Belle’s Awakening

I need to back up a step. My best friend’s younger sister, Belle, grew up in a very sheltered household. She was homeschooled, wore floor-length dresses that looked like they were straight out of Little House On The Prairie, and was basically forbidden from doing anything remotely cool or fun during all her teenage years. Josh, Belle, and their three siblings were my neighbors, and our families got along well enough. They didn’t particularly like my influence on their oldest son, my best friend, probably since my parents weren’t nutjobs who thought Disney was Satanic. But I was polite and respectful, and I didn’t do anything too crazy during high school. Still, they weren’t exactly crazy about me. And this fact wasn’t lost on their youngest daughter, Belle. She always went completely silent when I came around. I had no idea what she’d been told about me, but she was simultaneously curious and afraid of me, presumably because I was such a terribly evil person for watching R-rated movies or something.

After I graduated college, I moved into the city. I lived an hour away, but I still drove out to the countryside fairly regularly to visit. Josh and I remained best friends, and we took turns taking the hour-long drive to hang out. Belle and I saw each other from time to time, just for fleeting moments here and there. She became more outgoing and assertive as the years went by, more comfortable with talking to adults. Once or twice when I visited home, when she and I were alone in the kitchen, I swear she was…no, no. I just thought I’d caught a look from her, the slightest glimmer of…flirting? Was she flirting we me? No, of course not. I’m just conceited. I’m a narcissist who’s projecting my own socially unacceptable desires onto her. Besides, even if she did have some kind of crush on me, I couldn’t let my mind go there. She was 16 or 17 now, but to me, she was still just my best friend’s little sister.

It was all harmless enough. Then there was…the incident, the one that really pushed this snowball off the top of the hill.

One weekend when I was back home, I went to pick up Belle from an evening church service as a favor. (She could drive, but she didn’t have a car.) Her brother and I were hanging out at his house, drinking and playing video games. Josh had agreed to pick her up that evening, but he was too wasted by 6pm to drive her back to their parents’ house. As he stumbled and slurred his way down the driveway, I shoved Josh into the backseat of my car.

“I’m good to drive, bro,” he mumbled as I shut the back door behind him.

I drove us to the church, where Belle was sitting on the front steps alone.

“Hi, Belle,” I smiled sheepishly. “Sorry I’m late.”

“Well,” she started, “How can you be late when you’re not the one who agreed to pick me up in the first place?” She glared into the back seat. “He’s late.” She slammed the passenger door. “Ugh! And drunk? Really?”

“Don’t tell mom and dad,” he slurred. She crossed her arms, and I glanced in the rearview mirror and tried not to smile.

She exhaled and glanced my way, seemingly just noticing my presence.

“It’s good to see you,” she said. “How are you doing?”

We made small talk. Somehow, we got on the subject of phone ettiequte and privacy, of all things.

“I’m not allowed to have a passcode on my phone,” she said. “And pretty much half the internet is restricted on my wifi at home.”

I said nothing, not wanting to badmouth her helicopter parents.

“But…I can guess any passcode.” She said, kicking her feet back.

I looked at her, unsure if she was kidding. “Wow, that’s crazy,” I finally said.

“No, I’m serious,” she replied. “I swear, I’m like, psychic or something. I — don’t tell my parents I said ‘psychic’ — I really can guess it. It’s weird.” She smiled and raised her eyebrows, challenging me.

“There’s just no way that’s true,” I laughed.

“I’ll guess yours,” she said confidently.

I scoffed. “Give it your best shot,” I said, tossing her my iPhone, looking suspiciously out of the corner of my eye.

Click click click click.

“Got it.”

“What?”

She flashed the screen towards me. “I got it. First try. Told you.”

I stared at my home screen, dumbfounded.

“How did you…?”

“Psychic,” she said with a devilish grin.

I swear I almost drove off the road. That was a new passcode, too! I hardly noticed when she started clicking around, opening my camera roll and internet browser. Suddenly, her face changed.

She screamed.

I turned my head just in time to catch a glimpse of my screen before she clicked it off. Fuck. It was porn.

She’d put a hand over her mouth, pale as a ghost.

“Oh...um…” I didn’t know what to say. She put my phone back on the center console, looking forward.

I hadn’t gotten a good look at what she saw, but I had all sorts of stuff on my phone that could scandalize her. Fuck, what did she see?

When we finally pulled up to her parent’s house, she got out of the car without a word and fled up the porch steps.

I didn’t wait around. I wanted to get home and see what she’d seen.

“Wha…we there?” Josh mumbled from the back, eyes closed.

“Shut up, Josh,” I hissed, reversing out of the driveway.

“What did I do?” He protested.

I nearly peeled out on the street, speeding back to his house so I could assess the damage.