Chapter Two

February 6th, 2009 – Sacramento, California

“Okay Joyce, who’s my next appointment?” The man’s voice was deep and loud and easily carried through the door of his office to where I was waiting on a plastic chair in the hall. Our school had just gotten a new guidance counselor who I hadn’t yet had the pleasure of meeting. He sounded tall and young.

His secretary answered after a moment, her voice much more faint than his but still audible, “Kelly uh – Oh.” She cleared her throat and continued, “Kelly McCoy, you’ll find this one interesting”.

“Oh yeah?” By the change in his voice, I could tell he was hoping for something good and not another forty five minutes of discussing college options.

“Oooooh yeah. This one has major problems. This won’t be another college electives discussion, you can count on that.” I could almost see Joyce’s horse-like face sneering under her fried bottle blonde perm and her fuchsia tipped claws rubbing together excitedly.

I snorted and leaned my head back against the wall. At least my “major problems” gave withered old cougars something to gossip about. Truly, every cloud has a silver lining.

The counselor, who I assumed by the plaque on the door was “Dr. Platt” didn’t say anything but I’m guessing the look on his face was begging her to go on, though she probably would have even if he’d asked her not to.

“When she was a kid her psychotic meth addict dad killed her mom right in front of her, then was never seen again. The neighbor noticed the front door open and went over to see if everything was okay. Found the poor thing sitting in a chair in the kitchen surrounded by a puddle of blood, her murdered mother’s body only a few feet away. The police reports say the mother was bitten to death, can you imagine?” from her tone, you’d think Joyce was a junior high girl dishing about her best friend’s love life. “She had no other family so she’s been passed around from foster home to foster home ever since.”

Dr. Platt cleared his throat, sounding stunned, “well, that certainly constitutes ‘major problems’”.

“No wait, it gets better,” Joyce continued, her voice rising dramatically, “she was a really fat child, and the teasing got really bad after – you know, it happened. She was getting beat up a lot; you know how children can be. Eventually she developed an eating disorder and she’s an exercise addict. She’s by far the most screwed up kid I know, been suspended more times than I care to remember – mostly for fighting. It’s a shame; her teachers all say how smart she is, if she’d just learn to control herself.”

I was starting to get annoyed, and wishing Joyce would learn how to control her mouth. It wasn’t that I had an eating disorder so much as I didn’t have much of an appetite. I ate when I was hungry, just because I wasn’t hungry often didn’t mean I had an aversion to food.

The clock on the wall above me read 2:17, meaning I should have already been in that office seven minutes ago. I decided to give them three more minutes to gossip and if they hadn’t called me in by then, I’d consider the appointment cancelled.

There was a pause, and then Joyce started again in a brave voice, “we haven’t given up on her though, she has a standing counselor appointment the first and third Friday of every month. Not that we’ve made much progress, but at least she’s still in school and passing her classes.”

“Passing all of them?” The counselor sounded surprised again, “usually with cases like this the grades are the first thing to suffer…”

“Well, in this case, she’s pulling straight A’s. Like I said, she’s smart. Don’t know how much longer that will last though. She’s turns eighteen next week and you know how it is with foster kids. They get the boot right at midnight. I know she has a job at 24 Hour Fitness downtown but I doubt she makes enough to support herself. If I were her, I’d take my GED and try to get a full-time job.”

The counselor muttered something very quietly that I couldn’t make out, then said more loudly, “well, thanks for the heads up. When is she supposed to get here?”

Joyce answered a moment later, “oh, uh. Nine minutes ago.” I heard a chair squeak and a moment later Joyce poked her blonde head into the hall and looked down at me, smiling that horrible plastic smile of hers, “well hello, Kelly. How are you?”

I shrugged and bared my teeth into a enormous smile, “oh, you know, the usual. Screwed up.”

Her smile only flickered slightly but her eyes narrowed and a flush rose in her cheeks. “Looks like the doctor is ready to see you,” she snapped as she huffed past me down the hall to her desk in the front office.

Wrinkling my nose against the smell of her cheap, cotton candy perfume, I backed into the office, closing the door behind me, and turned the face the new counselor.

He was already on his feet, leaning across the desk to extend his hand to me, “Kelly, I’m Dr. Platt, the new counselor.”

I shook his hand quickly, and retreated to my usual seat against the wall opposite his desk. I slipped my backpack off and stowed it under the chair, then leaned back and glanced quickly around the office. Just because he was new didn’t mean the office was. It looked just as it had two weeks earlier, except for a couple personal items on the desk and of course the face sitting behind it.

Dr. Platt was younger and better looking than I’d expected, somewhere in his mid-twenties maybe, and extremely tall and lean. He had a pale, slender face with high cheekbones framed with wavy dark blonde hair that fell loose to just below his ears, parted down the middle. His eyes were some variation of green or hazel, I couldn’t tell because he wasn’t looking at me, but rather down at an open file on his desk. One glance at the files’ girth, barely contained within the folder, told me it had to be mine.

