Still in the library, I open my email program and compose a note to Delaney. I write four versions of it before deleting them all. What can I tell her that’s true? Only stuff about school. And then she’ll type me ten paragraphs about her love life and Irish dancing and where the hell have I been. If she responds at all. She hasn’t emailed in months. I never replied to her early messages, which were full of questions I couldn’t answer.
My stomach rumbles, giving me an excuse to log off the computer, scarf down the peanut butter sandwich I planned to save for lunch, and settle into a soft plaid chair. I want to think my way out of this predicament with Judd, but the stress of the commute has caught up to me, and I’m soon dozing.
When the first bell rings, I shake myself awake and head for Building A. The students I pass ignore me, but the teachers say hello. I’m two chapters ahead in most of my classes, whereas the other kids are still shrugging off the fog of spring break. I wonder what my classmates did on vacation while I slaved away in Judd’s shack. I was probably packaging the very “favors” they enjoyed at their parties.
In world history, we have to write an in-class essay on European imperialism. I finish mine super-fast and the teacher remarks that I must’ve been the only student who did the required reading over the break. Feeling prickly glares across my back, I mumble, “I had this unit at my old school.” But inside, I’m gloating. This is where I thrive. No one can touch me.
At lunchtime, I go back to the library to study since I have nothing to eat and I need to save my money for bus fare. Some other sophomores meander in and decide to sit at the far end of my table. One guy from homeroom nods at me and says “hey” before continuing to talk with his friends. Without acknowledging him, I stack my books and stomp off.
“Sorr-ee,” a girl named Madison mutters, but I ignore her. Most kids at Essex don’t try talking to me anymore, not since my steel-eyed stares told them all to Go Away.
I blink fast as I leave, holding in the tears. I don’t like acting mean, but it’s safer to be a loner. Friends ask questions.
Chapter 11
“Where were you all day?” Judd’s boot kicks sharply into the back of my leg as I stand at the kitchen counter making myself a tuna sandwich.
Gritting my teeth, I say, “School.”
“School?” He repeats the word like it’s a new concept, and I bite my tongue to keep from making a sarcastic remark.
All he’s wearing are jeans, heavy work boots, and an unbuttoned flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him open the fridge and then the main cupboard, which I know is empty because I just scrounged for the last can of tuna. I cut my sandwich in half and quietly set the butter knife in the sink.
“How’d you get there?” Judd asks suddenly.
“Walked.” My heart rate quickens, and I keep talking before I can chicken out. “But I’ll need to take the bus from now on—”
“And how much is that gonna cost?”
“About twenty bucks a week.” I hold the air in my lungs.
Judd’s response is the hiss of a beer cracking open. When I turn around, his eyes are on me, suspicious. He takes a slow swallow and clucks, “Well. You’ll have to earn that too, now won’t you?”
Ugh. I don’t have time for this! He better not take me out to the shed to work tonight. I’m exhausted and hungry, and I have a bunch of math worksheets to do.
Then Judd’s eyes grow colder, less hazy. I see something in them that I don’t like. Something sinister. He leans down into my face and commands, “Make me some goddamned dinner.” Then he grabs my sandwich off the plate and squeezes it so the tuna oozes out the sides onto his grimy, nicotine-stained fingers. “And it better be something good. Not fucking tuna!” I wince as Judd shoves my sandwich down into the sink drain.
Incensed, I glare at him, my hands balling into fists. Judd chuckles at my reaction, but his voice is deadly when he whispers, “You don’t ever eat before you serve me. Remember that.” And to make sure I do, the back of his hand collides with my head.
His blow lands me across the counter and I stay hunched there, holding my head and whimpering in shock. Judd moves lazily back to the living room and pushes Ayla’s legs off the couch to make room for his own. He fondles her while she sits there catatonic, gripping a bong.
A minute later, he hollers, “Hurry up, girl! I’m hungry.”
