Expelled(57)

And so I wait quietly until she’s no longer crying, until she’s looking at me with swollen eyes but a steely, determined gaze.

“I have something to tell you that is going to horrify you,” she finally says.

“Sasha, nothing you could—”

She cuts me off. “Don’t say it,” she says. “You’ll find that it’s not true. And you’re a lot of things, Theo, but you’re not a liar.”

“Okay,” I say. “I’m not going to say anything more. I’m here. I’m listening.”

Sasha turns her tear-streaked face toward the window. “If I’m going to say this, I’m not going to be able to look at you. Okay? Okay.” She takes another deep, trembling breath.

I wait.

And she begins.

“It started in ninth grade, my first year in Pinewood. I’d broken up with Parker, because although he was extremely hot—sorry, Theo, it’s an objective fact—we didn’t have a single thing to say to each other. And my dad hated him, even more than he hates you.”

“He hates me?” I ask.

“He hates everyone who wants to spend time with me. ‘Oh, Sasha, what is the name of that giant slab of flesh who calls you?’ he used to ask. ‘Cretin Harris, is that it? I really don’t think you ought to see him again.’ His scorn made everything worse—and, well, Parker was kind of a cretin. So here I am, the new kid in this crappy town, and suddenly I’m totally alone. It was awful. No one was nice at all, and my dad was basically the only person who really wanted to talk to me.” She takes a deep breath. “And he was a good talker. He’d seen every movie, he’d read every book, and he wanted to tell me all about them. He said he could teach me more than high school ever could, because ‘the best Arlington can do is train adolescent barbarians to curb their basest urges.’ Seriously, he was such a snob. But he was funny and charming—to me, anyway. He knew all about modern art and classical poetry and film noir, and he even listened to good music, like Sonic Youth and Miles Davis and Gram Parsons and Emmy Lou Harris.” She pauses. “I’m trying to tell you the okay parts first, I guess. I’m working up to the part that matters.”

“Okay,” I whisper. I can’t think ahead—I can only listen.

“Remember that we hardly even knew each other back then—it had been so long since we’d spent any real time together. And he was so interested in me! He wasn’t like my mom, who’d come home at midnight if she bothered coming at all. He was always in the kitchen by five, and he’d cook a nice dinner, and he’d ask me about my day. No one had ever paid that much attention to me, Theo, and I loved it. I was the center of his world, and he was the center of mine.” Her hands twist in her lap. She hesitates before going on. “Now comes the harder part.”

I inhale. “Sasha—” But it’s like I’m not even here anymore. She keeps talking.

“We were in the kitchen—we’d both gotten up in the middle of the night for some reason. He made me a mug of tea, and he poured himself a whiskey. And we were standing there, and suddenly he pressed me up against the refrigerator and he kissed me. I was so shocked—I didn’t know what to do. And then he told me how much he loved me. He said that he couldn’t believe he’d survived life without me. He said that he hadn’t even known how hollow he’d been, but that being with me had made him whole. We were meant to be together, he said.” She swallows. A tear slides down her cheek. “But he didn’t mean like father and daughter. He meant it in a different way.”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing, and I have no idea what I’m supposed to say.

Still staring out the window, Sasha goes on. “‘We don’t have to be like everybody else,’ he’d say. ‘We don’t have to accept their judgments or their self-serving so-called morals. Attitudes change. Greek nobles used to kidnap young boys, take them into the forest, and rape them, and no one had any problem with that. A German ethics panel just argued that consanguineous lovemaking’—that’s what he called it—‘shouldn’t be illegal.’ He was so persuasive. He could argue any point in the world and you’d believe him—he could convince you the sky was orange and the grass was black. And when I resisted, he’d say, ‘Darling, I love you. I need you. I don’t know how I’d go on without you.’ And the thing is, in some ways I felt the same about him. I’d already been basically abandoned by my mom. I couldn’t have him leave me, too. And I was afraid he would if I didn’t do what he wanted.”

“So did you…” My throat constricts and I can’t finish the sentence. Can’t say the words have sex with your father.

But Sasha knows what I’m asking. And she nods. “I showed you the room,” she says quietly. “That’s where it happens.”

I feel like I’m going to throw up. “Why are you telling me this?” I whisper.

“I’m telling you because now I want it to end. I can’t do it, Theo. I can’t take it anymore. I feel like I’m going insane. I am going insane. But you don’t understand him. He’s… he’s so strong. I can’t—this thing is like a speeding train, and I don’t know how to stop it.” She turns to me now, and her eyes search my face. I’m sure she can see what I’m trying and failing to hide—shock, rage, disgust.