Page 78 of Pageant

I stand there for hours as the shadows grow long and the sun dips over the horizon. The lights are switched off and the study is shrouded in darkness. There’s an ache in the pit of my belly. Maybe it’s fear. Maybe it’s loneliness. Maybe I deserve everything that’s happened to me. Mom dying. Being rejected by my friends one by one because of the things their parents have told them about my father. Dad’s unpredictable cruelty.

When my legs start to throb, I shift from foot to foot, and something warm runs down the inside of my leg. I squeeze my eyes shut in horror. I’m wetting myself? The shame is suffocating, and a fresh fear slices through me. I’m soiling Dad’s precious study, and when he comes back, he’s probably going to hit me again.

There’s the sound of feet in the hall, and then the light snaps on. I’m blinded by the sudden illumination and I’m still squinting with a hand in front of my face when Dad starts to roar.

“Is this how you take revenge on me? By bleeding all over my carpet?”

Bleeding?

I look down at myself and see that there’s blood running down the insides of my bare legs. The bottom falls out of my stomach at the grisly sight. Am I dying?

I can barely hear Dad shouting as a high-pitched noise whines in my ear. My legs feel rubbery and my knees buckle, and I sit down hard on the floor.

Dad lunges forward and swipes a kick at me. I try and pull myself out of his reach but his foot smashes into my stomach, and everything turns white behind my eyes.

“Look at this fucking mess. If you act like a cheap and dirty woman, I will treat you like one.”

His enormous hand reaches for me, and something inside me breaks. I scramble to my feet and race out of the room, taking the stairs two at a time until I reach my bedroom and slam the door behind me.

Tears are falling down my face as I limp into the bathroom and turn on the shower. I get under the stream of hot water, fully clothed.

As I watch bright red blood pouring down the drain, I don’t even feel like me. I think I’m living in a nightmare.

* * *

“Up. Get up.”

I wake in the morning to Dad shoving things into my school backpack. Clothes. Shoes. He fills it until it’s nearly bursting.

I sit up slowly, rubbing my eyes. “Dad?”

But he doesn’t even look at me. Instead, he takes my backpack and walks out the door. “Be downstairs in the car in two minutes, or I’ll come and get you myself.”

That’s no idle threat, and I jump out of bed, feeling the uncomfortable crinkle of the toilet paper I shoved in my underwear. I thought the bleeding might have stopped but it seems to be getting worse. With tears burning my eyes, I pretend like it’s not happening and pull on a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and sneakers, and hurry downstairs.

Dad is waiting in the idling car, and when I get in the front seat, he shoves my backpack into my arms. His face is set and closed, and I don’t bother asking questions as we drive through the dawn-lit streets.

After a while, I realize we’re heading forBabushka’shouse. Mom’s mom, a shriveled and mean old woman who comes to our house once a year on my birthday and glares at me with beady eyes like she’s a crow and I’m a worm. She never used to be so flinty and bitter. Dad says she became that way after her only daughter passed away. I might feel sorry forBabushkaif she didn’t poke me viciously with her fingers and tell me to stand up straight and wipe “that look” off my face. I don’t know what look she means. That’s just my face.

I stare at the backpack I’m holding on my lap with a sense of creeping horror. “Dad, why are we going toBabushka’s?”

Dad takes a left-hand turn in icy silence.

When we pull up outsideBabushka’sbungalow, she’s standing on the front step wearing a black dress and a severe expression stamped on her face. Dad stares straight ahead, saying nothing.

“Dad?”

“Get out of the car, Lilia,” he says in a flat, angry voice.

I know better than to argue with him when he uses that tone, so I do as I’m told, hoping to placate him. I close the door after me and turn to him, but before I can open my mouth, he guns the engine and roars away.

He’s leaving me here.

Panic like I’ve never known before floods every vein in my body. I drop the backpack at my feet and run screaming after the car, shouting at him to come back, my high-pitched voice rocketing back and forth off the sleepy houses.

“Dad, don’t leave me here.”

His taillights glow red at the end of the street and I gain on him for a second, my legs pumping hard as I fly down the sidewalk. My heart leaps—

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