Read Seven Days of Friday (Women of Greece Book 1) for Free Online Page B

her attention back to Melissa. “My angel, you look more Greek every day!”
    Then Grampy’s there, dishing out hugs.
    “I have to use the bathroom,” Melissa says.
    Mom steers them both into the house. “You just went before we left the house.”
    “Maybe she has a urinary infection,” Grams says. “Look at her. You let her wear such skimpy clothes. Probably her bladder got a chill. Even the prostitutes put on warm clothes in winter.”
    Whaaaat? No way. Her jeans are barely low and she’s wearing a long sweater with a cropped jacket. Not exactly the latest in hooker fashions.
    “I have to go again. It’s probably that shitty generic cola we buy now.”
    “Language,” Vivi says. “And we only bought it once.”
    Grams crosses herself. “ Ay-yi-yi ! You let her drink that poison?”
    “We have to conserve money. It doesn't exactly grow on trees,” Mom says.
    “Actually, it kind of does,” Melissa says. “It's mostly cotton, which grows on shrubs.”
    Vivi says, “Mom, she's my daughter – ”
    “And she is my granddaughter. All that sugar!”
    “It's diet,” Melissa mutters, but no one is listening to her now – Melissa the ghost.
    The ghost of Melissa Tyler slips past the arguing women. Eyes shut, she makes her way to upstairs, fingers brushing the wall. She knows this house by heart.
    The arguing dims. By the time she closes the guest bathroom’s door, it’s just her and her footsteps.
    Melissa Tyler, last person on earth. Sounds okay.
    Out the tiny window, she watches the neighbor’s dog stop its squirrel chase to crap.
    Melissa wants a dog. Melissa has always wanted a dog.
    But no – of course. Dad is allergic to cats, dogs, and any pet Melissa has ever wanted.
    Probably a lie, like everything else.
    She leans on the counter, takes a good look in the mirror. Leans, leans, until the knobby elbow joints ache.
    Relax, Mel. Enjoy it.
    She relaxes. The pain fades to pastels. Then she pushes down, until her bones sing.
    End result: Purple, pink, no bruise.
    Too bad.
    What does this mirror have to say?
    Nothing she doesn’t already know. Lots of ugly black dots on her nose. She put those nose strips on Mom’s shopping list, but if she bought them, they never made it home. She’ll be sorry when clogged pores conquer Melissa’s whole face.
    And another thing: Grams is full of crap. Melissa doesn’t look anything like Greek. She looks like Dad; everyone says so, except Grams.
    Her whole family is so full of crap that they’re drowning in crap soup. Except Grampy, but he’s always so busy at the lab, or with his woodwork, that he doesn’t bother anybody.
    She sits on the fuzzy pink toilet cover that goes with the rest of the room. Used to be she loved this bathroom and its bright pink everything. Now it looks like Pepto-Bismol puke.
    Way too bright. Way too loud.
    Melissa closes her eyes just to make the room shut up. Her hand dives into the backpack’s front pocket. Fingers dance around the tight corners.
    There it is – her just-in-case. A tiny, silver safety pin Mom put there along with a few quarters.
    Just in case, she said.
    She thumbs the sharpened tip. Four scabs on her wrist. About to be five.
    The mirror watches her stick her tongue out the way it did when she was a kid, poring over a coloring book, focused on staying inside the lines.
    She goes slow. Draaaaags the point along a parallel path.
    Melissa is flint. Together she and the pin create sparks of bright, shiny pain. The walls are nothing compared to the stars they make.
    The pink cotton room cradles her, while she rides the wave.
    Nothing else matters except here, except now.
    She is alive. She is dead.
    She is numb.

8
    Vivi
    H ostage situation – Vivi knew it .
    All she can do is sit and fake invisibility until the inevitable regimen of torture commences. Dad folds his newspaper, winks, vanishes to his hideaway beneath the house.
    Neat trick. Now it’s just her in the audience.
    Eleni pulls an extended-family-sized tray of