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Q glares at me with murderous eyes before holding up a variety box of Kotex. “Bitch, you had muhfuckin’ tampons this whole time!”
I see a flash of movement and close my eyes just before the back of Q’s hand meets my face, all four of her chunky silver rings slicing across my cheekbone.
Time stands still as pain explodes across the side of my face.
I feel like I’m on a sitcom where one of the characters is freaking out, so another character slaps them and yells, Snap out of it!
Well, Q’s slap snaps me the fuck out of it. Only there’s no laugh track. No commercial break. No lovable neighbor at the ready with a zinger of a punch line. It’s just pain. And humiliation. And tears. And loss. All the feelings I’ve been so graciously disconnected from burst through my defenses like a tidal wave in the wake of that slap.
Once time begins to move again, I realize that the entire cafeteria has erupted into hysterics. Everyone is on their feet. Everyone is yelling. Carter has one of the runaways by his ripped T-shirt and is screaming in his face. Brad and Not Brad are hauling me to my feet, high-fiving my limp palms for taking “one helluva hit.” Q is standing on the table, tossing peanut butter sandwich crackers into the crowd like dollar bills. And Lamar is scurrying around the madness, picking up the medical supplies that Q pelted me with.
Then, just as suddenly as the outburst began, it stops.
And everyone turns to face the glowing TV monitors behind the fast-food counters.
Meanwhile …
Wes
Thump … thump … thump … scrrrrape.
Fuck.
My heart begins to pound as I listen to my foster mom’s boyfriend stumbling up the stairs.
Thump … thump-thump … WHAM.
The thin walls rattle as he careens into them, ricocheting up the stairs and down the hall like a three-hundred-pound racquetball.
“Fuck you,” he mutters to no one, and I reach under my pillow to grab my knife.
Ms. Campbell went to bed hours ago, which means Limp Dick here didn’t get to fight with her tonight. She’s been doing that—going to bed earlier and earlier, taking enough sleeping pills to tranquilize a horse, just so that by the time he gets fuck-shit-up drunk, she’ll already be passed out.
And it’s been working—for her.
Slam! My door swings open so hard that the knob punches a hole in the Sheetrock wall.
I try not to flinch, but I can’t help it.
I hope he didn’t notice.
“Wake up, you worthlessss sack of shit.”
I grip the handle of my pocketknife tighter and crack one eye open to glance at the motherfucker unfastening his belt as he lumbers toward my mattress. The hall light is on, and I notice that the peeling wallpaper just outside my open door isn’t faded yellow with light-blue cornflowers on it anymore.
It’s blood red with black hooded horsemen all over it. Each one is carrying a different weapon over his head as he charges—a sword, a scythe, a torch, a mace. But they don’t scare me anymore.
And neither does this asshole.
Because now I know this is just a dream.
“Get up, boy!” the disgusting, sweaty, pig of a man staggering toward me yells as he slides his belt off and pulls it taut, making a snapping sound with the leather.
I close my eyes.
It’s just a dream.
I’m in control.
