Saugatuck Summer (Saugatuck, #1)(80)
“You do understand me. Better than anyone ever has.”
“Yeah, I think I do. Which is why I wonder who told you that you feel sorry for yourself all the time.”
“Aw f*ck. Really? You’re gonna do that?” I flipped over onto my stomach, propping myself up on my elbows. “I tell you I don’t want to get bogged down in my shit so you ask me to bring more of it up?”
“You don’t have to answer.”
“Okay, then I won’t.”
“Doesn’t mean I won’t ask, though. Who told you that you can’t tell anyone when something’s hurting you? Who made you ashamed to feel what you feel?”
“Jesus, Jace, come on!”
“This shit comes from outside, Topher,” he insisted. “It’s like sometimes I hear someone else’s words coming out of your mouth. It’s not you. Someone gave you these messages, the same way they told you you’re no good and would never be any good at the things you loved. And whoever those people were, I want to knock their f*cking teeth in. I can’t do that—at least not without getting arrested—so I’ll do the next best thing, which is encourage you to say ‘f*ck ’em’ and do the things they told you that you couldn’t do. You want to be more like me? That’s where you start. You say that, and then you do whatever the f*ck you need to. So lay it on me. Tell me the shit they taught you it was bad to tell.”
Goddamn it, now my eyes were burning again. I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Fuck. Fuck. Fine. It started in kindergarten, okay, with the stiff-upper-lip speeches. I’d burst into tears every time the bullies came after me, and they came after me a lot. When I tried to tell my family about it, they told me that if I didn’t react, the bullies would get bored and go away. In other words, it was basically my fault that I was being bullied because I was a crybaby and a sissy. So then I had the shit the bullies were heaping on me, and the feeling that I was a failure every time I let it get to me.”
“Okay. That sucks. Full stop. No pity here, and you’re not asking for it, you’re just telling me what I want to know. Go on.”
I laughed without any real humor. “Well, when I moved in with my aunt and uncle in junior high, it got worse. Because they became the bullies. Every time I committed some sort of infraction, I got these . . . these lectures. They’d trap me standing up somewhere, like in a corner, or against the kitchen counter, and just browbeat me. And there were these unspoken rules about how I was supposed to act when they did this. I had to stand there, and listen, and be perfectly attentive. So getting away wasn’t an option unless I physically pushed past them, and of course I couldn’t do that. They’d go at me, sometimes for, like, two or three hours at a time.”
I dragged a pillow under my chest, clutching it. “I don’t know why they did it. Maybe it was a power thing. They couldn’t feel they’d done their job until I had completely given in? I don’t know. Anyway, every screw-up I made, it wasn’t just a mistake or a lapse in judgment, it was a character flaw, you know? If I f*cked up, it was because I was a bad person. I was selfish, or thoughtless, or irresponsible, or lazy. And they would hold grudges about petty shit and spring it on me out of the blue. Like, one time there was an earthquake in California, where some of our relatives lived. It happened while I was out at a play rehearsal, so I didn’t even know about it. But the next time they got on me about something, I also got chewed out for not caring about anyone but myself because on that night, weeks before, I’d been humming a song from the play when I got home from rehearsal, instead of worrying about my relatives being in an earthquake I didn’t even f*cking know had happened.”
I heard Jace sigh on the other end of the line. “Shit, angel. That’s f*cked up.” But, like they had with Brendan, the words were coming in a torrent now, and I was desperate to make him truly understand.
“And my back and feet would start hurting because they kept me standing in one place so long, but if I slouched or fidgeted, I got reamed for not paying attention. If I let out anything sounding like a sigh, I was being rude. They would say the most awful, cutting, unfair things, but if I got angry at what they were saying, then I was ungrateful and disrespectful. If they saw tears in my eyes, they would accuse me of feeling sorry for myself. But if I started blinking or doing something to keep the tears back, then they accused me of forcing myself to cry in order to make them feel sorry for me.”
Jace was silent for a long moment. His breath shook a little when he inhaled. Then, very calmly: “Okay. That sucks, too. Sucks a lot. But you’re still not trying to play on my sympathies and get your pity fix by telling me. You’re not manipulating me, Topher. When they accused you of trying to do that, they lied. So tell me, are you feeling sorry for yourself?”
“To be honest, yeah. I’m feeling pretty f*cking mopey right about now.”
“You sure about that? Are you feeling sorry for yourself, or are you just sad because talking about that shit hurts? Because there’s a f*cking difference, and damn, angel, you are entitled to feel hurt about all that.”
Suddenly I couldn’t breathe and my heart started racing anxiously, the same way it had when Brendan had called what they’d done to me abuse. Why couldn’t I challenge the concept of my aunt and uncle’s infallibility, even when I knew in my head that they had been wrong? Every time I tried, something short-circuited and I began feeling panicky.