The door clicks shut. I close my eyes.
“I love you, too, Daddy.”
The next day, Marcus leaves early and comes home late. I pretend not to notice that he’s avoiding me. Neither of us seems to know how to act around the other, so we pass like ships until nightfall when we disappear into our own rooms.
A week goes by. Some nights I hate him, while other nights, I lie awake wishing he’d leave my mother’s bed and sneak into my room to hold me down and take me.
After dancing around each other for almost a month, I finally find the words I need to say over breakfast one morning while Mom’s upstairs packing—this time, she’s leaving for good.
“Daddy?” I say, pushing aside my cereal bowl.
He eyes me warily over his coffee cup. “Yeah, sweetheart?”
I pull the ski mask from the pocket of my robe and lay it on the table. “When you come to my room tonight, don’t tie me up right away. I want a chance to fight back before you fuck me.”
Hard at Work
“Lily!” My boss’s voice thunders from his office down the hall. “In my office. Now.”
I roll my eyes. What the hell does he want this time? I finish typing a text to my lazy-ass boyfriend, reminding him to call me when he gets out of work so I know he’s not off getting drunk with his low-life friends. Pushing up from my desk, I leave the empty reception area and head for my boss’s office at the end of the hall.
The door is open, so I don’t bother knocking. “Yes, Mr. Royce?”
He doesn’t even look up from his desk. “Where’s the McKenzie file I asked for?”
“It should be there.”
“It’s not.”
I fold my arms. “Well, I don’t know what to tell you.”
Mr. Royce sighs and leans back in his fancy leather chair. There are wrinkles in his fancy white shirt, and I can tell he’s been running his hands through his fancy new haircut. He’s frustrated. Well, so am I. This is my first summer back from college. I should be on the beach with my friends, letting my boyfriend rub suntan lotion on my back. I should not be holed up in my stepdad’s buddy’s law office answering inane phone calls and pushing papers—as in actual paper. It’s like this guy refuses to move into the twenty-first century.
Of course, if I hadn’t gotten fired from my last job for checking my phone too much, I wouldn’t be here. Hard asses thought I couldn’t multitask. Whatever. My boss was a total asshole anyway.
Not unlike my current boss.
“Lily, I need that file. Go check and see if you missed it. Please.” He says the word please like it’s an afterthought, as if my time isn’t worth anything.
I clench my teeth and turn to go—
“Are these the files you’re looking for, sir?” Mina, Mr. Royce’s assistant and technically my direct supervisor, sweeps past me into the room with a file between her shoddily manicured fingers.
She sets the folder on the desk. Mr. Royce checks the contents, then flashes her an appreciative smile. “Thank you, Mina. It’s nice to see someone around here is still willing to put in some effort.”
I close my eyes so I can’t roll them. “Can I go now?”
“For now, yes,” he says. “But I need you to stay late tonight.”
I scoff. “Mr. Royce, I can’t. I have to meet my boyfriend.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass if you have to meet God himself. I need you to stay and help move those files from the back-office cabinets into the new storage room.”
He can’t be serious. “But—”
“I don’t want to hear it, Lily. You can either stay and help or leave now and never come back. But good luck finding another employer that’ll take someone with no skills and zero work ethic.”
Mina’s smile is smug, her lipstick so two years ago. Mr. Royce turns his attention to his computer screen. My eyes burn, seeing red.