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"Nothing. Let's just get our chores done so she's not mad about that too." He slung his arm around my neck and squeezed, the sour odor of his body washing over me. The affection was confusing. "We've got to have each other's backs, little sister."
I hurried to do my chores, putting away the dishes from the dishwasher that had run while we were at school, vacuuming again, making sure the house was spotless. Lucas had less to do since he pretty much took the trash out and did chores around the outside of the house, but he came over and helped me finish cleaning the kitchen which was nice and unexpected.
When we were done, he pulled out a bag of chips and said, "Come on. It'll be worth vacuuming again before Mom gets home."
She hated for us to have snacks outside of meals, but he rustled the bag with my favorite kind of chips, and my mouth watered. "Where did you get those?"
"I picked them up from 7-11 on my way home. Lunch at the high school sucks. I've been starving all day."
"They're not from Mom's secret stash?"
He grinned. "Nope. But she really needs to get over being so weird aboutushaving junk food when she's keeping Hostess cupcakes in her underwear drawer. Come on."
It was unusually nice of Lucas. The two of us ended up sitting on the couch, watching a television show and sharing chips from the bag. When the bag was empty, I ran and buried it under some trash in the kitchen to make sure Mom wouldn't find it. I sat back down to watch the rest of the show.
Lucas rested his arm around my shoulders, and I leaned into him. It felt awkward but even though he smelled bad, it was kind of nice to be close to someone, even if it was Lucas. Maybe things would be different from now on. Sometimes it seemed like he'd hated me since I moved in four years ago, when I'd been taken away from my first mom. Back then I'd cried all the time, but I'd grown up since.
Then Lucas slid his other hand down my leg. It felt like he was just petting me absently, but I froze, pretending not to notice. It wasn't absent at all. His attention was just as razor-focused on me, on waiting for my reaction.
"Lucas..." I tried to squirm away, and he grabbed my thigh, his fingers sinking painfully into my skin.
"Come on, Gabriela. Remember what I said about how we've got to watch each other's backs?"
"Lucas, please..." I didn't even know what I was begging for, but something about the way he was touching me felt so wrong.
I didn't want him to tell Mom that I'd had a temper tantrum and broken the wall. I didn't know how to fix the wall or hide it from her, even though I'd been racking my brain trying to find a way out ever since it happened. I was going to be in so much trouble, and my stomach ached every time I thought about it. Maybe if she believed it really was an accident though, she wouldn't be mad. Sometimes she could be really nice... just like Lucas.
He pushed up the bottom of my t-shirt and slid his hand into my leggings. Just rested it there, against my bare skin just under the waistband of my panties. I closed my eyes because hot tears were building, threatening to spill over. I'd been lying to myself when I thought I was grown up and didn't cry anymore. I felt small and helpless.
"Shh, Gabriela, it's all right," Lucas said, but I knew it wasn't all right. It wasn't going to be all right. He was just touching me lightly for now, but somehow, I knew it was just going to keep getting worse and worse.
There was the rumble of the garage door, and the two of us jumped apart. I pulled the hem of my t-shirt down, pulling it taut against my body. Lucas knelt next to the couch, trying to sweep up crumbs from the chips that I hadn't noticed when I got up before; they must have been hidden under his leg.
"Shit," he grumbled. "You better hope she doesn't notice any more crumbs."
I turned and ran to my room, afraid of being caught in the living room while he fumbled with the remote.
A few minutes later, as I was turning the pages of my Nancy Drew book and trying to pay attention, I heard a familiar shrill scream. "Gabriela!"
"Coming!" I shouted back, throwing my book down without even remembering to put a bookmark in. I raced down the hall to the kitchen, where my mom was livid with rage, holding the empty chip bag.
"Did you try to hide this from me?" Her voice was the kind of white-hot that meant I was in deathly trouble.
"It's Lucas's," I whispered.
"Right, because they arehisfavorite chips that he always gets for his birthday," she said, tossing them into the trash again. "Where'd you get the money? Or did you steal them?"
"I didn't," I said. "I came right home after school."
"I told her she shouldn't have them," Lucas said from the doorway, and Mom's irritated gaze snapped to him. Before she could bite his head off, he added, "And you should see what she did to her room when I tried to take them from her."
"No, no, no," I begged as Mom towed me by the arm down the hall to my room. Her face went white with rage when she saw the crack in the wall.
She slapped me across the face so hard my vision went red. "Really, Gabriela, is thereanythingyou didn't do today? Lying, stealing, destroying our house?"
"I didn't," I whimpered, but I knew she wasn't going to stop as she dragged me across the carpet to my closet door.
She rummaged through the closet, knocking one of my dresses to the ground as she pulled out a wire hanger.
