Page 114 of Secondhand Smoke
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Nell walked into the house, smiling to herself as she tried to close the door soft enough not to alert her parents of her arrival.
Nothing had been the same since that day in the restaurant almost a month ago.
Their conversations were dead. Nell couldn’t stand to look at them, no matter how much they tried to get her to pretend everything was normal.
The little life that had returned to the house had been blown out like a candle. Nell could smell the liquid wax and hazy smoke still lingering when she was in there, as fresh as the day it happened.
She just couldn’t let it go. No matter how much they wanted her to.
But today, it smelled like fresh flame, burning and angry.
She walked around the corner to pass the living room and found her parents standing there, staring.
Anger and disbelief and fear and accusation crossed their expressions. Nell’s stomach sank.
“How long has this been happening?”
Like that, she knew.
Just by the redness of her father’s face and the placid pallor of her mother, she knew her little secrets had come to light.
It smacked her in the face, and she knew. Just like that. Part of her had expected it to happen eventually.
The clock on the wall ticked the seconds by, oblivious to the storm festering around it in the silence.
She didn’t know what to say. But, at the same time, she didn’t feel she had to. She swallowed hard.
“Mrs. Dubois said she saw you in the window at the diner with one ofthoseboys. She said . . . she said you . . .kissedhim.” Her mother’s hands wrung together nervously, and she laughed weakly like it was a joke. When no one else laughed, the painful attempt slid away. “It isn’t true, right?”
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
“It’s none of your business,” Nell said, wishing it came out confident. It was difficult to hear herself over the rush in her ears.
Her dad flinched, his eyes widening for a split second before narrowing into confirmed rage. “I didn’t want to believe it. Devil worshipers, Janelle.Satanists.” His face twisted like the word was sour as he spit it in her face. “No daughter of mine willeverassociate with them.”
She shook her head, her own temper rising to mirror his. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. You’re wrong—”
It was like he couldn’t hear her. He continued on without pause, talking through her. “I should have known. You’ve been falling away from us, hiding away for days at a time. Leaving us worried sick. What are they doing to you?”
“They’re not—”
“You’ve been tainted by him. What has he done?”
“You aren’t even—”
“He’sdestroyedyou.”
“Hesavedme!” Nell’s scream seemed to shake the house, then settle it into an unnatural pause. Even the clock held its breath.
No one would interrupt her now.
Her breaths were ragged, her hands shaking.
“Theysavedme. They saw me when no one else could. You have no right to speak about him like that. You think I’m destroyed? He fixed me. I can get in a car now. Did Mrs. Dubois tell you that? Did she tell you that I can sit in a car and drive for hours at a time now? Did she tell you that he holds my hand and helps me through it? Did she? Or how about the fact that they are the only ones in this entire fucked-up place who look at me like I’m sane? If that is what it means to worship the Devil or stray from God, then I would rather be in Hell than this home.”
Nell was laughing. And crying.
