His smile falters a little, as if he expects me to be excited about bonding with his family when I’ve just lost mine. I’m not ready. “Sure, um—we’ll see you at dinner, then.”
I lie down on top of the bedspread and rest my head on one of the pillows. The white pillowcase is cool against my cheek and smells faintly of bleach. I feel bad for crying on Phoebe’s clean laundry, but I can’t stop the tears. I cry until my whole body hurts and then cry until I fall asleep.
The door clicks softly as he comes into my room. I pinch my eyes shut so tight I can feel my lashes against the tops of my cheeks and hope that if he thinks I’m asleep, he’ll go away. The edge of the bed sags and the mattress conspires with him, shifting me in his direction. He lifts my Hello Kitty nightgown, his fingers seeking secret places. His breath is tangy from whatever he and Mom were drinking in the kitchen as he whispers, “Doesn’t that feel nice?” My own fingers have curiously touched those places and it made me feel tingly, but his fingers are thick and rough-skinned. It doesn’t feel nice, but I don’t say anything. I hold my breath, taking tiny sips of air, and try not to cry. Because if I cry, he’ll cuddle me against him, the tiny hairs under his lip prickling my skin as he kisses my damp cheek, and tell me I’m his special girl. As if someone other than him has made me cry. This time I wait until he’s gone before I curl up into my smallest self and sob.
I wake, slick with sweat and tears, wondering where I am. There’s no sticky vinyl couch beneath me, no incessant tick-tick-tick of the broken clock, and the dust swirling in the fading light coming through the window beside me is not my dust. Not my window.
“Mom?” My voice cracks.
She doesn’t answer. Of course she doesn’t answer. I’m alone.
Greg said there is no hot water, but I take a cold shower anyway, trying to scrub off the phantom feel of Frank’s fingers. He was one of Mom’s boyfriends, the one we lived with for almost a year in Oregon. The one who said our special time together needed to be a secret because she would be jealous. She would hate me, he said. The terror of losing her love made the promise for me. And even though I was eight—old enough to understand that special shouldn’t feel bad—I let him keep putting his hands on me. Even now I can feel them. And no amount of scrubbing can wash away the shame.
When I finish my shower, I put my clothes back on and cross the small lawn. The sun is fading and light shines out through the windows, making the house appear warm and safe. My nightmare recedes as I let myself in through the back door. The kitchen is fragrant with meat and spices I can’t identify. Mom isn’t big on cooking, and my skills haven’t evolved much beyond macaroni and cheese from a box. Sometimes I’ll add a can of tuna and she calls it gourmet.
Tucker and Joe are building with LEGO bricks on the living-room floor, while Greg’s laptop is propped open on the coffee table. Curled in the corner of the couch, Phoebe watches the evening news.
I’m not sure what to do. Should I go join them? Announce myself? Make a noise?
Before I have the chance to decide, Greg looks up from his computer screen, his smile as wide as I think a smile can be. “Hey, Callie. Hungry?”
The nightmare has left my stomach queasy. “A little.”
“Phoebe made pastitsio,” he says. “Have you tried it?”
“I don’t think so.”
“It resembles lasagna, but it’s far superior because it’s Greek.”
Phoebe shakes her head, but a smile tugs at her lips. “Not this again.”
“What?” Greg pivots to look at her. “It’s true. Not only is Greece the birthplace of philosophy and political science and—”
“Democracy,” I offer.
“Exactly.” He points at me. “See? Callie understands.”
Phoebe laughs, then turns her smile toward me. “You shouldn’t encourage him.”
Greg winks as he unfolds himself from the floor. “Anyway, pastitsio”—he picks up Joe, who squawks at being parted from his LEGOs, and plops him in a high chair beside the dining-room table—“you’re going to love it.”
I take the empty seat beside Joe as Phoebe brings a steaming casserole dish from the kitchen. It’s been so long since I’ve eaten something that hasn’t come from a can, box, or drive-up window.
“So, I have a friend,” Greg says, as I scoop a small portion of pastitsio onto my plate. “He’s one of the guidance counselors at the high school, and he says that in order for you to attend, you’ll have to take some proficiency tests to determine your grade level.”
When I was about nine or ten, I was obsessed with school. I sought out books in which the characters attended school, I practiced cursive writing, I memorized the planets, and when Mom was at work, I’d spend hours playing school with imaginary students. I saw girls my age at the library and I would hover close, listening to the way they talked and wishing they were my friends. One girl, who had the palest eyelashes I’d ever seen and carried a sparkling unicorn notebook, called me “freak” for standing too close to her. Freak. Like she could see right inside me and knew about Frank. After that, I stopped wanting to go to school, because if the girl at the library could see my secret, everyone else would see it, too.
“I think you’ll enjoy Tarpon Springs High,” Greg continues. “I’m biased because I went there, but it’s a good school. Plus, it’s an easy way to make some friends and get involved in activities. Sports or music or whatever.”
I’ve gotten over wanting to be someone’s best friend, and I’ve managed to survive eleven years on a kindergarten education. I don’t want to go, but his face radiates such hope I can’t say it. I take a bite of food so I don’t have to answer.
He grins. “Good stuff, huh?”
I nod, because it’s every bit as delicious as he claimed, but swallowing it is all but impossible with a knot in my throat.
I can’t do this.
I can’t sit here and pretend I’m a normal girl when my whole life has been so fucked up. Greg and Phoebe haven’t slept in the backseat of their car, or eaten all their meals from a vending machine because their mothers forgot to buy groceries. And the only monsters Tucker and Joe will ever have to contend with are the imaginary kind that are banished in the light. These people are so clean, and I feel so—
—tainted.
The need to flee overtakes me. I push away from the table and beat a retreat through the kitchen, out to the trailer, where I dive beneath the comforter and hug Toot close to my chest. The owl smells dusty, as if it’s been waiting for me all this time. It’s comforting and heartbreaking at the same time.
“Callie?” Greg says my name softly through the screen but doesn’t come in. “You okay?”
I don’t answer, hoping he’ll go away.
“I’ve been warning myself that the real Callie might not be the same as the one I’ve been imagining all these years,” he says. “But that didn’t stop me from assuming you’d be excited about high school. Or that you’d automatically love Greek food. Or that you’d even want to be here. Anyway … I’m sorry.”
I wait a long time—well after I hear the back door slap shut—before I get out of bed and slip on my sneakers. My unpacked suitcase is sitting beside the door, my guitar still in its case. I think about taking them and leaving, but the little bit of money I have will get me exactly nowhere.