I tiptoe across the kitchen. Tears blur my vision as I scan the meager contents of the freezer. In the silver plate of the ice maker, I don’t recognize my own frantic eyes. They belong to a skittish animal.
I’m no chef. The routine at home was that I helped Gram cook and clean on weekends, but on weekdays my only “chore” was studying. Luckily, I spot a sack of frozen burgers and hidden behind it, a bag of peas. I can do that. My hands tremble as I drop the patties onto a frying pan, then fill a pot with water and dump in the peas. While I cook, Judd and Ayla pass the bong back and forth. I feel like I’m high, too, but it’s probably just my head buzzing and throbbing through the stress of the day. I chew a handful of frozen peas when I’m sure Judd’s not looking.
When his meal is ready, I set it on the table with a folded napkin and glass of water. All I want is to escape upstairs, but I force my feet over to the couch and announce in a tremulous voice, “Dinner’s ready.”
“Not hungry, Bones,” Ayla slurs and reclines. No surprise there. Ayla doesn’t eat much when she’s using, which is just about always now. When Judd’s eyes flick to me, his disgust is clear. He crosses the room, sits down at the table and begins chomping. I shuffle toward the stairs.
I get all the way across the kitchen, with Judd’s eyes following me and his mouth chewing angrily, before his voice snares me. “Where do you think you’re going, princess?”
My shoulders droop. I turn around.
He calls me back with a curl of his finger and tells me to wait until he finishes. So I stand to the side and wait. I keep my face masked, just like when I’m at school or in the crack houses. He finally sucks the burger juice off his fingertips, then balls up his napkin and throws it on his plate. “Now. You must be hungry after your long walk.”
Judd dances his way to the sink, reaches into the drain and emerges with what’s left of my mutilated tuna sandwich. He slops it onto a plate, then dredges up more bits of tuna mixed with God-knows-what. He smiles at me the whole time and I can’t hide the horror on my face. He brings the plate over to the table and points at it. “Bon a-petit.”
I lunge for the hallway.
But Judd is amazingly quick for someone who’s been doping all day. His palm clamps down on my shoulder and pushes me into the chair. I claw at his hand, but he’s like iron, with muscles that stretch across his wiry frame so that you can see each one ripple beneath his skin. I try biting his arm, but he just moves his grip to the back of my neck, two fingers extended like when we hike to the shed. He pushes me toward the tuna, mashes my face against it so that it smears into my eyes, my nose. I brace my hands against the table and push, try to raise my head, but his strength is beyond me. I sob, fitfully, and hate myself for it.
When Judd pulls my head up a few inches, tears and snot and tuna fall from my nose onto the plate. He sits down close by, his face inches from mine. “Now before you eat your dinner,” he says slowly, “I’m gonna repeat my question, because I think you must have misunderstood it earlier. How’d you get to that fancy school of yours today? Huh, girl?”
My sobs stop abruptly as the realization hits. Judd nods. “Ah, it’s all becoming clear now, isn’t it?”
“Please…” I beg.
“Answer my question.”
“I-I walked to the market and then caught a bus.”
“I-I walked to the market and then caught a bus,” his voice mimics mine. Then his left palm comes down on the table like he’s slapping his knee. “Well, doggone it
, you did know the right answer. Next question—why would a smart girl like you do something as stupid as steal from me?” he thunders.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t know what else—”
“You steal my money? When I’m nice enough to take you into my home, give you shelter and food? That’s how you repay my hospitality?” His fingers squeeze tighter on my neck and it’s getting harder to breathe. I reach up to pry them loose, but it does no good.
“I’m sorry,” I gasp again.
“I don’t believe you’re sorry enough,” Judd rumbles.
“I am! I’m sorrier than you can imagine,” I choke, tears flowing again.
Judd removes his hand from my neck and leans back in his chair. I suck in air as he pulls out his cigarette lighter and rolls it between his fingers. “If any of my dealers stole from me, they’d get a permanent reminder of that mistake.”
An image of the kid with the scar pops into my head. I watch the lighter slide back and forth in Judd’s large hand. He flicks it on and lets the flame burn, then looks at me.
