And I feel completely violated.
Six months ago, a touch like that would have been commonplace. Both from me to guy friends or boyfriends, and from them to me. Now, though, after several months in Jesus Bootcamp, and lecture after lecture on respecting the opposite sex and myself, I find his physical advance horrifyingly invasive. The worst of it? I can’t say anything. I can’t say anything because I’m in “Rome”, as it were, and this is how they behave. It’s how I behaved before going to Carter University. I didn’t see anything wrong with it then, so why should I now? What’s changed?
Everything.
Taking a breath to try to regain some sort of equilibrium, I place my hand over Trent’s as it sits, warm, on my face. I give it a small squeeze, closing my eyes to fully feel it, before drawing his hand away from me, and back down to his side.
“Trent,” I whisper, clearing my throat again.
“What?” he whispers back.
“What?” I ask indignantly with a chuckle. “What? Trent, we broke up almost two years ago and have hardly talked since. What’s with all the gorgeous and hand touching the face and … all of that?”
He licks his lips and puts his hands in his pockets.
Where they better stay.
“When I saw you on the news …”
Here we go.
“I realized something.”
“Yeah?” I cross my arms in front of me. “What was that? That you had a renewed drive to conquer my virginity, perhaps?”
I arch my eyebrow and wait for whatever he’s surely prepared as a response. I still find it necessary to remind him of the main reason we broke up. He was a disrespectful ass.
Trent chuckles the cocky chuckle he’s had forever. The dismissive, snotty chuckle of someone who throws money around like a fix-all. “Wow. For a good Christian girl, you are awfully judgmental, don’t you think? Guess that means you fit right in with the rest of them, after all.”
I ignore the truth in his statement because I know he didn’t craft it that way. He just pieced together buzzwords in an effort to get to me.
“What happened to you? You used to be such a nice Jewish boy.” I grin, throwing a minor stereotype right back at him. “You didn’t respect me, so I broke up with you. And, your little Christian girl quip does little to show me you’ve changed.”
“You’re right,” he says quickly. “I’m sorry.”
Say what?
“What?” I stare at him, intentionally contorting my face to look extra-confused.
Trent reaches for my hand, and I let him take it. He leads me to the stairs that go to the second floor.
“Ha! I’m not going upstairs with you.” I anchor my feet to the floor.
And, by the way, where is Mollie?
“I just want to talk to you in private for a minute.”
I shake my head. “Not upstairs you don’t. Trent, I’m not going up there.” I move my hand to tug it away from his, but he only tightens it around mine. My heart races and I shoot my eyes toward him, trying not to let the fear show.
“Come outside, then.” His voice and face show nothing dangerous, but being led through the house with his hand tightly around my wrist does little to calm my nerves.
I know this is just how he is, how everyone around me is. Less words, more physical communication, but tonight, here, fresh off a few months at CU, it scares me.
And that pisses me off.
Three-quarters of a semester on The Hill has made me scared of the social normalcies of my former life. My normal life. But, which feeling is right? I’m smart enough to know that just because someone grows up one way, doesn’t mean that way is okay or acceptable.
On our way through the kitchen, we pass by Mollie, who is in an intense conversation with a guy wearing a Harvard sweatshirt.
“Bet you Harvard wouldn’t suck so bad,” the guy says, gesturing to her t-shirt, “if you’d have gotten in.”
Mollie chuckles. “I did get in, but all the money stuffed in the pockets of the admissions board turned me off.” She spots me out of the corner of her eye and whips around. “Where are you going?” she asks, eyeing Trent suspiciously.
“To talk in private.” I use my free hand to put air quotes around the last word.
“Stay near a window,” she says, arching her eyebrow before turning back to her academic rival.
Crossing into the chilly wind on the back patio, Trent shuts the door behind us and makes a motion with his hand toward a couple of kids, who look like they’re still in high school, who are smoking near the door. Magically, they comply with his unspoken request and move further back in to the shadows near the garage.
“What?” I ask, wrapping my arms around myself, rubbing my hands over myself for warmth.