Free Forty Candles by Virginia Nelson Page A

house.”
    His voice, so distant, made the screams in her head louder. “Don’t leave, Daddy. Take me with you.”
    Any emotion that lingered on his face vanished, leaving a cold mask. “I’ll come back for you, baby. I have to go now—”
    Her mother’s hand closed on her shoulder, fingers digging too hard, like the talons of some angry bird. “She’s not going anywhere, Liam. She’s mine. Go to your whore, leave us be.”
    “Screw you, Stacey.”
    The words, angry words, like she’d heard through the walls, but never directly from her parent’s mouths in front of her, were like a slap.
    “Daddy…” She managed to whisper it, hoping she’d misheard him.
    “Oh, Liam, never again.” Dragging her backwards, her mother’s fury was just as poisonous as her father’s.
    “Chloe is mine.” Her dad got back in the car, slamming the door.
    “Over my dead body!” Her mother shrieked it, voice louder than the engine turning over. In a squeal of tires and a cloud of burnt rubber smell, her father was gone, leaving her with her still panting in anger mother. “Don’t you worry, Chloe. He won’t take you. This is our home and we’re staying here.”
    Divorce. She knew the word, worried that the arguments would lead to it, but the reality suddenly weighed down on Chloe. She couldn’t stand it. If she just ran away…
    Maybe they’d both search for her. Maybe they’d realize they loved her. Maybe she could fix this. Escaping the hold her mother had on her, she fled out the open garage door. Mom called after her, but she kept going, feet pounding the pavement, tears blinding her.
    She ran, not sure where she was headed, but far away. Where they couldn’t find her until they talked, not argued. At the pond, she stopped, sides aching and breaths coming in wheezes. They weren’t supposed to go to the pond, not without a grownup, but she and Harper’d snuck here a few times. At the rattling sound of a bike with a card in the wheel, she bounded down the dock and hid in the tiny boathouse.
    Feet thudded behind her and then stopped. “Chloe?”
    Jack. The boy next door, the one who pulled her hair at recess and always smelled, just a little, like horse poo.
    Tucking her body lower, hoping he wouldn’t come in after her, she waited, sure he’d go away. He couldn’t see her like this, couldn’t tell his parents… The thought of him telling on her made her respond, “Go away. You didn’t see me.”
    The door scraped open and his footsteps came closer. “I’m not a liar and if you want me to lie, you’re going to have to do more than tell me to for no reason.”
    Punching the floor, she came out of her hiding spot, brushing at her cheeks to hide her tears. “Just forget you saw me.”
    He stood, jeans patched at the knees, tee shirt faded and a little short at the waist, like he’d grown and not gotten new clothes since the spurt. “You okay? Why were you crying?”
    Rubbing harder at her face, she stomped one foot. “I said go away, you hear? Leave me alone.”
    He wouldn’t understand. His family, she’d seen them at town picnics and school stuff. They didn’t have as much money as hers, but they had some kind of dewy glow about them. You could tell his dad didn’t go home and call his mother names. That they didn’t scream at each other and throw stuff, as if he couldn’t hear them.
    She hated him, just a little, right that moment, for what he had. He couldn’t possibly understand her.
    Leaning back on the doorframe, he suddenly looked older than twelve. “Try me.”
    Something about the way he said it, the tone and seriousness of his voice, made her think he’d try.
    “It’s your parents, isn’t it?”
    He guessed it and she couldn’t quite find the lie to make him believe otherwise.
    “You don’t have to talk about it.”
    Moving past him, she headed to the end of the dock to dangle her feet above the water. Dragonflies dipped low, skimming the surface. A fish jumped and made a