Page 328 of Off Limits: The Firsts

“Emmy . . . why would he do that?” I look around the street and wonder if my mom can hear inside the house.

“Because he says I’m pretty and he loves me.”

“But . . .” My dad has a gun, too, and he doesn’t do that to me. I don’t like the icky feeling in my tummy. My book slips from my hands, and I don’t like what we’re talking about, so I concentrate on the creepy monster on the cover as I shove it in my backpack. “I don’t understand. I—”

“I don’t, either.” Another tear falls, and the way she says it makes tears burn in my eyes.

“We should tell my mom. She’d know—”

“No!” she yells as she grabs my hand and squeezes it so hard it hurts. “You promised you wouldn’t tell anyone. He said it would hurt my mommy if I tell anyone, and I don’t want her hurt, Grant. He said this is what daddies do and . . .” She hiccups over a sob, and I don’t know what to do.

“Grant! It’s time to get going,” my mom calls from the house. “Oh, hi, Emmy. Look at how pretty you look today. Just like one of the Spice Girls.”

Emmy smiles for the first time since she got here to walk to school, and I wonder if maybe she’s fibbing. Sometimes she does that. Girls always want attention, or at least that’s what Cooper says.

Em stays where she is on the sidewalk as I jog up the steps to get my lunch from my mom. After I shove it in my backpack, I give her a hug goodbye.

For some reason, when I hug her, I have to blink away the tears before she sees them.

“Have a good day, honey,” she says and then she gets that line in her forehead like when she doesn’t believe what I’m telling her. “You okay? What’s wrong?”

Emmy’s dad is mean.

“You have to pinky promise, Grant Malone, that if I tell you this secret, you won’t ever tell another person, ever, ever, ever. If you do, I’ll never be your friend again. Promise me. Cross your heart and hope to die”

“Yeah. I’m good. Just got something in my eye is all.”

She studies me again, but Grayson cries inside, saving me from more questions. “Don’t rub it then, okay?” I nod before she says the same thing she says every day when we leave to walk the straight shot of a street to school. “I’ll watch you guys from here until you get to the school gates, and then I’ll meet you at the tree after class to walk home with you.”

“’Kay.”

When I jog down the steps, I hate that Adam from across the street is standing there with Emmy and waiting to walk with us. I need to talk to her and ask if she’s really telling the truth. Her dad seems nice to me.

And he’s not a police officer. Only police officers and bad guys have guns and he’s not either of those.

But my tummy still hurts.

“You promise?” Emmy mouths to me from where she stands beside me in the girls’ line while I’m in the boys’ line. We’re in the very back this morning because we were battling in two square and neither of us wanted to quit first and lose.

“I promise.”

“If you tell anyone, I’ll never be your friend again. I might even ‘bad word’ you.”

“’Bad word me?’”

“H-A-T-E,” she spells, and I forgot that her mom thinks the words hate and stupid are bad words worthy of television time being taken away.

“I promise, Em. I promise, okay?” I say loud enough that the kid in front of me turns around to shush me like I’m going to get the boys’ line in trouble.

Emmy just stares at me like I told her we’re getting to watch a Disney movie after lunch instead of doing work . . . I think the word for it is hopeful. I’m not sure, though.

But even as we start our morning paperwork, I can’t stop thinking about what Em said.

“He puts a gun to my head and molests me.”

Even after our circle time when we move into writing in our journals, I think about it.

But she seems fine. She seems like Emmy. The red in her eyes from crying is gone, and she’s pulling out the dreaded composition notebook so she can write about Helen Keller. Just like we all did yesterday. And the day before. I don’t care about Helen Keller because I already know the important stuff—that she was deaf and blind.