The shocked expression on their faces is almost worth being here. Almost. I press my lips together to keep from laughing at Scott. He wears a pair of chinos and a short-sleeved button-down shirt. It’s a far cry from the outfits he used to wear when I was a kid: gangsta jeans that showed his underwear.
The woman is nothing like the girls Scott dated when he was eighteen. Her hair is a natural blond instead of bleached. She’s thin, but not alcohol-diet thin, and she looks kind of smart. Smart as in she probably finished high school.
She sits at a massive island in the center of the kitchen. Scott leans on the counter across from her. He glances at her, then talks to me. “It’s late, Elisabeth. Why don’t you go back to bed and we’ll talk in the morning.”
My stomach cramps, and a light wave of dizziness fogs my brain. “Do you have food?”
He straightens. “Yes. What do you want? I can fix some eggs.”
Scott used to make me scrambled eggs every morning. Eggs—the WIC-approved food. The reminder hurts and creates warm fuzzies at the same time. “I hate eggs.”
“Oh.”
Oh. The man’s a conversational genius. “Do you have cereal?”
“Sure.” He enters a pantry and I plop onto a stool at the island as far from Scott’s girl as possible. She stares at a spot right in front of me. Huh. Funny. I’m in arm’s reach of a butcher block full of knives. I can imagine the thoughts running through her single-celled brain.
Scott places boxes of Cheerios, Bran Flakes, and Shredded Wheat in front of me.
“You have got to be fucking kidding.” Where the hell are the Lucky Charms?
“Nice language,” the woman says.
“Thanks,” I respond.
“I didn’t mean it as a compliment.”
“Do I look like I fucking care?”
Scott slides a bowl and spoon to me, then goes to the refrigerator for milk. “Let’s tone it down.”
I choose the Cheerios and keep pouring until a few toasty circles trickle onto the counter. Scott sits in the chair next to mine and the two of them watch me in silence. Well, sort of silence. My crunching is louder than a nuclear bomb blast.
“Scott told me you had blond hair,” says the woman.
I swallow, but it’s hard to do when my throat tightens. The little girl I used to be, the one with blond hair, died years ago and I hate thinking about her. She was nice. She was happy. She was … not someone I want to remember.
“Why is your hair black?” The lawn ornament at the other end of the island has officially become annoying.
“What are you exactly?” I ask.
“This is my wife, Allison.”
The Cheerios catch in my throat and I choke, coughing into my hand. “You’re married?”
“Two years,” says Scott. Ugh. He does that googly-eye thing Noah does with Echo.
I slide another spoonful of Cheerios into my mouth. “When I’m done—” crunch, crunch, crunch “—I’m going home.”
“This is your home now.” Scott has that calm tone again.
“The hell it is.”
Allison’s eyes dart between me and the knives. Yeah, lady, a couple of hours in jail and I’ve moved from destruction of property to sociopath.
“Maybe you should listen to her,” she says.
“Yeah,” I say through more crunches, “maybe you should listen to me. Your wife’s worried I’m going to go all Manson and slit her throat while she sleeps.” I smile at her for effect.
Color drains from her face. At times, I really enjoy being me.
Scott gives me the once-over—starting with my black hair, then moving on to my black fingernails, the ring in my nose, and finally my clothes. Then he turns to his wife. “Will you give us a few minutes alone?”
Allison leaves without saying a word. I shovel in more cereal and purposely talk with my mouth full. “Did you have to purchase the leash for her or did it come as a package deal?”
“You won’t disrespect her, Elisabeth.”
“I’ll do as I fucking please, Uncle Scott.” I mimic his fake haughty tone. “And when I’m done eating my shitty cereal, I’m calling Isaiah and I’m going home.”
Him—silence. Me—crunch, crunch, crunch.
“What happened to you?” he asks in a soft voice.
I swallow what’s in my mouth, put down the spoon, and push the bowl of half-eaten Cheerios away. “What do you think happened?”
Scott—the master of long silences.
“When did he leave?” he asks.
I don’t have to be a mind reader to know Scott’s asking about his deadbeat brother. The black paint on my fingernails chips at the corners. I scrape off more of it. Eight years later and I still have a hard time saying it. “Third grade.”
Scott shifts in his seat. “Your mom?”
“Fell apart the day he left.” Which should tell him a lot, because she wasn’t exactly the poster child for reliability before Dad took off.
“What happened between them?”
None of his business. “You didn’t come for me like you promised.” And he stopped calling when I turned eight. The refrigerator kicks on. I scrape off more paint. He faces the fact that he’s a dick.
“Elisabeth—”
“Beth.” I cut him off. “I go by Beth. Where’s your phone? I’m going home.” The police confiscated my cell and gave it to Scott. He told me in the car that he tossed it in the garbage because I “didn’t need contact with my old life.”
“You just turned seventeen.”
“Did I? Wow. I must have forgotten since no one threw me a party.”
Ignoring me, he continues, “This week my lawyers will secure my legal guardianship of you. Until you turn eighteen, you will live in this house and you will obey my rules.”
Fine. If he won’t show me the phone, I’ll find it. I hop off the chair. “I’m not six anymore and you aren’t the center of my universe. In fact, I consider you a black hole.”
“I get that you’re pissed off I left….”
Pissed? “No, I’m not pissed. You don’t exist to me anymore. I feel nothing for you, so show me where the damned phone is so I can go home.”
“Elisabeth …”
He doesn’t get it. I don’t care. “Go to hell.” No phone in the kitchen.
“You need to understand….”
I walk around his fancy ass living room with his fancy ass leather furniture looking for his fancy ass phone. “Take whatever you have to say and shove it up your ass.”
“I just want to talk….”
I lift my hand in the air and flap it like a puppet’s mouth. “Blah, blah, blah, Elisabeth. I’ll only be gone a couple of months. Blah, blah, blah, Elisabeth. I’ll make enough money to get us both out of Groveton. Blah, blah, blah, Elisabeth. You’ll never grow up like me. Blah, blah, blah, Elisabeth.