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I flip around, “Hey, wrong r—” My voice dies in my throat when I see my dad walk in and close the door behind him. He rearranges the sleeves of his suit and looks up at me calmly.
“I-I’m almost ready,” I stutter as I pull the strings at the back some more.
“I called you multiple times today. Where is your phone?”
I gulp, remembering my bag and phone I left on the grass at SFU yesterday. I’m sure I will find it in the lost and found, or one of the girls might have brought it home. The point is, it wasn’t with me.
“I…left my bag on campus. With my phone in it.”
He walks to me until he’s so close I can feel his warmth. He grabs my shoulders, delicately spinning me until I’m facing the mirror, and settles behind me. He grabs the corset strings and looks at my eyes through the mirror. “Did you leave it behind when you left for the North Shore?”
My eyes widen as my heart drops. He yanks harshly on the two strings, cutting my airflow just as it all hits me.
The bracelet. How could I forget about the tracker in the cuff he gifted me. It’s been so long since he started tracking me that it sometimes slips my mind. When I’m happy, for example, and enjoying myself.
“You forget I know where you are at all times, Alex. Now do you want to explain why you spent the night in a town you have no business to be in?”
My heart accelerates, and I feel my lungs constrict as he pulls some more.
My silence nudges him. “You weren’t with a boy, were you?”
“No,” I lie. “I wasn’t.”
“Made some new friends, perhaps? Some people who show you what it’s like to be part of the ninety-nine percent?”
I shake my head, struggling to draw in a breath.
“Would you like me to give you more time to think of an excuse?”
“Dad, please,” I beg, peering up at him. “I was just…” I come short of a viable lie.
He shifts on his feet and crushes a candy under his expensive leather shoe. His eyes dart to the floor and back up at me, sneering. “Did you make this mess?”
I nod, not knowing what else to do.
He tightens the strings at my back and steps away.
“You are damn lucky no one saw you. That is not how a lady behaves, Alexandra. You keep it in. You don’t throw things on the floor like a degenerate.”
“I know, but—”
“But?” he seethes. He hates when I contradict him.
“That’s not what I meant,” I panic as I put my hands in front of me to placate him.
“Do you not apologize for irrational behaviors anymore, Alex?” His voice is terrifying, warning me to do as I’m told. Xi spends hours forcing me to apologize less and be more myself. And my dad just swoops in and destroys it all.
“I’m sorr—ah!”
The slap is so hard I fall to the floor, my hand shooting to my cheek. His signet ring caught the corner of my mouth, and I can taste blood on my tongue.
“I’m sorry,” I squeak as I crawl back. “Dad, please…” My back hits the drawers of my dresser, the handles digging into me as I press myself firm against it. My eyes fill with tears when I watch him move closer and unbuckle his belt. “No, no, no. Please…Dad.”
“Don’t you dare be so loud it brings attention to this room,” he seethes. He slides the belt out of his suit pants and wraps it around his wrist.
“I’m sorry,” I cry. “I’m sorry I went…I went…” The fear makes me stutter.
“Can you not form sentences anymore? Are you so stupid that you can’t put two words together? Who made you that dumb, poor girl?”
