CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

▬ ▬ ▬ ▬ ▬

2022

          My stomach dropped down to the ground floor of our apartment complex, sinking like a stone.

          Whatever conversation she wanted to have—or they, I wasn't sure, as Ingrid had conveniently neglected to clarify how many people were involved in it—it certainly wasn't something I'd happily partake in, especially since we'd barely said a word to each other this month. If Savannah was involved in it somehow, I had my suspicions about what they wanted to talk to me about, and I wanted to believe I was smart enough to stop myself from walking right into a trap. They wouldn't catch me in a lie, and I wouldn't have to feel even worse for alienating them any further. We'd all win, if there were any victories left for me on the horizon. I felt like I had already used up all my luck, expertly dodging every bullet that had flown my way so far.

          I'd been so good. I'd been better at hiding, lying, and running away than I'd ever been at anything else in my life and, though it was hardly the kind of stuff you could brag about to other people, especially to those you'd been avoiding and lying to all along.

          The smarter thing would be to not fight her, but also to not show any fear, as though she was a dangerous grizzly bear preparing to pounce. Unfortunately, I also couldn't bear to look at her—it hurt my eyes as though I was staring at the sun during a solar eclipse, and it wasn't just because of the way the light hit her hair—even though I needed her to think I felt quite neutral about her proposition, so the fact that I couldn't even do that right was bewildering to me.

          "What's going on?" I dared to ask, as though there was any answer that would satisfy me or, at the very least, calm my nerves. I closed my hands into fists over my desk, resting on either side of my open laptop, as that would certainly serve as an incentive to keep my cool; I wouldn't want to ruin the progress I'd made on my senior project, not after weeks and months of attempting and failing to be productive. "Is everything all right?"

          She chewed down on her bottom lip, devoid of any lipstick for once, but I couldn't decipher the expression in her eyes. "Please come talk to us, okay? I know you've been working hard on your senior project"—she nodded towards my laptop just as I rushed to delete the last five lines I'd written—"and you're super busy and preoccupied as is, so we'll leave you to it in no time, but we wouldn't be doing this if it weren't important."

          "We?"

          "Sav and I." Ingrid glanced back over her shoulder towards the living room, a crystal clear sign there was something wrong, something she wasn't telling me, and my stomach revolved, burning like spoiled milk. When her eyes focused back on mine, I was having a hard time telling which of us wanted to be there the least, which was a considerable comparison whenever I remembered how often I'd threatened to move out. "Let's just get this over with. The quicker we do it, the better."

          No matter how poetically or saccharine-y she worded it, I still knew I was in trouble. When you spent all of your waking moments second guessing yourself, mortified you had done, were doing, or would do something wrong, it was virtually impossible to stop thinking like you weren't in trouble, a skill that wasn't necessarily helpful or adaptive.

          The red flags about Ingrid's suspicious behavior glowed brighter than neon lights, but I figured that having that knowledge and awareness gave me a slight edge, even if it wouldn't be significant in the greater scheme of things. It beat the alternative of being oblivious to the whole thing, choosing to blindly believe her or the possibility that everything was okay, even if it was destroying me from the inside. If I weren't so physically and mentally exhausted already, I would've fought her and maybe kicked her out of my room, but I didn't have the strength for that any longer.

          I knew it wasn't just because of the breakup—or maybe that was what I wanted to convince myself of so there would be a version of myself out there that wasn't that pathetic. I blamed my current state of mind on a combination of factors, the natural flow of things after one negative event after the other and my lack of capacity to deal with those events in a healthy manner. Looking back on everything I'd been through since starting college, it was a miracle I hadn't reached my breaking point earlier, but I'd also had Chase to help hold my bones together through all of it.

          Until I no longer did. Until I took him and his support for granted, neglected to try and develop those supportive skills on my own, and blamed him for leaving after choking the air out of him with how needy and pathologically dependent I'd been. Paying the consequences of my devastatingly damaging actions only felt appropriate, so I followed her into the living room with my heart in my hands, feeling as though each step I was taking would be my last.

          Once we got there, after an entire eternity had passed since we started crossing the not that long hallway, the whiplash the scene in front of me triggered was enough to send a wave of nausea coursing through my body.

          Seeing my parents standing in the living room of my shared apartment for the first time shouldn't be nearly that overwhelming, but nothing good could come from their presence now, out of all the times they could've chosen to stop by for a visit, and my brain was far too well trained to fear these situations. Savannah's refusal to look me in the eye and face the betrayed glare I shot her told me everything I needed to know about the current context we'd all found ourselves in.

