Heart on a Chain by Cindy C Bennett Read Free Book Online Page B

won’t be allowed to eat, and maybe a beating or two. And, oh, yeah, swinging on my children’s swing-set as a means of escape.
    “ No, not really. You?”
    “ Nothing to write home about. I’m sure my mom has a list of chores for me,” this said with a lighthearted grudge in his voice and a smile on his lips. I wonder at those chores, certain they’re nothing compared to my own. “I thought I might go to the football game tonight. You going?”
    The football game? I have to think for a minute. Ah, yes, he must mean the high school’s football game. I’m barely aware of the schools extracurricular activities as they aren’t for me. No matter what game he’s referring to, I won’t be attending.
    “ No.”
    “ Do you want to go…with me, I mean?”
    I look at him, stunned. Is he asking me on a date? No , I laugh silently at myself, of course not. He’s just trying to be nice, to be my friend. My silence spurs him to speak again.
    “ I could come pick you up. You know we don’t want you walking on those sore knees for a few days,” he teases, smiling at me.
    “ No, I can’t.” There’s no answering smile on my face, and even I hear the quiet desperation in my voice.
    “ Oh, come on, it might be fun and—”
    “ No! I said no. I just…I just can’t, okay?” He’s silent following my outburst.
    “ Is everything okay?” His voice is full of concern.
    I keep my head turned away, not answering, not trusting my voice because I can imagine it, imagine sitting next to him on the bleachers, drinking a soda, almost being a normal teenager. I feel his gaze on me, though he doesn’t press me.
    He stops at the place I’d had him let me off the previous day and I nearly leap from the car, not waiting for him to open it for me, slamming the door behind me, running toward home, ignoring my screaming knees.
     
     

Chapter Six
     
    It’s the most depressing weekend I’ve had—and I’ve had plenty of depressing ones to measure against it. Before it’s all been about what was at home for me, where this one is about what could have been away from home for me.
    A week ago, I wouldn’t have even thought of it, but now I do. I can imagine it and it’s Henrys fault; he treated me like I was the same as all the other girls when he asked. I don’t know anything at all about football, don’t know if it’s something I would like or hate, so that isn’t the thing that has captured my imagination. It’s just the being there, among my peers, sitting next to Henry.
    It doesn’t even occur to me to worry about the teasing or humiliation I might suffer by showing up in a social place where there’s less supervision than even at school, because somehow I know that if I’m with him, no one would bother me.
    Mom’s particularly ferocious this weekend as well, probably because Friday had been Dad’s payday. He still hasn’t come home from work by Saturday night which means there won’t be much money left when he does get home—if any—because he will have drank most of it away. This means that on top of my misery at missing out on being with Henry at the game, I also have the added fun of being her target.
    Dishes not being washed and put away quietly enough result in fingerprint bruises on my upper arm; causing dust motes to fly in the air earn me a punch in the chest that leaves me gasping for breath. Finally, on Sunday as she stands screaming in my face because I had eaten one of her candy bars—which actually is true for once, though in my defense I hadn’t eaten anything else all weekend and felt faint from being forced to stand in the corner for three hours straight—she reaches out and belts me below my eye, knocking me to the floor. Before she can harm me any further, we hear my father’s car turn into the driveway.
    “ Go get cleaned up. You look a mess,” she tells me quickly. I’m well versed in the hide-the-abuse-from-dad game. Not because he cares about me, but because it just gives him more