2. Seven
TWO
SEVEN
“It was my birthday,” I tell him, my voice little more than a whisper. “I think I was… sixteen? Maybe. I don’t know. Sixteen, for the first time.” I laugh, but the sound is broken somehow. They hadn’t wanted me to get older. No one had.
I don’t know how to pull these words together.
“I’d been good, she said—” I continue.
“She,” Caleb interrupts, though his voice is gentle. “You mean Abigail, or your sister?”
I nibble on my lip. “A-Abigail,” I get out, and it’s strange calling her that instead of my mother , but it’s easier, somehow, too. “She said I’d been good, so I could have dinner with the rest of the family.”
I don’t think I have to explicitly tell Caleb that it was a rare thing, that I didn’t get things like that. That I was locked up all the time, that I wasn’t part of the family .
I don’t look at him. Instead, I stare down at Nacho, who’s purring in my lap, and I gather up the strength to keep going.
The door starts to open.
I pull my legs up to my chest, and I wonder what my next client will be like.
It’s been two days since the last person I’ve serviced.
Two days since I’ve even spoken to anyone. The people who bring my food never say a word to me, no matter how much I’ve tried to get them to engage.
The door opens further, and I force myself to smile.
Part of me is relieved, anyway. I don’t want to be alone anymore. The TV only shows static, and I’m bored of reading the same book over and over.
My mother walks through the door, and my heart leaps into my throat.
I should be grateful it’s her, not another client, but sometimes her expectations are even worse, even harder to fulfill. A client would be easier.
But it’s not a client, and I feel guilty for wishing it was.
She’s every bit as put together as always, wearing a long-sleeved, tight black dress. Her black hair is pulled back into a bun, showing off her large earrings. The red lipstick is a stark contrast to her pale skin.
I think she’s probably a beautiful woman, but there’s something about the way she looks at me that detracts from it.
“There’s my baby,” she says, coming over to the bed and sitting down. She opens her arms, and I obediently go to her for a hug.
She squeezes me, and I close my eyes, letting myself take what comfort I can from the embrace. Part of me wants to push her away, but if I do that, she’ll be disappointed in me, and she’ll leave.
Or worse.
“Hi,” I whisper.
“Do you know what day it is today?” my mother asks as she strokes my hair.
I shake my head. They’re all the same. The only reason I can even tell that there are different days is by how often they bring me food.
“I’m just glad you’re here,” I tell her.
“Are you going to stay?” If she stays, there might not be anyone to service.
It might only be the two of us for a little while.
I’m not sure which is better.
“It’s your birthday, baby!” My mother kisses my forehead. “I prepared a birthday cake for you. It’ll be you, and me, and your dad, and Emily. Isn’t that fun?”
I blink at her, sure I’ve heard her wrong. “Dad and Emily are coming here?” I ask. Emily comes to say hello sometimes — to check in, I know, on me and the others — but our dad never stops by.
“Yes,” my mother says, still smiling. She taps my nose with one of her fingers, the long, red nail scraping against my skin. “They’re so excited to celebrate with us.”
I smile with her even though I’m reeling. My heart is racing, and I don’t know what to make of the news. I should be grateful. I never get anything fun like cake. I don’t remember her doing this for my last birthday, either, or even the one before that.
“I can’t wait to see them,” I say. I showered this morning, but I feel the urge to bathe again, to try to get the ick off of my skin. “Do I have something else to wear?” I ask hopefully.
She lets out an exasperated sigh. “Baby, the cake is ready now . If we don’t hurry, your father and Emily will eat it all without you.”
The thin pants I’m wearing will have to do, then. I know I’m lucky to have even those. Not everyone here gets the same. “Okay,” I say.
She gets up and gestures to the door.
Raw fear claws at me as I wonder if this is a trick. I’m not allowed to leave this room. Ever. When I am, it’s always for a specific reason, and those reasons are never good.
But she’s waiting for me at the door, so I follow her out into the hallway even as panic surges and I have to fight back against it.
She leads me through the hallway, and we pass so many closed doors. I can hear crying through some of them, grunting through others, and I almost wish I was back in my own room where I don’t have to think about them.
They don’t get cake on their birthday.
I follow my mother into what looks like a living area, and sure enough, my father and Emily are waiting for me on the couch with a white box on the coffee table in front of them.
My father looks uncomfortable. Emily is wearing a dress almost identical to the dresses my mother wears.