          She'd gone to them and to Ingrid about what I'd told her and rubbed in her face. She'd gone ahead and stuck a hundred scorching knives on my back, like there was even room for another betrayal coming from someone so close to me, and she'd done it purely out of spite. She was hurt and furious at me, even when Ingrid had to physically restrain me and pull me away from her the second I attempted to lounge at her, so small and defenseless when faced with the menace I was.

          "How could you?" I spat out, struggling to break free from Ingrid's surprisingly strong grip around me. "You told my parents?"

          "I did what I had to do to help you!" Savannah shrieked. Ingrid was even bonier than I was, so elbowing her in the ribs to try and stumble out of her arms was only hurting me a lot more than it would ever hurt her. Then again, such was the reality of many, if not all, aspects of our relationship. "You can be angry at me all you want, but I've had enough of seeing you this shattered and miserable over—"

          "Over what? Over what exactly? The false narrative you've come up with to distract from the fact that you've been a terrible friend to me since we first met?"

          "That has nothing to do with it and you know it; if anyone is creating a false narrative here, it's you." The second she dared to look at me, glowering, I almost mellowed out like the coward that I was. I'd been so prepared for confrontation all this time, in spite of having been the one to run away from her after our big argument, but the minute she bit back, I was once again consumed by the overwhelming urge to escape. "Something terrible has happened to you, Penn, I get it, and I know it's easier to snap at everyone around you when they try to help you, but—"

          "You have no idea what you're talking about. You have no right to try and stage an intervention—"

          "Penelope," my father chimed in, and I instantly went silent. He was a massive man, objectively speaking, both in stature and in attitude, and I'd never been great at facing mountains. "This isn't an intervention, but please don't attack your friend for doing the right thing. At least she found the courage to reach out to us and ask for help, which is something you should have done instead."

          "Papi, por favor." Switching to Spanish was a low blow. I knew that. The thought of shutting Savannah and Ingrid out of the conversation by doing so hadn't even crossed my mind—I didn't know whether they understood the language or not with how uninvolved in their lives I'd been—but I needed to appeal to my parents' more emotional side if I couldn't get them to rationally side with me. I knew I'd never get anywhere if I tried to make them see reason, especially when I already suspected what Savannah had told them and how it had confirmed all their accusations from my birthday, so I needed to hit them right where it hurt, even if it made me sound despicable. "There's no reason for you to worry. I told Savannah something really stupid out of spite, and it's being taken out of context. I promise there's no reason for concern."

          "For how long?" my mother questioned, sitting impossibly still. "For how long has this been going on?"

          "I told you; there's nothing going on. I'm sorry I made you all worry about me or that I ruined your opinion on Steele, but—"

          She raised a hand in the exact way Chase would do whenever he wanted me to see reason. "Just tell us the truth, Penelope. Be honest with us for once."

          "We won't be angry at you," my father continued, just as Ingrid figured it would be safe to release me, now that I was too distracted to attack Savannah. "We told you this before. We want to protect you. You don't have to protect him any longer, and you never had. With something this serious going on, it's always been you who needs to be kept safe, and we can help you, but you need to let us. You need to let us in, Penny. If a grown man was preying on you, it's not your fault. You're not weak because he took advantage—"

          "No one took advantage of me!"

          "Penn—"

          "You can't cope with the thought that someone else saw me, someone else loved me. You can't handle that I'm not perfect, that I did something that might not have been completely ethical or right, but it was right for me." My bottom lip quivered before I could stop myself from running my mouth. Years and years of secrecy and being perfect at hiding the truth from everyone, gone—just like that. Just because of one moment of weakness. "You hate that I was loved by someone just as much as I hate that I lost the love of my life. The only mistake I made was letting him go. I was never forced into any of it. If anything . . . if anything, it was me who forced him into this mess. I manipulated him, and now I'm continuing to ruin his life. I don't need your protection. I need you to promise you won't tell. Leave him alone."

          The deafening silence that crashed into the living room was a harsh gust of wintry wind, biting hard into my skin. The winter chill was no joke, even when I was wearing heavy, weather-appropriate clothing, but I also couldn't remember the last time I'd felt warm.

