14
That night, all hell broke loose at home.
Janet and Sarah were crying and complaining.
My dad was yelling at me.
Ungrateful. Shameless. He’d given me
everything, and I’d turned on him.
I sat and listened, amused.
Given me everything?
When I was eight, my mom went to visit her family. He brought Janet and Sarah to our
house.
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He and Janet went upstairs. Sarah tried to
steal my toys.
He came downstairs and slapped me twice,
right in front of Janet, for fighting with Sarah.
At my eighteenth birthday party, he brought
Sarah as his “friend’s daughter.”
Sarah flirted with my boyfriend. I threw cake in her face. He pushed me, face–first, into the cake. My pretty dress covered in frosting and
shame.
Last year, my mother died.
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He brought Janet to the funeral.
He thought I didn’t know that she’d killed
herself because of him and Janet.
The night before she died was her birthday.
He brought Janet home after my mom took
her sleeping pills.
To their room.
He didn’t know my mom’s insomnia had gotten worse. Two pills weren’t enough
anymore.
L
She woke up, made me breakfast, hugged me
goodbye.
I didn’t know. I didn’t see the signs.
Hours later, I saw her body.
I snapped out of the memory, my smile tight.
My dad, getting angrier, stood up, yelling, coming toward me, raising his hand.
His hand never landed.
My bodyguard slapped him, hard. My dad
stumbled back, almost falling.
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My bodyguard. He protected me. Didn’t
matter who you were.
I’d paid him well, told him his only job was to
keep me safe. Anyone tried to hit me, he hit
back.
After the incident with Ethan’s mother, I’d hired two bodyguards.
I wouldn’t be humiliated again.
My dad was stunned. He glared at the bodyguard, then at me, his hand shaking.
“Olivia, you dare have him hit me?”
<
I smiled. “Of course.”
“If you tried to stab me with a knife, I’d tell
him to stab you right back.”
“Want to try it, Dad?”
