Page 121 of The Glass Girl

“But as we were saying,” Gideon tells us, “before you showed up…Billy’s dad once actually tried to sell him for drugs.”

“Oh my god,” I say. “That’s horrifying.”

But it comes back to me then, that comment he made when we were watching the house renovation show the night I had my panic attack. That he and his brother had to sleep on a couch and his dad would kick his toys. The way he stopped talking and his face got tight and how relieved he was to switch toGumballand think of something else.

My dad might not be Dad of the Year, but at least he’s not…that.

“Is it terrible I want to know what drugs and what price and also…like, to who?” Brandy asks.

“Whom,” Josh says.

“Whatever,” Brandy says. “The trauma, dump it.”

Billy leans back on his elbows, looking up at the stars. “I was eight. We were living in Orlando then. At a motel. He’d stolen me from my mother. And he was going to sell me for Oxy. The price was fifty bucks. And I didn’t know exactly what that meant, because I was so young, but I can guess now, and before your minds start racing, the dude buying me was an undercover cop, so it was actually a good thing, because my dad went to jail and I went back to my mom and she ended up marrying a very nice, fairly well-off gentleman named Stuart.”

“What a fantastic children’s book that would make, Billy,” Gideon says. “I’m picturing very pastel illustrations to illuminate the warm relationship between addict father and innocent young child being sold into sex slavery.”

Beside me, Josh shivers. “That’s dark, man.”

Under the blanket, his hand gently searches for mine.

I kind of stop breathing a little. I let him take my hand. His is very warm.

“It turned out okay.” Billy shrugs. “I mean,Ididn’t, but Stuart keeps paying for my rehabs, so it’s all good. He cares. I just keep not caring, is all. Stuff I can’t get rid of, you know?” He taps his head. “Up here.” He taps his chest. “In here.”

Gideon reaches across the pit and holds out her hand. “I get it.”

Billy takes her hand. “Solidarity,” he says.

“Right on,” she answers.

Brandy chuckles. “At least he cares. My mother could care less. This time? I passed out and vomited up a bunch of blood and stuff on her brand-new rug and all she could say when they were loading me into the ambulance was ‘That rug was from Morocco.’ ”

In the distance, far off, I can hear coyotes howling. It makes me a little lonely for Dad’s apartment. There’s an arroyo behind it, and a lot of coyotes and javelinas travel up it to move through the city. It’s safe there, covered by trees on both sides. Sometimes people live there, because it’s safe for them, too. Sometimes Ricci wants to go play in there, but my dad has to tell her, “That’s some people’s home. We don’t just walk into people’s houses, do we?”

I can hear the coyotes from the room I share with Ricci. I miss her so much.

I tighten my fingers in Josh’s. He squeezes back.

It’s very peaceful out here.

“How about you, Bella? Are you going to drop the fabulous story of your face?” Gideon teases. “I love a good fight story.”

I hesitate. I can feel Josh’s eyes on me.

“It’s not very exciting,” I tell them. “The only fight I had was with a front stoop. My friends dumped me there and I passed out and smashed my face on the cement.”

“They dumped you?” That’s from Nick. “That’s cold. You don’t dump people. I mean, at the veryleast,drop them at a hospital and take off, but not on a front porch.”

“I read about a girl in Minnesota whose friends dumped her at her parents’ house in like fifteen-degree weather and she lost her feet to frostbite,” Gideon says. “I sincerely hope they are not your friends anymore, Bella. Fuck that.”

“Wait,” Billy says to me. “I seem to remember you, on Day Three, said something about a video. I betthere’sa story.” He chuckles in a lascivious way.

My face flushes again. “It wasn’t like a sex tape, dumbass. And that, I don’t want to talk about that, right now.”

“Come on!” wheedles the guy whose name I don’t know.

“Drop it,” Gideon says. “If she doesn’t want to, she doesn’t have to.”

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