Instinct kicks in and I start groveling. I apologize and assure him of my gratitude for his hospitality until my throat is too dry to speak. My eyes don’t leave the flame until he snaps the lighter closed.
“Pathetic,” he grumbles. “But seeing as you’re new, and it’d be a shame to mess up that pretty little face of yours, I’ll let you off easy this time. You eat up all your dinner now, and don’t dare think of crossing me again.”
My eyes move back to the tuna, nearly an hour old and warm and slimy from the drain. Little flecks of black are mixed in with everything. Coffee grinds from the morning or something worse. My stomach turns. I hear Ayla moan on the couch and wonder if she even cares what her sick boyfriend is making me do. Probably not. Hatred sears through every fiber of my body and I use that hatred to save myself.
Without shedding another tear, I eat every last bite.
Chapter 12
The next day in science class, I’m the student who’s foggy. My mind turns over all the ways I can escape Judd. There’s Delaney back in Indianapolis, but her parents barely make ends meet for her and her two little brothers. Every extra dollar goes to her dance lessons and costumes. The best they could do is hand me over to social services. And while I know there must be good foster families out there, I’m afraid to risk it.
Still. Last night, while I stayed awake, shaking with fury and fear, staring at my little barricade in front of the attic door, I told myself I couldn’t stay here. Not for shelter. Not for Ayla. There is no way to please a tyrant. Even if I try to be Judd’s perfect little assistant and cook five-star meals every night, he’ll eventually find something unsatisfactory. And if last night was “letting me off easy,” what will he do next time?
One of my classmates drops a beaker and it clatters to the floor. I jump at the noise, nearly falling off my lab stool. Then I scowl at my own clumsiness. It’s Judd’s fault I’m like this. Exhausted. Jittery. I think hard about how to make him pay. I could turn him into the police, easily. Today even. I’d like to see his face if I walked through the front door with a cop on each side of me. I know where he hides his drugs. If the police believed me, if they drove me around town, I could find some of the dealers’ apartments. I could eventually find that shed in the woods. Judd would go down, and then…then what? Ayla would go down, too. And I would be sent into the unknown. I could end up with people worse than Judd, worse than Charlie. And in a crappy school district to boot.
No, thanks. The monsters I know are better than the ones I don’t. At least here I have Essex.
Besides, who’s to say the police would believe me? Judd has already painted me as a problem child to the people he knows in Haydon, shipped here by my mother ‘to get a man’s firm hand.’ And then there’s the Charlie incident, always lurking in the back of my mind, making me question myself.
He’d laughed after I shoved him off me that day. I remember his smirk and his words, You sent the signals, Andrea. But I won’t tell. Sometimes when girls your age lose a loved one, they look for affection in the wrong places. Everyone knows that.
Do they? I’d thought. Either way, I had no energy for that kind of fight. I let Charlie and his threats go. And I can let Judd go, too.
If I could just convince Ayla to leave him, it would be the two of us again, and I could cope with that. That would even be easy. A flicker of hope rises in me. Ayla never stays in one place too long. She’ll probably want to move on soon. And if not, maybe I could disappear and make it on my own…
That daydream lasts until the end of class. I know how most runaways end up—selling drugs or their bodies. Or dead. Anyway. It would be stupid to leave now, without a plan and some cash.
I’ve got neither.
Ayla is vomiting in the bathroom when I trudge into the house after school. From the kitchen, Judd barks at me to go help her. Sighing, I drop my bags at the bottom of the attic stairs. I want to fire off a snarky comment like, “how do you help someone throw up?” but I’m not in the mood for a smack-down. Anyway, I’ve seen Ayla through enough of these episodes in the past few months to know the drill. She shakes violently while I attempt to wash her face, clean her up. Then she vomits again. Rinse and repeat. Lovely.
After several rounds of this, Judd appears in the bathroom doorway. He holds out an unmarked bottle of liquid and says, “Pour some o’ this down her throat.”
