“There might be something I should have told you about.”
I sink down on my elbow, lying next to her on the bed. “Yeah?” My pulse is racing, and my mind along with it. I know there’s no way she could have betrayed me like Candace—she doesn’t owe me anything, or at least not much. But—
“After that conversation we had the other day, about your dad? I might have Googled him.”
For a second I’m confused about why this is a problem.
“I found your dad’s court records, and . . .”
I close my eyes.
“I know what your dad was incarcerated for,” she says.
I’m struck by how relieved I am that she knows about this. I’ve never wanted to bring it up—to anyone, really. Saying it out loud makes my throat close up, and it’s humiliating to admit how much it affects me.
But if she already knows . . .
“Are you mad?” she asks. “I realized after you left to go back to the room that it didn’t really make sense that he was still in jail twenty years later for just domestic abuse, and—”
“No,” I say softly. “I’m not mad. I just . . . you could have told me you knew.”
“Yeah.” She wrinkles her nose. “I guess I should have told you a lot of things.”
“No, it’s okay—I would have talked to you about it. Or, I guess, I will now. If you want.”
“You don’t have to,” she says. “You never seemed to want to before.”
“It’s hard for me to say out loud. I don’t like to tell people, because it’s weird to bring up.”
“I get that. I just figured you didn’t want me to know.” Her fingers gently brush my arm. I’m struck by how much the opposite is true.
“No, I’m glad,” I say. “And I really am okay to talk about it.”
“Yeah?” she says. And I realize that, even still, neither of us has said the words. It’s easier for me, somehow, now that I don’t have to worry about what her reaction will be. Like getting to see the answer key before the test.
“Yeah,” I say. “My dad molested me, and my mom caught him.Turned out he did it to a bunch of other kids, too.That’s what he went away for, but I usually just say it was abuse, and people assume that he hit me. Maybe because I’m a guy.”
Su-Lin makes this sad noise, and then throws the comforter over me and wraps her arms around my neck. She hugs me tight, and I squeeze her back. “I’m so sorry that happened to you,” she says.
“Me too. And I hate that it messes me up. I don’t even remember it, you know? I mean, I remember feeling scared, and this other emotion that’s hard to describe, like a weird mix of arousal and deep, deep shame. And I remember a lot of yelling. I remember a man’s voice, and there was never a man’s voice in my house, so that had to be him. But I was three years old. It’s all really unclear. So I don’t feel like it should affect me at all. But it does.”
She holds me closer, pressing her forehead against my jaw. If I thought my longing for her was strong from across the room, it’s nothing compared to what I feel now.
“Thanks for telling me you knew,” I say.
She squeezes me tighter. “I should have said something before.”
“I’ll make you a deal. I’ll try not to feel terrible about treating your first time like it was nothing, and you try not to worry about this. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
She leans back, and the free tendril of hair falls across her face again. I reach up and brush it behind her ear.
“Neither did you,” she says.
While I don’t believe that, I’m grateful for it anyway. “Do you still want to be doing this?The Plan?”
Su-Lin is quiet for a minute. “Do you think it’s working at all?”
It sucks, the whole arrangement. But I can’t deny that I’m clearly more comfortable with a lot of things than I was at Mei-Ling’s wedding.
