Page 1 of That Pucking New Girl

PROLOGUE

NOOR

I’m hiding. The space behind the desk is just large enough for me, but only because I’m so tiny.

“Goddamnit, Laura. Don’t you see? That girl is eating us out of house and home! No one knows what’s wrong with her,” Dad screams drunkenly.

Looking down at myself, I stifle a sigh. My mom says I’m built like a bird. I can’t keep any weight on me for some reason, and the doctors say I’m under the necessary standards for health. There are days that I’m afraid to eat because my head feels funny, so I simply refuse to. I know the doctors and my teachers are worried, but I can’t force my body to do anything it doesn’t want to.

My hand presses against my mouth tightly, refusing to let a single sound out. Dad is really pissed off and he’ll continue to spiral as he rages and drinks.

The issue is that he’s right. There is something wrong with me. I’ve been fainting at school. It’s not my fault and I’m not making it up, I swear. It happens so quickly that I can’t stop it. I simply… fall to the ground.

Sometimes, I’ll be sitting at my desk, paying attention to my teacher, and my heart will begin to pound. I won’t be able to breathe, my vision starts to sparkle with pretty lights, and then I’ll slump over. I’ve gotten in trouble for “sleeping” in class, but I swear I'm not.

I don’t think passing out because my body is freaking out is the same as taking a nap. Unfortunately, it didn’t keep my dad from beating me when I got home after he got the call. Nothing can ever save me from him.

Not even my mom.

“Don’t you think the reason she’s in and out of the hospital could have something to do with the bruises you keep giving her?” Mom hisses. “Noor is a good girl⁠—”

“Then where the fuck is she?” Dad growls back at her. “It’s not like I’ve ever broken anything, Laura. The girl needs to get over being punched occasionally. I bet if we had a boy, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“She’s probably hiding,” she sighs, ignoring his tirade. “You’re not safe for her to be around, Charles. You have to stop drinking.”

“Are you saying I have a problem? I can stop whenever I want!”

I can hear the liquor sloshing out of his open bottle as he swings his arms around angrily. His words are beginning to slur too. Shit, I can’t come out or he’ll break my bones instead of bruising me.

There are only so many times I can pretend to fall down the stairs. We don’t even have any in my house.

“Noor!” Dad screams. “Get the fuck out here!”

“No,” Mom says quietly. “Leave her alone, Charles. This isn’t you. If you can stop drinking, show me. Do it. Be the good man I married.”

I can’t hear another sound for a long while, not until he slaps her across the face. Her soft gasp and crying fills the room, but all Dad can do is scoff. I can’t see them as they stand in front of the desk arguing. All I can do is pull myself into a tighter ball and hope they don’t find me.

“You’re all worthless. Stop telling me what to do,” he says, drinking more out of the bottle. The sloshing of the liquid helps me understand what I’m hearing, and fear slides further into my veins. I first crawled behind the desk when I found him drinking alone in the kitchen. Mom works late on Tuesdays at the local lab. I try my best to stay clear of my dad then.

She’s the one who makes the money ever since he lost his job. Now, no one wants to hire him, and his drinking is getting worse. Mom came home to find him relocated in the living room where I’m hiding, and they haven’t stopped arguing since.

I have a tiny feeling that she knows where I am and she’s pretending not to so she can protect me. These aren’t the kinds of things that a nine-year-old should be worried about, yet I do.

I wasn’t always like this. I used to ice skate competitively, I had friends, but now I’m the weird girl who may be contagious. People make faces at me at school, they call me a ghost, and complain I breathe too hard. This has only been happening for the past year, and it’s been taking a toll on both myself and my family.

I can’t help feeling starved for air. It’s like no matter how hard I try, I can’t get enough oxygen into my lungs. I also don’t think anyone can catch whatever this is. If I was sick, I could get better, right? The doctors think it may be asthma, but the inhaler isn’t helping. Nothing does…

I initially ignore my parents as they begin to argue again. They leave the room and Mom starts to scream at him to stop hurting her. I can hear his fists hitting her soft skin, and I wish I was bigger, braver…

I’m none of these things. I’m just a cry baby.

Tears slide down my face as if to remind me of this fact, and then I hear a gunshot. My head slams into the wall as my eyes get wide, and adrenaline dumps into my system. Ignoring the tingling in my fingers and the way my body aches, I struggle to peer around the heavy furniture I’m behind. It’s impossible with the way I’m wedged in here, yet I nonetheless try.

“Don’t come out, Noor!” Mom screams, sounding fine.

Dad has a gun. When did that happen? We’re a weapon free household. We always have been. Mom hates them, and Dad is something called a pacifist. I’m not sure what that means. When I asked once, I got a long lecture I didn’t understand.

Basically, I think he’s supposed to hate guns too.