Aftermath

I haven’t seen Wendy since that night, not even around town, and Phil and I have never talked about it but things have not been the same between us. I now know that he sees me differently, sees me as a woman. I don't know when this started. I have never caught him looking at me with the looks you would expect from someone attracted to another person.

Not that I have anything to go off of other than remembering the looks on the faces of those men as they watched her. That was a piss poor comparison, at best. Primal lust and physical attraction are supposed to look differently, aren't they? That's how it's portrayed in the movies and in the romance novels, my only sources for sex education. 

I would have noticed if he had been looking at me differently, right? From what I can recall, he barely looked at me at all. Or did he and I was too busy taking care of Nate to pay attention. Did he start seeing me as an object of desire and I was just too naive to notice?

Like I said, Phil is an attractive man and it would be so easy if I were like them to just go with the flow but I’m not and I never have been. I am not attracted to Phil. I do not see him that way and don’t know if I ever will or even could. But that's not because of him. It's because of our situation.

I want to fall in love. To be in love. And when I am finally with someone, I want it to be because I love them. Not because I feel that I owe it to them or because it would be the easy thing to do. Right now, I am hiding behind Nate and the fact that I am seventeen years old. Just as time doesn’t stop, my hiding is quickly coming to an end, too.

I turn eighteen next week and I will officially be an adult. I don’t know what that will mean other than at that age, I become a legal adult and in the eyes of the law, Phil would no longer be held responsible for having a relationship with me. I don't really know the first thing about actually being an adult and I’m scared to find out.

I hide my fear, my trepidation behind my smile as I walk Nate through the front doors of Wood Haven Elementary and to his classroom. I pretend my world is perfect as I hug his little body and wish him a great first day. I fight my own tears of having to leave him as I make my way back down the long halls, keeping my head down and quickening my pace back out the door.

I wish I could run and hide or better yet, start school myself but, unfortunately for me, the middle and high school classes don’t start until tomorrow morning. Today, I am on my own with nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

All because Phil informed me as I walked out the door with Nate this morning that he was going in to work a little later than usual. He followed that up by saying that he would be waiting for me back home and that we needed to sit down and talk. This wasn't just a regular conversation about the weather and this conversation had nothing to do with Nate. This talk was to discuss the elephant in the room the last few months and just the thoughts of having to have this talk terrified me.