Beth Hyland - Fall Into Forever

I head back to Ivy’s room to leave a message on her white board, letting her know that I stopped by. When I reach for the dry erase pen hanging from a string, a shadow moves in the small gap between the door and the floor. Someone’s inside.

Did we just miss each other?

I knock. No answer.

“Ivy? Are you there?” I knock again.

I hear shuffling.

“Jon?”

Relief washes over me at the sound of her voice. I didn’t realize I was so tense. “Yeah, it’s me.”

The door swings open. Ivy’s standing there in a t-shirt and pajamas as if she just rolled out of bed. She wasn’t out to dinner. She was here the whole time.

“Are you okay?” I step in and let the door close behind me.

She’s got dark circles under her eyes and looks like crap. God, is she sick? I put my arm around her shoulder and lead her back to bed.

“I’m…I’m fine. Was that…you earlier, knocking?”

“You don’t look fine.” I help her in and pull up the covers.

“Just a little headache, that’s all.”

Goddamn it. She needs to go to the doctor and get a refill of her migraine medicine. I don’t want to push her and yet I may have to.

“What’s going on? Talk to me.” I brush a piece of hair from her face. “Did the accident bring back some bad memories?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” she says, but I sense there’s more.

Spotting that threadbare lemur under the pillow, I pull it out and tuck it in with her.

Her eyes meet mine as she hugs the stuffed animal close.

“You can talk to me, Ivy,” I repeat. “Please, I want to know what’s bothering you?”

With a gasping sob, she squeezes me tight. “Someone’s been...stalking me online.”

“What the fuck? Who? How? Since when?” My brain literally swirls with a million other questions.

“Almost two years.”

Two fucking years? Oh my God. “Why…why didn’t you tell me?”

Her breath hiccups against me. “I was sick of it dominating my life, and I’d hoped it was behind me. So I was like, why say anything if it’s in the past now?”

Which means that it’s not. “Do you know who it is?”

“A guy from my high school. Remember when you found me on the roof?”

How could I forget?

“Well, he was at the party, checking out the school. He didn’t know I go here, so I kind of freaked out when I saw him. He didn’t see me then, but he knows I’m here now.”

A surge of adrenaline hits me like a gunshot, and my whole body tenses. “The fucker was in my house?”

“Yeah, but he’s back in Lincoln Falls now.”

“How do you know?”

“My little sister goes to the same high school and texts me. And my mom saw him in the grocery store the other day.”

I stand and pace around the room. There’s a guy who’s been tormenting Ivy for two goddamn years, and he was in my house? I want to punch my fist through something right now.

She tells me about the email she received at her PSU student email address and about all the things he did when she had social media accounts. I cannot fucking believe someone is doing all this to her. And that I didn’t know. I’m so pissed off at myself that I didn’t figure out something like this was going on.

“Have you told anyone?”

“You mean like the police?”

“The police. Your parents. Anyone who can help you. It’s not like he’s some anonymous troll. You know who he is.”

“His dad is the police chief of Lincoln Falls, and it’s not like he threatened me or anything. Besides, he’s never used his name. I just know it’s him.”

“I don’t fucking care if his dad is the President. What he’s doing is wrong, Ivy, not to mention illegal. What did your parents say?”

“My parents?” She sniffs and tells me about the conversation with her mom today. “So I wouldn’t exactly call them supportive.”

I don’t know where to start or what I should do to help her. But what I do know is that I’m sure as hell going to do something.

Ivy

My heart races as I stare across the street at the orange awning of the Student Counseling Center.

“You’re going to be fine, Ivy,” Jon says, jutting his chin in that direction. “This is going to be fine. Good, even.”

“I…I don’t know.”

“I know it’s scary, babe,” he says, rubbing my back. “But you’ll feel better talking with a professional about what’s been going on.”

“And what if I don’t?”

I feel him shrug. “Then you can decide not to go back. It’s your choice.”

Glancing across the street, I see a normal-looking girl going into the building and a normal-looking boy coming out. I don’t know what I expected. People in straitjackets?

Yes, this is my choice. I need to take charge of my emotional health. After talking to Mom the other day, I know I can’t rely on them to help me.

