Page 2 of That Pucking New Girl

Another gunshot hits the wall of the living room, making me flinch. Oh my god, what the hell is happening?

“Everything bad revolves around that miserable little bitch,” Dad says, pacing in front of the living room. I’m having trouble with tracking time. Somehow, everything is running together as I drift. I can’t move at all, and my breathing is constricted even more than normal.

He lurches slightly, and I can just see from my hiding place that he still has his bottle dangling from his fingers. “Don’t hide from me, Laura! We just need to get rid of her.”

“I’m calling the police, Charles. You’re sick!” Mom screams from somewhere in the house.

I don’t know what to do. Should I try to help? Tell my dad I’m here? The problem is I think I’m stuck. The desk is heavy, and I can’t push it away from me. It originally belonged to my dead grandfather. I don’t have any family outside of my parents who are alive now.

They struggled to have me, and I’m defective.

“She’s our sickness,” Dad snarls. “You hear that, Noor? Just kill yourself and put us all out of our misery!”

My father throws the bottle at the wall, and I barely have time to think about not screaming before it shatters by the desk. I’m hyperventilating, my head is swimming, and I can barely think.

Would my family be better off without me?

I’m about to yell for my dad to just do it. If I’m the reason my parents can’t be happy, then maybe this is better. He can just kill me.

“Charles!” Mom’s voice is cut off by a gunshot and violent gurgle, and I no longer see my dad by the entrance to the living room. He must have continued to stalk through the house to look for her. I’m losing track of time at an ungodly rate.

Is this what it’s like when your mind tries to protect you from things? It’s obviously not working. Nothing can protect me from this.

“No,” I whisper, my voice somehow lost as my father screams. “Please, no, tell me you didn’t.”

“Noor, can you hear her?” Dad asks, his voice loud and breaking. “This is all your fault. You made me do this. Come out! Maybe you can try to save her.”

He shoots another bullet off, and then his heavy footsteps continue to move through the house. There’s an odd thump from when he shot the gun, but I don’t know why. Did he kill her? I can’t tell without physically seeing it.

Oh my god, oh my god. Please, she can’t be gone. She’s the only decent thing I have.

“Fucking miserable bitch,” he grumbles. He slams the cabinet doors in the kitchen, and the sound of a bottle cap being unscrewed and dropped on the linoleum floor feels louder than it should be. “Noor, you should come out and see what you did. Fucking coward.”

I couldn’t move if I wanted to. I can see blood beginning to sluggishly move into my view before it's obstructed by my tears. Dad tracks blood into the living room as he swallows a mouthful of whiskey. He keeps switching out his liquor, his only concern is to keep drinking. I can smell the fumes from here, and it’s quickly mixing with the metallic scent of blood.

If my dad wanted to find me, he could, but he hasn’t walked far enough into the living room. Instead, he paces and talks to himself while I sit frozen in fear. Every word hits me like the bullets he wishes he could shoot me with, and my body flinches as I listen.

An ambulance’s sirens begin to wail nearby, and my father’s head swings around as if he can somehow see through the walls.

“Oh shit,” he mumbles. “She really did call the cops. Her bullshit is following me around even in death. Goddamn it, Laura. I didn’t think you had the stones to call.”

Dad continues to talk aloud as he answers my unspoken question. He’s completely oblivious as he paces and drinks while I watch from behind the desk until he drunkenly shrugs as if he’s decided something.

“I’ll see you in hell, Laura,” he mumbles, dropping the bottle to the ground. It doesn’t shatter surprisingly, but the dark liquid does continue to flow from the top as it lays on the ground.

I watch unflinchingly as he shoves the muzzle of the shotgun against the bottom of his jaw. He pulls the trigger without hesitation, and later I’m sure I’ll agonize about how drunk he had to be in order to be able to do this.

I find my voice as his brain splatters everywhere and his body falls to the ground. From here, I have a front seat to the way the wall creates a gruesome core memory of what too much resentment and alcohol can cause. I scream and scream, while my mind struggles to comprehend what this all means.

The only reason the paramedics find me is because of the hoarse screams my little body makes, otherwise they would have left me stuck behind the desk. Every droplet of blood, bullet casing, and tear leaves a hole in my soul.

I hear way more than I should as people bustle around me and the paramedic finally removes me from the house. People tend to say things around little ears that they shouldn’t. Ask me how I know.

CHAPTER

ONE

EIGHT YEARS LATER