Page 5 of Innocence
“Are you sassing me, girl?”
I hung my head to avoid the foul spray of his breath. The combined stench of beer, cigarettes and peanuts made me want to retch. Mom was in the kitchen, humming, while she sat at the table scratching her game cards.
There was no mistaking what was happening. Ralph loomed over my small frame, shoulders back, while his pot belly brushed against my arm. Just once, I wished Mom would care enough to step in. But she wouldn’t. She never did.
Almost as if he could sense my need for the only parent I’d ever known, Ralph barked out, “Your mother’s been worried sick.”
His words made me grimace. They were nothing more than a cruel fable spun by a wicked tongue. A lie that cut deeper than any physical wound.
Mom wouldn’t worry about me. Angie was the daughter she wanted. I was the by-product of a regrettable relationship. That didn’t stop a twinge of guilt from tugging at my heart. Maybe this time she did worry?
“I had a tutoring session.” Hopefully that would satisfy him. Tutoring meant money, and money meant more beer for him. “I made an extra twenty.”
“Was it with that boy?” His lip lifted up in a snarl, baring his yellowing teeth.
I swallowed the sense of dread rising in my gut and nodded.
Normally, I didn’t accept tutoring jobs with boys. I had enough trouble without the ‘whore’ lectures, but when Blake McKinney asked, I couldn’t refuse. He wasn’t like the other jocks at school. Blake had never been anything but nice to me.
Considering he was the star quarterback, he was the last person I’d expected to stop his friends from taunting me. It seemed wrong to deny him when he needed my help.
“What else are you doing for him?” Ralph leaned back and sucked loudly on his teeth. “How’d you earn that tip, girl?”
“I didn’t do anything. He just gave it to me,” I whispered, and ducked my head to hide the flush warming my cheeks.
Blake McKinney was cute, and I wouldn’t deny him a kiss if he asked, but he wouldn’t. Everyone in Worthington knew who he was. I lived in a rundown two-bedroom trailer in the part of town the stray cats avoided.
Once upon a time, we’d had a better place to call home, but then Mom met him. Ralph lost his job and she had to sell the house. Now he sat around drinking away most of the profits from the diner.
“I won’t have any sluts in this house, Kya.”
“Maybe you should stop trying to sneak in my bed at night then.”
I don’t know what caused me to talk back. Maybe it was the frustration of knowing how pathetic I was, knowing that I’d always bethatgirl. The one people talked about years later, but whose name they didn’t remember. Because she wasn’t important or meaningful enough.
Ralph’s warning glare rolled up to meet mine. Yet, my mouth kept moving.
“I wonder what Mom would think about that?”
Panic struck my chest as one word flew through my mind.
Run.
A heavy palm cracked off my cheek, twisting my neck and knocking me to the ground.
“Be glad I’m here, girl,” Ralph spat down at me. “Who else would take care of your good for nothing mother?”
I gritted my teeth and dug my fingers into the thin carpet. Take care of her. That was laughable. The only thing Ralph was good for was stinking up the room.
“Ungrateful slut,” he grumbled and flopped back down in the recliner.
Mom moved around the kitchen, singing a show tune. I blinked back my tears and watched her red heels click past the open doorway. Why couldn’t she care about me? Hold me tightly in her warm embrace, and tell me everything would be okay?
I wouldn’t care if it was a lie. I’d take the illusion and live happily in that moment, pretending I was my sister. My beautiful, confident sister, Angie.
But I wasn’t my sister. I was the incompetent girl that never did anything right. I couldn’t even make myself glare back at my stepfather. I just stayed on all fours, staring at the spots in the dirty brown carpet. Wishing I could sink into the fabric and become one of those unnoticed stains.
“Get up,” Ralph said, while sparking up another cigarette. “I’m out of smokes.”
