The Side Effects of Marriage

Chapter 16

"I need a lawyer," Carly said. She was waiting outside, scuffed Doc Martens kicking the curb when he pulled up outside the group home where she was staying. It was a dingy bungalow, housing eight other teen girls who were either in and out of juvie, recovering addicts, or teen runaways. A few dented, rusting jalopies were parked outside, next to the yellowed grass and fields of waist-high dandelions.

"Why do you need a lawyer?" Hayden said, getting out of the car. Already he could feel himself sinking back into their routine, like wagon wheels sinking into the ruts of a muddy road. She called. He answered. He wanted to be needed and it was going to kill him. "You're sixteen."

Then Hayden's mind jumped back to what he'd seen when she had shown him the poor excuse for a man who she'd slept with. A ritzy neighbourhood, completely different from this one. They were polar opposites, that much was clear. But it didn't seem like a Romeo and Juliet relationship.

"It's a long story." Her black-lined eyes were red-rimmed, smudged with mascara. She sank onto the curb, putting her elbows on her knees. "Can you sit down? You're towering over me."

He sat next to her. "I have time to hear it."

"Your wife answered the phone."

"That's irrelevant." A blade still carved into his chest, filled the hole in his heart like a scar.

"She hates me." Carly sniffed. "I can tell."

"She doesn't hate you," he said automatically.

"She thinks I'm a whore. Everyone does. That's all anyone thinks of me when they see me like this. But I'm not... I swear..."

"I don't think you're a whore, Carly. Tell me the story."

So she spilled it. "I went to a house party in sophomore year."

As many a teenage girl did, without winding up where she was right now. He nodded.

"That's where we met. I'd never been to a house party before, and... Josh was older, and he was cool, and he liked me. And he had a nice car, and he drove me places, and my parents didn't like him. They thought he was too old for me. I thought it was fine. I was fifteen. I was supposed to be old enough. I would've been. And we were so careful... He said it couldn't... I thought we couldn't..." She broke down into tears, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. "The condom broke. And we were at his house one day after we found out, and then his dad found us. And I didn't even know who his dad was, I just thought he was some rich guy, but he's a senator, and he asked me how old I was. I should've just lied. Because I was fifteen and he was nineteen and that's illegal in Maryland."

Statutory rape. His stomach twisted. "He was wrong, you know that?"

Caryl shook her head. Her blond roots were showing through the black dye, vulnerability peeping through the goth facade. "I didn't care... But his dad did... He wanted me to go away. He made me go away. He told me to sign an NDA... and everything... and then we couldn't see each other. I haven't seen him three months. He told me not to come back around. He said he would call me. He hasn't called me, Mr. Song. He's not going to call, is he? If he wanted to be with me..."

"He would call." He sighed, thinking of the arrogant young man he'd seen back at that mansion. "He's a deadbeat, Carly. And a criminal."

"I know. And he cheated on me. Except... I was the other woman. Because he was dating that girl the whole time and he said she was just a friend, and now the security cameras saw us outside his house and his dad is saying that I violated the NDA. He's trying to get me arrested... I'm gonna have to pay a fine..." She cried harder, her shoulders shaking.