Playing by Ear (Country Roads #1) - Chapter 36

Things were fairly uneventful for almost a week, which seemed like a major victory of some type, considering how the past few months had gone. I was making progress in my tutoring, thanks to Kat, and had pulled my math grade up to a D. I wasn’t going to be winning any awards, but I wasn’t failing any classes, which meant I wasn’t in immediate danger of Mom banning me from playing anymore.

Rhonda was still standoffish, eating outside by herself or skipping lunches. I’d offered to still be her friend and had asked her to join us at lunch a couple of times, but so far she always said 'no.' She wasn’t actively avoiding me anymore, and we exchanged pleasantries, but there was still a wall there. In her room, I’d offered to be her friend still, but since then there’d been nothing. Maybe it was because I’d also said I would never date her again, but whatever the reason, she’d decided to not take me up on my offer.

I’d almost thought we’d make it through the last few weeks of the semester okay. Everyone was starting to prepare for midterms and making plans for the Christmas break. Hanna and her mom would be gone over Christmas. Apparently, they went skiing every year together since her dad left and wouldn’t be back till just before New Year’s.

Since Mom still had to work pretty much, I’d already asked Willie about playing more, but that also wasn’t happening. The crowd for the Blue Ridge thinned out over Christmas for whatever reason, and Chef always reduced music to just Saturday nights the week before Christmas.

Instead, I decided to use the time to work on my own songs. I’d ended up meeting with Mr. French a couple of times already, and he was really a big help so far. I’d found out that he’d been a musician when he was younger too, traveling with a band and everything, before going back to college and getting a degree in music education. I was almost done with my first song and had started working on two more, and I was actually pretty happy with the results. They still needed work though, since they weren’t quite catchy enough, but I was getting the hang of it. I thought maybe by January I might try playing a few once at the Blue Ridge, to see what the crowd thought of them.

All that came crashing to a halt by Monday. Hanna had been taking me to school in the mornings like normal. Her mom had called me Sunday night and told me that Hanna wasn’t feeling well, which meant I had to find another way to school. Luckily, Kat agreed to come pick me up. I actually felt bad asking Kat, since I knew she wouldn’t really be able to say no, because of her condition. It felt a little like taking advantage of her, although my conscience apparently stopped just short of forcing me to ride the bus.

My concern grew once Kat actually picked me up. She was acting weirdly, refusing to speak and answering only in head nods. I’d done some reading on her condition after talking to Dr. Rothstein, and found that sometimes, when the stress got too bad, the person could go non-verbal. I’d never seen Kat do that before and I couldn’t figure out why it was happening. I did know from my reading that what I shouldn’t do was confront the non-verbal episode, but just accept it. What bothered me was that it could have been caused by me, since maybe she also felt I was taking advantage of her, somehow eroding whatever there was between us.

It wasn’t until I got to lunch that I started to get an idea of what was going on. As soon as I got to the lunch table and set down my backpack, everyone looked at me like I was some kind of monster, making me pause before sitting down.

“Nope. You need to go sit somewhere else,” Joanna said, pointing towards one of the empty tables.

“What? Why?”

“Megan saw you come to school with her. We thought you were Hanna’s friend. How could you do that?”

I was completely lost.

“You’re going to have to back up a whole bunch of steps, because I have no idea what anyone is talking about. Megan saw me with who? Why does everyone look pissed at me?”

“She saw you with Katherine this morning, getting dropped off at school. After everything Hanna’s done for you, you just go and stab her in the back. Maybe my sister wasn’t an idiot for dumping you after all,” Joanna said.

“Hanna’s mom said she wasn’t feeling well and couldn’t take me to school, so I asked Kat for a ride. She’s been tutoring me and we’re friends. I’m not sure what’s happened and I’m definitely not going to take shit over something I don’t know about.”

I turned and walked out of the cafeteria, out to the bleachers where Rhonda and I used to eat lunch. I wasn’t hungry anymore and stuffed my sack lunch in my backpack, since once I got over being pissed I knew I’d be hungry again. I was still sitting on the bleachers, seething, when I heard someone coming up the metal steps and looked up.

“Hey,” Cameron said, sitting next to me.

“You’re not joining them in being pissed at me?”

“No. I mean, they’re usually nice and all, but I only sit there because you invited me, remember. If I had to pick, I’d pick you over them.”

“I don’t suppose you know what’s happening?”

“I do, although only from what Megan and Joanna were saying. Apparently, there was a party on Sunday night, and Hanna caught Katherine and Marcus kissing, then Megan saw Katherine driving you to school this morning. Hanna apparently isn’t doing well and stayed home. I don’t know; they haven’t been dating that long and I didn’t get the impression they were that serious, so it seems like a little bit of an overreaction to me.”

