Such a Pretty Girl by Laura Wiess Read Free Book Online

and turn to leave.
    The air crackles.
    My father explodes from the chair, and the shriek of wood against tile stuns me for the millisecond it takes him to cross the room. He jerks me around to face him. “I don’t think you get it,” he says in a low voice. “I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. I’ve had about enough of this—”
    “Let me go.” Somehow my voice comes out louder than my thundering heart. “You’re not even supposed to be here without another adult present!”
    His fingers sink deeper into my skin. “Oh really? Well, then go ahead, Chirp, tell me what else the law says I can and can’t do. Come on, you brought it up.”
    He can’t do this. He can’t. “Stop it,” I croak. My hands spasm, my head bobs. Adrenaline screams fight or flight, but I can’t move. Can’t choose.
    “I am your father,” he says and, with his free hand, cups my quavering chin. “I changed your diapers, I taught you how to hit a fastball and how to count and everything, and now the state is gonna tell me, now you’re gonna tell me what I can and can’t do? Bullshit.” He tugs me up against his chest where the golden baseball blinds my vision and his minty-fresh breath reams my nostrils. “You’re my daughter and I love you and nobody’s going to stop me from hugging you if that’s what I want to do, dammit.”
    Close the curtain, my mind orders, but the command is small and lost.
    His voice cracks. “God, Chirp, how can you be so cold? What happened to that pretty, good-natured little girl with the freckly nose? You used to think I hung the moon, and now…”
    The air conditioner kicks on and the floor vent blows chilled air up between my trembling legs.
    “Are you afraid I’m mad at you for testifying against me? Listen, I don’t blame you. You were just a kid, confused and manipulated, and I wasn’t there to protect you. I understand that.” He tries to tilt my chin up, to woo my gaze from his chest to his face.
    I don’t give.
    He sighs. Releases my arm and steps back. “Please don’t make this harder than it has to be. You’re still my little girl and I’m responsible for you, body and soul.” His voice hardens. “You might want to remember that the next time you decide to break the rules.”
    He saw me. He touched me. If I swallow, I’ll throw up.
    “Now, why don’t you go get dressed before your mother comes back with breakfast?” He lays strong hands on my shoulders and turns me in the direction of my bedroom. “Go ahead, now,” he says and whacks me on the butt.
    I jolt forward and scurry into my four-sided box.
    “And take a shower while you’re at it,” he calls after me, sounding vaguely offended. “You smell pretty ripe.”
    “Okay.” I shut the door and pace blind, helpless circles in the middle of my bedroom….
    I pat bubbles onto my face in a beard. Then lower where a puff of froth gives me the hair I don’t yet have. But I’m getting there because today I go from being a baby in a bathtub to a big girl who rinses off under the shower.
    I grasp the shower curtain and balance on the edge of the tub so I can see my slick, soapy body in the mirror.
    The bathroom door opens. “Ready for the shower?” my father says, stopping as he catches sight of me. “What the heck are you doing?”
    “Getting big,” I say, grinning at him through my sudsy beard.
    He closes the door behind him. Locks it. “Don’t be in such a hurry to grow up, okay? You’re perfect the way you are.” He is shirtless and the baseball gleams like treasure in his chest hair.
    I reach to touch it and slip.
    Instantly, his hands cup my armpits. “Careful there.” He nudges my nose with his and comes away with a puff of soap clinging to his lip. “Uh-oh, old timer, your beard’s falling off! Time to get wet!” He leans into the tub toward the faucet.
    “No!” I shriek, laughing and clinging to him like a monkey, wrapping my arms around his neck and my spindly legs around his waist.