          It was out there now. I couldn't take any of it back and the realization that I had taken a definite step down the path of no return had hit me like a sucker punch straight through the stomach. Straight through the heart.

          I didn't expect any of them to understand. I didn't trust them to do the right thing for my sake and not report Chase to the college board, and I knew they would go behind my back the nanosecond a window of opportunity presented itself. They would never understand how Chase was the greatest love of my life, the only one I'd ever gotten and was certain I'd ever have, and I could sit there and try to explain to them that the past three and a half years had been the best and the worst of my life simultaneously. I loved him so much, so hard I felt it crawl deep within my body, inside my bones, and he'd left me behind to bleed out. They would never understand how badly it hurt to know I would need him forever, love him forever, and know I'd screwed things up enough to make him want to leave. He'd seen right through my manipulation, twisted himself out of my toxicity, and turned his back on me.

          Chase had always been stronger, braver. He'd had the courage to do what I never would do—I would never voluntarily walk away from something like that. I would've stayed, fought to make it work, ignored all the warning signs. He'd done the right thing for himself, but what was I supposed to do when it wasn't the right thing for myself? How would I keep the door unlocked for someone who had broken the lock and swallowed the key, with no intention of ever coming back?

          It was all I'd known for nearly four years, my entire college life. He'd saved me, saved my life and my sanity so many times, and now I couldn't even save his career and his reputation. The fact that I was standing there in my living room and snitching to my parents and my best friends didn't make me the bigger person by any means, and no amount of sobbing like my heart was about to explode would ever make it better. It wouldn't make any of the pain matter. It wouldn't fix a damn thing.

          So what if I thought my life was over? I was sheltered. I was protected. I would be seen as the victim, as someone who had gotten taken advantage of like I had never been an active, willing participant in a consensual relationship, even with all four of them wanting to tell me otherwise. They spoke about manipulation like I hadn't done it to Chase, like they hadn't done it to me. They spoke about gaslighting like it wasn't what they were doing and had done. What did they know about Chase and I? What did they even think they knew about any of it?

          All they knew how to do was judge and criticize. All they could do was point out flaws in my judgment, implying I'd been wrong all along for trusting Chase, but I couldn't understand their reasoning. I'd never forgotten anything about our relationship, even our shakier moments and darker times I thought we would never get over (I supposed we never did; like I'd suspected back then, we'd just pretended it didn't happen and let it build up until it turned into toxic waste, contaminating all the good parts), which was both a blessing and a curse.

          The fact that I was willingly letting all out after swearing on my own life I would never betray Chase like that was a surefire way of ensuring we'd have no future together, and it was time I made peace with that. However, I didn't have to ruin his life in the process and, whether I wanted to accept it or not, my parents were powerful people with important connections in the industry. Gossip always spread like wildfire and, the second the truth got out the way they were choosing to frame it—that Chase had coerced me into this relationship even after he knew I was nineteen, even after he knew I was his student, that he had weaponized the difference in age, maturity, and power between us against me to keep me locked in said relationship—it would all be over for him.

          "You have to believe me; I didn't do anything against my will," I begged, curled into an armchair. They could all look at me now—all of them except for Ingrid, the one I expected to be the most vocal about it.

          All this time, I thought she'd be the one to figure it all out, to place all the pieces together with how personally involved in my private business she'd always been, and there had been moments when I genuinely thought she knew far more than she let on. The way she looked at me, her choice of words during confrontations, the way she'd emphasized Chase had never been my friend. She'd been bluffing all along, trying to get me to crack and reveal all my deepest secrets, but I'd been stronger than that, smarter than I'd ever thought possible, though I failed to find any relief in that.

          "You were a baby," my mother pointed out, voice cracking. "You were just nineteen. Grown men have no business chasing after girls that young"—like that had ever stopped anyone from doing anything—"even if it's legal. He's always been in a position of power over you." I scowled at that. Considering they knew about the trial, they also knew the law had never stopped anyone from hurting other people; there were many ways people would justify thinking they were above the law. "You two could never be equals, Penny. It's not just about the age difference. You know that. You can't consent to something when you're not in an equal playing field."