Her lipstick and nails are similarly bright.
The main difference is that her dark hair is shorter, cut straight around her ears.
Her eyes are cold, too. She doesn’t like me.
“Look who I brought,” my mother announces. She gently pushes me toward the coffee table. “The birthday boy himself.”
Emily gives me a strange smile. “He’s what, sixteen now?”
My father looks up at the ceiling, then nods. “Must be. We’ll have to change the clients we give him.”
My mother gives a small laugh. “He can pass for fourteen still. Look how pale his skin is, and how skinny he is.” She reaches out and squeezes my arm. “Mr. Peterson didn’t say you were too old, did he, baby?”
I shake my head. “I won’t tell him I had my birthday,” I promise. Mr. Peterson has been coming for the past few years — at least, I think it’s been years — and he’s never complained, even as I put on height.
He still likes me.
He’s not as bad as clients go, either, and I don’t really like the idea of having new, different ones.
“I’ll tell them I’m fourteen,” I add. Do I really look that young? I know growing up is a bad thing, so I don’t want them to think I’m aging.
One of them had told my mother I had a limited shelf life, once.
She’d immediately hushed him, but I’d heard it, and it had made me cry.
She hadn’t been happy about that.
Baby, you’re not pretty when you cry.
Emily giggles. “Just don’t let them see the body hair.”
I wrap my arms around my shirtless torso, hiding my armpits. I shaved the way I’m supposed to, but the hair keeps growing. Even waxing doesn’t keep it away for long.
My mother peers at me. “Are you growing a beard? You aren’t growing facial hair, are you, baby?”
Dread pools in the pit of my stomach, and I shake my head. “No. I haven’t seen any hair on my face.”
I squeak when Caleb’s hand tightens on mine. “You’re hurting me,” I whisper.
“Sorry,” Caleb says, and he loosens his hold. After a small pause, he adds, “If you want to grow a beard, that’s okay with me. Havoc and Vortex wouldn’t care either.”
I shake my head. I don’t want to grow a beard.
It wouldn’t look good on me anyway, and the idea of it makes my stomach rebel.
I’m already feeling sick from relaying the story, and I don’t even know what it’s supposed to accomplish.
“Emily’s ten years older than me,” I say instead.
“I was… a surprise, my m— Abigail always said.”
“I take it your mother doesn’t enjoy surprises.” Caleb’s voice is a near whisper. “She’s the kind of person who wants everything to be perfectly neat and orderly and—” He lets out a strange chuckle. “Like me, then.”
My heart drops into my stomach. “No,” I say quickly, squeezing his hand tightly. “Nothing like you. I mean, you’re nothing like her.”
But I still remember how Caleb had threatened to let word get out about me, right after he’d picked me up and refused to let me go, and discomfort makes it hard to breathe.
Caleb puts his hands onto Miss K. “Apologies. Please continue.”
I don’t want to continue, but I can’t do this again. I have to push through and finish it now.
Like ‘ripping off a bandage,’ as Havoc had said once.
My stomach twists on itself as I look at the cake. It’ll be sweet. I rarely get anything sweet. Only when a client brings food along that they want to feed me. My usual meals are chicken, potatoes, and vegetables.
“I’ve been reaching out to some people on the west coast,” my father says to my mother. “There’s not a lot of competition, not after the FBI raided?—”
It’s all so much noise.
“How do you expect to get around the new regulations on—” Emily responds.
I don’t know what they’re talking about. Their words wash over me.
My full attention is on the cake. My mouth waters, and I wonder when we’re finally going to start eating.
“Can we have cake now?” I ask.
I can feel the weight of all three of them looking at me, and I realize they’re still talking about business.
My mother’s lips draw into a tight line. “Don’t be greedy, baby,” she says. “The adults are talking.”
Like I really am nothing more than the child they wish I still was.
“I’m sorry,” I say, sinking back into the couch. I pull my legs up to my chest and wrap my arms around them.
My mother makes an annoyed sound. “How many times do I have to tell you not to put your feet on the furniture? It’s like you do it on purpose. You know how much I hate it.”
I immediately put them down, but the damage has already been done.
I can already tell there’s not going to be any cake, and it’s such a stupid thing to be upset about.
I should be more upset that it’ll mean the visit is over, and that my father and Emily will be gone, and that everything will return to how it always is with those same four walls and the twenty-one steps from one side to the other.