“It’s not. They’re not serious, but there’s more going on than just that.”

Joanna and Megan probably knew about what happened to Hanna last year, which explained why they were so ready to jump to Hanna’s defense. They were also Hanna’s friends long before they were mine, and we weren’t all that close, since all we did was eat lunch together, so it made sense they’d immediately side with Hanna. It still pissed me off, but I got it. What I was most worried about was Hanna. After everything that happened to her, she was extra sensitive about trusting people, and this could wreck all the progress she’s made so far.

“Do you have a cellphone?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I borrow it?”

“Sure,” he said, handing it over.

I dialed the Blue Ridge and was happy to hear Chef’s voice answer.

“Hey, it’s Charlie. We have a problem with Hanna.”

“What’s the problem?”

I explained about the party and about her friends seeing me with Kat. Chef knew about Kat’s condition, or at least some of it, and came to the same conclusion I did.

“You’re thinking someone put her up to it?”

“Yes. I know Kat well enough to know she wouldn’t have done that on her own. She’s terrified of making the first move, she knows Marcus is with Hanna and she knows Hanna and I are friends. She would have done the math and figured out how that was going to play out. It explains why she seemed so scared this morning. I’m worried about her too; she’s probably tearing herself up.”

“You’re right, but I’m not sure where I can help with this? What you need is to talk with both of them, explain what’s happening.”

“I know, but I can’t do it on my own. If Hanna’s heard that Kat gave me a ride this morning, she’ll refuse to see me, and I’m stuck here. Getting another ride with Kat will make things worse.”

“I can drive you,” Cameron said.

I gave him a nod and thought up an idea, “Chef, when I was down, you made me come in and work it out. Can you do the same with Hanna? At least get her up there and focused on something else. Don’t explain about Kat, I want to be the one to do that, but I need to at least get her to listen to me long enough to explain. That’s where I need help. I can get a ride down there after school.”

“Yeah, I can do that. You know this might blow up in your face. That girl is just started getting things back together, and she’s got a lot of trust issues. It’s not my place to tell you …”

“I know what happened,” I said, interrupting him. “She told me on Thursday.”

“She did?” he said, sounding genuinely surprised. “That’s a really big step for her. She hasn’t told anyone outside of her mother and me, as far as I know.”

“I think a friend of hers knows, or at least figured it out. She’s ready to take my head and mount it on her wall.”

“Still, telling you is a big step.”

“I know, it also means if she feels like I betrayed her, it’ll be that much worse. I need to talk to her today, but this can eat at her some more. I don’t want her to backslide.”

“Me either. I’ll get her up here.”

“Thanks Chef. See you this afternoon.”

“Thanks for the loan,” I said, handing the phone back to Cameron.

“I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what’s going on?”

“Sorry. I know it sucks to hear part of something, but it’s not my place to share their personal stuff. I appreciate you being here, man.”

“It’s okay. You helped me, right? I guess it’s my turn.”

“Let’s get to class.”

I saw Kat a few times that afternoon, but gave her a wide berth. For one, most of those times she was with Aaron, which was an entire situation I wanted to avoid, but also because I was going to have enough trouble getting Hanna to listen to me without Megan or someone else reporting back that they’d see me with her again.

I nearly sprinted out of the school when the final bell rang and was pacing by Cameron’s car when he finally showed up. He didn’t really know what was going on, but after seeing our lunch group basically throw me out and hearing part of my conversation with Chef, he got how important this was to me. He didn’t say anything on the drive over, which was probably for the best, because I wasn’t really paying that much attention. Instead, I went over what I was going to say to Hanna and what I thought she might say back. My biggest worry was that she wouldn’t bother listening.

She could be stubborn when she was hurt, and from what she’d said, when her world fell apart last year she’d basically cut off everyone in her life outside of her mother and Joanna.

“Good luck,” Cameron said when he dropped me off. “You sure you don’t want me to wait and take you home?”

“No. If I have to, I can get a ride from someone here.”

“Okay. Well, I’ll see you at school tomorrow, hopefully at lunch with everyone else.”

“Hopefully,” I said, shutting the door and heading inside.

Chef saw me coming and nodded at the back door, which wasn’t surprising. I imagined Hanna didn’t want to be here and would have wanted to stay away from other people as much as possible.

“No,” Hanna said the moment I stepped outside and she saw me. “I don’t want to talk to you. Was this his plan? Get me here so you could confront me. Figures. You’re his new wonder boy, of course he’d side with you.”

