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“You owe him a phone call. What would have happened if George hadn’t been there? And now I need to find a way to repay him.”
I have a terrible thought: Perhaps I should offer myself as repayment, like one of those heroines in my grandmother’s romance novels whose family forces her to marry a man she doesn’t love. And then Sebastian will have to rescue me. Except he can’t, because my father has forbidden any of us to leave the house without adult supervision. We’re not even allowed to talk on the phone unless we clear it with my father first. I thump up the stairs to my room, hating my father, Dorrit, and most of all, George.
I shove the box of stories under the bed and pick up the phone. Maybe George is still asleep. Or out. At least I can say I tried. He answers on the second ring.
“How are you holding up?” he asks.
“I’m okay.”
“And Dorrit?”
“Locked in her room.” I pause. “Anyway, I want to thank you. We couldn’t have managed without you.” I do my best to sound sincere on this last statement, but I don’t quite succeed. George doesn’t seem to notice, however.
“No problem,” he says, full of good cheer. “These things happen. Glad I could help.”
“Thanks again.” Having done my duty, I’m about to ring off when I make a fatal mistake. “George,” I ask. “Why did she pick you?”
He laughs. “That almost sounds like an insult.”
“It isn’t. You’re a great guy—”
“Am I?” he asks eagerly.
“Well, sure,” I say, trying to figure out how to get out of this trap. “But she’s thirteen. It seems so extreme to steal a car and drive all the way to Providence—”
I hear a telltale ping indicating my father has picked up the extension below and is listening in.
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” George says, lowering his voice. “I could come by next week.”
“I’ll have to check with my father,” I sigh, knowing my father will say “yes,” and surprised he hasn’t already broken into the conversation.
When George and I hang up, I head downstairs to confront my father. “Are you going to listen in on every conversation I have from now on?”
“I’m sorry, Carrie, but yes. And I’m not listening in. I’m monitoring.”
“Great,” I say sarcastically.
“And if you were thinking about seeing Sebastian later, forget it,” he adds. “I don’t want that little S-H-I-T anywhere near this house.”
“But, Dad—”
“I’m sorry, Carrie.”
“He’s my boyfriend!”
“That’s the way it is,” he says, unmoved by my obvious distress. “No boys. And that means no Sebastian, either.”
“What is this? Alcatraz?”
My father says nothing.
Arrggghhh.
My anger is like some rudimentary, single-celled beast, an exploding virus of fury that paralyzes rational thought and blinds me to everything except one single goal….
“I’m going to kill you!” I scream, rushing upstairs to Dorrit’s room. I leap on top of her, but she’s prepared, having raised her legs into a defensive position. I know that somewhere in the world, in truly perfect families, sisters don’t fight. But we’re not one of them. We used to be regular pugilists, kicking and twisting arms and chasing each other with shovels and rakes and locking each other in the car or out of the house, shaking each other out of trees, hiding in closets or under the bed or running each other down like rabbits. “I’m going to kill you,” I scream again, raising a pillow over my head as Dorrit kicks my groin.
I try to get the pillow over her face, but she squirms away, landing on the floor. She gets up and tries to jump on my back. I buck like a horse but she won’t let go. I struggle to stand up and we both fall over. We land on the bed with me lying on top of her.
