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The arm draped over my shoulder suddenly burned through my clothes and gained about fifty pounds. His fingers grazed the side of my arm as he turned, steering us toward the couch. I shivered. Did dads even put their arms around their daughters’ shoulders? I had no idea.
Pausing, he looked down at me, narrowing his eyes as he studied my face, which was no doubt tense with apprehension.
“He hasn’t, has he?”
Took me a moment to realize he was asking just how far Todd had tried to push me. My heart pounded as I stared up at my stepfather.
“No,” I said quietly.
He sighed in obvious relief. I frowned and started to turn away but he tightened his arm around me.
“Grace,” he said softly.
Too afraid to even gulp down another petrified swallow, I glanced up. The look in his eyes made my skin go cold. All the hairs stood up on the back of my neck. He continued to give me the intense look and I gave him a frightened, please-don’t-touch-me stare in return. I couldn’t help but remember what Kiera had said.
Eww. Your new stepdad is that creepy dentist?
Then I recalled the knowing gleam in Todd’s eyes when he first told me, I know where Dr. Struder lives as if he’d been here numerous times over the years to egg the creepy dentist’s house.
It made me wonder exactly what the people of Osage knew about my stepfather that I did not.
Barry laughed softly as if he could read every thought racing through my head, as if he knew just how uncomfortable he was making me. “I’m sorry,” he told me in a soft, intimate voice. Then he touched my hair. “It’s just that you’re so pretty. I don’t want some boy to hurt you.”
Brain buzzing as all kinds of alarms ignited inside me, I nodded. “He hasn’t.”
“Good.” Barry smiled.
I could feel tears building. Motioning toward the hall that led to my bedroom, I wheezed, “You know, I just remembered…I need to finish my homework. I probably shouldn’t watch a movie.”
Barry stepped back as if he realized that he was coming on too strong. He nodded. “Oh, sure. Sure.”
I didn’t apologize for flaking out on him but spun around and hurried toward my room. I wanted so badly to lock my door, but I was too afraid to push the lock, because then he’d hear the click and know how scared I was.
With shaking hands, I went to my mirror and looked at my reflection.
You’re so pretty.
I hadn’t ever thought of myself in terms of pretty or not pretty. I was just…there. Not fat, but not skinny. I was simply—yeah—there. Dark hair stretching down past my shoulders, face a bit too long with a skinny nose, wide mouth and tall enough forehead that I’d have to wear bangs for the rest of my life to hide all that expanse of skin above my eyebrows. My eyes were kind of nice, I guess. They weren’t that sparkly green like Ryder’s, but a pale version of brown, whisky-colored and set deep enough into my head to give me a sort of soulful look.
Really, it was nothing amazing. Just me. Certainly not stunning enough for any male to tell me I was pretty before—even the two boys who weren’t technically fighting over me had never called me pretty.
I shivered and rubbed at the goose bumps that had popped out
on my arms. Why had he told me I was pretty? How did that have anything to do with whether or not he wanted some boy to hurt me?
I pressed a hand against my mouth to muffle a sob, catching sight of my necklace in the reflection in the mirror. Suddenly sickened by the gold thread lying against my skin, I fumbled to unhook it and set the piece of jewelry in my jewelry box. I stared at the red rose, wondering why he’d picked that flower. Didn’t roses symbolize passion or something like that?
Barry hadn’t made a move that constituted sexual harassment, but what he’d said gave me the heebie-jeebies.
Still, I couldn’t tell my mom about it. Not only were we not speaking, but how could I explain the look he’d had in his eye or the way his voice had gone all soft and private? And would my mom even believe me? After the way we’d been getting along lately, she’d probably just think I was lying to cause friction between her and her new husband.
Mom was happy with Barry. Besides, what if I was simply overreacting? Maybe this was just his way of being fatherly. Todd had made me turn my uncomfortable-around-the-opposite-sex dial to full blast and now I was growing paranoid, suspecting my own stepfather of depravity. I didn’t want to get him into trouble if he hadn’t meant anything inappropriate by what he’d said.
Blaming my suspicions on a severe case of melodrama, I told no one about what had happened. But I didn’t put his necklace back on again either.
Chapter 16
Everyone thinks white is so pure and good. The white knight. The merciful white flag. Does no one care how cold it is, freezing like snow and ice? Does no one know Japan says a white carnation signifies death? They put white into a “white lie” for a reason. I think white is actually deceitful, like Hemingway’s story, “Hills like White Elephants”. There’s more than meets the eye. White wants you to think it’s good. But it can also be a cold, lying death.
