My So-Called Family by Gia Gordon

Author:Gia Gordon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

Sam Noble Wants to Know …

… if he just helped me run away from my foster home.

He doesn’t say it in those exact words, but it’s still what he means. I can’t blame him for asking.

“Gladys doesn’t like me to talk about home stuff,” I tell him. “She says it’s private.”

“I understand, Ash, but I do know things aren’t always easy there and … I just don’t want to lose the opportunity for you to come over by breaking any rules, y’know?”

“You probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” I say in a jumble of panicked words.

“Try me.”

I swallow hard.

“I think Jordan wants to hurt me.”

Gentry turns and looks at me over his shoulder. Sam’s eyes bounce-reflect off the rearview mirror, then back to the road.

“Can you say a little more about that?” he asks.

“Gladys’s son? Jordan. Him and his wife … um, stay there sometimes, and he … he fixes things for Gladys, and … I mean … he nailed my bedroom window shut. That’s what took me so long to get out.”

After a stretch of silence, Sam says, “Okay.” The word comes out long and thin, like he’s thinking about it. “Why … why would you have to go through the—”

“And earlier, Gladys told him he wasn’t allowed to hurt me. Like she knew he would try and do something if she didn’t tell him not to.”

I can see the back of Sam’s head nodding slowly.

“Anything else?” he says.

It all sounds cringe now, even to myself. Like I’m making it up. Or making it out to be more than what it is. Like I’m being all dramatic about it.

“No,” I say.

I lean my head against the window, watching as the boba tea place and the Starbucks and Big Al’s roll by.

“Well, I don’t mind at all if you stay tonight,” Sam says around Fifth, as we pass the hospital. “And we have spare toothbrushes, in case you weren’t able to bring anything with you, and … I’m sure you can borrow a change of clothes from Gentry if need be. But we’ll have to tell your caseworker something. I really think you’re going to have to let her know what’s going on at home.”

This time, the word home sticks in my throat like a dry cracker.

“Are you going to tell her?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer right away. The high school whips in and out of view, then the old Civil War–era mansion that we took a field trip to last year.

“I’m not sure,” he finally says as we pass Children’s Park.

I nod. Swallow tears.

“Ash?” he says. “Do they … did they … have they ever hurt you?”

I blink fast. Blink faster. I’m not sure what he means by hurt. When Gladys complains about how expensive it is for things like food or clothes for me? When Jordan acts like everything bad that happens is my fault? When Gladys lets him call me things like baby-dyke … and worse? You can’t show someone what that kind of hurt looks like, because it lives inside you instead of on your skin.

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