B.C. Johnson - Deadgirl

“LUCY!” He shouted. His voice actually made me stumble.

“Shut your mouth and go to your room. Now.”

Something like electricity crackled along my fingers, and bright spots of white wheeled behind my eyes. Anger pressed down on my chest, but my genuine fear of my enraged father buttoned my lips up. Finally.

“Can I have dinner?”

The words snapped like dry branches. His nostrils flared, and he sucked in air in such big gulps I could only imagine he was storing oxygen for the winter.

“I’ll have your mother bring it up,” he said. “You can stay there for the rest of the night, please.”

“Can I call—?”

“You can be quiet. Go to your room.”

I made a growling-squeak sound in my throat, turned, and went in my room. The slamming of the door in his face completed the painfully cliché moment. My hand tightened into a fist, and I hammer-punched the top of my desk. My monitor and the little metal tin of pencils bounced and jangled. Not good enough.

I grabbed my desk chair and flipped it across the room. It smashed the wall with a healthy thunk. Better.

I slumped down on the ground next to my bed and tucked my knees up against my chest. My arms slid under my knees, and I sat there for a long time. I thought about Zack and Morgan, Daphne and Wanda, Benny and everyone all out scouring the Set for me. I thought of my dad, terrified, filled with unusable protective fury. Of my Mom, doing her best to hold him together.

I thought of the barrel of a little silver revolver. I thought about the gunpowder taste. The powerless violation of being shot to death in an alley for no reason. For being left alone, bloody, and confused. Thrown away like trash.

I cried until I feel asleep, curled against the side of my bed, squeezing my knees into my chest and rocking like a child.

I found myself huddled on a cold grey beach. I wished I could feel some ache of surprise, but I had expected it. I tucked my face between my knees, listening to the surf, tasting the salt-spray, convincing myself that I was dreaming. I sat there for hours, my cheeks still wet with tears, tugging my bright orange bathrobe against my body. I let my mind wander. I willed the time to pass, willed the sense of foreboding terror out of my mind. After a time, light welled onto the sand between my knees, where my eyes were turned. Dawn. When I looked up at the faded sherbet-orange sun, peeking out from the charcoal sea, I woke up.

My bed was immaculate—I’d spent the night tucked into a ball next to the bed.

You spent the night on a beach .

“No, I didn’t.”

Cramped into a ball, I should have felt sore. I should have been tired, twisted up into that pretzel of flesh. Instead, I felt refreshed, comfortably cool. The manic energy of the night before had dimmed somewhat, but I still felt like at least one cup of coffee burned through my veins.

I showered and make-upped. Got dressed in something simple—a scoop-neck black shirt sporting a band I barely remember and a pair of jeans. My white-and-baby-blue sneakers. A black belt with studs and little rhinestones lined up boy-girl down the leather. I twisted my long black hair up into a high pony-tail and gave myself another once-over in my bathroom mirror.

Pretty, but I could lose weight . I pinched the skin just above my hips—nothing noticeable, and if I even called myself fat I knew much heavier girls had a right to beat me with a pipe. Still. Mom called it baby-fat, but that didn’t make it better. I turned sideways. Blegh . I turned back.

Big butt, some tummy. Good boobs for fifteen, but not spectacular. Blegh . I needed to stop hanging out with Morgan. Not that that was going to happen, ever.

I ran a hand across my stomach and felt a stab of pain. I yanked up the edge of my shirt and slid my fingers across my pale skin. No pain. No scar. No hole . The hysteria receded as quickly as it had come.

I tugged my shirt back in place and ran downstairs. Dad wasn’t around, and Mom tried more than a few times to hear about our fight. Deflecting her questions wasn’t easy, but I was stubborn, and after a while she dropped it. I wasn’t hungry, despite my lack of dinner, but I wolfed down three eggs, two pieces of toast, and four pieces of bacon before calling it quits. When I was finished, I felt only a warmth in my belly that should have been gut-stretching pain. It didn’t take much brainpower to ignore the feeling—it was the least of the strange things I had experienced thus far.

“You’re dressed up for Sunday breakfast,” Mom said as she scooped up our plates.

“Not really.”

“Ha. Most Sundays you never leave that filthy bathrobe.”

“It’s not filthy,” I said, scooping the utensils off the table. “You’re filthy.”

“Good one. Going somewhere?”

“Depends. Mind if I borrow your old bike?”

“No,” Mom said. The sound of plates moving stopped. “Why?”

“I just want to go for a ride,” I said. “Want me to pick up anything at the store?”

Mom turned and leaned against the counter. Her face spoke volumes.

“Mom, I’m fine,” I said. “I just need some air.”

“How’s your head?”

It took me a second to catch up with her. The phony head wound, the one I’d told the cop about. “It’s all right,” I said. “I’ll take it easy, I promise.”

Mom nodded.

“Fine. I’m taking you up on your offer though.”

“What?”

She smiled. “I want the newest Cosmo, if it’s there. And a box of Shake ’N Bake.”

I nodded and put my hand out, palm up, with the sweetest smile ever conjured curving my lips. The classic teenager money-palm. She snorted and shook her head. I didn’t think it was going to be that easy.

“What about change from the other night?”

I sighed. I actually had a substantial chunk left from the date, but I’d been hoping to squirrel it away for future expenses. No such luck, apparently.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll get your stupid magazine.”

“Don’t forget the stupid Shake ’N Bake.”

I flashed her a ha-ha-you’re-so-hilarious look and headed for the back door.

The screen door smacked shut behind me. I crossed the back porch, the ill-kept backyard lawn, and made a beeline for the old wooden shed. My bike, a sickeningly pink Schwinn, had disintegrated into a pile of rust flakes about two years ago. My mom’s bike was virtually dustless, its gears still slick with black oil. She liked to hit the local trails, and Dad kept it in good working order for her. Dad enjoyed the dread mill himself, however, and didn’t ride with her.

His bike had suffered the same fate as mine. We’d all gotten bicycles for Christmas my fifth-grade year, a plan to get us all in shape with family fun rides . We’d ridden together only once, on New Year’s Day, as part of a resolution to do more activities together. I’d fallen off my bike, bloodied my nose, and shredded my shins, and Dad’s gears had devoured his favorite pair of sneakers. Only my Mom had come out of the ride with a positive experience.

I leaned, one foot on the lawn, the other tucked into the spiky foot of the pedals. At that moment, I wondered just where the hell the urge to go riding had come from. Fresh air sounded great, but adrenaline sounded better. Slinging down the dock ramps behind the Ralphs’ at blasphemous speeds made my hair stand on end just thinking about it. Part of me just wanted to go —not be at home, not be at school. Maybe in alien solitude I could find some answers.

Probably not, but worth a shot .

I took off down the driveway and out into the street.

The winding roads out of my neighborhood passed by in a blur. I focused on the spring of the handlebars, the rasping-groan of the tires against the asphalt, the rattling clink of the gear chain slipping between cogs. I breathed in the smell of eucalyptus trees and wet, freshly cut grass. I listened to the suburban melody of Sunday morning lawn mowers, dogs barking, and cars roaring to life.