Chapter 4

Did she write "Evie got into a fight and tore her dress"? Or "Evie disobeyed and hung around outside, and she needs stricter discipline"?

Would she write "Three thugs dragged Evie into an alley and nearly assaulted her, but she got away, and my heart breaks for her"?

No, she wouldn't. A word like "heartbreak" would never show up in her notebook. There were no feelings in it, only facts, rules, and conclusions.

I called out softly, "Mom, don't you want to know who did it?"

"That's enough." She looked up at me calmly. "I don't want to hear your excuses. Your dress is torn, and that's a fact. You've got cuts on your face, and that's a fact. You didn't come straight home after school, and that's a fact too. Nothing else matters."

Nothing else mattered. Three thugs had dragged me into an alley and nearly assaulted me, and that didn't matter. What mattered was the torn dress. What mattered was that I hadn't come straight home, and that her rules had been broken.

I stood there and suddenly started laughing. I laughed until I was shaking all over and tears were running down my face, until the cut at the corner of my mouth split open again and blood seeped onto my tongue.

Mom frowned. "What are you laughing at?"

"Nothing." I shook my head at myself. "I was just wondering what you'd write if they'd killed me tonight."

Mom froze. Guilt flickered across her face, but it quickly gave way to calm.

I kept going. "Would you write that your daughter died, the cause of death was murder, and the lesson is to come straight home after school? Or would you write that your daughter disobeyed and hung around outside, that it got her killed, and that she needs stricter discipline?"

Mom raised her hand out of habit, her voice cold. "Evie Kimball!"

I held her gaze without flinching and kept going. "Would you write that you regret it and that you should've picked me up from school? Would you write that you're sorry?"

My voice started to shake. "Would you write that you were wrong, Mom?"

The words were barely out of my mouth when she slapped me hard across the left cheek. It hurt more than any slap before it.

"That's enough, Evie!"

She took a breath, went into her bedroom, and came back out with the medicine box she'd hidden last time. When I didn't take it, she set it on the coffee table. "Put it back where it belongs when you're done."

My lips twitched, and I covered my face and laughed. It took me a long time to pull myself together. Then I picked up the notebook from the coffee table to see what she'd written today.

"November 16, sunny. Evie came home from school four hours and 50 minutes late. Her dress is torn, her face is cut, her mouth is bleeding, and the dress is ruined. She claims someone dragged her into an alley, but I suspect she was in a fight.

"She's also learned to talk back. She's emotionally unstable and needs to work on her self-control."

I stared at those lines and read them word by word. "She claims someone dragged her into an alley, but I suspect she was in a fight."

She didn't believe me. Her daughter had just been through the most terrifying thing imaginable, and she didn't believe me.

I closed the notebook and put it back on the coffee table. Then I went into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. My hair was a mess, my face was swollen, there was blood at the corner of my mouth, and my eyes were red. I looked awful, but I didn't care anymore.

I went into the kitchen and opened a drawer. Everything inside was sorted by type. On the far right were the kitchen shears Mom used to cut through chicken bones, and they were very sharp.

Every time she used them, she washed them, dried them, and put them back in their spot. The label read, "Kitchen use only. Do not use for anything else."

I gripped the shears, walked back into the living room, and called toward the bedroom. "Mom."

The bedroom door opened a crack. "What is it?"

My voice was even calmer than usual. "Come out here for a second."

"What are you doing?" She sounded suspicious, but she came out anyway.

I said it slowly and clearly. "I want you to watch."

Then I drove the shears into my chest.