Moby. He’s the only one I like and still have respect for at this point.

I have so much anger building inside of me, and it has nothing to do with me. It’s anger at almost every single person in this house. Anger due to all the secrets you’ve been keeping from each other, from the outside world. I refuse to hold on to any of it for one more second. Every day, there are more and more secrets and I’m tired of looking like the bad guy. You all hate me. You all think every argument in this house is my fault. You all wonder why I’m so damn BRASH all the time. IT’S BECAUSE OF ALL OF YOU!

Where do I even begin?

How about I begin with the oldest secret? Did you think I would forget, Utah? Did you think, because I was only twelve, that I wouldn’t remember the night you forced me to kiss you?

It’s hard to forget something like that, Utah. If you knew how much I worshipped you as my big brother, you would understand why it’s so hard to forget when you did what you did.

“It’s not a big deal, Merit.”

That’s what you said to me when I shoved you away. You tried to make it seem like I was overreacting to what had just happened. One minute I was in my brother’s room watching a movie, the next minute my brother was trying to kiss me.

I ran out of your room that night and never looked back. Not once. I’ve never been to your bedroom since then. I’ve never allowed myself to be alone with you since then. And it’s like you don’t even care. You never even apologized. Do you even feel guilty?

Is that why you find it so difficult to look me in the eye? Because the few times you do look at me, you look at me with contempt and disgust. The same way I look at you.

All of you think I’m rude to Utah. You’re all telling me, “Calm down, Merit.” Think about how you would feel if your family tried to force you to be nice to the brother who stole your first kiss from you.

You disgust me, Utah. You disgust me and I’ll never forget and I’ll never forgive you.

But at least you have Honor. She worships you because she didn’t endure the side of you I endured. She thinks you’re sweet and innocent and the best thing to ever happen to her. She looks at me the same way you do, but only because she can’t understand how I can treat you so terribly when you do nothing to deserve it.