Chapter 4: Sunday Afternoon

To have your hair stroked, slowly and gently, has to be one of the nicest feelings in the world. My hair was being stroked. And since my hair is long, the hand was stroking from the top of my head, all the way down my spine. Having a big, strong hand run gently down your spine, over and over is also really nice. Hmmm! A big, strong hand. It could only be Dan. It was dark, really dark. If it hadn’t been so dark, I might have been tempted to turn and look. Instead, I sighed and nestled down into the lap I was curled up on.

Ah Dan!

My cheek was pressed against the muscles of his chest. I sighed again and moved my cheek back and forth a bit, revelling in the sensation of the material of his t-shirt brushing against the side of my mouth, the skin of my cheek, my eyelid.

Wait! My eyelid? That meant my eyes were closed. I tentatively opened one eye and peered around. It wasn’t so dark after all.

It took me a moment to figure things out. We were in my room, in my closet. Daylight shone dimly through the curtains. The doors of my closet were wide open and Dan was sitting on the floor of the closet, leaning against the back wall with his legs extending out into the room. I was curled up on his lap, with one eye closed and one of Dan’s arms wrapped securely around me. The other hand was gently stroking my hair and my back.

Yep, definitely one of the nicest feelings in the world.

I felt his body shift slightly, and then I felt him gently kiss the top of my head. “Welcome back, princess,” he whispered, his voice soft and gentle as if he were trying not to frighten a nervous animal. Maybe he was.

I wanted to acknowledge him. I wanted to let him know that I’d heard him talking to me and felt him holding me. I wanted to make some great, inspiring thank-you speech. All I could come up with though was, “We’re sitting in my closet!” My voice came out like a hoarse whisper.

Somehow I sensed that he smiled at that. “Well technically, I’m only half in your closet. It seems I’m way too big to sit in your closet, especially with you in here as well.”

“Obviously I need a bigger closet,” I whispered. “I’ll have to ask my sweet big brother to build me a new one.”

He chuckled, “I’ll get right on that!” His chuckle had done interesting things to his chest and stomach where I was leaning against him. With my ear against his chest, I could swear I heard the sound of his laughter echoing around inside him.

I clutched tightly to the arm wrapped around me, holding it in place.

“There’s no hurry,” I whispered. “Let’s stay here for a while. At least we should stay here until...”

Up until this point, the only parts of my brain that had been operating were the bits that were enjoying the moment; the sensations of being held and stroked, the joy of having a light, meaningless conversation with my favorite person in the whole world. It wasn’t until I asked myself how long we should stay there, that led me to think about why I was there in the first place, that led me to remember what had happened at breakfast.

I guess I went from super relaxed to super tense in one second. I squirmed around to sit upright on Dan’s lap. I must have elbowed something sensitive because I vaguely heard him swallow a sudden gasp. Dan hushed me and made soothing noises. The arm wrapped around me became as solid as steel, holding me in place. With his other hand, Dan grasped me around the back of my neck and firmly guided my head back onto his chest, then he resumed stroking me and softly talking to me, but I’ve no idea what he was saying.

I resisted being held like that for a moment, but then my body gave up and I collapsed into him like a rag doll. My body collapsed, but my brain was racing around in circles like a roaring tornado. With my ear pressed against his chest I was hearing two heartbeats, one slow and steady, the other racing out of control. That was me! I could hear and feel my own heart pattering along at about a thousand beats per minute.

Finally I managed to reconnect my voice and let out the single question that was whirling around my head.

“Why did she do that to me?”

Dan sighed. He stopped stroking my hair and reached that arm around to circle me also, so now I was wrapped in both his arms, and then he squeezed me tight into his chest. Not so tight that I couldn’t breathe, but tight enough for me to be in no doubt that I was being held. He kissed the top of my head again and when he spoke, he had that gentle, careful tone in his voice again.

“Dad wants to talk to you about that. Mum didn’t mean to hurt you. Dad wants to explain some things to you about Mum, about this morning. They’ve both gone out for a bit, but they’ll be back soon. When they come back, Dad wants to talk to you and Tara.”

“Do you know what he’s going to say? Tell me. I don’t think I want to listen to one of Dad’s talks right now.”

“I know about it. Please trust me. This will be better if Dad explains it. Until then, see if you can put all that aside for a while. I know how your brain works. I want you to press the pause button on everything to do with Mum. Can you do that for me?”

“But she humiliated me! If Tara or I did something like that to each other, we’d be getting punished right now, something fierce.”

“Pause button!”

“Okay, I’ll try!”

I didn’t want to, but I rarely refuse to do anything Dan asks of me. I closed my eyes and tried to look inside my brain. All those thoughts racing around in my head, I herded into a back corner of my brain and put a fence around them. It wasn’t a strong fence. They yelled out and reached through the fence, trying to grab me, but they were stuck there for a while. It didn’t leave a lot of room in my head for the rest of me to operate, there were a lot of thoughts fenced up back there, but I was trying to do what Dan wanted.

He must have sensed something, because he started talking again. “Are you hungry? You missed lunch.”

“I did? Wow! I’m not really hungry. I guess I could grab a piece of fruit.”

“You didn’t miss much. It wasn’t that exciting. No one was talking to each other. Tara’s furious with Mum and Dad. I think Mum’s embarrassed that she went too far. My head’s still a bit fragile.”

“Really? You? Why?”

“Because of my hangover. Because I drank too much last night,” said Dan.

“Last night, oh!”

Then I remembered last night, “Last night, OH!” I squirmed and wriggled and slapped at Dan’s arms. “Let me go! Let me go!” He released me and I scrambled out of his lap, across the floor and put my back against the opposite wall of my room.

“What?” Dan was obviously puzzled.

“How could you hold me like that? Why would you want to touch me at all? Why would you want to be with me at all, after what I did to you last night?” I was almost sobbing. I slid down the wall to sit on the floor, back against the wall.

“Er, Bec, sweetie, I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I really don’t remember much about last night at all. What happened last night that upset you?”

“You don’t remember? Oh shit! Oh Dan, I’m sorry. I didn’t ... I shouldn’t have done it. I’m sorry!” Now I was crying.

“Bec, maybe if you tell me what happened, I can help you.”

“Well, you were really drunk, I mean really, really drunk, and you were all messy so you needed a shower, and you were staggering all over, so we had to get in the shower with you and hold you up, and, and, and I saw your ... I touched your ... penis. I’m sorry Dan. I shouldn’t have done it. Now you probably think I’m terrible. I’m disgusting. You must hate me. Don’t look at me, I’m so ashamed! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”