Somewhere Out There(34)
Brooke smoothed her hand over her unruly black curls and looked at the pictures again. However much she hated the idea of living with this family instead of her mother, she caught herself wishing that she looked more like them—that people might easily mistake her for a member of their family. It was a game she played, spotting physical traits she shared with other people, wondering if she could pass as one of their relatives. Everyone commented on her violet-blue irises, a color she had yet to see in another person’s eyes. “Your mom had them,” Gina had once told Brooke, thinking, Brooke was sure, that this piece of information might make her feel better, when in fact it only made her feel worse.
Gina soon left, and Jessica showed Brooke the rest of the house. There were two bedrooms, one at the front of the house, where Jessica and Scott slept, and the other, down the hall, which Brooke had to share with Lily, Jessica and Scott’s nine-year-old daughter. When Brooke met Lily later that afternoon, the older girl announced that since it was her house, first, she was in charge of their room. At this, Brooke rolled her eyes, but at the time, kept her mouth shut.
Over the next several weeks, as she tried to get used to another new school and living in a house with three strangers, Brooke stayed on her best behavior, which wasn’t the easiest thing to do with Lily around. The older girl talked incessantly, and it drove Brooke crazy.
“I love my teacher,” Lily said. “She has the nicest smile and always gives me the papers to hand out to the rest of the class. Mrs. Pearson wasn’t like that last year. She was cranky all the time. We used to laugh at the stupid glasses she wore, but then I felt bad about it and told the other kids they should stop, which Mom said I was brave to do and I think she was right. Do you think that was brave?”
“I think you should shut up,” Brooke said, sounding as nasty as she could. She was already sick of the sound of Lily’s yammering. And then, she couldn’t help it, Brooke threw her math book at Lily’s head. Lily ran to her mother and tattled, of course, and as punishment, Jessica told Brooke that she had to stay alone in her room for the rest of the night, missing out on the pizza they were going to order and the video they had rented—Mr. Mom.
“You can eat in here and think about what you’ve done,” Jessica said. She brought a sandwich and a glass of milk, then left again, closing the door behind her. Brooke pulled the sandwich apart and smeared mayonnaise, turkey, and cheddar cheese across the cheery yellow paint on the wall. I hate you, she thought as she poured the milk on Lily’s pillow.
A while later, Scott came to check on her. When he discovered what she had done, his eyes darkened as he took a couple of steps over to where she lay on her bed, her arms crossed over her chest. “Get up,” he growled.
Brooke glared at him, her chin raised, but didn’t move.
“Fine,” he said. He grabbed her, lifted her up, and managed, despite how she flailed against him, to sit and then lay her facedown, over the tops of his thighs.
“Let me go!” Brooke yelled, but he didn’t listen. The next thing she felt was the smack of his open palm on her rear end. “Oww!” she cried, feeling the tears spring up in her eyes almost immediately after his hand had landed. She’d never been spanked before. She squirmed and wiggled, trying to get away, but Scott used one of his strong arms to hold her in place. His hand smacked her again.
Tears still ran down Brooke’s cheeks, but instead of crying out, she pressed her lips together as hard as she could and tried not to make a sound, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of knowing he had hurt her. She kept her eyes squeezed shut, and her fingers curled into tight fists, wondering if her real father would have spanked her, if she had ever spent time with him.
When Scott stopped after swatting her twice, Brooke felt numb, despite the way the skin on her rear end throbbed. It was as though something had snapped inside her, and in that moment, she didn’t care about the consequences Jessica and Scott might dole out. As the weeks progressed and her behavior didn’t improve, they tried different ways to discipline her. When she purposely clogged the toilet with Kleenex, they took away her TV-watching privileges. When she refused to help wash the dishes, they didn’t let her have dessert. When she called Lily a bitch—a word she’d heard other kids say at Hillcrest—they put her in time-out. Scott spanked her again after he caught Brooke purposely tripping Lily as they entered the kitchen to eat breakfast. But no punishment worked, because Brooke had already decided that there wasn’t a thing they could do that would hurt her more than her mother already had.
One morning, after Brooke had been living there a couple of months, Lily returned to their room after taking a shower to find Brooke still in bed. “You have to get up,” Lily said, in a snotty tone that made Brooke want to smack her.
“You’re not the boss of me,” Brooke mumbled, burrowing her head under her pillow. “I don’t feel good.” Since losing her mother and Natalie, Brooke rarely felt good. It seemed like there was something heavy growing under her skin—something thick and black, like an infection. Her stomach often burned like there was a fire crackling inside it; acid rose up into her throat when she lay down to try to sleep. The night before, her dreams had been filled with the feeling of chasing her mother, running around corners and up hills, but never finding her. When she woke up, her chest ached and her pillow was wet. She knew her eyes would be swollen and red, and she felt as though she hadn’t slept at all. She didn’t think she could go to school.