*
My hand coils around the handle, my finger on the button. Most girls my age have stopped sleeping with their favorite teddy bear from childhood. I never had a teddy bear, but if I did, he’d have been replaced by my new security blanket—a switchblade knife.
No man will ever come in this room again uninvited. I’ll be ready this time.
They say you should never bring your work home with you. My mom missed that memo. Sometimes she brings her work home with her. Sometimes her “work colleagues” have inquired if I’m part of the deal.
I stopped sleeping.
A man’s voice nears my door, and I increase the pressure on the button that will pop out the blade. I’ve spent hours practicing how to open the blade and collapse it back down.
These men make a deal with my mother, not me. But that hasn’t stopped them from making comments, undressing me with their eyes, or “accidentally” touching me. A knee to the groin or spitting in their face tends to let them know that I’m not for sale. But secretly, I wonder if my mother would allow it. I wonder if she’d even be sober enough to care.
Those men are gross, disgusting pieces of crap, but there’s only one man who scares me. Her pimp.
Taking a deep breath, I hear the front door close. He’s gone. I hope she is, too.
She takes me with her now, to the seedy bars, to the street corners. She dresses me up, making me look older. I’m the bait. Then we switch.
Now I have a switchblade.
I need to sleep. I never sleep.
My bedroom door doesn’t have a lock. That will be my next purchase.
My stomach starts to knot. Hunger?
Probably not. My stomach grew accustomed to the pangs of hunger long ago.
Exhausted, I sit up, flicking on the lamp.
First, I feel it, then I see it. No! The bright red spot means one thing.
I’m a woman.
My period means one thing. The end of a childhood I never had—Period.
*
I stop at the receptionist’s counter, and an elderly woman smiles at me. I’ve had my period for less than a day, but I know what I need to do. Or should I say what I don’t need to do. Have a baby.
So while I have yet to figure the whole tampon thing out, I’m here for the birth control pill.
“Can I help you?” the receptionist with the friendly face asks.
Clearing my throat, I say, “I’m here for . . . the pill.”
She looks up at me, her face now looking more judgy than friendly. “How old are you?”
“Thirteen,” I say, cocking my chin up.
She can look at me like I’m trash all she wants. This is what responsible looks like. I don’t expect her to understand.
“Since you are under the age of sixteen, you need to have a parent with you,” she says.
My eyes start to well up. She stands up, reaching out to me, but I step back. “Why don’t we get someone for you to talk to?”
“No,” I snap, knowing that no one will understand. No one can help. “Please. I’m sixteen. I am.”
She shakes her head. “I need proof of age.”
Three years? Can my switchblade hold him off that long? As tears stream down my face, I run out the door. The receptionist cries for me to stop, but I just run—down the sidewalk, dodging people, not caring who yells at me. No one’s ever cared about me before. Why care now? Because my fit doesn’t suit them.
I run until my legs feel heavy, my chest is heaving, and my soul is screaming for me to stop. There’s no escape, anyway.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
SLADE
“Where should I take your mommy?” I ask Finn, sitting on my lap in front of my computer.
Paige and I went from denying our feelings, our pent-up sexual tension, to her moving in with me in one swoop. I’m not complaining, but there are milestones you don’t want to jump over—like the first date.
We’ve never had one. I’m not going to miss that, not going to let Paige miss that. So Finn and I are planning the perfect first date, and it’s not going to be line dancing at one of the local honky-tonks on Broadway. We can ride horses anytime, so that’s out. We cook together at home all the time. A romantic dinner? Is that out of style?
“What do you think, buddy?”
He starts banging on my desk. “Dadadadadada.”
What did he just say? I’m not sure if I’m more shocked that he said something other than gibberish or what he said. Picking him up, I turn him around, sitting him on my desk so I can look at his face. “Finn?”
“Dadadadadada.”
“Holy shit!”
Louder this time. “Dadadadadada.”
“Shh!” I say, looking back over my shoulder at the doorway.
This time he fucking screams it. Clearly, this kid is mocking me.
“Mama,” I say.
Blank stare.
“Ma Ma,” I say again, making sure to stretch out the syllables. Drool starts down his chin. Wiping it, I repeat, “Ma Ma.”
There is no way in hell this kid’s first word should be Dada. Plus, Paige missed it. The best course of action is deniability. “This never happened,” I say to him. “Got it?”
“What never happened?” Paige asks from the doorway. “What are you boys up to?”
I give Finn a warning look before picking him up. “Just swearing him to secrecy about where I plan to take you for our first date.”
The look in her eye tells me she doesn’t totally buy that. Finn yawns, sticking his hand in his mouth, and rests his head on my shoulder. “Like dinner and a movie?” she asks.
“Well, I was thinking of something a little more . . .”
“I’d really love dinner and a movie,” she says, wrapping her arms around me. “I can’t remember the last time I saw a movie at the theater.”
I should’ve known I was overthinking it. Paige appreciates simple things. “In that case, I’ll get you the big bucket of popcorn.”
Leaning up on her tiptoes, she presses her lips to mine softly. “That sounds really nice,” she whispers. I love Finn, but I can’t wait for him to go to sleep.
“Dadadadadada.”
“Oh my God,” Paige cries, leaping from my arms. “Finn talked. Did you hear that?”
This is the exact reason I didn’t tell her before. I wanted her to have this moment. She’s missed so much in her life. I didn’t want her to realize she’d missed something else.
Finn starts clapping. “Dadadadadada.”
It’s not until this second time that it dawns on Paige what he’s saying. Her eyes wide, she studies my face for a reaction. All she’s going to get is a smile. “At this age, he doesn’t really know what he’s saying. It’s not like he’s identifying you as his father. Besides, D is one of the easier sounds to make,” she says. “That’s why babies always say Dada first. I read a whole article about it. It’s in all the baby books. It doesn’t mean anything.”
She continues to give me a dissertation on the anatomy of the mouth, tongue position, the importance of teeth in developing language. Playfully, I whisper to Finn, “She’s jealous you didn’t say Mommy.”
“No, I’m . . .” She takes his little hand and kisses it. “We don’t need to encourage this,” she says with quiet determination.