The Captain's Dirty Little Secret

"Why are you doing this now?" Roxie asked softly. "You can leave everything where it is for a while."

Angela clutched the sweatshirt against herself. "Because if I leave his stuff here, I’m going to keep thinking he’s coming back for it."

The words went straight through Roxie.

Angela lowered her face into the sweatshirt. "After he left, I kept expecting him to come back. Every time I heard a car outside, I checked the window. Every time my phone lit up, I grabbed it because I thought maybe he changed his mind."

Her face crumpled.

"I’m so fucking stupid."

"That isn’t stupid," Karen said.

"It is." Angela’s voice rose. "I believed him."

Roxie reached for her again. "Angela."

"I believed everything he said."

Her fingers twisted deeper into the sweatshirt.

"Maybe they were right about me."

Roxie frowned. "Who?"

Angela looked at her.

The panic in her face immediately scared Roxie.

"Everybody."

Her breaths started coming faster.

"They said he only liked me because of my body. Maybe that was all it was. Maybe he liked fucking me and touching me and having me around, but when he actually had to choose me, he couldn’t."

Roxie felt something snap painfully inside her.

"That isn’t true."

"How do you know?"

"Because I saw the way he loved you."

Angela shook her head hard. "Then why wasn’t it enough?"

Roxie had no answer.

That frightened her because Angela was staring at her like Roxie was supposed to have one.

"I gave him everything," Angela cried.

Her voice cracked completely.

"I gave him everything, Roxie. Things I never gave anybody. I trusted him with things I hated about myself. I let him see me when I felt ugly. He was the first person who made me feel like there was nothing wrong with my body."

Roxie started crying.

She remembered Angela defending Caleb when everyone questioned whether he could have leaked the picture.

And now all of that confidence had somehow twisted into Angela wondering if her body had been the only reason he stayed.

Roxie hated Bianca for putting that thought inside her.

She hated Caleb for leaving at the exact moment Angela needed proof that the thought was wrong.

Most of all, she hated that Angela was looking at herself and finding the blame there.

"I let him see all of me," Angela sobbed. "I fucking loved him. And it still wasn’t enough."

"Angela, please."

"I wasn’t enough."

Roxie grabbed her hands when Angela started pressing her palms hard against her face.

"Stop. Please."

"I’m not pretty enough. I’m not good enough for him. His family looked at me and decided I wasn’t worth keeping, and he fucking agreed with them."

"No."

"He did."

"He left because he was scared. That says something about him. It doesn’t say anything about what you’re worth."

"He still left!"

Angela shouted it so loudly that Roxie flinched.

Then Angela collapsed against her again.

"He still left me."

Roxie wrapped both arms around her and started crying with her.

There was nothing she could say to that.

Caleb had left.

Angela could understand every reason behind it and still wake up tomorrow without him.

Roxie pressed her cheek against Angela’s hair and wished desperately that she could take even part of the hurt away from her. She would have carried it gladly. She would have taken the humiliation, the whispers, the breakup, anything if it meant Angela could breathe without sounding like every breath hurt.

Karen stayed beside them, unusually quiet.

Roxie almost didn’t notice until she looked over.

Karen wasn’t watching Angela’s face.

She was staring at her arm.

Her face had gone pale.

Roxie followed her gaze.

At the edge of Angela’s sleeve was a thin streak of red.

For several seconds Roxie couldn’t understand what she was seeing.

Then her stomach dropped so violently she felt sick.

Angela noticed where they were looking and immediately pulled her sleeve lower.

"It’s nothing."

Karen’s voice trembled. "Angela. What is that?"

"Nothing."

Angela tried to stand.

Karen caught her arm before she could get up, and Angela grimaced sharply.

The sound made Roxie’s chest seize.

"Let me see your hand," Roxie whispered.

She barely recognized her own voice.

Angela pulled away. "It’s fine."

Roxie stared at the sleeve.

Her mind had already started racing through everything Angela had said.

She didn’t answer.

She wanted to be alone.

She had been here since last night.

Mrs. Hart had been downstairs while Angela was upstairs.

Roxie had spent the entire day telling herself Angela was probably sleeping.

"Angela, let me see."

"It’s nothing." Angela sounded frustrated now. "I cut myself last night. That’s it."

Roxie felt like the floor moved beneath her.

Karen stared at Angela.