“Hanna, do you really believe that? You know Chef. He only ever does what he thinks is best, not what anyone else wants him to do.”

“I still don’t want to talk to you.”

“Good, because I want you to listen. You don’t have to talk.”

“Why should I?”

“If for no other reason, because I once helped out your cousin. If you don’t like what I have to say, I’ll leave you alone from now on.”

“Fine. Whatever,” she said and I thought she’d stop and just listen, but the cork had come out of the bottle. “Why would you do that? You hate Aaron and broke up with Rhonda because she kissed him, and here you are bringing his girlfriend into our group. Then, if that wasn’t bad enough, you’re hanging around with her after she takes Marcus from me.”

“I didn’t know what happened until lunch, otherwise I would have come to see you instead of getting a ride from Kat. Your mother told me you weren’t feeling well.”

“There’s nothing I would have wanted to see you about this morning. It’s still your fault she’s around. You became friends with her, knowing who she is.”

“You’re right; I did become friends with her knowing who she is. The problem is, you don’t know who she is. There’s more going on here than you know about. Normally I wouldn’t talk about someone else’s issues unless they told me I could, but I’m going to make an exception now. You need to understand that she had no choice in kissing Marcus. This isn’t her fault, and just to preempt the next thing you’re thinking, it’s not Marcus’s either. Hearing a full description of what happened, it sounded like he was surprised by it, and pushed her away as soon as she kissed him.”

“He did. I’m not blaming Marcus for this. I’m blaming you. What do you mean? She had no choice to kiss him. What, she just fell down and landed on his lips?”

“Like I said, you don’t have all the information. Kat suffers from something called Dependent Personality Disorder. It’s a condition that makes it almost impossible for her to disagree with someone, give her own opinion, or not do what people she feels are in charge of her tell her to do. I think it’s important to know that the main reason someone develops this disorder is through either a large trauma or extended abuse. Haven’t you ever wondered why she barely speaks and is constantly backing down? It’s because any confrontation, any at all, sends her into severe panic attacks.”

“What, so someone told her to kiss Marcus, and she just did?” she said, clearly not believing it.

“Yes. I know it seems far-fetched, but it’s true. If you don’t believe me, ask Chef. He brought in a psychologist friend to sit with Kat. She’s as much of a victim here as you are, I promise you. I’ve gotten to know her and I can almost guarantee she didn’t want to do it. She just didn’t have a choice.”

“You know how that sounds, right?”

“I do, but it’s true. I’ve seen it happen to her. Worse, Aaron knows she’s like this and takes advantage of it. This wasn’t Kat, this was Aaron. He saw you getting happy again and couldn’t help but try to destroy your happiness. He would have told her to go kiss Marcus, and Kat wouldn’t have had a choice.”

“Or so she told you.”

“I haven’t talked to Kat yet. I’m basing this on knowing what her condition is, and knowing who Aaron is.”

“So you’re just guessing.”

“Yes, but it’s not as wild of a guess as you might think it is. I’ve seen him try and do this before, and I’ve seen how much it wrecked her. She didn’t tell me what happened, but she was a mess when I saw her this morning. This is hurting her, too.”

“Fine, so she’s crazy. It still doesn’t make it right.”

“You’re right, but I think we can fix everything else. You don’t blame Marcus, even though he was part of the kiss, I don’t think you should blame Kat either. There’s only one person to blame for this.”

“So what, I need to be nice to her because she’s nuts and just live with the fact that she’ll do whatever Aaron tells her to do?”

“No. We should have done something about her before, but I didn’t really know what to do. Chef’s psychologist friend couldn’t see Kat and start working on her condition without her parent’s approval, and Kat is way too terrified of her father to even talk to him about it. Just bringing it up almost sent her into a panic attack. Please, let me take care of this. I’ll make sure it never happens again. You’re my friend, and I don’t ever want to lose that, but I also can’t let Kat get punished for something that’s out of her control.”

“How? How are you going to fix this?”

“I don’t know yet, but I will. You know me, Hanna. You know I mean what I say and I don’t back down. I’m telling you now, I will fix this.”

“Fine. Fix it. I’m still not happy. I’m still pissed at you and I’m still pissed at her, so whatever you decide to do, it better be good. I’m not going to put myself in a position to be hurt by Aaron again, even if it is through someone else.”

“It will be. Just give me a chance.”

“Fine. Whatever. I’m going home. Don’t talk to me until you’ve fixed it.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. Everything wasn’t better, but she’d heard me out and gave me a chance to fix everything. That was, however, the easy part. Now I needed to figure out what to do with Kat.

