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over and over. I can’t make out the words. Tim is stumbling his way through the kitchen. He knocks a chair to the floor. I think quickly, flatly. If I save my mother now, she’ll feel as if she owes me, or that there’s a possibility I might be normal, and she’ll try to forget what’s happened here. The pretense of our lives can continue until I find a way to feel. Then, maybe, I can be the normal girl everyone expects me to be, and I will survive.
    Mom’s whispers grow more intense as her agitation increases. “Stay up here,” I tell her, and shut the bathroom door. I go back down the stairs. Stop in the kitchen doorway. Watch my father as he falls apart. He doesn’t notice me there for a few minutes. He’s mumbling to himself, opening every cupboard, hunting for something else to drink, probably. When I shift my feet, deliberately making my heel scrape the floor, he slams the fridge shut, twisting in my direction. His movements are sluggish.
    “You,” he slurs, red eyes latching onto me. “You’re the reason all of this started.”
    “What do you mean?” I ask, unmoving, even when he walks toward me. But there are faint memories; I know exactly what he means. My strangeness drove my parents apart. First there were arguments, in low furious tones, over quickly. Then those evolved into loud matches that lasted hours. Tim began to drink and Mom sank into herself. Until our lives became what they are. So it’s true; I did do this.
    Tim keeps muttering, but his words are so jumbled I can’t make any sense of them. He grabs my shoulder, slamming me against the wall. Pain slices up my spine. His breath is sour, his breathing labored.
    “You’re different,” he mumbles in my face. Over his shoulder I see the shimmer of an Emotion that must be here for him. Guilt? Sorrow? I can’t tell with Tim’s red face in the way. “You used to be like Charles. You used to be a kid. Now you’re not. You … ” Tim loses his train of thought. “I need a drink,” he mutters.
    As they usually do around this point, my instincts come to life again, rational and cold. Survive. Fight. Run , they hiss. I can’t release the mental image of my mother, though, so pathetic and alone up in that mint-green bathroom. So I ignore all the impulses and look up at Tim. My words are bullets, swift and calculated. “I think a drink is the last thing you need.”
    And as I expected, this infuriates him. “Don’t tell me what I need.” He shakes me until my teeth ache. “You’re just … just a freak!”
    He isn’t mad enough. If he calms down at all, he’ll go looking for Mom. “Yes, I’m a freak,” I concede, pasting an expression of false defiance on my face. “But at least I’m not a disgusting, abusive drunk.”
    His fist lashes out more quickly than I anticipated.
    There’s a swift intake of breath behind me. Someone watching. Fear. “Elizabeth!” I hear him snap. “Fight back!”
    Slumped against the wall, I continue to shove aside those instincts and Fear’s desperate insistence. I get to my feet and face Tim. I provoke him with taunts and names until stars dance before my eyes. Somehow I know it’s guilt that makes my father sob. He doesn’t even seem to be aware of his actions as he knocks me to the floor again. I never once try to defend myself. Those words Mom was chanting become a string of sound in my head, meaningless yet somehow relevant in this moment. Save me, save me, save me …
    Just before the darkness takes over completely, I see Fear standing over me, that strange sympathy still haunting his expression.
    “See you soon, little Elizabeth,” he whispers.
    Word gets around fast in a small town. Since there’s not much to talk about in the first place, everyone immediately grasps at the chance to gossip behind my back, their voices dramatic whispers that fill every corner of every room.
    “I heard she let a guy beat her up as some kind of initiation for a gang.”
    “Sophia Richardson kicked