Read Ugly Girls: A Novel for Free Online

you couldn’t drive a nail through to hang up a school photo without the whole wall splitting and your picture frame falling to the floor in a shatter. Myra had grouped photos on top of the TV, on the floor in front of the TV, and on the bar leading into the kitchen. None of Perry past the age of eight, like time had stopped once Perry went into the fourth grade. Jim and Myra’s wedding photo in a huge scalloped frame, Myra in a pink pantsuit and Jim in a stiff white shirt, perched on the back of the easy chair against the wall. If you sat too hard it’d topple, and they had all learned how to sit just so, all learned to lean their heads back to hold it in place, all learned you sat in that chair as a last resort. It wasn’t like they all sat together much anyway, so there was usually plenty of room on the couch. Between the couch, the chair, the TV on its stand, and all the shit Myra arranged everywhere, there was about a two-foot path from the front door to the hallway off the bedrooms. Just enough to get by.
    When Myra started bringing stuff home, Perry knew she was trying her hardest not to drink. And it worked, but it also held her feet to the fire. A constant reminder of the distraction she craved.
    Jim would be pulling up soon to take Perry to school. She showered, mussed up her bed to make it look like she’d been in it. Maybe he wouldn’t know, though he probably would, but even so, Perry knew it was important to at least pretend for him. She got on the computer while she waited, listening for his truck.
    There was a message from Jamey.
    NO SUBJECT.
    Perry girlie,
    It has been a lonley nite without you. I got to turn in soon becos I have school in the morning. I guess so do you. Maybe your asleep???
    Anyways, hope to talk to you tonite.
    Jamey
    It was a thrill having a friend like this, a friend Perry could pretend with when there came a need, but it was also a lot of work. Jamey had added her on Facebook months back, and she’d finally accepted his request on a night when Baby Girl couldn’t go out. His profile said he went to high school a few towns over. He played baseball and was all right looking from what Perry could tell.
    Now he wanted to talk every single night. She had given him her phone number but he never called, just texted, because he had free texting but limited minutes. Part of Perry was waiting for the other shoe to drop, to find out it was Baby Girl or some jerk from school playing a joke.
    In the meantime, it was fun to read what he had to say, especially when it got sexual, and it usually did. Ooooh baby. He loved to write that line. Ooooh. It almost got her to feel sorry for him.
    Perry had been hoping the message was from Travis. Seeing Jamey’s message instead, seeing his need to talk to her, it was a need , bared naked and misspelled in a dumb Facebook message, it turned her stomach. Even worse was the fact that she had her own need, a need for Travis to like her, and she wasn’t no better than Jamey.
    She looked away from the computer, away from Jamey’s message. The lumpy couch, the worn quilt covering the threadbare patch in the arm, the crocheted rug beaten nearly white over the years, the endless, endless army of glass figurines posing across every flat surface. The house felt empty despite the three people living in it. Myra filled it with stuff and more stuff.
    Every time she got to thinking like this it was like time stopped and froze her right where she sat. She’d never leave this shabby, unloved room. The Perry that she was right then, that girl was trapped forever. Before she knew it she had a glass figurine of a rearing horse under her shoe, using her full weight to mash it into the linoleum. Why had she said that thing about Travis’s shoes?
    Then again, why had he acted like such a bitch about it?
    She swept up the shattered horse, buried it under some paper towels in the trash can. At least six bottles in there, probably more around Myra’s bed. That answered