Page 48 of Queen of Nothing

But that strategy fails me now.

Because I pass the post office with an old phone booth out front—and it steals me back to the phone booths at Bluestone.

I blink, and a swarm of memories attack me.

The strongest one lingers.

Oliver pulling me into the booth as Dray storms for me—and his hand comes swiping through the air.

I shut my eyes, tight, and my shoes scuff to a stop on the pavement.

Dray has done so much to me, but hitting me was a whole other thing.

It’s something I never really saw coming.

The fear rose in me sometimes, but I don’t think I ever truly believed it would happen.

That he would just backhand me.

It was hard, too.

Sent me flying to the floor. Cracked my cheekbone and cut my lip.

I shouldn’t open my eyes and stare at the phone booth—like I want to draw closer, pick up the receiver, dial in a familiar number, and call home.

Yet, a part of me wants to.

A naïve part of me—a little pocket of delusion that throbs in either my brain or heart—wonders if my father would still hand me over to Dray.

It’s not certain that he knows about Dray striking me. That depends on how much the others said.

But if he does know, and he knows how far I’ll go to escape Dray, between the article and running away, then surely he would at least question the arrangement.

And yet, I don’t feel convinced.

I push onwards, until I’m turning the corner onto a quieter street—and an older man wearing a bucket hat is leaning against the nose of a truck.

I called ahead to arrange a time, and I’m late.

Just a few minutes late, but the sourness wrinkles his already weathered face, and I think he should take a moment to consider injections and retinol.

Not even men should let themselves go, not like this.

But he is at least amiable as he shows me the house. If it can be called that.

More like a shack than anything, really.

Metal weatherboarding, a rotten porch that’s leaning to the side, chipped paint on the door and window frames.

It’s no better inside.

The carpet is old. The kitchen, brown and stained, and the flooring is sort of soft, but it looks like tiles, which baffles me.

The bathroom—on the bright side—has a tub. But the shower is… Well, it’s an apparatus of some kind. An attachment that sticks onto the bath tap.

I’ve never seen anything like it before.

But it’s two bedrooms.