          "He didn't want any of it! He wanted to walk away, for us to go our separate ways, and I was the one who . . . I was the one who forced him. I twisted the whole thing, made him trust me because I was so terrified of being alone, of losing something that could be so great, and he made me feel seen for once. He made me feel loved." He'd given me everything, and I'd reciprocated. He'd kept it all, attempted to erase all the evidence that we'd ever had anything together, and I had lost the little confidence and self-respect I'd managed to nurse—he'd gotten the best parts of me, and I'd suffocated him. How couldn't they see that? How couldn't they see I wasn't the one who had been wronged? "I went after him. He sacrificed so much to make things work, and his career is on the line. You can't do this to him. Dad, you know how hard he works, how much love and dedication he puts into—"

          My father glowered with fury. "He never should've done a goddamn thing to you. Whether you wanted to pursue a relationship or not, he's the adult. He's always been the adult. You were a child."

          "I can make decisions by myself—"

          "Penelope, you were used. He saw someone vulnerable, someone he could bend and break to his will, someone he could take advantage of to make himself feel better. It doesn't mean you're weak or inadequate; it means you had the misfortune of running into an insecure man who consistently manipulates his way through life and relationships. If anything, being with you, isolating you from everyone so you'd only have him to rely on made him feel powerful. It made him feel in control. That's not the kind of person you want in your life. That's not the kind of person who loves you; that's the kind of person who loves that you need them, who loves that they've cornered you into a place you can't walk away from on your own because they've convinced you you have nowhere else to go."

          He had read my mind with a degree of detail that made my skin crawl, but he was still wrong. If anything, I had cornered myself, convinced myself I couldn't rely on anyone else but him; after all, even with all the cracks in the beautiful painting I'd created of our relationship in my mind, even after everything he'd said that had hurt my stupid and juvenile feelings, the ball had always been in my court. I'd always had the power to destroy everything, and he'd walked away before my wildfires could burn him.

          "I could've left; I just didn't want to. He left me—"

          "He left you because he realized he'd get caught," my mother concluded. "After the rejection, he's been preparing to leave. He knew we'd try to pull you out, whether you wanted to or not, and all of this has been damage control to try and reframe the narrative. You're the victim in all of this, Penn, no matter how badly you want to believe otherwise. I know what's going through your head—you loved him, he loved you, he would've never done anything to hurt you—but everything you've told us shows he's been playing with your mind, with your feelings, and weaponized your weakest moments against you. We're not the enemy. Your girlhood and your age aren't the enemy. He preyed on you. He made you feel important, he overwhelmed you with sudden displays of devotion and affection to reel you back in whenever he'd feel you slipping away, and then kept you at arm's length. He convinced you all your doubts about the relationship and the way you were being mistreated were all in your head. If anyone is the gaslighting, manipulative piece of shit in here, it's not you, cariño. It's not."

          "Mom."

          Her eyes welled up with tears, kinder this time. "You could've come to us. I know why you didn't, why you thought you couldn't, but you don't need to protect him anymore. Let us protect you instead. Let us end this. Let yourself be happy."

          I thought back to all the times I'd doubted everything, and all the times I'd been made to doubt myself—not just by them, but by him as well. It was easy to pass off their concerned comments as petty jealousy or simply being overbearing, but I'd always excused every little thing Chase did, truly believing he had my best interests at heart. I couldn't fathom the existence of a version of reality where that wasn't the truth, when we'd been living together in our own bubble of isolation and couldn't trust anyone but each other, but there had been multiple instances of hesitation.

          I'd brushed them off in shame every time, talked myself into writing them off as anxiety-fueled thoughts of not being enough for him, but there was something quietly whispering in the back of my brain. There was something in there saying I deserved better than that, and there were four people sitting in my living room begging me to see that.

          I wanted to see that. I did.

          And still, I couldn't say a goddamn word. I couldn't even thank them for something I didn't believe in.

▬ ▬ ▬ ▬ ▬

okay, so. it's out. it's fully out there. penn's parents knew. poor ingrid was left out of the loop AGAIN, and there's still sarah lurking around the corner. can anyone catch a break around these parts? absolutely not.

there was more to this chapter (five more paragraphs after the chapter break) but this was getting far too long, so i figured i'd leave it for the next chapter. i'm trying to make everything fit perfectly into the little amount of chapters left (everything is planned out. don't worry), so there are some weird jumps here and there, but no part of penn's journey will be cut out, if it makes sense. every tiny bit of realization, every piece of awareness is important, and it has to come from HER. allowing herself to even speak about it, even if she didn't want to and simply broke down (something we KNOW will eat her alive with guilt and some chianti), is a big, important step. give her time. there's no set way to heal.