Jill Peters (CNF/ENF route)

“You can’t be serious!” Screamed my mom.

“Honey, we both admire your selflessness but this is serious. You can’t do this to yourself.” Said my dad much more calmly.

This conversation was uncomfortable but I couldn’t just do this without telling them.

“Again, I’m just warning you unless I can’t get Mrs. Norman to change her mind. It might not happen.”

Mrs. Norman was such a hard ass I knew it was unlikely, but I thought positing it as a possibility instead of reality might help them cope.

“And if she doesn’t listen, you’re going to go through with this?”

I had a friend in need. That’s my first priority.

“Yes.”

“Have you really thought this through?” Asked my dad.

I answered his question with a question I hoped might help him understand.

“Dad, what is your motto you told me since I was old enough to understand them?”

He looked down nervously.

“What’s your mantra, dad?”

Reluctantly he said the words “never miss an opportunity to be someone’s hero.”

Lydia needed me. I couldn’t let her go through this alone.

“So what is this other than an opportunity to be someone’s hero?”

My dad clearly was thinking before speaking unlike my mom who had no such hesitation.

“Think about your future! This is going to have permanent consequences. There will be pictures! They will end up on the internet and will follow you for the rest of your life!”

I knew all that. I didn’t care. Or rather I didn’t care as much as I knew that Lydia was stuck with that fate and I wasn’t going to let her do it alone.

“Lydia’s going to have to deal with that. She’s feeling so alone right now and she needs me.”

My father put his hand on my mom’s arm as she got ready to scream some more.

“Does Lydia realize what she’s asking of you?”

“She didn’t ask, suggest, or even hint at it. This is all my idea. I can deal with the consequences. I can’t deal with not doing everything I can to help a friend.”

My mom was filled with rage and decided to throw some accusations around.

“Are you a lesbian?! Is this some sort of gay thing? Is she your girlfriend?!”

I calmly stated the facts as they were.

“I am not gay and you already know why Lydia’s in trouble so you can probably tell she isn’t either.”

“She shouldn’t have been blowing that guy! She’s getting a punishment she deserves!”

I gave my mom a defiant glare.

“So you’d do that to me if I was in her shoes?”

She was angry but not angry enough to lie.

“No, of course not...”

“Then you realize how extreme this is and that she might have to go through something she shouldn’t have to go through. I’m not going to let her do this on her own. She needs someone to look out for her and I’m going to be that person to her.”

“Can’t you just support her by being there for her through this whole process? Does it really require this level of commitment?” Asked my father calmly.

“She’s going to feel like a second class citizen. She’d see me as another clothed person and she’s going to shut down and close off and sink into a sadness she might never come out of. She needs someone she can trust and how better can I demonstrate that trust than by going through this whole process with her?”

My mother threw her hands up in frustration.

“You deal with her. This is a monster of your own making.”

My mother left the room and it was just my dad and I. We sat in silence. My dad always chose his words carefully and despite his apprehension to the whole idea I can tell that some part of him, maybe deep inside in a place he didn’t want to acknowledge right now, he knew I might be doing the right thing.

“Honey, when I taught you those words, it was because my siblings grew up selfish. They’ve never thought about anyone other than themselves. I wanted to make sure you didn’t turn out that way, I didn’t think you’d make it your life’s mission.”

I didn’t want my dad to have any regrets in how he’d raised me. He’d done a a damn good job as far as I was concerned.

“I’m sorry you feel that way because that’s the greatest lesson you ever taught me. She needs me and I would like to think you guys will stand behind me. I’ll go it alone if I have to. I have enough saved up to rent for the last few months of school.”

My dad, perhaps for the first time, was realizing I was serious and I wasn’t going to be talked out of it. He stood up from the kitchen table and went over to the living room. He opened an old chest and dug through it for a minute before pulling out an old photo album. He blew dust off of it and then brought it to the table. He flipped through it and smiled a little when he found the right page and slid it over to me.

“Do you know who these people are?”

I looked down at the photo and they were a bunch of teens my age, mostly men but a few girls. I saw in the center right of the group my dad at my age.

