The Chance: A Novel Read Online Free Page B

another hour in the gym, another hour shooting baskets. Then Ellie would ride her bike to his house, the way she did most nights. Especially this summer.
    Since her parents had started fighting.
    She dried her hands, went to her room, and shut the door behind her. A little music and some time with her journal, then Nolan would be home. She turned on the radio. Backstreet Boys filled the air, and instantly, she dropped the sound a few notches. Her dad said he’d take away her radio if she listened to worldly music. Ellie figured worldly was a matter of opinion. Her opinion was the Backstreet Boys’ music might be as close to heaven as she was going to get in the near future.
    The boys were singing about being larger than life when the first shout seemed to rattle her bedroom window. Ellie killed the sound on the radio and jumped to her feet. As much tension as there had been between her parents lately, neither of them ever really shouted. Not like this. Her heart pounded loud enough to hear it. She hurried to her bedroom door, but before she reached it another round of shouts echoed through the house. This time she could understand what her father was saying, the awful names he was calling her mom.
    Moving as quietly as she could, Ellie crept down the hall and across the living room closer to her parents’ bedroom door. Another burst of yelling and she was near enough to hear something else. Her mother was weeping.
    “You’ll pack your things and leave.” Her father had never sounded like this—like he was firing bullets with every word. He wasn’t finished. “I will not have you pregnant with his child and . . . and living under my roof.” His voice seemed to shake the walls. “I will not have it.”
    Ellie anchored herself against the hallway so she wouldn’t drop to the floor. What was happening? Her mother was pregnant? With someone else’s baby? She felt the blood leaving her face, and her world started to spin. Colors and sounds and realityblurred, and she wondered if she would pass out. Run, Ellie . . . run fast. She ordered herself to move, but her feet wouldn’t follow the command.
    Before she could figure out which way was up, her father opened the door and glared at her, his chest heaving. “What are you doing?”
    The question stood between them. Ellie looked past him to her mom, sitting in the bedroom chair, her head in her hands. Get up, Ellie wanted to scream at her. Tell him it’s a lie! Defend yourself, Mom! Do something. But her mother did nothing. She said nothing.
    Ellie’s eyes flew to her father again, and she tried to step away, tried to exit the scene as quickly as possible, but she tripped and fell back on her hands. Pain cut through her wrists, but she moved farther away from him. Like a crab escaping a net.
    It took that long for her father’s expression to soften. “Ellie. I’m sorry.” He stepped toward her. “I didn’t mean for . . . You weren’t supposed to hear that.”
    And in that moment Ellie knew two things. First, the horrible words her dad had shouted through the house were true. And second, her life as she knew it was over. It lay splintered on the worn-out hallway carpet in a million pieces. She scrambled to her feet and turned away. “I . . . I have to go.”
    Her father was saying something about how this was more than a girl her age could understand and how she needed to get back to her room and pray. But all Ellie could hear was the way her heart slammed around in her chest. She needed air, needed to breathe. In a move that felt desperate, she found her way to her feet and ran for the front door. A minute later she was on her bicycle, pedaling as fast as she could through the summer night.
    He would still be at the gym, but that was okay. Ellie loved watching Nolan play basketball. Loved it whether the place was packed with kids from Savannah High or it was just the two of them and the echo of the ball hitting the shiny wood floor. With every push