But he was dead.
And Preston noticed me.
It was as simple as that. One day he walked up to me at lunch, told me I was pretty, asked me out.
“He was charming, even then.” I found my way back to Swiss, who hadn’t moved but was watching me intently, hanging on my every word.
“I didn’t know if he saw how vulnerable I was then,” I shrugged, thinking back on it. “I don’t think he was that calculated. Maybe he was. Maybe at sixteen, he saw exactly what I was and how easily he could control me. All I saw was the boy everyone loved, noticing me, making me feel like I mattered. Making me feel suddenly so very far away from the girl I used to be. That was huge.”
I remembered it clearly. Despite the trauma I’d gone through, my emotional wounds, I was still a teenage girl. And the most popular boy in school noticing you can conquer all your demons… for a while, at least.
“I was desperate to redefine my sexuality. To replace what had happened with something consensual, something… normal.”
I rolled my eyes. I definitely did get normal—a teenage boy who had no idea what he was doing, no consideration about my pleasure. But he said he’d loved me after it was done.
I had felt dirty. Odd. Uncomfortable. But I’d focused on Preston’s blue eyes, his sandy blond hair falling across his face.
“I got pregnant two months into dating,” I exhaled loudly. “We were using the pull-out method, so it shouldn’t have been that surprising. But to me it was. I loved him in a way a teenager could love the first boy that made her feel like she mattered. But I wasn’t delusional. I wanted a life. I wanted out of that town. Away from my mother. So I was devastated.”
The words were sour in my mouth, thinking of Violet. My perfect, beautiful, kindhearted daughter. The light in my life that I loved with everything I was.
But at that time, it was the truth.
“Preston was not. He was happy. Happy,” I laughed mirthlessly. “At sixteen, happy to be a father with a girl he’d been dating two freaking months.” I shook my head. “Then again, he was a man. He didn’t have to give birth. Drop out of school. Be labeled as a slut or trash or whatever was going to be said. And he was rich.”
I thought about the smile that had lit up his face when I told him, sobbing. And the way his eyes had darkened when I mentioned going to Planned Parenthood. It was a glimmer, a glimpse of what was to come in the future. Of course, I didn’t know it then. And it had passed quickly.
“His parents liked me. They weren’t snobs. Didn’t look down on me. They were kind. They loved each other. Loved their son. Welcomed me immediately. And when we told them together, they were upset, of course. It was not their plan for their son. But they also started planning. Immediately. Told us it would all be okay. That we would be married.”
I remembered sitting in their impossibly nice living room, drinking a soda, listening to Preston’s mom talk about a dress with a forgiving shape and his father discussing the country club for the reception.
It was all so incredibly surreal. No one had asked me whether I wanted to marry Preston. No one had asked me anything. They just set about planning the rest of my life.
I should’ve been thankful, I was being given the golden ticket, after all. An in with the wealthiest family in town.
It hit me, the parallels between Swiss and I. How we’d started out in somewhat similar positions and both of our lives had hurtled out of control.
“My mom kicked me out when we told her,” I frowned. “Called me a slut and a disgrace. I think she might’ve actually hit me if Preston hadn’t stepped in.”
That was when I really fell in love with him. A deeper kind of love than teenage infatuation. He had stepped in front of me, stared down my mother and promised her that she’d pay if she laid a hand on me.
He was tall, over six foot. And muscled. Even at sixteen, he towered over my mother. He was a threat to her.
“We walked out of that house, and I never saw her again. She never met her granddaughter. Which I’m thankful for.”
Violet asked about my mother often when she was smaller. I told her the truth when she was old enough to understand. I didn’t keep secrets from her. Except about the monster her father truly was.
Violet knew that her grandmother lived in the same town as her and that she ‘wasn’t a nice lady.’ She accepted that the way a little girl did, with a no-nonsense nod before going back to playing with her dolls.
Her real grandmother—Preston’s mom—was enough for her. More than enough.
“We got married two months later,” I whispered. “And I was happy. Until all my dreams for myself disappeared. I dropped out of school when I started to show. Everyone thought it was for the best.”
I hadn’t questioned them. Hadn’t voiced my desires to stay. It wasn’t seemly. Me being visibly pregnant and attending school.
Appearances mattered. Sally and Preston had plenty of things to keep me busy. We cooked. Went shopping. Decorated the nursery. I didn’t see Preston a whole lot. He had training, games, schoolwork. He was still living the same life.
But when I did see him, he was loving, doting, affectionate. He’d talk to my belly, make all kinds of promises.