“You and your high school friends?”

He nodded.

“Yes, we called ourselves ‘The Pack’. We thought we were gonna be friends forever. There were 12 of us. We did everything together: partied, fished, cheat off each other’s homework, shot pool, and more than a few times we got in fights most of us had no business being in because someone in the group crossed someone the wrong way and we always had each other’s back.”

I smiled as I thought my dad understood where I was coming from finally, then I realized he thought he had a point to make so this was obviously leading to something.

“Ask me how many of these people I see on a regular basis or have even talked to anywhere besides the supermarket in the last 15 years.”

I already knew the answer based on the way he phrased it. So he answered for me when I didn’t say anything.

“Not one. Not a single one. And that’s okay, I made a pretty great life for myself with you and your mother.”

“What’s your point?” I asked.

“That you’re about to lay everything on the line for someone you’re likely to part ways with at some point and you’ll still be stuck dealing with the consequences.”

I understood what he meant but that didn’t change my mind.

“Dad, it’s not about whether she’s going to pay me back or even be my friend. She needs this. Even if we never speak again, I’ll know I did the right thing and that’s all that matters.”

My dad smiled and then tried to hide it. He wasn’t through trying though.

“You’ve been smarter than me since you were about five years old. A better person too. I just worry about all those people you might’ve been able to help, with those brains and that big heart, that you might not be able to because a company may not hire a girl who’s got naked pictures all over the internet.”

I wish I could put his mind at ease but his concerns were valid. Obviously I didn’t want my naked pictures all over the internet but Lydia was going to deal with that too and she didn’t have a choice, so as far as I was concerned neither did I.

“I’ll deal with that when the time comes. This is happening now and this is how I want to handle it.”

My dad sat there a while longer and then apparently had a new strategy in mind.

“You realize if you do this, you can back out at any time and despite these noble intentions, you just might. How’s Lydia going to feel if you do this for a a day or even just a minute and change your mind? Isn’t that going to be worse than having not done it at all?”

I hadn’t thought of that, but my resolve had not changed.

“I’m not going to back out. You can hold me to that. Take my clothes, lock them in the attic. I want to- no, I need to do this. She needs me.”

My dad pondered a moment longer.

“So it’s your intention to do this full time? You’re not going to get dressed as soon as you get home?”

I hadn’t thought of that either but it didn’t change anything.

“Lydia can’t, so I won’t either. Until she can dress neither will I.”

My dad sat there in sad resignation for a moment.

“You’re going to deal with experiences no one should ever have to. Not just how they look at you, they’re going to mock you, they’re going to try to do things…”

I realized that doing this was going to open up my father to a bunch of fears that he likely already had to deal with raising a daughter but now in a much worse way. Lydia was going to have to deal with that too and if I could redirect some of the attention she was going to get she might have an easier time dealing with what remained.

“They try anything I’ll put a boot- I mean a foot in their ass. I’m my father’s daughter and I know how to deal with a bully.”

We sat there quietly for a long time. I don’t know how long but I think we both had this idea that the first person to speak was going to lose. Finally, I spoke anyway.

“Dad, should I be looking for some place to stay? I have money from babysitting.”

His eyes watered. I’d never seen my dad cry before even when he lost his mama. He recovered quickly though and no tears actually dropped.

“No one’s going to hire a naked babysitter, you know that, right?”

I knew that but I had enough to support me through the summer at least.

“I know, dad. Do I need to find a place to stay?”

He paused again and then sighed.

“It’s liable to get me divorced, but I can’t have you staying anywhere else. This is your home. that said, don’t be surprised if we don’t want to do family dinners with our naked daughter or even want you anywhere else besides your room because this is going to be awkward and uncomfortable. I may never say this again until this is over because it’s going to be tough on all of us, but I’m proud of the woman you’ve become. I just hope Lydia appreciates this and understands what you’re doing for her.”

He got up and went to go talk to my mom. I wasn’t going to wait for the screaming to begin so I decided to go see Lydia and let her know she wasn’t doing this alone if I couldn’t convince her mom not to go through with this.