Shadow Girl Read Online Free Page B

work hard and come home to ‘gimme, gimme, gimme.’ Christ! I can’t take it!”
    He kept shouting and smashing things, even though she wasn’t downstairs. He did it because they were the only two people left in the world.
    When Hank’s car pulled up, Jules heard one final crash. Then the front door slammed, and he was gone.
    She’d been too afraid to cry before, but the tears came now, without a sound. She’d learned to cry like that. If her dad suddenly came back, the sound of her could set him off again.
    When she tripped or fell or got hurt or was slapped, she felt pain and cried, but the pain she felt now was different.
    She’d have to make things right – clean everything up and pretend it hadn’t happened. She’d have to try and watch her dad better. She should have known tonight might be one of his bad nights because of all the drinking. But it was so hard to tell – he sometimes laughed and looked happy just before he exploded.
    One good thing was that she didn’t have to do silent crying for long. She heard Hank’s old car drive away. Now she could add sound to the tears, like she needed to. That would help get some of the hurt out of her body.
    Jules went downstairs and into the living room. Her dad had thrown one of their old wooden chairs against the wall and a leg had broken off. And he’d kicked the can of orange drink, splattering the liquid onto the sofa and wall behind it. The smelly brown carpet was wet in places, too.
    She went into the kitchen. Her father had broken a few glasses and plates. She dreaded cleaning them up. It was hard to get all the pieces because there were so many splinters you couldn’t see.
    She got some toilet paper to blow her nose, sat down on the floor in the kitchen doorway, and started rocking herself back and forth. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and from the back of her throat came the hard dry sound of her cries. Her thin body shook as she tried to push the awfulness out.
    If she could take her mind away from what had happened, she’d feel better. But it felt as if she were crumbling into a thousand pieces. It was hard to find the part of her that felt normal, breathing-in-and-out normal. The pain inside made it difficult to move.
    She forced herself to get up, clean the kitchen, and carry everything from the living room back to the refrigerator and cupboards. It took a long time because she wasn’t Jules the person anymore; she was all used up.
    She looked at the brownies and doughnuts. She couldn’t eat them now, even if they were rammed down her throat.
    If I get up before my dad tomorrow, if he sleeps late, if he doesn’t come home – if, if, if! – I’ll have time to wash the drink off everything and put the living room back in order
.
    She dragged herself upstairs and changed. She couldn’t feel anything, even the iciness of the room or the beauty of the snowy night outside her window. She lay in bed, staring at nothing.

CHAPTER
6
    I t was early morning when Jules woke up and tiptoed into her father’s room. His bed hadn’t been slept in. No surprise there. He often stayed out with his buddies all night on a Friday or Saturday.
    Jules breathed a sigh of relief.
    At least I won’t be here when he comes home
.
    She went downstairs and took another look at the mess. Jules didn’t know how she was going to make the orange drink stains go away, but she filled a bucket with soapy water and scrubbed to make everything less sticky. When she was finished and looked at what she’d done, it seemed as if she’d made an even bigger mess – but that wasn’t really true. Once everything dried, it would look the same as before. That’s what she hoped.
    Gotta get back to normal. Gotta make things right
.
    Yesterday, she’d looked forward to having milkwith her cereal, but her appetite was gone. She knew she should eat, though, because she intended to stay out all day, until it got dark.
    She ate a bit of cereal, cleared up, and got dressed – putting on