The Only Thing Worse than not Knowing is You Thinking that I Don't Know

Ava didn't like people behind her. I always guessed it had something to do with her aunt's husband, but she never said for sure.

She didn't like to talk about it and I didn't blame her.

When we were kids, she told me little secrets almost as though they were a joke. She'd say things about how he'd make her take her clothes off in his bedroom even though she didn't want to. Then he'd try to tickle her where he shouldn't have, but she didn't think it was funny.

Back then I was too young to imagine exactly why he would do those things. There wasn't anything particularly appealing about her pale skin and I never found myself wondering if her thighs were as soft as her hands. But apparently he did.

We both knew it was wrong yet neither of us ever said anything to our parents, because she was scared.

He always said that if she told anyone her parents wouldn't love her anymore. And I knew she needed someone to trust more than anything, so I didn't tell either.

Even when she was a kid Ava knew she couldn't love herself. The thought that her parents, the people that were supposed to always support and protect her, would be capable of forgetting their love for her was petrifying.

She started losing sleep over the idea that someday, if she told about all the things that her aunt's husband made her do, her parents wouldn't want her anymore.

That's why she only told me her secrets. She knew that I'd never stop loving her. No matter what.

It must have been a relief to have someone to confide in. The things she told me were grossly twisted, even to a seven-year-old who didn't fully understand them.

She'd tell me how he wouldn't take his clothes off. Only she would. And when he couldn't make her laugh, he'd put his hand down his own pants.

The way he looked at her with obnoxiously round eyes that seemed to pop out of his skull made her uncomfortable, but if she complained he'd take a belt to her. So she'd lay quietly, waiting for him to finish.

When he'd start crying he'd let her get dress and leave.

And neither of us understood, but she didn't want to talk about it and I didn't want to know more than I had to.

It was such a strange bond when she told me about all the times she went in his bedroom. The things she noticed seemed so petty to me.

He had baby blue sheets on his bed and there were seventeen diamonds on the wallpaper above the door. The doorknob had one thin line of white paint on the outer rim. There were three screws in the light fixture above the bed. He smelled like sweat and his hands were small and cold.

The house smelled like dog piss. That's not what she said, but it's what she meant. Dog piss from all the dumb mutts and their fleas.

And she hated it there so much. She hated when her parents would drop her off to play with her cousins, because that was never what happened. She only got to play with her aunt's husband.

Whenever she'd leave the bedroom he'd always tell her not to say anything. He said people wouldn't understand the relationship they had. That's why he cried, supposedly.

A part of me hoped, even pretended, he wasn't crying because people didn't understand, but because he understood it was wrong to make a little girl do such terrible things. She was so young. It was unfair.

I wondered if she ever cried. Of course she wouldn't share that part; it would make her sound weak and helpless.

But I wondered if she ever cried as she counted the screws in the light fixture or the diamonds in the wallpaper above the door. Did those gray eyes ever gleam with tears? Did she ever sob to him and beg him to stop?

Or did she stay as cold as she was when she told me what happened?

Ava was anything but weak. She was the strongest girl I'd ever known.

After we'd grown up and started understanding what happened between her and her aunt's husband I started having overwhelming regrets.

More often than not the thought crossed my mind that if I'd only spoken up and told my parents that she was being molested I could have saved her. I could have kept her family from breaking up.

I could have made her the victim she truly was

She would have been able to sleep at nights. She wouldn't have had to worry about whether or not her parents actually loved her. She would have been safe.

But I never did. I never said a goddamn word about what I'd heard. And she never told anyone that I'd known what was happening, because they wouldn't understand.

They wouldn't understand that I didn't tell, because I knew she needed someone to trust more than she needed help. They would think that I let little Ava be turned into his little doll willingly.

That wasn't it. That was never it. Luckily, she understood that. She knew I didn't keep her secrets to hurt her. I loved her so much.

She always admired the way I never said anything to anyone. To her it meant more than trying to fix her problems.

To her it meant I loved her and I'd never stop.

Their trips to his bedroom lasted for a few years before a night in the hospital forced him to move out of the state.

And Ava never came clean about why there had been enough blood on the seat of her pants to land her in the emergency room. She simply lied when the nurses continually asked what happened. Apparently she asked for her parents all night, already knowing that nothing would ever be the same again.

And she cried. She cried a lot, then.

I knew she cried. I was there. I remembered the way her gray eyes were always filled with tears. For a few days after she was allowed to go home, she had to lay in her bedroom and she constantly hid her face behind her blanket and wiped her running nose on her sheets.

Her blonde waves were matted together from her tossing and turning restlessly every night. She never really slept again, but no one really knew why.

She didn't tell people about the things they did in the bedroom all those years. She simply refused to talk about him and ignored any conversation mentioning his name.

And she wouldn't lay on her stomach anymore. She said it was just bad memory she couldn't remember.

In reality it was the fact that she remembered all too well that bothered her.

For years she never told me what happened the night she had to go to the hospital. She never said what he did and we didn't talk about what he used to do anymore.

She started wearing hair bands on her wrist to replace the bracelets they'd given her at the hospital. Constantly she'd slap them against her wrist. Slap. Slap.

Slap.

After that she hated having people behind her. She'd sit in the back corner of every class and keep her chair to the wall at every restaurant. In the movie theater she sat on make-out row and never touched the person she was with. Everywhere she went she'd check over her shoulder.

So it surprised me to find out that she loved being kissed on the back of the neck. I learned the night at the creek that laying my lips on the tender skin at the base of her skull would elicit the most euphoric noises from her mouth.

At first I thought it was strange, but I quickly grew to understand. She'd only known pain and to find such intense pleasure with a simple kiss made her happy.

Every chance I got, I'd sweep the blonde waves off her back and throw them over her broad shoulders. Despite the distance between our bodies, I could always feel the shiver run down her spine like a bolt of lightning.

The space between us became an electric field and a phantom shock would run through my lips when I placed them so carefully on her neck.

She'd moan and her skin would flush when my breath swept over it.

Sometimes I'd hear a heartbeat and I was never sure whether it was mine or hers. But that didn't matter.

We were both livewires.

That was the ultimate testament of trust for Ava.

Nobody was allowed to be behind her except for me.

Because I didn't try to save her when we were kids.