Page 24 of All Her Ghosts

“Youwill,” she insists. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to get into a good college?”

“When did I ever say I wanted—” I start, but Mom barrels right over me, pacing again. She pulls the alligator clip from her sandy hair, digging fingers across her scalp.

“Maybe I protected you from too many consequences growing up. You clearly don’t know basic cause and effect. You swan around here like the world can’t touch you, but itcan, Persephone. It’s dangerous out there. You could have been hurt. You could have been kidnapped, or—orkilled. There’s a thousand things that could have happened that you don’t know how to handle on your own!”

My seams slip, fingers hazing. I can’t seem to remember how to breathe. I could have been hurt? I couldn’t handle it on my own? I handleeverythingalone. I’ve spent most evenings locked up in her carousel of houses alone, working on homework alone, cooking my dinners alone—and what, suddenly she cares what could happen to me now? I could have choked to death a hundred times, set the house on fire, run away. Six houses in three years—I’ve wandered a half-dozen neighborhoods in the time it takes her to come home from work. She never knew where I was. She nevercared.

I fling down my carpetbag like a challenge, an old-fashioned gauntlet tossed before the duel. “I told you I was safe.”

“But I don’t trust you,” she yells. “Ican’ttrust you. You lost that today.” Lips pursed, she pauses, eyeing me like some disgusting thing that’s crawled in through the dog door. “The principal wanted to give you a three-day suspension, but I convinced him not to give you the satisfaction. You’ll have in-school suspension for a week. And don’t youeverlet me catch you around that boy again.”

An unexpected jab, expertly aimed. I go cold. My vision narrows, my skin too tight. A howling wind slices through the silence. Outside, the storm finally lumbers out of bed. All at once, a sheet of icy raindrops cuts against the house, hissing like ghost salts across the slate roof.

“What boy?” I challenge.

Red to a bull, she stares right back.

“Don’t waste your time coming up with a story. The school told me.”

But my mother only looks me in the eyes when shelies.

I bite back a mean smile, rotten with furious vindication.

“If therewasa boy, the school couldn’t tell you. They couldn’t share the disciplinary record of another student with you. So tell me the truth.”

“You are in no position to make demands, missy,” she says. “You skip school, come home with an attitude and flowers in your hair—of course it’s a boy. You’re never as clever as you think.”

And there she goes—pick, pick, picking at something she thinks she can break—but I won’t let her ruin this. I refuse to back down. Kicking off my muddy boots, I march all the way into the living room.

“But that’s not what you said,” I insist, squaring up, toe to toe and ready for a brawl. “You said theschooltold you. You lied.”

Mom’s face riots, a complicated mess of disgust and rage. After a second it settles into a curled lip and a low threat.

“You better fix that attitude quick,” she grits through her teeth, her clawed hand whipping out to rattle my arm in its socket. “After the day you put me through—getting an emergency call from the principal and showing up to school to find youmissing—you think you have the right to catch an attitude with me?”

I jerk backward, knocking her beige little talons away.

“You know what? Ido. I do have the right! You wanna talk about trust? Well, you’ve lost mine too. I’ve let you drag me around my whole life without answering any questions and I’m done.” I step forward, demanding, “Who was that man?”

Glowering, Mom says, “You donottake that tone with me.”

Wind collides against the side of the house.

“He has a son, doesn’t he?”

“I can’t even look at you right now.” She turns away, holding up a hand. “Go to your room until I figure out just how long you’re grounded.”

Trying to dismiss me. To fold me back into the little box in her head where she’s kept me, to shove me back into the ill-fitting skin of a girl—to force me small again.

No.

The ocean screams in my ears. My soul slips. Outside, the storm batters into the windows, ice slanting under the overhanging porch like it wants to join in. I feel its howling echo trapped behind my teeth, grinding on my last weapon. “Why don’t I have a heartbeat?”

Mom stops cold. Sheflinches. “What?” she asks, eyes wide.

“You heard me,” I press, seizing on that little weakness. “Why don’t I have a heartbeat? What were you supposed tohandleseventeen years ago?”

“Don’t be stupid, of course you have a heartbeat,” she says, arms squeezing hard against her chest.