Couples? His words hold more meaning than what he’s saying. I’m quiet.
He grins and licks his lips. Charlie takes a few deliberate steps, and he’s behind me. His hand bounces one of my blond curls and I want to cut off the strand he touched.
Nausea settles into my stomach.
“Are you a virgin, Firefly?”
The blood drains from my face, and I try to swallow the knot in my throat but don’t succeed.
Charlie makes a noise behind me that reminds me of someone enjoying a delicious dessert, as if he’s about to eat me up.
“Now I’m even more interested. Here’s the deal.”
I crunch up my nose.
He grabs my shoulder and turns me with one rough move. We’re eye to eye. I don’t like what I see in his icy eyes. It just became thirty degrees colder in the small living room.
“I’ll come to pick you up tonight to go to a party… because that’s how couples get to know each other.”
This deal sounds unreasonable, too easy, and what’s the guarantee he’ll hold up his side of the bargain?
“For how long do we have to be dating?”
“As long as I want.” I register a threat in his deep voice.
I gulp. He wants sex. I can’t do that. As if he reads the hesitation on my face, he nods again to the bulky guy, who tightens his grip around Mom’s neck. Her face is getting blue and her eyes are bloodshot.
“Tia, do it. Do it.” My mom’s weak voice comes out in the otherwise quiet room. The guy has released his hold enough so she can speak.
She’s pimping me out. Tears threaten to drop onto my cheeks, but I blink them back.
Be strong, Tia.
“I can’t—”
“Tia, honey, you owe me. Do it,” Mom says again, her face tortured.
I grit my teeth. And here goes the guilt trip. I’m a copy of my dad, and every time my mom looks at me, she’s reminded of him. By now she hates him with gusto, which makes me enemy number two.
My parents’ voices scream in my head just as I remember them sounding when they were still together. Their shouts in the kitchen echoed up the stairs to me as I lay in a fetal position in bed, my hands over my ears.
I was an accident. The unwanted child that caused more troubles for this dysfunctional family. And I had a big mouth. I was a rebellious child who didn’t want to accept her reality. My parents had to pay for things I broke at school when I acted out, or they had to apologize to people when I ran my mouth.
Dad left because he didn’t want to deal with us, with the problems, with the reality. As he said, he “didn’t sign up for this”—his exact words. He abandoned me and the family because there was something wrong with me, and I wasn’t good enough.
After Dad left, something broke inside me. I changed—not necessarily for the better. I became the quiet one at school, hiding, not drawing attention. Stopped fighting.
The fighter in me went into hibernation.
I put my hands over my ears, as if the gesture will erase the voices in my head, the memories in my mind, the drama in my life.
“Firefly, it’s time to make a choice,” Charlie’s voice brings me back to reality.
I take a calming breath. Right this moment I want to be free of the guilt of being an unwanted child and burden to my mom. I’ll never be able to move forward until I put the past behind me.
What choice is Charlie talking about? I don’t have a choice. He’s made it for me. I can’t let my mom get hurt, and I can’t find that much money to pay him off.
My body starts shaking uncontrollably. I must give up my freedom, my body, to him. I let my hands drop by my sides. Charlie’s eyes are anticipating, watching my every move, roaming my body up and down. If I don’t agree to date him, he’ll hurt me too.
