Page 104 of Intrepid

“Father!” I call out, pretending to approach the room.

The scrambling about and jangle of what I presume must be Eli’s belt tells me I’ve startled them. The moment I step into the doorway, making my presence known, Eli spins around to face the window, while my father stares from behind the linen table, a stern expression carved into the irritating pinch of his frown.

“What is it, Sera? Why are you not entertaining your guests like a good host?”

My mind scrambles for a reason to have interrupted them. I didn’t think that far ahead, only that I wanted to help my friend, to save him from the humiliation. “Alyssa … she … she asked …”

The pause in between is my brain flying a mile a minute, searching for an excuse.

“Spit it out, for Christ’s sake!”

“Alyssa slipped and hit her head on the edge of the pool. She said something about suing.” Before I can weave another word of my lie, he peers out the window and swings back to me. “She’s calling her father to come pick her up.”

He rounds the table, charging toward me like a mad bull. “Is she bleeding? Did you call for Jo?”

“No. No blood.”

He squeezes past me through the doorway, grabbing both my shoulders for one brief moment, before he takes off down the hallway. “Dear God, these children and their theatrics! This party is over.”

My father’s going to kill me when he discovers I’ve lied. Well, perhaps not kill me, but make me wish I’m dead. I have maybe twenty minutes for him to reach Alyssa, discover my lie, and come looking for me.

I decide not to waste a minute of it, and step inside the room, locking the door behind me. “I … I heard him. With you.”

Eli’s jaw clenches, eyes nail shut, and he presses his forehead into the wall beside him, hiding his face behind balled fists.

“Are you going to tell your mother?”

He shakes his head, still hiding himself from me. “Just forget it. All right? Forget what you heard, forget what you … saw.” Though muffled, the tears he doesn’t want me to see touch his voice.

“Why?”

“My mom needs this job. She needs it bad, Sera. She’ll be so pissed at me.”

“But it’s wrong. What he did was wrong, Eli. He made you—”

He snaps his head toward me, the light from the window catching the glisten of tears across his cheek. “I said, forget it! Okay? Just forget it! Are you stupid?”

The words cut like knives, but I know he doesn’t mean them. He’s embarrassed, and that’s what Eli does when he’s embarrassed. He lashes out, cutting the first thing he sees.

“Why haven’t you said anything?” The accusing expression on his face adds a painful punch to his question.

I can’t even look at him, for fear he’ll see right through my eyes, into my brain, and know my secrets. “What do you mean?” I feel like glass, as if he can see everything inside of me, my heart pumping too fast, my lungs squeezing too tight.

“I’ve seen the way he watches you. The way he touches you all the time.” There’s no repulsion in Eli’s words, only observation.

My father is very careful about how he touches me in public, so Eli must watch closely to see those things. The light brushes across the front of my shirt. Too-affectionate caresses against my leg, or my throat.

“He’s made you do things, too. Hasn’t he?”

The dark brown carpeting widens to a pale blur with my tears, and I refuse to answer him, because doing so would make me something else in Eli’s eyes. Something I can’t bear to see when he looks at me.

“Don’t say anything,” he says. “Promise me you won’t.”

Gaze still cast toward the floor, I don’t see him come around the table, until he grabs my arms and shakes me.

“Promise me, Sera. My mom needs the money so bad.”

“Just tell me this. Is it the first time?”