Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 119680 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 598(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119680 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 598(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
I’m suddenly so, so angry. Angry at her for never standing up to him. For putting me in impossible positions. For making me her unwitting shield.
It’s not her fault, I remind myself. She can’t help the way she is.
But that doesn’t make it suck any less. And it doesn’t stop me from wishing my life were different, that my parents weren’t the way they are.
“Better not get yourself pregnant or you’ll be on your own.” There’s a slur in my father’s voice, a tremor that indicates his anger is simmering, ready to boil to the surface. He can’t hold it in for long. His impulse control is abysmal. Frustration mounts as my mother brings the cigarette to her lips, hands shaking, eyes anywhere but on me.
“I wouldn’t do something that stupid.” I never want to be like my parents. Even though the words are true, I hate them as soon as I say them.
My dad’s lip curls with derision. “Hear that, Lucy? Your own daughter called you stupid. Guess it must be true.”
I close my eyes and exhale through my nose, trying to find some calm, to not stoop to his level. “Can you just fucking stop? She didn’t do anything wrong. And the last time I checked, it takes two people to make a baby. You’re the one with the goddamn sperm.”
My mother gives me a warning look.
Dad’s chair scrapes across the floor as he pushes to stand. He sways, unsteady on his feet, and moves across the room, stopping in front of me. We’re almost the same height. And weight. He’s lanky, with Gumby arms, malnourished with a slight potbelly from all the beer. I’m cut, from all the hockey he doesn’t want me to play.
“You think you’re so fucking smart, don’t you?” he sneers.
“Not smart enough, obviously, since I’m still dealing with your nonsense on a regular basis.” I’m done with this shit. So tired of the verbal abuse, of walking on eggshells because my mother refuses to grow a spine and leave his useless ass.
“I put a roof over your head and this is the thanks I get? You’re an ungrateful little cunt!”
I bark out a laugh, fighting the sting of his caustic words. “You’re giving yourself an awful lot of credit. I’ve worked a part-time job since I was fourteen, and most of it has gone to support you and your shitty, money-leaching habits.”
His right eye twitches. “Well, that’s a fucking lie, isn’t it?”
“That you have shitty habits? That’s a goddamn fact.”
“Where were you supposed to be tonight?” He glances from me to my mother, who shrinks in on herself, a wilted flower.
“The laundromat and the library.”
“And were you?”
“You already know the answer to that.”
“Give me your phone.” He holds out his hand.
“No. I pay my phone bill, not you.”
“You live under my roof! Give me your fucking phone, girl. I wanna see the messages you sent your mother.” He spins around and stalks over to Mom, grabs the back of her chair and gets in real close. “You’re a fucking liar! Telling me one thing and doing another. Hiding shit from me. You’re both hiding shit from me!” She cowers and puts her hands over her ears, folds in on herself.
I hate this so much. I hate that for years when our neighbors have called the cops, she always says everything is fine, that Dad just had a bad day at work. That it was her fault.
“Hey, fucker!” I snap my fingers and take a step toward him. “You wanna get pissed at someone, get pissed at me. I lied to both of you. I told Mom I was at the library, but I was playing hockey. It’s where I’ve been every single night this week. You wanna verify that shit, you can ask one of my coaches.”
“Tell her,” he shouts at Mom. “Tell her what you told me.”
Mom doesn’t look up, just stares at her hands folded in her lap. “Your coach came to the diner today.”
Well, shit. That’s a complication I didn’t anticipate.
My father’s eyes gleam with hatred. He pulls a rolled-up wad of paper from his back pocket, tears it in two, and slams the pieces on the table, upsetting the ashtray and rolling cigarette butts into Mom’s lap and then the floor. “You really think you’re smarter than both of us, huh? Going behind my back, applying to college.”
Dread turns my stomach. If he has my acceptance letter, he’s been in my bedroom. Hopefully that’s all he found.
“When’d you really tell your mother? How long has this been going on?” He grabs her arm and shakes her. “I know you’re covering for her. I fucking know it!”
I shove the chair aside, and it clatters to the floor as I stalk over to him, rage leaching out of me in poisonous rivers. “Don’t you fucking touch her.”