His eyebrows furrowed slightly as he read, then he plunked his elbow on his desk, rested his chin on a pale fist, and looked at me with a strange half-smile for a moment before he spoke. “I assume you heard my conversation with Ms. Fletcher.”

It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t answer.

“I can tell your case is…” he hesitated, searching for a word and glanced down at the thick folder in front of him, “complicated. I’m honestly not sure where to start. Where would you like to start?”

“You already know the story,” I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees, “Joyce was mostly correct, except that I don’t have an eating disorder, just not much of an appetite. But I do eat, and I don’t vomit it up later.”

“Ah,” he moved his arm as if he were about to write something down, then seemed to change his mind and dropped the pen back on the desk. “So we’ll cut to the chase. What are you planning to do about turning eighteen next week?”

I fidgeted with a string on my jeans and didn’t respond because I didn’t know what to say. I truthfully had no idea what I was going to do. My job as a kick boxing instructor at the gym paid pretty well but not enough to afford an apartment. I’d already checked out the cheapest, sleaziest places I could find and they were still too expensive.

The gym was open twenty four hours a day, though we almost never had customers after midnight or before 6:00 am, so I’d kind of decided on a half baked plan to go to school during the day, work as many hours possible afterward, and crash in one of the offices on the second floor of the gym. I could shower and get ready for school early in the morning, before any customers came in, and my boss wasn’t likely to find out because his usual hours were 10:00 am to 8:00 pm. It wasn’t the greatest plan but it was all I had at this point.

"I'll assume from your lack of response that you really have no idea what you're going to do. Maybe I can help with that," he bent and yanked open one of his desk drawers, "there are programs for kids like you..." He rummaged around in the drawer for the moment and then straightened up with what appeared to be a glossy magazine of some sort in his hand. "You could try to get into one of these group homes. I've glanced through your file and while you're behavior doesn't appear to have been stellar over the last couple years, your grades have been perfect. If you could find a place to stay until the end of the year, you could finish up high school and get into a college no problem." He pushed the magazine toward me, but I didn't reach for it.

"I wasn't really planning on going to college," I said flatly, "but, thanks."

Dr. Platt frowned and studied me intently for a moment. I looked him in the eye long enough to notice his eyes were, in fact, greenish hazel, then diverted my gaze to a random spot on the wall above his head.

The office was silent for about half a minute.

I snuck a quick glance back at him; he was just sitting there looking at me thoughtfully. My stomach knotted uncomfortably as I wondered what he was thinking about. The old counselor had always started each session by asking rude, prying questions, then made a bunch of assumptions that weren’t anywhere near the truth, then written a bunch of notes and told me how I needed to get my act together if I wanted to have a shot at a normal life. It was a script we’d been through many times and I knew my part well. This was new and it made me nervous not to know my lines.

“You know,” he started, his voice careful, “its tough not having a direction in life, I know how you feel.”

I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at him; I didn’t think it was fair of him to compare our problems.

“Well, obviously it’s not fair of me to compare our problems,” he amended quickly, causing me to stare as I heard my exact thoughts said aloud, “I just mean about having nowhere to go once you turn eighteen. I was in the same situation at one point, so I can relate.”

Suppressing a sigh, I slouched in my chair and prepared myself for some anecdote about how much he’d overcome and how it was possible for me to do anything my little heart desired as long as I really put my mind to it. I’d hear this talk before, and it was crap.

“I know you don’t want to hear some pep talk, so I’m not going to give you one.” He took the magazine off the table and placed it carefully back in his drawer. “I’d suggest, at the very least, you work out some place to live. Maybe your current foster home would let you stay for a few months if you offered to pay a fair amount of rent. You do have a job, don’t you? I believe Joyce said you work at the gym downtown?” When I nodded, he asked, “how is it anyway, any good?”

“Uh, I guess so. I mean, it’s clean and not too crowded.” His casual tone threw me off and made me feel awkward. I’d come into the office prepared for a verbal beat down, not an actual conversation…not that I was contributing much. I studied him suspiciously, thinking maybe he was trying the good ol’ “I’m your friend, I’m hip with the kids” approach.

He stretched his long arms above his head and yawned, “I think I might join. I need some way to stay in shape. All this sitting around isn’t going to do me any good, that’s for sure.” He gestured to the desk as he spoke, then abruptly pushed his chair back and stood up, sweeping around the side of his desk in one long legged step, and perched on the corner closest to me.

I tensed slightly, wondering if I should stand up too. A glance at the clock told me I’d only been in there for ten minutes. My sessions usually lasted at least forty five minutes.

Before I had time to ask, he crossed his arms and leaned toward me slightly, looking at me intently. I waited, but he didn’t say anything.

