Free Audacious by Gabrielle Prendergast Page A

first
    Maybe my nose
    Or my breasts before
    He fills them with cancer
    Poke out my eyes
    Before he blinds me.
    Habibti, don’t talk like that
    You don’t mean it
    God loves you
    I love you.
    God loves me?!
    If this is love I dread to see
    What God would do
    If he hated me.
    How could God
    Let those girls, those bitches
    Lock me in the dark under the stairs
    IN THE DARK, I scream, for the whole night?!
    Suddenly I feel light-headed and hot
    What girls? Samir says
    What are you talking about?
    For a blissful second I’m not sure
    Then something acrid bubbles up inside me
    I turn and vomit tea into a snowdrift
    And want more than anything else
    To tear off the pink dress.
    Samir tries to stop me
    But I pull away
    And run
    Home.

FOUR-WHEEL DRIVE: PART TWO
    The Range Rover appears
    A flash of blue in the whiteout
    Dad jumps out and scoops me up
    Like a little girl
    Like he did once
    When one of those cunts finally
    Confessed the next day
    That I was locked under the stairs
    In the old auditorium.
    He burst through the door
    With police behind him
    And wordlessly scooped me up.
    I dropped the bottle I’d held all night
    Empty, it shattered on the concrete floor
    My raincoat smelled of whiskey
    And puke
    There was an ambulance that time
    But this time he buckles me in
    Beside him and tucks his own coat
    Around me.
    Your young man called
    He’s very upset
    What happened?
    What happened Dad?
    What happened that night
    At my junior-high dance?
    How did you manage to lose me?
    Rah Rah, he says, you asked us not to come
    You wanted to go alone.
    And then you didn’t come home.
    I can’t stop shivering
    Dad cranks the heat up
    As high as it will go
    I didn’t think you remembered
    Much of that, Dad says
    You were so drunk when we found you.
    They had to pump your stomach.
    That girl saved your life.
    She called us when she heard
    Told us she saw you around there
    And remembered how the door would lock.
    I grab Dad’s arm and tell him to stop.
    Stop talking.
    Stop the car.
    I’m crying
    Like I have never cried in my life
    Dad, I say, I didn’t go down there alone
    Those girls took me down there
    Lured me down there
    To drink with them
    And then locked me in.
    Locked me in the dark
    In the cold
    Nothing but concrete,
    Whiskey and me
    Mocked me through the door
    And left me
    To not quite die.
    Dad pulls the parking brake
    Are you sure?
    Now I’m wailing: I’m so messed up
    I’m going to go to jail
    Or something terrible.
    Samir and I were going to run away.
    I don’t know what to do.
    I’m so sorry Daddy, I say
    I’ve screwed up so badly this time
    I wanted to be better
    I really tried
    You didn’t do anything wrong, Dad says
    My girl, my Rah Rah.
    I’ll fix it.

chapter fifteen
    TRUTH
    SOAK
    Samir calls, six times
    While I’m soaking in the tub
    Shivering, and finally
    Being dressed by Mom
    In flannel pajamas
    And put into bed.
    I’ll speak to the boy, she says
    You need to sleep.
    The phone stops ringing
    I lie in bed, looking at the pink dress
    On the floor where I discarded it
    And will it to burst into flames
    Of course it doesn’t
    Because there are no such things
    As miracles.
    As for sleep
    That’s not likely
    My head is ringing
    Their voices
    What they shouted
    Through the locked door
    As I begged them
    To let me out
    Of the dark
    That word they called me
    It started with C .

RECKONING
    It was a bad year, says Mom
    Although I pretend to be asleep
    She knows better.
    I should have noticed
    I should have been available for you
    But I was trapped in my own grief
    For Nana
    And for Gabriel.
    Now this year
    I’ve done it again
    Caught up in my own bullshit.
    At this, I turn and look at her
    Mom never swears in front of me.
    I can do something for you
    I know this boy, Samir
    He didn’t deface that painting
    I know you know who did
    Why don’t you tell someone?
    So I do
    And half an hour later
    I’m dressed
    Sitting at the dining