Trigger Warning: Sexual Abuse

Footsteps sounded overhead. Someone was in the kitchen and trying to be stealthy about it. I looked at my phone. 2 am. A glance at Kim's bed confirmed my worst fears. She wasn't back yet. I hopped out of bed, scrambled to the bathroom and turned on the shower, then hopped back into bed just before Mark Simmons slithered down the stairs and into the room with me.

"Where's Kim?" he asked as he walked in to hover over me in my burrow of blankets.

I made a show of pretending to wake up and check the other bed. "Dunno. Shower?"

In the light from the basement window well, I tried to read his expression, but the filtered light from the streetlamps turned his face into a mosaic of bright spots and shadow. He let out a sigh and turned toward the bathroom.

"You can't go in there," I argued. "It's an invasion of her privacy. It's not decent."

Rule one of surviving the Simmons house: Don't argue with Mark. Rule two: don't ever get caught alone with him. I'd broken two rules in under five minutes. That had to be some kind of record, even for me. Kim would chew me a new one if she were here to see this.

"I'll go in and get her to come out," I said, trying to placate him.

I slid from beneath the covers, carrying along one small fleece throw to use as a wrap over my pjs. As I minced across the room and tried to pass by, he grabbed me by the chin and pinned me against the wall by the door.

"You won't do anything unless I tell you to," Mark said in a slobbery, beer-scented voice. He leaned in, grinding his pelvis against me with jerky little thrusts. "Stupid little whore, just like your mama. You strut around with your witchy ways, trying to seduce me. Tryin' to turn me against Jesus. I see you. I see you!"

His hand left my chin and I turned my head as he tried to force his big, wet mouth onto mine. I swallowed back a whimper. Whatever happened, I couldn't make any noise that Ann might hear. If Ann found her husband raping me, she'd have me in Juvie lockup and on the way to the State School before the close of the next business day. However awful the Simmons were, State School was bound to be unimaginably worse. Though at the moment, nothing seemed worse than having Mark all up on me. One beefy hand grabbed at my hair and yanked.

"You look at me when I'm talking to you!"

His other hand pawed at the hem of my pj top and then slid underneath it. Musky, unwashed stale beer sweat added to the nausea brewing in my stomach. I was going to puke on him. I was going to make a noise and ruin everything. But whatever happened, I was not going to cry, I promised myself. I didn't cry at my mother's funeral. I certainly wasn't going to cry for this guy, no matter what.

The overhead light flipped on.

"What's going on, folks?"

I managed to keep my scream in my head as I slid down the wall, abruptly released from Mark's slimy pawing.

"Where have you been?" Mark thundered at Kim as he turned her way.

Kim stood there in her pjs, a towel wrapped around her head just as though she really had been in the shower all this time. For a moment, I didn't know what was real and what was false.

"Duh. The shower. I didn't want to go to bed with all that hairspray from the dance in my hair," Kim said. She sauntered past Mark as though she hadn't a care in the world for what he might do.

Through the curtain of my scrambled hair, I could see Mark clenching and unclenching his fist just inches from my face. Though his back was to me and any punch he might throw would be aimed at Kim, I still flinched. Kim's eyes widened at me, a silent plea meant to hold me in place.

"You're in late," Mark countered.

"I've been in the shower a really long time. Extra-strong hold hairspray's a bitch to get out."

From the kitchen above, a lighter tread sounded.

"Mark?" Ann called out faintly. The tap-slap of her mule house slippers went toward the back door, a reasonable guess on her part since Mark often snuck out at night to smoke cigars behind the garage.

"You girls better behave," Mark rumbled in a half-whisper, half-growl. He shook a fist at Kim.

As soon as he heard the sound of the backdoor shutting, he bolted from our room and up the stairs. Then he could weasel his way back to the master bedroom before Ann returned from the garage. We listened, Kim standing motionless beside her bed, me still cowering by the door. Ann's footsteps went back to the bedroom. All went silent overhead. Crisis averted.

As soon as the house was quiet again, I crawled on hands and knees back to the bed, not trusting my shaky legs to hold me. Kim grabbed me under the arms and hauled me onto my bed. Her arms wrapped tight around me, and then she started crying.

"What did he do?" she whispered as hot tears splashed against my neck. "Oh God, Kelsey. I'm so sorry."

"It's nothing," I got out in a sort of wheezy hiccup. "I'm okay."

"I shouldn't have left you alone. I shouldn't have gone to the lake," Kim said as she grabbed me tighter and rocked me. "What did he do?"

"I'm okay. It's okay." I awkwardly patted her back.

"That was great thinking with the shower. Thank you." She let go of me long enough to get a tissue to wipe her eyes and blow her nose. "Maybe you should go see Nurse Thomas tomorrow."

"I'm okay," I repeated for what felt like the hundredth time.

"That's what my mom always said." Kim pulled the covers of my bed over both of us. "Black eyes, bloody nose, broken arm, cut lip. She was always okay. She was okay, until she was dead of being okay." Her crying jag started fresh with that.

"Eight more months," I whispered into her ear as we laid with our heads together on my pillow. "We just have to make it eight more months. Then we graduate and we're out of here."

"Do you think we can do it?"

"Yes," I said with a confidence I didn't really feel. "We won't let the bastards win. Not any of them."

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