Chapter 4

The following Friday night, Natalie came back from her unwanted date in a loudly annoyed mood. She huffed, threw her little handbag across the living room onto the empty loveseat, and then plucked herself down onto the sofa, forcing herself in between her parents.

“That bad?” Gloria asked in a sympathetic tone, but her lips were smiling in slight glee.

“You have NO idea! GOD, I’m pissed. And all the time that prick couldn’t keep his hands to himself, Amber was happily making out with Steve, completely forgetting about me! At least they left a lot earlier than I had expected, so I didn’t have to put up with him for too long.”

And then Natalie said something that finally let Paul realize where that bad feeling came from.

“Chris better makes his prom count! I know that it doesn’t take much for Amber to put out, so I know it’ll work. But damn ... make sure he gets that limo, Daddy!”

At that moment, Paul realized that Chris had never, not once, said a single word about his senior prom! They all knew it was coming, because they had received all the information material at that PTA meeting. But Chris himself never asked for money to rent that limo Amber had insisted on, or the tux he would need, ... or even to buy the prom tickets!

Once Paul realized that last part, he almost shot out of his seat and rushed to his son’s room. He lightly knocked on Chris’s door, half hoping he’d already be asleep, but immediately heard the call to come in.

Chris was already in bed but, apparently, still reading a book.

“Son...” Paul started pensively. “I just noticed ... did you get a job?”

Chris blinked.

“What? Why are you asking?” He sounded a little taken aback, as if he was expecting his father to demand something he needed to get a job for.

“Well, you never asked for money for your prom tickets.” The way his son reacted to his question had already told him all he needed to know, but he wanted to make sure.

“Oh, I’m not going to the prom,” Chris informed him in a very dispassionate tone, already shifting his eyes back to his book as if that wouldn’t garner follow-up questions.

“WHAT!?” they suddenly heard Natalie scream out from behind Paul. She and Gloria had quietly followed Paul after they noticed the urgency with which he jumped out of his seat and almost ran out of the room. “Why not!?”

Chris blinked again before he finally put his book down and got out of bed to find out what was going on.

“Why would I? I’m not even planning on walking at graduation,” he explained as if it was self-explanatory.

“But ... but why!?” Gloria now joined in, seemingly shocked at how indifferent her son was about not only his senior prom but also his high school graduation.

Paul, on the other hand, looked at his wife annoyed. The fact that she was so confused about this showed everyone that she still didn’t fully understand their son’s situation. Granted, Chris had never spelled it out for them, but what he had said painted a pretty clear picture of someone who’s just happy to be leaving that place.

“Again, why would I!?” Chris asked incredulously. “I’m glad I’ll never have to see any of these people again once school is finally over! I have no interest in celebrating that shit show!”

“But I asked Amber to be your date, Chris! And she agreed!” Natalie threw in, sounding just as incredulous as her brother before.

“Amber. Amber Williams agreed to be... my prom date!?” Chris didn’t know how to handle this information.

“Yes, she did! You absolutely have to go! You have no idea what I had to do to convince her!”

As soon as she said it, everyone, including herself, knew that she just screwed everything up.

When Chris learned about his prom prospects, he first looked dumbstruck, but quickly developed a boyish grin as he realized that his dream was actually coming true. However, the moment Natalie mentioned that she ‘had to do’ something that was so obviously a nuisance to her, just so Amber would agree to be his prom date, that grin vanished faster than any of his family members could say ‘Oh, shit’.

“What exactly did you have to do so Amber would agree to this, Nat?” Chris asked in a remarkably calm voice. It didn’t stop Natalie from uncomfortably shuffling on her feet.

“N ... Nothing much. It was just a small favor. And she only asked about it because she knew she could.”

“Bullshit!” Chris called out. “You were loud enough in the living room for me to hear. I couldn’t understand what you complained about, but I could clearly hear that you were pissed. So, spill it! What was it?”

Natalie was still reluctant to answer, but if her brother already knew that much, she knew there was no use in denying it any longer.

“I had to go on a date with Pete.”

“Wait ... You mean, the guy you keep calling ‘Pete the Creep’?”

Natalie winced upon hearing her brother’s voice drop into a growl, which he seemingly took for confirmation.

“You had to go on a date with a would-be rapist, so even a self-professed slut would agree to a date with me. Good to know.” Natalie’s and Gloria’s eyes grew big when they heard that. Not just the words, but the clear undertone of downright devastation in Chris’s voice. Paul just looked at his son with resigned sympathy. This was the last thing his son needed after what had happened with the family.

“It’s not like tha...” Natalie started to weakly protest, but Chris talked right over her.

