“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 HC TITLE-AUTHOR

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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 HC TITLE-AUTHOR

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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.

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“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 HC TITLE-AUTHOR

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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, HC TITLE-AUTHOR

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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. I’ll make sure you have some fucking food to eat!”

“I was eighteen.”

“I was six!”

“I wasn’t your father!”

I throw my arms out. “No, you weren’t. You were supposed to be better than him!

Congratulations, you officially became a

replica of your worthless brother. Now where the fuck is the damn phone?”

Scott slams his hand on the counter and

roars, “Sit your ass down, Elisabeth, and shut the fuck up!”

I quake on the inside, but I’ve been around Mom’s asshole boyfriends long enough to keep from quaking on the outside. “Wow. You can take the boy out of the trailer park and pretty him up in a Major League Baseball uniform, but you can’t take the trailer park out of the boy.”

He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.

“I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”

“Whatever. Where’s the phone?”

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Noah told me once that I have a gift that borders on supervillain status—the ability to push people past the edge of sanity. The way Scott releases another breath and rubs his forehead tells me I’m pushing him hard. Good.

Scott tries for that obnoxious, level tone again, but I can hear the edge of irritation in it.

“You want trailer park, I can go trailer park.

You are going to live in my house with my rules or I’ll send your mother to jail.”

“I broke out the windows of the car. Not her.

You have nothing on her.”

Scott narrows his eyes. “Wanna discuss

what’s in your mom’s apartment with me?”

My body lurches to the left as the blood

seeps out of my face, leaving behind a blurry and tingling sensation. Shirley already warned me, but hearing it from him is still a shock.

Scott knows what I don’t want to know—

Mom’s secret.

“Push me, Elisabeth, and I’ll have this same exact conversation with the police.”

I stumble as I try to stay upright. The back of my legs collide with a coffee table. Losing the battle, I sit. Right beside me is a phone and as much as I want to, I can’t touch it. Scott has HC TITLE-AUTHOR

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me. The bastard traded my life for my

mom’s freedom.

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Ryan

I LEAN AGAINST THE CLOSED tailgate of Dad’s truck and listen from two parking spots away as Dad recounts to a group of men loitering outside the barbershop every detail of our meeting with the scout last night. Some of them heard the story at church this morning.

Most of the listeners are generational farmers and this kind of news is worth hearing again, even if it means standing in the type of August heat where you can smell the acrid stench of blacktop melting.

In my peripheral view, I notice a man stop on the sidewalk and assess the ring of listeners and my storytelling father. I don’t pay attention to tourists and if he were a local, he’d join the group. It’s better to leave the tourists alone. If you look at them, they talk.

Groveton’s a small town. To appeal to

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tourists, Dad persuaded the other councilmen to call the old stone buildings dating back to the 1800s Historic then add the words Shopping District. Four B-and-Bs and new tours of the old bourbon distillery later, and the city folk brave the fifteen-mile winding