"Then let me see," Roxie said again.

Angela stayed still.

Roxie could hear her own heartbeat.

Part of her still wanted Angela to pull up the sleeve and reveal something tiny, something accidental, something Roxie could look at and immediately know she had panicked for nothing.

Karen reached toward Angela carefully.

Angela tried to pull away, and when Karen’s fingers brushed her sleeve, she winced.

That destroyed the last of Roxie’s hope.

She moved closer and pushed Angela’s sleeves back with trembling hands.

Roxie stopped breathing.

There were several fresh cuts across both of Angela’s wrists and lower arms. They looked shallow, but they were red and tender, and some had started to scab where Angela had bled.

Roxie stared at them.

Her mind went completely blank.

Then everything hit at once.

Angela had done this last night.

While Roxie was home.

While Karen was somewhere else.

While all of them had assumed Angela was surrounded by people who loved her and therefore somehow safe from herself.

Roxie covered her mouth as a sob tore out of her.

A few minutes ago she had been crying because Angela’s first love had broken her heart.

Now she was terrified.

Karen started crying too. "Angela, what the fuck?"

Angela yanked her sleeves down. "It’s nothing!"

Roxie stared at her in disbelief.

Nothing.

Angela kept calling everything nothing.

The picture.

The whispers.

The crying.

Now this.

Roxie stood so quickly she nearly lost her balance. Her hands went into her hair because she suddenly couldn’t figure out what to do with them.

They should have known.

The thought came so hard it made her chest hurt.

They should have come last night.

They should have called harder.

They should have noticed how badly Angela had been slipping instead of accepting every weak smile and every claim that she was fine.

Roxie had spent so much time worrying about Bianca, Steve, the videos and the police that somehow she had believed being beside Angela at school meant she understood what was happening inside her.

She hadn’t.

Her friend had gone home last night with a broken heart and hurt herself while Roxie knew nothing.

How had she missed that?

How had all of them missed that?

Angela’s expression changed when she saw Roxie and Karen crying.

Her anger disappeared immediately.

"I’m sorry."

Angela reached for them with both hands.

Roxie looked at those same hands and cried harder.

"I’m sorry," Angela repeated. "I don’t know what happened. I was crying and I couldn’t stop thinking and I just wanted everything in my head to shut up for a while."

Roxie shook her head because she couldn’t speak yet.

"It was stupid. I know it was stupid." Angela grabbed Roxie’s arm. "I’m not going to do it again."

Roxie looked at her.

She wanted desperately to believe that promise.

That scared her too.

Because Angela sounded sincere.

Roxie knew she meant it right now.

Last night Angela probably hadn’t expected herself to do it either.

Karen grabbed Angela’s shoulders. "We’re telling your parents."

Angela’s face changed immediately. "No."

"Yes."

"Karen, please."

"We’re telling them."

"My mom is already scared every time I go upstairs alone. My dad barely sleeps anymore. Please, I can handle it."

Roxie closed her eyes.

Angela was still trying to protect everybody else.

Even now.

Karen stared at her through her tears. "You were alone last night hurting yourself after telling everybody you were okay."

Angela shook her head.

Karen’s voice broke completely. "Angela, please. I can’t lose you too."

Angela started crying harder. "I wasn’t trying to die."

"I believe you."

"I swear I wasn’t."

"I believe you."

Angela grabbed Karen’s arms. "Then please. I’m begging you. Don’t tell my parents."

Then she looked at Roxie.

That was the part Roxie wasn’t ready for.

Angela looked at her like she expected Roxie to understand. Like Roxie might be the one person who would keep the secret because she knew how terrifying it was when adults took control of something personal.

And for one awful moment, Roxie wanted to.

She wanted to tell Angela okay.

She wanted to clean the cuts, climb into bed beside her and make her promise it would never happen again. She wanted to believe that loving Angela hard enough would make that promise safe.

Then Roxie looked at the sleeve Angela had pulled back over her wrist.

She thought about how easily they could have gone home tonight without ever knowing.

Her stomach turned.

She couldn’t risk that.

Roxie reached for Angela’s hand, careful this time, and held it between both of hers while tears kept running down her face.

Angela squeezed her fingers desperately.

"Roxie, please."

Roxie looked at her best friend and felt her heart breaking for an entirely different reason now.

She already knew what she had to do.