Sheltered(45)

She couldn’t keep up. She didn’t want to keep up. For once nothing felt clumsy or awkward—she almost flew across the kitchen, and quite possibly would have made it, if it hadn’t been for her hair. Her long, long hair, which her father got his fist around before she’d reached the glass.

She could hardly believe the noise that came out of her when he did it. It sounded like something unearthly, something that wasn’t her at all, and the harder he yanked on that length of hair, the louder she made herself.

It forced another realization—she’d never screamed before. All these years, all the pain, and she’d never so much as made a peep.

But by God she was screaming now. He could go on demanding she stop all he liked. He could pull and pull on her hair—like a leash, she thought, deliriously, like a chain around her neck, yanking hard—for as long as he felt like it, she wouldn’t stop this noise.

And she wouldn’t stop trying to escape either. All she had to do was keep right on running, as though he hadn’t grabbed her at all. Then just as the pain reached some unbearable point, just as she felt sure she couldn’t stand it a second longer, she yanked harder.

Agony seared through her scalp, as something tore. White-hot agony, electric agony, agony so bad she could hardly see the handle on the door. She scrabbled for it desperately, knowing her father wouldn’t be shocked for long. He wouldn’t just stand there, with a fistful of her hair, and let her get away.

Or at least she thought so until she burst out into the cool night air, the back of her head on fire, everything urging her to go go go. The need to turn and look winning out over it, for just one second.

Though she regretted it when she did. He didn’t look like a person anymore, her father. He looked like a statue behind the glass she fumbled closed, frozen forever in this one familiar tableau. Face almost blistering with anger. Fist raised, with his prize still in it.

This is how I will always remember him, she thought.

And then she climbed onto her bike and rode away.





The address on his license said 374 Benny Heights, but that didn’t mean anything to her. It might as well have said the heart of the Sahara Desert for all the chances she had of finding it.

Though the situation was made just a little bit worse by the eight miles she’d had to pedal to get into the city, the dark, and the incredible rainstorm that God then decided to dump on her head. For a long, long moment she stood in a parking lot that could have been the middle of ButtFuck, New Jersey for all she knew, and seriously thought about sleeping under a car.

The spaces beneath were dry, after all. And the likelihood of someone actually running over her seemed slim, if not impossible. In the morning things would seem brighter, and clearer, and maybe she could actually ask someone who wasn’t the terrifying doorman of Satan’s Lair.

Though of course, there was another possibility. The hundred bucks in Van’s wallet. Would he miss it? He hadn’t missed it for the last three days. And she’d seen a sign a ways back for a motel that cost half that amount, so it wasn’t as though she’d have to spend it all.

To get some heat, and light, and a bath. God, how she longed for a bath. Any adrenaline in her had left long ago, leaving most of her limbs feeling like limp dishrags. Her face still stung from the rain. Her clothes were soaked through and getting colder by the second. If she could just rest for a second, and really think about where she was…

There’s an alley down the side of his building, and a Chinese restaurant next to it. And then across the way there’s another one, the one he went to—Szechuan Dragon.

The one I can see the blinking neon sign for, just past this parking lot.

She almost broke into a run before her body reminded her of the state it was in. And then once she’d gotten herself together and started diligently pushing her bike along at some sort of excruciating pace, her mind kicked in. The mind that really needed a bath and some warmth, but also kind of wanted to inform her of a slight issue.

He’s probably not going to appreciate you turning up on his doorstep. He said that thing, but how do you know he really meant it? Men say all sorts of stuff after they’ve had sex, even though you don’t know what any of them actually are.

Lord, she hated herself for not knowing what they were. She hated herself for doing this thing, which had at first seemed brave but now looked pathetic. When she got to his narrow and completely intimidating-looking building—all dark, slick brick and heavy, odd window ledges jutting out, like sulky lower lips—she couldn’t even figure out how to press the buzzer. His name wasn’t listed on one of the little peeling strips, as though maybe she’d gotten it wrong after all.