What If

Chapter 48

Paul walked me to his home while I was still crying. My tears were well on their way to drying up fully, but a few were still managing to come out. Getting away from the school grounds was definitely helping in making me feel better. Without the stares and whispers being thrown at me from every direction, I could finally start to calm myself and think thoroughly.

Paul and I hadn't spoken a word the whole walk home. It wasn't an awkward silence. It wasn't an uncomfortable silence. It was more of a calming silence. We were saving the real conversation for when we were at his house and had more privacy.

I felt humiliated and I couldn't shake it off. It tainted every pore of my skin and coated me like a sticky goo. In the modern world, this wouldn't be so bad. It's very common for teenagers in high school to have sex and no one bats an eye. Even if it didn't really happen, the stigma wouldn't be nearly as intense as this. But this was a different time. Sex wasn't as socially accepted. Actually, it wasn't really openly accepted at all outside of marriage. Even others that had done it would point and call names to others that were found out. It was a game of not getting caught.

With Paul's arm still around my shoulder, we walked right into his house and up to his room. His dad was in the kitchen and had only said a couple of words before he realized something was wrong. Paul held up his hand to his dad as we walked by to signal to leave us alone. I felt incredibly rude doing that to such a kind man, but I was sure he understood. He was a teenager at one point in time too.

Closing the door behind him, Paul sat himself next to me on his bed. He hugged me tight and I hugged him back just as tightly. I already felt halfway better than I did before, but I wasn't nearly one hundred percent.

"So . . . tell me from the beginning," he said. "What happened?"

I took a deep breath and explained slowly "Natasha came up to me and said that everyone knew I went into the closet with you." I sniffed and wiped my cheeks for the millionth time. They were raw from rubbing them and hurt when I tried to dry my tears. "She said the entire school was calling me a whore and thought I was a slut. And after she went away, it turned out to be true. Everyone was staring at me and whispering." I rubbed my eyes some more, but they hurt too. "They all think I had sex with you in that closet."

Paul didn't say anything. He didn't even move a muscle in response.

Still hugging, I looked up at him and asked "Paul, how often do you that closet that the entire school knows about it?"

Paul let out an exasperated breath and answered "I told you, Colleen. I haven't used that closet for a long time. It's been many months-"

"Then how 'bout before that?" I cut him off. "How often were you using it before that?"

He didn't answer immediately. He paused, took a deep breath, and spoke, almost shamefully. "I was using it quite a bit before you." The truth finally came out. I suspected that it had been true the entire time and I wasn't surprised in the least, but a part of me was hoping that perhaps the amount of girls going in there was being exaggerated at least a little bit. "I used it a lot. And I used it with a bunch of different girls. I'm not exactly proud, but that's the truth."

We were both quiet for seemingly forever. I don't know what Paul was doing, but I was both thinking and not thinking in that moment. Paul was my friend. And what he did was, yeah, gross, but it was something I had known about him from the beginning. He was promiscuous. He went after every pretty girl he could get his hands on. He slept around.

So how did this new knowledge about the janitor's closet change the way I looked at him? I figured it was because I now knew he was comfortable with everyone around him fully knowing that he was that way and didn't care if he put girls into the same position I was currently in. Granted, if someone was going to have sex in a school closet, they might be on the looser end to begin with, but it still sucked to be heavily judged like that by everyone around you.

"Paul, that's disgusting," I said firmly. "For multiple reasons, that's disgusting. Why would you be okay with the whole school knowing you do that?"

He shrugged, not really knowing the answer himself. "It just . . . never really bothered me. No one's ever stared at me or whispered about me or any of tha'. I didn't know they were doing that to the girls I went in there with." He hugged me even tighter if that was possible. "I hope you know that I didn't mean for any of this to happen to you. I would never try to hurt anybody like that."

I sighed and squeezed him back as hard as my muscles could bear. "I know," I said. I fully knew Paul didn't try to hurt me when he brought me into the closet. Actually it was the exact opposite. He was trying to make me feel better about getting smashed on New Year's. Why would he try to make me feel better at all if he was trying to hurt me?

He finally pulled away from me and looked my face and smiled. "Don't let those other girls get to you," he advised. "You're not a whore. And I know that your image is important to you, but once people get an idea into their head they tend to hold onto that forever no matter what. Me and the boys are still your friends. We know the truth. Hell, we know you're annoyingly 'good'." He playfully punched my arm, making me grin and playfully push him back. "Come on, let's not think about it anymore." He stood up and grabbed his guitar from the other side of his incredibly tiny room. "Pick a song. Any song."

I laughed, painfully wiping away the remnants of tears away from my face. "I don't know," I said. "Surprise me."

Paul shook his head and laid back on his bed, strumming it lazily. "Nah, you've been through enough today. You should hear something you want to hear."

Again I shrugged and said "I really don't know. Chuck Berry?"

He grinned and said "Chuck Berry it is." And we did nothing but listen to him play for hours until the sun started to go down and I had literally no choice but to go home.