Page 90 of Cuffed (Everyday Heroes 1)
“Never mind. I’m fine.” She smiles as she sits beside me but makes a funny sound when she does. Like she’s trying not to cry.
“You okay?” Something’s wrong with her. Emmy never cries.
She bites her bottom lip and nods before looking over her shoulder again. Something’s wrong.
“Em?” I nudge her with my elbow. “If you’re gonna tell me, then you need to tell me quick because my mom’s gonna come out soon with my lunch, and then we’re going to have to walk to school. So what’s wrong?”
“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.”
“But I—”
“Not even your mom or dad or brothers or anyone.” Her eyes fill with tears again. Girls and tears. I’d roll my eyes if she weren’t so upset.
“Okay. I promise.” I cross my heart and link pinkies with her. “Is that good?”
“Yeah. You really promise?”
“Yes. I promise. What’s the big deal?”
“You know how my mom goes to work at night?”
“At the hospital? Yeah. It’s super cool she gets to help people.”
She nods and licks her lips and then looks down to where she’s picking the skin around her thumbnail so it bleeds. “Well, when she goes to work, sometimes my dad hurts me.”
“Hurts you? Like he spanks you when you get in trouble?” I’d give anything to have a mom like hers who doesn’t believe in the belt on your bottom. My dad says it builds respect. I say it builds a sore butt.
“No.”
“No? Then . . .”
“He comes in my room and holds a gun to my head and molests me.”
A tear drops on her thumb, but all I hear is the word “gun.” I don’t know what molests means, but I know guns are serious. The million lectures my dad has given me and my brothers to never touch one fill my head, and I know this is bad, but . . .
“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.
