Page 20 of Every Sweet Thing Is Bitter

“Oh my God, Itouchedyour shoulder! Like—like—” The girl taps her mother’s shoulder for effect. “Just like that, like a normal fucking person!”

The girl’s mother swats her on the knee. “Katy, watch your mouth.”

“I have to watch my mouth, but she gets to punch me in thefucking face?”

“I’m sure Grace is sorry,” I pipe to Katy and her mother. It’s a useless thing to say, but saying nothing at all seems unforgivably spineless. “We all know how hard it is to be a teenage girl.”

“Sorry isn’t going to fix my daughter’s nose.”

“Well, I don’t—”

“And to be quite frank with you, I shouldn’t have expected anything different from one of Tom Byrd’s girls. You’re all barnyard animals.”

I put a knuckle between my teeth and clamp down. I want to bite straight through my finger like a baby carrot. I know Grace wants me to retaliate. She perches on the edge of her chair as she waits for me to lob the first salvo of a verbal firefight. All I have is the nuclear option. I can tell this woman what she already knows: that my father is a beast in human skin, that he beat his daughters, neglected us, did things to us we cannot even reveal in the privacy of our psychiatrist’s office. And for what? For the fleeting satisfaction of humiliating this woman and accepting her insincere condolences? To become the object of yet another person’s pity? There’s nothing worse than pity. Grace isn’t old enough to realize it yet.

I meet the woman’s contempt with a smile. When I look at Grace, she turns her entire body away from me to stare at the wall.

“She should be expelled,” the woman says without a trace of irony. She’s the type to condemn petty thieves to the electric chair.

“We can all agree that punishment is necessary,” the principal says, “but I hardly think depriving Grace of a high school diploma is necessary.”

At this, Connor chimes in. I’d almost forgotten he was here. “Grace is a smart girl. She shows a lot of promise.”

“So does Katy,” the woman retorts. Her daughter nods in agreement, which dislodges her tissues. Crusted blood rims both her nostrils.

“She absolutely does, ma’am. Both these girls have bright futures ahead of them. That’s why, whatever punishment we agree on, I don’t want it to affect Grace’s education. In-school suspension, maybe. She could transfer into Mr. Garcia’s class so Katy can have the distance she needs.”

Connor, always the diplomat, smooth as silk. He had the principal nodding along before he even finished talking. He’s good at playing the hero too: an in-school suspension means Grace doesn’t have to be home alone with our father. The same way Gil looked out for me, Connor is looking out for Grace. This seems like the natural order of the universe: the Crawford men protecting the Byrd sisters. I hope no one catches the grateful look I give him.

Once they’ve negotiated the particulars of Grace’s punishment, Katy and her mother start to leave. They’re halfway to the door when Katy turns to us again. “I’m sorry, Grace. About your mom. I really hope she comes home soon.”

Silence. Grace folds her arms across her chest and remains fixated on the wall. “Thank you, Katy,” I say before her mother can insult us again. She accepts my olive branch with a clipped nod before cupping her daughter’s shoulders and steering her out of the office.

The principal says goodbye to Grace and Connor, but not to me. She doesn’t even glance up from her computer when I offer to shake her hand. It dawns on me then that it’s not the tattoos or the plastic surgery or the stench of cigarette smoke that makesme repugnant to her: it’s who I am. Providence Byrd, would-be murderer. Who wants to shake hands with a woman who tried to spill her own mother’s blood?

As the three of us cross the empty locker hall, I chase the rejection away with my affirmations.People love me. I am lovable.But the sentiment rings hollow when my own sister won’t even glance at me. I have failed her somehow, on a level I can’t understand.

“Can you take me home now?” she asks, staring dead ahead.

“I need to talk to Con—I mean, Mr. Crawford alone for a minute, okay?”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m not a child. You can talk in front of me.”

“Grace, just head outside for a minute. I won’t be long. It’s—”

She unleashes a guttural wretch and tosses her hands in the air. She revels in the opportunity to inflict her histrionics on someone without authority to punish her. “You’re useless, Providence!”

She tears off down the hall, throwing the double doors open with enough force to fling them off the hinges. Alone with Connor, my first instinct is to apologize—for Grace’s behavior, for my own incompetence, and for the cosmic forces conspiring to embrangle us in this awkward encounter.

I rest my head against the cool metal of a locker. “I’m so sorry, Connor. I don’t—”

“You have nothing to apologize for.”

“Why did you call me? I barely know Grace. I’m not … well, Grace said it best. I’m useless.”

“It was you or your dad,” he says. “The less he knows, the better, right? That’s what you always said when we were kids—keep him the dark.” He presses his hands against the side of his head, a telltale sign that he’s losing his battle against a migraine.“I broke protocol to call you. He’s the primary emergency contact.”

“And I’m guessing my mother’s the secondary contact, and that left you with no one to call but me.”

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