Who Owns Kelly Paddik by Beth Goobie Read Free Book Online Page B

It was only a few days now until my stitches were supposed to come out.
    â€œI can’t believe she did that,” I said.
    â€œWhy not?” asked Chris.
    â€œShe’s always so tough,” I said. “She laughed when she saw my arm.” I looked at Chris. “You ever slash?” I asked her.
    Chris rubbed her forehead. “I thought about it a couple of times. But I guess Fran changed my mind.”
    â€œHow’d she do that?” I asked.
    â€œWell, she knows about what my father did to me.” Chris’s face got very pale and twistedaround when she said this. “He ... sexually abused me. I don’t really like to talk about it. I still get nightmares sometimes. I did a lot of dumb junk to forget.”
    â€œThe usual?” I asked. I knew what that meant — drugs, drinking, AWOLs, hooking.
    Chris kept twisting her hands. “Some-times ... well, I still can’t forget and I get hyper.” I thought she might start to cry, but she swallowed and went on. “They put me in a group home because I kept running away. As long as I saw an open door, I was out and gone. I know my dad wasn’t hurting me anymore. All that ... sexual abuse ... was over, but I kept thinking about it. I’d think about it every time I had to stay in one place. I had to keep moving. I just looked for an open door and took off.”
    I was watching her face closely. It was like hearing my own story, except that my dad died in a car crash a few years ago. I thought I’d be rid of him then, but he was still here, hanging around inside my head.
    Chris sighed. “I kept taking off until they put me in here. Then I couldn’t run anymore.” She started scratching the back of her hand — not deep, just nervous. I knew what that meant — notscared enough to slash, but thinking about it. “Y’know how when you run,” Chris said, “you feel like you’re getting out ... I dunno ... of the mess inside you?”
    I nodded.
    â€œThat’s why I always ran,” she said. “But with these walls, there’s no place to go. I did a lot of kicking and yelling when I first got here. Then Fran told me that it was really my dad who was doing the kicking and yelling. He wanted to hurt me, and I was still letting him do that to me.”
    She must say that to everyone
, I thought.
    â€œWell, I thought about it and I figured she was right,” Chris said. “Why should I wreck my life? If I worked it all out and did okay, he’d be more surprised than anybody.”
    â€œSo what did you do?” I asked. “You seem okay now.”
    â€œWell, this sounds stupid,” Chris said, “but I just talked about it. I talked to Fran and then to Jim. A lot of kids talk to them. Jim’s heard a lot of that stuff. He listens and asks questions. Someday I’m going to be a social worker like Jim, but up in Churchill.”
    Slowly I pulled up my sleeve and lookedat the stitches on my arm. “I thought this would be the end of it all, y’know?” I said.
    â€œGuess you’re stuck with being alive longer than you thought,” Chris said softly.
    â€œI guess,” I muttered. I thought about Pit Bull, her arm wrapped in a tea towel, not looking at us. I didn’t want to turn out like her. But the idea of talking to Jim scared me. What if talking about my dad made him show up in my head again?
    â€œYou should give the key back,” Chris said suddenly.
    A wave of shock washed over me. I glanced quickly at Chris, then away, so she wouldn’t see the surprise in my eyes. “I don’t have any keys,” I said.
    â€œYes, you do,” Chris said.
    â€œYeah?” I demanded. “Where are they?”
    Chris pulled the set of keys I’d thrown into the washroom garbage out of her pocket. “Guess where I found these,” she said. “But the master key is gone. You’ve got