“Next time, just hire a prostitute, Nat. At least they only take money. And the probability of me getting ‘lucky’ is a lot higher,” he replied weakly before he turned back to his bed and picked up his book, as if he just wanted to get back under his covers.

“Honey, Natalie just wanted to do you a favor! It’s really not as bad as you make it sound!” Gloria tried with a surprisingly stern voice, but her son just looked at her with tired eyes.

“Yeah, sure, it’s not so bad. It isn’t anything new, either. But you also can’t exactly say that it isn’t another ‘fuck you’ from yet another girl who can’t be bothered to be with me unless she’s being bribed or coerced into it first.”

Gloria groaned annoyed. Paul couldn’t believe it when he heard it and looked at her wide-eyed. He knew his wife was on edge because of her own inability to find a solution, coupled with her family’s seeming disinterest in even trying to find one, but he still wouldn’t say that Chris’s current mood was in any way unwarranted. And it certainly didn’t warrant annoyance on Gloria’s side!

“Can’t you just accept that your sister was trying to do something for you!?”

“I AM accepting that!” Chris retorted, now sounding annoyed himself. “But can you maybe just accept that I don’t want pity fucks!? I think I told you so before! What I want is to find some girl who likes me for who I am, and who I don’t have to pay to spend time with me.”

“And how long are we supposed to wait for that to happen!?” Gloria replied, and, as soon as she had, she clamped her hands over her mouth in apparent shock over her own words.

The room fell eerily quiet. It wasn’t just what Gloria had said, but the way she had eyed Chris’s body with a raised eyebrow while she said it. Since Chris had already gone to bed when Paul knocked on his door, he was wearing his pajama bottoms, but nothing else, so he was now standing in front of his family while displaying his weak and skinny upper body. So, when Gloria said those words in a mocking tone, while her eyes hinted at the problem being Chris’s looks, it was all Paul could do to not strangle the woman! At least she seemed to have immediately understood that her mood had gotten the better of her, and not in a good way.

“Baby, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean...” Gloria started pleading as she extended her arms towards her son as if to hug him, but, once again, her son talked right over her while slapping her hands away. Though, this time, his voice wasn’t heated, annoyed, or resigned. It was cold acceptance and pure hurt.

“Get out.”

Nobody said a word. Paul just grabbed Gloria by her arm and roughly pulled her out of the room, quickly followed by Natalie. When they arrived in the living room, he threw his wife onto the couch, where she sat with a blank stare, seemingly not noticing her husband pacing in front of her for minutes before she ultimately spoke in a barely audible voice.

“I can’t believe I said that to him.”

“Neither can I!” Paul said angrily.

“Why did I say that to him!? What the hell is wrong with me!?”

Now Paul stopped pacing. He had looked at his wife when he heard the pleading tone in her voice and noticed her eyes already watering. All he could do was sigh for the hundredth time.

As angry as he was with Gloria, she was still his wife. And he loved her. He loved her enough to accept that she slept with her relatives. He loved her enough to accept that he alone wouldn’t be able to satisfy her and, believing her assurances that she made a very clear distinction between love and sex, loved her enough to become a part of that family so she could get what she needed in addition to what he could give her.

But now he couldn’t help but ask himself if that hadn’t been the biggest mistake of his life. Because he didn’t love her enough to watch as her needs caused her to hurt their children!

“Leave him alone. Don’t go back in there and try to apologize. He won’t listen, and I can’t blame him for it. Stay away from him, or you’ll only make it worse. That goes for both of you,” Paul informed them coldly.

“Daddy?” Natalie tried meekly. “How long do you think it’ll be before we can talk to him again?”

Paul gave her a look that made her wish the ground would swallow her up.

“Best guess? I have no idea. But I think it’s safe to say that you won’t have to ask him about joining next year’s family retreat. Or ANY of those damn retreats EVER again,” he said while shaking his head, before he turned to leave for his own bedroom while listening to his wife’s quiet sobbing. Just as he was about to step through the doorway, he looked back to call over his shoulder without missing a step. “And I think the same goes for me.”

That caused his wife to break and, the last thing he heard before he closed their bedroom door, was her still crying in the living room, paired with their daughter’s soft voice trying to comfort her. He just didn’t have it in him to support her at that moment. If this was what it took for his wife to take a damn hard look at herself and her behavior over the previous months, then he would let her suffer. After all, she was suffering the consequences of her own actions, and there was no better way to make someone understand what went wrong.

Over the following months, the general mood in the house was rather subdued. It was no longer just about Chris’s rejection at the family retreat, but now also about Paul and Gloria having serious marriage troubles, while Natalie blamed herself for both.