What I didn’t want to do was deal with her at the Blue Ridge, with other people around. I begged off band practice and convinced Dwight to give me a ride home. I actually felt a little bad about that, since the only reason the band came up to the Blue Ridge on weekdays was to practice, and that was mostly for my benefit, since they’d all been playing together long enough that they didn’t need it.

Before we left, I called Kat and told her I needed to see her at my house as soon as she was done with her swimming coach. She agreed, although I’d worded it in such a way that I hadn’t left her much choice. I’d started to develop a plan, but it worried me. I know this wasn’t the best thing for Kat and if Dr. Rothstein heard what I was planning he’d be mortified, but it was the only thing I could think of. It was better than leaving Kat to Aaron’s mercy, which was what we were currently doing. He knew the kind of control he had over her, and he was starting to get more brazen in his use of that control. It was only a matter of time until he really got her hurt.

Eventually, I couldn’t just take waiting, and went back to working on the song Mr. French had been helping me with. I found music was a good distraction; it focused my mind to be on it instead of my problem. By the time Kat knocked on my door, I’d managed to settle myself, feeling less anxious. I wasn’t sure if any of the changes I’d made were good enough to keep, but it’d helped me focus again, which is what I'd really needed.

When I opened the door, Kat looked away, grasping and ungrasping her hands together. Considering how she’d acted that morning, she’d probably been expecting me to come down on her all day. She looked terrified.

“Come on in,” I said, keeping my voice gentle.

She chanced a look at me as she walked past and sat at the kitchen table, but looked away again as soon as she caught my eye,

“I’m not going to yell at you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” I said, sitting down across from her, to give her a little space.

“You should,” she said in a half mumble.

“Why?”

She didn’t answer at first, just staring at her hands continuing to rub her hands together. I waited, trying to be patient.

“I kissed your friend’s boyfriend when I knew she was looking, so she’d feel bad. Your friends are mad at you because they think you’re choosing me over her.”

“I see word’s getting around,” I said, not sure where she’d heard about the lunch group being mad at me.

It probably meant they were talking to other people about it, which meant they were more pissed at me than I thought. It also meant this was going to be harder than I’d hoped.

“And you think those things are your fault?”

“Of course they are; I did them.”

Tears had started slowly sliding down her cheeks. She was keeping it together, but just barely. When I looked into her eyes, I could see how much pain she was in, which surprised me. I’d expected her to start sobbing any minute, and I couldn’t understand why she was holding it all in.

“Did you, though? Why did you kiss Marcus?”

“Aaron told me I had to.”

“Could you have not done what Aaron told you to do?”

“I tried,” she said, her voice starting to quiver. “I really did. I knew it’d make you mad at me, but he told me twice, and grabbed me, hard. I started feeling sick and the whole room started spinning. I didn’t know what to do. When he told me the third time, I just did it. After Hanna stormed off I ran to the bathroom and threw up.”

I lifted the sleeve of her t-shirt. High up on her arm I could see the beginnings of bruises. You have to grab someone pretty hard to get bruising that roughly looks like fingerprints.

“Do you remember what Doctor Rothstein said to you?”

She gave me a look I recognized from both Mom and Hanna, sniffled, and said, “I’m crazy Charlie, not a child. Yes, I remember what he told me.”

“I know you’re not a child Kat, but it seemed like you’d forgotten, otherwise you wouldn’t be beating yourself up so much. He said he thought your condition came from some kind of trauma or abuse. I don’t know what that is, but doesn’t it make sense that when Aaron hurt you, it triggered your condition more. That’s why you felt sick and you started to get dizzy. You were going into a full panic attack. Aaron may not know the specifics, but he definitely knows about your condition, and he was taking advantage of it. You literally had no choice but to do what he said. He was the one who did it, not you.”

“I could have stopped myself. I wanted to.”

“You couldn’t have, Kat. Without the therapy Doctor Rothstein talked about, you’re vulnerable to people like Aaron.”

“You make me sound helpless, like I can’t take care of myself. Maybe I just listen to him because I know he’ll take care of me.”

She sounded upset, annoyed that I was challenging her which, in and of itself, was a good sign. I couldn’t imagine she’d push back even this little on Aaron. I hoped it was because she trusted me enough to tell me her actual opinions, although I was aware that might have been just narcissism on my part thinking I was different, and able to reach her when others couldn’t.

“I don’t want to sound harsh Kat, but you need to see what’s actually happening when it comes to this, or he’ll go right on taking advantage of you and using you to hurt other people. Think about it. He’s supposed to be dating you, but he has you go and kiss other guys in front of their girlfriends and sleeps with Rhonda. I also know what I saw in the hallway that day. He was going to try and make you sleep with his friends. I’m even betting that isn’t the first time he’s done it.”

