A Harmless Little Game (Harmless #1)

 

6. I am to be tightly controlled for the next two years, until he’s elected.

 

 

 

Two years.

 

Anya’s sharp intake of breath at that announcement morphs into a fake yawn, the movement so smooth you wouldn’t know she’s doing it on purpose if you hadn’t been coached to do the same. Mom hires a slew of public speaking professionals every year, though fewer as the years have passed. When Daddy decided to run for the U.S. House of Representatives when I was eight, my after-school fun wasn’t Brownies or soccer or swimming lessons.

 

It was etiquette tutoring.

 

Years of devoting themselves to this passionate desire to serve the public in national office has given me an appreciation for positioning. How people say one thing but mean another. The subtle ways you can make a point without being able to be confronted about it.

 

Passive-aggressive? Not quite. More like covert aggression, a stealth version of communication that is designed to be understood only by certain parties, and that is never, ever openly discussed.

 

I never did learn how to build a good campfire or drop kick from the goal, but I can suppress a laugh or an itch, and curtsy in nine different ways to meet cultural norms.

 

None of this was my fault! I want to shout, imagining the scenario in my beleaguered mind. Shouldn’t someone say it? Why isn’t anyone saying it? Not Mom. Not Daddy. Not Anya or Drew and certainly not Silas, Marshall, or the two women whose names I can’t remember in the haze.

 

We’re so focused on controlling what happened to me four years ago that we’re leaving out the most important part:

 

I didn’t do anything wrong.

 

I realize, as the room feels like we’re moving in slow motion, as if we’re all actors in a role-playing video game featuring political intrigue and sexual sadism and assault, that if I don’t say this—if I don’t at least say aloud this simple, obvious fact right now—then I’m complicit.

 

I am complicit in my own reputation destruction. By saying nothing, I imply that this is all true. That I invited those beasts to do unspeakable damage to me. That I wanted it. That it aroused me.

 

That my turncoat friends were right.

 

I didn’t do anything wrong.

 

Slowly, like I’m living inside someone else’s body, I stand and face the team of experts and relatives at the table who are assembled here to pick up the charred remains of my scandalous life, a burden they are dealing with. An obstacle to Daddy’s and Mom’s path to the White House.

 

There was a time when I thought I’d be better off dead. Stacia convinced me I was wrong. Buried beneath so many layers of pain, a piece of my pure self knew I was wrong, too. Right now, though, as all these faces stare at me like a crazy moon, full and bright, a little pinched and apprehensive about what I was about to say, I wish the world would swallow me whole.

 

The difference between wishing you were dead and wishing you weren’t here isn’t that drastic, but it is a difference. Still.

 

Drew gives me a look that says he knows what I’m about to say. I swear, it’s like we can read each other’s minds. Silas cocks one eyebrow, while the faces of the team designed to manage my failings remain impassive.

 

Except for Mom. She can’t help herself. Impatience oozes out of her like post-plastic surgery drainage.

 

“I didn’t,” I croak out, my throat closing on the words. I clear my throat, my pulse between my legs, like all the blood has retreated to the place in my body where the assault happened. Like it’s rallying for me, traveling where it once was needed most, to repair and recover.

 

Or maybe I just feel that vulnerable. Exposed. Shameful.

 

“I didn’t,” I try again, “do this.”

 

All the eyes slowly, discreetly, roll down. Pens become fascinating objects to scrutinize, like ancient artifacts found at a dig.

 

“I didn’t do this,” I say again, stronger. Drew’s eyelids shut and open slowly, like an owl, giving me support. His slight nod, chin to chest, says, You got this.

 

No. I don’t.

 

But I’m trying.

 

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I finally expel, my voice like glass being swept up with a whisk broom, dumped into a garbage can, the delicate vase mourned but soon forgotten.

 

“No, of course not,” Daddy says, his dulcet tones so programmed. “We know—”

 

“I didn’t do what Tara and those other bitches are saying. I never asked those guys to do that to me. I never asked for it. I never asked for it. I never asked for it.”

 

The chant begins and I can’t stop, thrusting my fists against the top of my thighs, the words on autopilot, as if saying them over and over will unravel the past four years and I can reclaim time.

 

This behavior alarms everyone. Everyone except Drew. I can see why they’re freaked out, Mom giving Daddy a grim look as if to say, I told you so.