If You Only Knew (9780698139541) by Vail Rachel

Author:Vail, Rachel
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin USA
Published: 2014-06-11T16:00:00+00:00

eleven

“Zoe!” Colette yelled. “Are you off? I really need to call—”

She stopped on the second to bottom step, her hands on her hips, because Daddy was in front of her. Elvis sat down on Daddy’s work boot.

“Well,” Daddy said.

Anne Marie and Bay stopped drilling vocabulary.

“Well,” Colette answered.

“Is it gone?”

Colette said nothing. Devin snuck out of the den and sat next to me on the floor against the couch in the living room. “It’s not,” Devin whispered to me.

“I know,” I whispered back. “Shh.”

I could see Mom’s feet come down to the landing. “Arnie,” she said.

“I’m handling this.” His voice was quiet and sharp. “Lift your shirt.”

“Excuse me?” Colette asked.

Daddy spread his arms. “Did you think I would forget?”

“Come on, Arnie,” Mom said. “We agreed.”

“Lorna? Do not undermine me.”

Colette’s fingers pinched the bottom hem of her T-shirt. Stay still, I tried to ESP to her—Mom will get Daddy to leave you alone, if you shut up and let her handle this. But Colette narrowed her eyes and said, “I will not lift my shirt for you.”

“Now!” Daddy yelled. “Do you hear me?”

I felt Devin grab my hand. I squeezed back and prayed for mental telepathy.

“I hear you fine,” Colette told Daddy in her too-calm voice. “But you have no right—”

“I have no right? I have NO RIGHT?”

“That’s what I said. I guess you can hear me, too.”

“Don’t you be fresh to me,” Daddy growled. His huge bread-kneading hands were clenching and unclenching. It occurred to me he could punch her. Please, I prayed. Please, don’t.

Colette’s cheek muscles flexed but she didn’t answer him back. We all waited and hoped.

“Apologize to your father, Colette,” Mom suggested. “Now.”

“No!” Colette spun to face Mom. “He has no right to—”

“To discipline my own child?” Daddy kicked the step.

Colette flinched, but then yelled, “I’m not a child!”

“Am I supposed to ignore it when my daughter comes into my house with her body mutilated?”

“I am not mutilated,” she screamed. “I like how I look!”

“You look like a whore!” Daddy yelled.

Colette blinked twice and started to cry, which I could tell really infuriated her because she sucked in her bottom lip and bit it. She didn’t wipe the tears away. She stood still and stared hard at Daddy, who was staring just as hard back at her.

“I hate you, too,” she said softly.

Daddy covered his face with his hands. He breathed in, then out, very loud, and then stayed there, hidden in his own palms for a while. I wondered if he was praying.

When he finally dropped his hands, they were shaking. “Sweetheart . . .” he said, reaching for Colette, toward a big round tear that was tracking down her cheek.

She swatted his hand away with a fierce slap. Elvis growled.

“Colette,” Mom warned. “Now, let’s all . . .”

Colette didn’t look away from Daddy’s eyes. She spoke very slowly. “You have no right to touch me. Ever again.”

She sniffed once, then cocked her head to the side and lifted the bottom of her shirt a tiny bit, so the little gold hoop showed.

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