by Amity Hope
“Cleo! Get your ass out here!” Paul shouted a second before the smoke detector went off.
She jumped off of Luci’s bed and darted into the kitchen. She could hear Luci’s footsteps right behind her. The room was clogged with smoke and the acrid smell of burned hamburger permeated the air. Paul scowled at her. Instead of sliding the pan to a cool burner he tossed the hot frying pan into the sink. Grease and charred burger bits flew into the air, cascading back down in a messy arc across the countertop and floor. Some grease splattered the wall and the window above the sink.
“I’m not eating that crap,” Paul informed her, shouting to be heard over the beeping. Or most likely, Cleo knew, he’d probably be shouting regardless. He started toward the door that led out of the kitchen to the entry way. She and Luci ducked out of his path.
“Sorry, I was helping Luci,” she called by way of an explanation. The front door slammed in response. She had gone in to see if Luci needed help with her math. She’d gotten sidetracked with her story about her new friends.
She grabbed the kitchen towel off the handle of the fridge. She waved it in front of the alarm, trying to clear the air. It stopped after a few seconds.
“Eww, that stinks,” Luci said as she crinkled up her freckled nose. She wiggled the kitchen window open.
“I know,” Cleo sighed.
Paul was her step-dad, Luci’s real dad. She’d never met her father. She wasn’t even all that sure that her mom had known who her father was. And now she was gone and Cleo had lost any chance of ever finding out.
Paul married her mom when she was seven. After her mom died the spring of her sophomore year, she wasn’t sure what was going to happen to her. Paul had never really been a father figure to her. He was barely a father figure to Luci. She hadn’t known if he was going to kick her out. Turn her over to Social Services or what he was going to do. She’d been too afraid to ask. So she’d spent weeks, then months just wondering and waiting and expecting the worst.
So far, he still hadn’t done anything.
Her assumption was that he needed to have her around. Cleo was sure he found her to be more of a convenience than a nuisance. She was his built in babysitter for Luci, his personal shopper and chef. Albeit “chef”, in her mind, was used loosely as her culinary abilities were far from exemplary. More like questionable, as the burned hamburger attested.
“Now what?” Luci asked as she propped her scrawny elbows on the countertop. “Are we going to eat that?” Her eyes crept toward the sink and the charred chunks in the pan. Her nose scrunched in derision.
“No. I’ll just start over,” Cleo stated with a sigh. “And you, Sweet Pea, can set the table. When you’re done, get started on your homework until dinner’s ready. I’ll help you afterwards if you get stuck. But I want you to at least try to do as much as you can on your own.”
Luci sighed. Most likely over the injustice of being asked to work on her assignment alone. “Should I set two places or three?” she asked as she went to the cupboard.
“It’s probably just going to be the two of us,” Cleo told her as she sidestepped some burger bits that had landed on the floor. She doubted Paul was coming back.
Luci busied herself with her duties as Cleo went about her own. The water was already boiling, waiting for spaghetti noodles to be dropped in. She turned it down as she started the hamburger over again.
While it was browning she cleaned up the hardening grease splatters and meat chunks. It was an unnecessary mess, but that was Paul for you.
Her home life was far from ideal. But she constantly told herself it could be worse. Paul drank. A lot. There had been a few times over the years when he’d lost his temper. She’d ended up with a fist to the stomach or a blinding slap to the face. But not often. And he’d never touched Luci. She wouldn’t have tolerated that.
Instead, he was an obnoxious, whiney, ‘poor-me’ drunk. The kind that felt like he was entitled to more than he had just…because. They didn’t get along and she tried to stay out of his way. For the most part, they managed to coexist.
Although, the past summer had been rocky for them. Cleo had found herself antagonizing him, which wasn’t hard to do. While she had never liked Paul, she’d come to hate him in the past half year.
Her mom had had her faults, lots of them. But she was still her mother. Luci was the only connection Cleo had to her. Luci was her only family. Losing their mom had been hard on both of them. Cleo counted on Luci as much Luci counted on her. She would do whatever she had to do to be sure that she and Luci could stay together. If that meant she had to deal with Paul—right or wrong—she would deal with Paul. And his temper.
He kept a roof over their heads. It was a smallish house, just a rental. It was decent enough. But it was nothing fancy—or even inviting. It was simply livable with its stark white walls, gray carpeting and white and silver flecked linoleum. She would’ve liked to have been able to at least paint their bedrooms but the landlord wouldn’t allow it.
Sometimes Paul grudgingly gave Luci a bit of spending money when she begged him for it. He paid for her school lunches. Usually. He gave Cleo fifty bucks a week to put toward groceries for the three of them. It didn’t go far. She had to buy the rest. She usually packed her lunch for school. Anything else she needed, she bought herself. She never asked Paul for a dime. He wouldn’t have given it to her even if she had. So she saved herself the humiliation of asking. Some weeks it was hard enough to get grocery money from him. She’d learned early to get it first thing Friday afternoon; payday. If she could catch him before he headed out to the bar.
