AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Hunter would really shit a brick if he knew all that.
When the doorbell clangs, announcing the arrival of Katarina, I throw my controller down and hit the off switch on my way out of the den and to the front door. My Vans squeak on the pristine floors, echoing loudly in the big-ass atrium. This house is a monster—it’s only the third year we’ve lived here. I remember thinking how cool it was when we first moved in, but then I realized even a big-ass house didn’t change my dad, and it lost its appeal.
Yanking open the door, I stare at the blonde bunny in front of me,just call me Kat, Katarina, and think even though she’s a ditz who is dumb enough to date my dad and not see past his arrogant and rich exterior, I wish I could warn her to run.
Get out now. Stay away while you can.
The words are actually on the tip of my tongue, and then I glance to her side, and see the small, pint-sized child with coke-bottle glasses, and bones no bigger than a bird’s. Oh, Jesus, no.
The words die with my shock, and then roar back with a vengeance, becausethis…this girl, won’t do. Not for Preston Brady. He doesn’t accept less than perfection, and Katarina is perfect—blonde hair, big tits, long legs, and tan skin. She matches Preston’s dark looks perfectly, the princess to his prince, but her daughter…not good.
I’m too late, though, before I can say anything, a heavy hand claps down on my shoulder, and Kat’s eyes veer to my dad, lighting with enthusiasm. I see her hand tighten on her little girl’s though, and my stomach clenches. Somewhere, Kat knows that this is a risk. I hate her for taking it.
“Katarina,” he says, using her full name. He always uses her full name, since the day they started dating a few months ago. I think he does it because it’s exotic, like she could be a Russian model or something, instead of the coffee-cart girl at his office building. “Malcolm and I are so glad you’re here.” She smiles at me, but I don’t give anything back.
I’m afraid if I open my mouth to say anything, the words are going to pour out in a scream.
The hand on my shoulder squeezes painfully, until I have no other choice. “Yeah,” I mumble. My eyes veer to the girl again, and though I can’t see him, I know my father’s have, too, because his hand tightens even more, and his breathing halts completely.
“Preston, Malcolm,” Kat squeaks. Her voice…it’s usually like a teenage girl, flighty and peppy, but now, it’s like a child, awaiting acceptance or praise or damnation from her father. “This is Natalie.” Her hand trembles when she ushers the girl forward, careful to hold her since it looks like she might have trouble standing on her own. “My daughter.”
My father is silent, but I can feel the disgust coming off him. I want this to be the moment when he explodes and Kat picks up her little girl and runs. I want this to be the moment when he shoves me down and hits me, when he takes his anger out on me, and maybe even Kat, but then lets this girl go.
Because if he doesn’t, things are going to be so much worse.
“Nice to meet you, Nat.”
Kat startles a little at the sound of his voice, because we all know what that nickname was.
Nat, small and useless.
Nat, like a tiny bug, annoying him with its mere existence.
Nat, like the unexpected black speck you find in your food and send back. This is how he will treat her; he’s showing Katarina, and I want to rage when she smiles and crosses the threshold to our home anyway.
Katarina marries my father in a private ceremony somewhere exotic, while Natalie and I stay home. At first, I ignore her, determined not to care or be curious about the girl who goes to school with me, but for most of her classes, stays in the hallway reserved for the disabled. She talks fine, and she’s always reading. I figure maybe she’s that kind of disabled that makes you super smart, but not normal, and so she stays there because she can’t be around real people for some reason.
Then I witness her lose her breath one night when I’m coming home late from hanging out with Hunter. She chokes on her water because her muscles sometimes don’t work enough to swallow, and while I watch the nanny help her puke it back up before carrying her upstairs to clean her off, I realize she stays in that hallway because she needs to be watched constantly in case something like this happens during the school day.
After this moment, she starts saying, “Good morning,” to me. We start eating dinner at the same table with the woman who stays with us when our parents are gone—the nanny I now understand is more of a full-time nurse. Eventually, though we never plan it, when I’m at home instead of with Hunter, we spend the time watching television together. It’s on one of these nights when we’re both home in front of the television playing video games that I learn she’s my age.
“What? How? You’re so…”
I trail off and she shrugs, watching me because clacking at the controller makes her tired. I’ve learned a lot of stuff makes her tired when I sit up at night, unable to sleep, researching the rare genetic disease she suffers from. All I’ve found is that her symptoms are relatively mild right now, and there is no cure. It’s fatal; I just don’t know when. No one does. That’s the thing with rare genetic diseases—they don’t do what we think they will.
“Small?” she supplies.
“Well, yeah.”
“Diseases like mine start with your bones when you’re little. I’ll never grow big. When the disease really kicks in, I’ll be weaker, eventually have to use a wheelchair, and then I’ll get smaller right before I die.”
We don’t talk after that, because I can’t imagine what it must be like to have that kind of knowledge—not that she’ll die, because we all do eventually—but that she’ll never really live. I think of that, of never riding my skateboard again, of never surfing or swimming, of never having enough energy to even play video games, and it makes me sick.
It also makes me wonder if there was a reason Kat still stepped inside our house after she saw the way Dad looked at her daughter. A reason beyond wanting Preston Brady and his wallet to love her. Maybe…maybe she wanted him for a different reason, a braver reason.
I start to live for Natalie. I take her for rides on my skateboard, and then I let her come to the skatepark with me and Hunter and watch while we throw trick after trick. I take her to the Boardwalk, but she gets too tired to hold onto my board while I roll us, so we just stand and watch everyone.
It goes on like this for months, and though people at school don’t understand, they don’t mess with her because she’s in my family, and they know I’m not afraid to kick their asses if they step out of line.