“No!” I say automatically because I don’t know what it is and I don’t trust him. I brace for a blow, but he just pushes past like I’m an annoying gnat, grabs Ayla’s jaw, and douses her mouth with the liquid until she sputters and swallows it. I glower as he walks out. But soon Ayla’s stomach does seem to calm down and her convulsing lessens.
When I help her into Judd’s bed, she clutches my hand and sobs, “I’m sorry, Bones. So sorry…” Tears waterfall across her cracked white lips.
There is a righteous part of me that wants to rip my hand away and leave her forlorn and scared, the way she leaves me. But there’s something else, stronger, that makes me sit on the side of the bed and squeeze her hand back.
In the morning, she won’t remember any of this.
I wait until she stops twitching and falls into a light sleep. With Judd’s steady supply of drugs coursing through her lately, Ayla looks worse than ever. I’ve already concocted the story I’ll tell if I ever have to take her to the hospital—that she’s a homeless junkie who collapsed on the street near me. But right now I’m afraid she won’t even make it through the night.
Gathering my courage, I head to the kitchen to confront Judd. He’s working off a folded paper, making route notes as his cigarette leaks plumes of smoke above his head.
Keeping a safe distance, I demand, “What’d you give her today?”
He doesn’t look up. “Nothin’. She needed a break. It’s withdrawal.”
“She looks bad.”
“She’ll be fine.” His words are final.
It may cost me, but I have to say something else. “I think she needs a doctor.”
No response. Just the firm set of his ugly little mouth.
“Judd, Ayla’s gonna die if you keep on—”
His head whips up. “Your mama ain’t gonna die in my care! You stupid, girl? You think I only take her off the junk to teach her a lesson? It’s a process. Ayla’s been usin’ longer’n you’ve been breathing. You can’t quit something like that cold turkey.”
My head spins. “So you’re trying to…get her clean?”
“I’m trying to teach her to manage her habit. A little can keep you going. A lot can kill you. She needs to learn the difference.”
I ponder this for a moment. I know he withholds when he’s mad at Ayla, but I never considered that Judd might truly want to help her. It’s probably bullshit. “Well, I don’t believe—” I start.
His chair scrape
s the floor as he stands. Then he’s in my face and I’m pressed up against the wall, silenced. “You think I give a shit what you believe? I’ll take care of Ayla. What you oughtta be worryin’ about is yourself. I got people lookin’ now. Breaking my back to protect you, girl. You’re just lucky I’m the one who found you living in that car like a dirty rat.”
“Lucky. Right,” I mumble. My riskiest move yet.
Judd cocks an eyebrow, amused. “Oh, so I should hand you over to one of my boys, huh?” He chuckles. “You’d be begging for me within minutes.”
I hate his words with a blistering fervor, and all the more because I think he’s right. As bad as Judd is, there’s worse.
He releases me, sits back down, and sucks hard on his cigarette, then stubs it out on the tabletop. “Now listen up, girl, ’cause I’m only explainin’ this once. I got a two-year master plan. By then I’ll be ready to cash out. Ayla and I will disappear to a beachside bungalow, just like magic.” He makes a “poof” motion with his wiry hands. “You’re on your own at that point.” He arches his brows, a warning. “But not until then. For the next two years, you work for me. Do what I say. Take orders from me only.”
Two years? I try to swallow, but the lump in my throat is the size of a dinosaur and nothing gets past.
“What if I want to go sooner?” The words creak out.
His answer is choking laughter, and I don’t need to hear why it can’t happen—I know too much. I could do too much damage. I have to wait until they’re ready to…poof.
“What if I just disappeared?” I say louder, stronger. A plea disguised as a threat.
His gaze is calm, sure, and scarier than anything else he’s said or done today. Running his tongue over his teeth, he shrugs. “Me and my boys will hunt you down. You’d better hope it’s not my buddy Donovan who finds you. He won’t be as swift as I would.”
All Out of Pretty Page 5