I shifted uncomfortably on the hard plastic chair under his stare. Something about him made the hair on the back of my neck stand up and made me feel…I fumbled for a word… cornered? I cleared my throat and made as if to stand up, “are we done?”

His even gaze didn’t break, but he gave a small smirk and, after another long moment, nodded. As I stood, he raised his hand toward me slightly, still smirking, “you can call me Jonathan, Dr. Platt seems too formal. I can tell we’re going to get to know each other very well.”

A chill ran down my spine and I fought to keep my face from betraying how nervous I felt, “thanks, Dr. Jonathan.” It sounded stupid as soon as I’d said it, even to me.

His face broke into a wide grin and he turned, moving fluidly, and planted himself back in his chair. “Shut the door when you leave, will you?”

Outside in the hall, I shook myself slightly. It wasn’t like me to get that creeped out by someone, especially after knowing them for less than ten minutes. I wandered slowly down the hall toward the front lobby of the school office, reluctant to go back to class. My sixth period was Yearbook, it’s not like I was missing out on learning anything. Everyone pretty much just spent the whole period lurking on Myspace anyway.

As I passed Joyce’s desk, she flashed me a fake, horsey smile. “Have a great rest of your day, honey!” I nodded quickly without looking at her, holding my breath to avoid smelling her awful perfume.

It wasn’t until I’d taken my seat in Yearbook and fired up the computer at my usual seat that I realized I’d left my backpack under the chair in Dr. Platt’s office. I drummed my fingers on my keyboard in agitation as I watched Windows load and wondered if I should wait until the end of class or ask Mrs. Hunt if I could go grab it. I didn’t technically need anything in it for the class and I wasn’t sure if Dr. Platt already had another kid in his office. I decided to wait.

Chapter One

February 11th, 1996 - Stockton, California

I was six years old, perched on one of our tall kitchen stools picking at a plate of cold spaghetti while my mother wandered aimlessly around the kitchen, tidying things and pretending to be focused enough to help me with my homework. The homework was just ten simple addition problems that I could have done myself, but I played dumb because I wanted a reason to spend time with her.

“Mom?”

“Hm?” She glanced over her shoulder at me from the sink where she was wringing out a sponge. Her green eyes looked tired and there were faint but definite streaks of gray in her auburn hair. I was struck suddenly by how old she looked.

“Uh, I need help with…” I trailed off and looked down at my math problems, “five plus two.”

She arched an eyebrow and started wiping her hands on a dish cloth, “honestly Kelly, I know you know the answer to that problem. I’m not stupid and neither are you.” She turned back around and hung the dish cloth on the hook above the sink, shaking her head.

I bit my lip and scowled at her back. I’d heard the difference between how normal parents spoke to other adults, and how they spoke to their children. My mother never spoke to me like I was a child. I lowered my pencil to my paper and scribbled the answer to the question in the blank space provided below it. Of course I knew the answer; I’d been competent with addition problems since I was three. When I glanced back up, my mother was standing on tip-toe, straining to see out into the front yard through the kitchen window.

“Is dad home?” I tried to sound casual but I knew she heard the panic in my voice. I hated when my dad was home, we both did.

My mother visibly stiffened, and answered me back quietly, “I don’t think so, honey.”

When I was about four, my father got laid off from his job and fell into a deep depression, which ended up in him getting heavy into using drugs. I hadn’t understood what was happening until a couple months ago, when I’d seen a talk show on TV that covered a similar situation. I’d always known something was wrong with my father, it was impossible to ignore the weight and mood changes, and the sores on his face and arms.

Despite my mother's relentless support and encouragement, he could never keep himself clean for more than a couple weeks. They fought a lot, about everything it seemed, but they always made up and I truly believed one day he would get better. He didn't.

Over the last couple months, he’d sunk deeper into his addictions and became another person, no - a monster. Sometimes their fights would end with my mother sporting a black eye or deep purple bruises on her arms. I knew families weren’t supposed to be like that, but I didn’t know what to do about it. I was mad at him for treating her like that and at her for letting him.

My mom swung around and rested her hips against the sink, trying to appear relaxed. “So, have you decided what you want to do for your birthday this Saturday? I know it’s only three days away but we could still try to pull a party together. You could have some friends over…”

“I don’t have any friends.” I cut her off, lowering my eyes back to my homework and clutching my pencil tightly.

She was silent for a second, and I felt her green eyes studying me carefully. “I just don’t see how that can be true…all the children in your class seem nice, maybe if you tried to make friends…”

“They call me Belly, mom. They don’t like me because I’m fat.” I felt my cheeks go red at the mere mention of my unfortunate nickname and pushed my plate of spaghetti away in disgust. I hated that she automatically assumed it was due to my unfriendliness that I didn’t have any friends.