If only Paul spent as much on groceries as he did on cigarettes and alcohol, Cleo knew they’d be all set.
She finished making the spaghetti. Since Paul had left and wouldn’t be around to grumble, she only used half of the hamburger she’d browned. She put the rest in the fridge for another meal. Noodles were far cheaper so she and Luci filled up on them with sauce, light on the meat.
“So tell me more about these girls,” Cleo said as they sat down to dinner. “Tell me again how you met them?”
Luci reached for a second piece of garlic bread. Cleo swatted her hand away. “Not until you eat your green beans.”
“I hate green beans,” Luci moaned.
“Yeah, me too,” Cleo agreed with an encouraging smile. Emma’s mom, Patty Donovan, had given them to her, fresh out of the garden. She hadn’t wanted to be rude by not taking them, or letting them go to waste. She was pretty sure Mrs. Donavon knew this. It was just another one of the dozens of ways she tried to help watch over Luci and Cleo. “But since you hate all vegetables I thought, why not green beans for tonight?”
Luci pouted as she took a tentative bite.
“So, these girls?” Cleo pressed.
“We met during lunch,” Luci said around a bite of noodles. She’d already abandoned the green beans.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full, Sweet Pea, it’s rude. And pretty gross,” Cleo admonished.
Luci rolled her eyes as she made a point of swallowing.
“I don’t have lunch with Jill or Bridget,” she began in a voice that fully implied how unfair this was. Cleo immediately empathized because again, she understood the trauma lunchtime could bring. “And I didn’t know where I was going to sit. So I was just standing there feeling stupid and Micah Carter…he’s so cute…he was like whoah!” Luci opened her eyes wide to emulate him. “And I didn’t know what he was talking about. Then he pointed behind me and Addison and Marissa were there. He was like…‘You guys all look alike! I must be seeing triple’! So that’s how it started. They laughed and we found a table. Then I had a class with Marissa after lunch.”
“You really look that much alike?” Cleo wondered. She tried to keep the skepticism out of her tone.
“Well, yes,” Luci decided. “I mean, we all have long blond hair and blue eyes. Well, we are different because of our bangs. And they don’t have freckles,” she admitted with a bit of disappointment
. “But mostly we’re the same height. Okay, maybe I’m a little bit shorter. But when we were walking down the hallway at the end of the day, everyone stared,” she admitted with a giggle.
Cleo had to wonder if it was the twins alone—not only twins but new girls in school—that were really the center of attention. But no way was she about to burst Luci’s little bubble of happiness by pointing that out to her.
“Who do you have lunch with?” Luci wanted to know.
“I got lucky. I’ve got lunch with Emma again this year. And Melanie,” she added as an afterthought.
Luci looked pleased for her sister.
“Do you have Jill and Bridget in any of your other classes?” Cleo asked. They were her two best friends from early on in elementary school.
Jill’s mom, Teri Abernathy, had known their mom. She hadn’t known her well. Just in passing because of birthday parties and sleepovers both girls attended. The Abernathys were great about inviting Luci over now. Or if Cleo ever needed somewhere for her to go, Teri had told her the offer to take Luci overnight was always open. She’d only taken her up on it a few times. She didn’t want to take advantage of the situation. And they invited Luci over frequently anyway. Jill’s family had kind of taken Luci in the same way Emma’s had done with Cleo.
Luci nodded and made a point of swallowing again. “They have lunch together but I have Bridget in my gym class and I have Jill in art and math.”
“That’s good,” Cleo said.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, “and I also have Addison in my language class. But I had that first hour and we didn’t get to be friends until later. But now I think first hour will be a lot more fun.”
“So, other than making new friends, what was your favorite part of the day?” Cleo wondered as she hurriedly forced down a bite of green beans.
Luci’s smile was so huge it took over her face and made her crinkled up eyes sparkle. “Cleo…oh…my…gosh! You should see the library! It’s huge! And there are no baby books in there. At all. I mean, like, no picture books for the kindergartners like there was in the elementary school library. This one? It’s full of books that don’t have pictures. And we get to go twice a week. But we can only check out two books at a time. I’ve already started a list for this year but I’m not even half way done with writing them all down. I can’t wait! We get to go for the first time tomorrow! I saw it today, but only because I got to go in before the bell had rung. And I didn’t get to look around too long because the librarian told me I should probably find my first hour class. But tomorrow?! Is going to be so awesome!”
“Did you go into the library without permission?” Cleo suspiciously wondered.
“Well…maybe. But I’ve been waiting all summer to see it!”
Luci’s smile was infectious and Cleo grinned back, happy to see Luci happy. And not surprised that the books made her sound even happier than her newfound friends did. Books, after all, were Luci’s passion.
So,” Luci said after swallowing another bite of beans with a grimace, “how was your first day?”
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
EXCERPT FROM CRUSHED