She tightened her hands into fists, all but confirming my guess.

“Kat, is this how someone who actually cares about you acts?”

“Yes,” She said, tears sliding down her cheeks faster.

She was on the verge of breaking down, and I couldn’t help but feel guilty. Someone had done a number on this girl. To her, what anyone else would call abuse she saw as love. She was twisted up to the point where she didn’t really know what someone actually caring for her was about.

I hadn’t had a plan when I first told her to come over. I’d hoped I could talk to her and get her to see what happened was because of the people taking advantage of her, and convince her to get some distance from those people. Now it was clear that was never going to work. Without serious therapy, she’d not willingly walk away from her abusers.

Something else Doctor Rothstein said popped into my head. I went still, thinking over it, working through the pitfalls and ramifications. It was a terrible idea, but the more I looked, the less sure I was there was any other option that wasn’t worse.

I’d been silent so long Kat looked up with a worried expression and said, “Did I make you mad?”

“No,” I said, pulling her hands out of her lap and holding them between mine. “I was just trying to make up my mind about something. Let me ask you a question, do you trust me?”

“Yes,” she answered instantly.

“If I told you to do something, would you do it?”

“Yes,” She said, pausing a moment, the mask I’d seen her wear with Aaron starting to fall into place.

“No, it’s not like that,” I said, rubbing the back of her right hand with my thumb. “When I talked to Doctor Rothstein, he warned me I had to be careful. He said you were looking for someone you could give control over to, so you didn’t have to worry about making decisions or having your opinions shot down anymore. He said you were with Aaron, because for now, he filled that role for you, although somewhere deep inside, you knew he wasn’t the right person to take care of you. Does any of this make sense?”

“No,” she said, sounding offended, before slumping. “Yes.”

“Do you know that Aaron is the wrong person to take care of you? That he doesn’t actually have your best interest at heart, only his own, and giving him this much control over you is only making you worse, not better. I know it’s not something you actually think about, but can you do that for me now? Actually think about how he’s treated you and what you really want.”

She was quiet, her eyes moving back and forth as she thought through everything I’d said.

“The doctor asked me something similar, did you know that? He said I wouldn’t actually think about it till I was ready, which would probably require a special therapy, but that once I really looked at it I’d realize I’d given control over myself to someone who didn’t have my best interest at heart.”

“I didn’t know that.”

She was quiet a moment longer, her hands shaking slightly under mine.

Finally, she said, “He doesn’t take care of me. I’m just a thing to him, I think, not even a real person.”

“Do you think I’d take care of you?”

Doctor Rothstein would probably have kittens if he knew what I was about to do, since he’d warned me to be careful about letting this exact thing happen, but I felt I was out of options. Kat was spiraling, she was being used to hurt the people around me, and this was only going to end tragically.

She looked up, her expression softening, fear leaving her expression for the first time since she walked through the door.

“Yes,” she said, barely audible.

“Then from now on, I’ll be the one to take care of you. That means you’ll listen to me when I tell you to do something, and trust that I know that it’s right. I want to make it clear, we aren’t dating. There won’t be anything physical, like with Aaron. I’ll be in charge, but I’m also your friend.”

“Okay,” she mumbled again.

“That also means no one else can be in charge while I am. Anything Aaron or anyone else tells you to do, you don’t have to listen to them unless it’s something you think Iwant you to do. I’m not saying don’t listen to your teachers, or stuff like that. You’re not an idiot and you’re not a child. You know what I mean when I say you don’t have to listen to anyone else.”

“I do.”

“Good. I also want you to know that the first thing I want you to do, is give me your opinions and tell me what you’d like to do, when it comes to making a decision. I am promising you now, that I will never judge you for those opinions and I will never tell you they’re bad. I might not agree and I might tell you to do something different, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t want to hear them. You trust me enough to believe that, right?”

“Yes.”

“Can you do that; share your opinions with me?”

“I can try.”

“Good, that’s all I’m asking for. This will take time for us to both adjust to, but I promise I’ll do my best to keep you from getting hurt. I might make the wrong decisions sometimes, but I will always do it by trying to do what’s right for you.”

“I trust you, Charlie.”

“Okay. Here’s the second thing I want you to do. You are breaking up with Aaron. You don’t have to listen to him anymore. If he gives you trouble, tell me and I’ll take care of it.”

“Okay,” she said, throwing her arms around me and burying her face in my shoulder. “Thank you.”

“I’ve got you Kat. It’s all going to be okay now.”