She opened her mouth to say something but her mouth snapped shut quickly as we heard a car pull into the driveway. We both sat silent and motionless as the engine turned off, the car door creaked open, then slammed, and heavy footsteps thudded up the driveway onto the porch. My mom darted over to me and dug her fingers into my shoulder, her eyes on the door, “go to your room”.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up at the way she said it, in an emotionless, tired voice, like she was trying to numb herself against whatever was coming. Before I had time to react, the kitchen door slammed open, banging against the wall loudly, and my father’s silhouette filled the doorway. He didn’t come in right away, just clutched each side of the doorframe and breathed loudly through his mouth.

My mom relaxed her grip on my shoulder and smiled widely at him, “honey, we already ate but there’s spaghetti on the stove, I could warm some up for you if you’re hungry.”

He made a low noise, a grunt that sounded affirmative, so my mom turned quickly and scrambled to grab a plate from the cupboard. My father watched her from the doorway for a moment, and then staggered forward, into the light. His blue eyes were wild and red-rimmed and his face was so gaunt and pinched that I hardly recognized him. As he made his way further into the room, goose bumps rose on my arms. Something was wrong. He was too quiet and his movements were jerky and unnatural. As he moved to pass behind me, he clutched the back of my chair with a filthy hand and I was overpowered by the smell of road kill and hard alcohol, and something darker that I didn’t know a name for. My stomach lurched and I leaned away from him.

My movement seemed to startle him, because he turned sharply and looked at me as if he hadn’t noticed I was there. I heard my mom slam the microwave door shut but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his face. It looked wrong, like a Halloween mask. Suddenly he let out a hacking cough and sprayed my face with spit. I covered my mouth with my hand, trying not to gag as his stench blew right in my face.

I jumped as my mom clunked a steaming plate of spaghetti down on the table across from me and glanced up through her lashes to address my father, “here, I’ll grab the parmesan.”

He hesitated for a moment, then slowly maneuvered himself around the table and plopped clumsily into the chair. When he spoke, his voice was so dry and ragged that I couldn’t help but stare at him, “I don’t….” he paused, seeming confused for a moment, then continued, “I want…” his words were cut off by another hacking cough. “Marian,” he said my mother’s name so softly that she didn’t hear and continued rummaging through the fridge for the parmesan cheese. Suddenly, he slumped forward, his face so low to the table that it was almost in his food.

Wide eyed, I started to get up from my seat, “mom, I think dad just passed out.”

She emerged from the kitchen with the parmesan clutched in her fist, looking tired again. It wasn’t the first time he’d nodded off at the table. Sighing, she plunked the parmesan down on the table.

“Why…” my voice sounded so hoarse that I had to swallow and try again, “why is he so…what’s wrong with him?”

“I don’t know, honey,” she sighed again and reached carefully around his slumped figure to scoot the plate out from under his drooping head. As she did so, he coughed suddenly and straightened up. Before either of us had time to react, he seized her by the arm, dragging her half onto the table. Her elbow landed right in the middle of the plate of spaghetti, sending it shooting across the table onto the floor.

“Ow, John I was just –“ She stopped talking suddenly and looked down at her arm in horror, “John, your nails!”

He was digging his nails into her arms so hard that I could see blood rising for the points where his fingertips met her skin. She tried to yank her arm away but he grabbed her free arm and rose to his feet, pinning her on the table.

“John!” She croaked and tried to push him away, but he was too strong for her and slammed her back down onto the table by her throat. The table was tall and not designed to bear significant weight. It buckled and flipped over, away from me. They rolled onto the floor and for a moment my mother was free.

She scrambled to her knees and started struggling toward the still open kitchen door, but my fathers grabbed her around the waist and yanked her back to the floor, hauling her toward him. His mouth was snapping open and closed and he was making a weird sound in the back of his throat.

I was frozen where I was, still sitting on the kitchen stool.

One of them kicked the table and it rolled across the floor, half-hiding them. My mother screamed and I clapped my hands over my ears but I couldn’t block it out. My homework was scattered across the floor. I still had four more problems to do. The next one was eight plus one. I thought it was nine but I wasn’t sure, I couldn’t think straight.

My mother screamed again, piercingly, like she in pain. I heard her inhale to scream again but instead she gasped and there was a ripping sound. She didn’t make any noise after that.

There were more ripping noises, then silence. A pool of red liquid spread slowly across the beige linoleum. It took me a moment to realize it was blood.

My father struggled to his feet and stood motionless for a few moments, seeming unsteady on his feet. Then, abruptly he lurched forward and made his way to the door, kicking the table out of his way. He disappeared into the night and I caught a glimpse of my mother. It didn’t look like her anymore. I didn’t understand what had happened.

I stared down at my homework and saw that the blood had spread and was slowly soaking through the paper. Eight plus one.

The answer was nine, I was sure of it.