“I’ll go with you to meet the doctor, if you want,” Jon says. “They said it was okay. And then if you’re comfortable with the situation, I’ll leave, so you can talk.”

I push away from him. “You…you called them?” Panic constricts my airways, making my voice high-pitched and squeaky. “What did you say?”

“I didn’t give them your name…or mine. I only told them that a friend had an appointment and was nervous about coming.”

Somewhat relieved, I exhale and stare over at that orange awning again. Can I really go in there and spill my guts to a stranger? I did it with Dr. Kramer, but that was because my parents forced me to. This is voluntary.

Jon’s words echo in my head. If I don’t like it, I don’t go back. It’s my choice. I’m the one in control. If, after talking with Dr. Mehta, I don’t connect with her or feel comfortable, then I don’t need to keep seeing her. It’s my decision.

The tension in my shoulders eases a little. I straighten up, and Jon gives me a warm smile of encouragement.

“Okay, I’ll go there on one condition. Two, actually.”

“What are they?”

“First, you’re going to need to leave.”

He frowns. “Leave?”

“Everyone knows you. I don’t want people wondering why you’re in the SCC and figure out it’s because you have a fucked-up girlfriend.”

“You’re not fucked up, Ivy,” he says, sliding his hands from my shoulders down to my upper arms and giving me a little shake. “But okay, if you want to do this on your own, I’ll leave. You can call or text me when you’re done. If you want to. What’s the second condition?”

“I want you to tell me who the Olivers are.”

He looks confused. “The Oli—” Realization flickers in his eyes and his expression hardens. “Who?”

“That old couple, the Olivers. They sent you another friend request. I saw it pop up again on your laptop.”

He runs a hand through his hair. “You really want to know who they are?”

“Yes.”

Blowing out a long breath, his eyes get a faraway look. “They’re my father’s parents.”

“Your grandparents?”

“Yeah, I guess you could call them that.”

“So why don’t you want to talk to them?”

“For one thing, I’ve never even met them. Why should I friend them online?”

“Why not?”

Anger gathers behind his eyes as he works his jaw back and forth. “They’ve known about me from the time I was born, and yet they chose to ignore me the whole time. Now that they’re old, are they suddenly feeling guilty that they raised a son who went around fucking lots of women and getting them pregnant? Do they think friending me online is going to make things right with God before they die? Well, I’m sorry. It doesn’t work that way.”

He’s obviously thought about this a lot. “Maybe they didn’t know about you until now,” I say quietly.

He laughs bitterly. “No, they did. They thought my mother was a slut and a gold-digger. Isn’t that what all groupies are? What they didn’t know was that my mom was with my father—their son—for almost a year. She traveled all over the country with him. But he dumped her when she got pregnant because she couldn’t go out on tour with him anymore. So you tell me who was the biggest user in that situation.”

“Jesus, Jon.” From what he told me before, I knew his father was a dick, but this is pathetic. Part of me is curious about who he is, but that’s not important. If I ask, Jon might think it matters to me when it doesn’t. He’ll tell me if he wants me to know.

“She and her friends shouldn’t have gone backstage to meet the band,” he continues. “I mean, everyone knows what happens when a band’s manager starts pulling hot girls out of the crowd, right? But she was fucking seventeen! What seventeen-year-old girl doesn’t have stars in her eyes when given a chance to meet a rock star backstage? And what twenty-five-year-old guy thinks it’s okay to prey on teenage girls? It fucking makes me sick.”

“God, she was younger than we are,” I say almost to myself.

“The Olivers didn’t know shit about my mom. They didn’t know she dreamed of going to college and becoming a nurse, but because their son got her pregnant, kicked her out, and didn’t pay child support, she had to give up on those dreams to raise me. Alone. With no help from my father or his family.”

“He didn’t help her financially at all?” I ask, appalled. His father clearly had the means to support her.

“He did a little at first, but the checks stopped coming after a few months and my mom didn’t pursue it.”

My mind is reeling as I try to make sense of it all. “Your dad’s a jerk. You said so yourself. But what if he only told your mom that he said something to his parents, but he actually never did? What if he was feeding your mom a load of BS to keep her—and you—from disrupting his life? What if they’re just finding out now that they have a grandson? Have you considered that possibility?”