Intersections Read online

  Once settled, she stood, her nipples tight and sore in the cold air but everything else feeling better. The hot water had eased the constant aching burn from her muscles, and simply being clean made a huge difference in her outlook. When she dug through the bag again, though, she found nothing but the six or so diapers that had been left in the package from the hospital.

  Her clothes were gone.

  Her wallet was still there, not that it mattered since she had nothing in it but her driver's license and a couple ticket stubs from movies she couldn't even remember seeing. She'd had no cash to steal. No credit cards.

  She dug again into the depths of the bag, searching, but came up with nothing. She caught sight of her reflection. Her eyes had gone wide and wild, her mouth agape.

  Tori straightened. The mirror over the sink was small and age-spotted, so she could only see part of herself, but she studied what she could see. She cupped one hand over her breasts, two sizes bigger than she'd ever been, the skin taut and traced with blue-green veins. Her belly, sagging and wrinkled.

  They'd taken her clothes, but surely they didn't expect her to go out there naked. What did they expect, though? They had taken her and the baby in. Fed her. Maybe they planned to clothe her, too.

  When she cracked open the door, she found a pile of garments waiting for her. Thick cotton socks. A long flannel nightgown. A heavy cardigan sweater with big wooden buttons. No bra, but a pair of cotton panties adorned with pink flowers. There were clothes for the baby, too, a small set of yellow fleecy footed pajamas, a little too big, but better than nothing. Everything was warm, and, like the towels, smelled clean. She could've done worse.

  Tori dressed quickly in the layers, grateful for the warmth. Still, the fact that someone had gone through her bag and taken her belongings was beyond fucked up. She lifted the baby and cradled her in one arm while she checked the hallway. Empty.

  Her belly was full. The baby was sleeping but would wake soon to nurse, and Tori herself only wanted to crawl back into bed and sleep for another day or month or year. She felt like she'd been hit by a truck. Well, hadn't she been?

  In the small bedroom at the end of the hall, she crawled beneath the weight of the blankets and tucked the baby against her, toward the center of the bed so even if Tori did fall asleep, the infant wouldn't roll onto the floor. She tugged open the buttons on the front of the nightgown, and the child's mouth opened, rooting and finding the nipple with more practiced ease than she'd ever had.

  First the tingling built, almost but not quite a pain, and then the surge of letdown became a throb as the baby sucked. For the first time, it didn't hurt. Tori wouldn't have called it a pleasure, but there was something of pleasure in it, and as she drifted to sleep, warm and fed and with her child in her arms, Tori gave herself up to it.

  11

  "No." It is the first time Tori has ever said this to him, when he comes creeping into her room at night. "Get off me. Don't touch me again."

  Her mother's husband, such a fucking cliché. Like something out of some goddamned movie of the week. Tori has suffered him touching her for years, her silence never acquiescence or acceptance, but a simple, misunderstood belief that someone, someday would come along and save her.

  It would not be the boy who'd earlier tonight thought he was taking her virginity. He was weaker even than Tori knew herself to be. He'd fumbled and stroked her, entering her with a throbbing cock and moving on top of her while he muttered filthy words he must have thought would turn her on. And after, moving away from her as though she were as dirty a thing as he'd made her out to be, he'd looked ashamed and sorry, not for what he'd done, but that he'd done it with her.

  "I am not a thing," Tori says now as she pushes her stepfather away from her. "I am not just some thing."

  He has hit her before, of course, but this time she ducks the swing and comes back at him with fists of her own. She is not tall, she is not strong. Years of forcing herself to vomit up almost every meal have left her weak, but she is angry, and that is enough.

  She catches him in the nose, sending him backward with a yelp, hands clapped over his face. With a grunt, she kicks him in the balls, watching with satisfaction as he doubles over and goes to his knees. She kicks him again, her bare toes crunching and breaking, agony, but worth it when he scrambles away from her.

  He, at last afraid.

  It is the last night she will spend in her mother's house. She runs after that. Lives on the street for a little while. Finds a job. Gets an apartment. Starts to make her life on her own, as she thinks she was always meant to.

  12

  The dark silhouette in the doorway startled her when she woke. The baby had fallen off the breast, which was still exposed, but Tori tucked the nightgown around herself before she sat up. Blinking away the dream, she recognized the man staring at her.

  "Hi. Luka."

  He stepped through the doorway. "You found the clothes. Good."

  "Where are mine?" She paused. “These are great, but where are mine?"

  "I took them to wash them. Everything you had was filthy. It smelled bad." He lifted his face and sniffed as though to prove there'd been a stink.

  "I would appreciate it if you didn't go through my things," Tori said. "I mean, yeah, thank you and everything, but it's not cool with me for you to just go through my stuff."

  Luka stepped closer, into the light. "You don't have any things worth keeping.”

  "That's not true." Tori pushed herself against the headboard, a hand on the sleeping baby.

  Luka shrugged. "You can have them back after they're clean, if you want. Mother would like you to come down to the parlor. With the baby."

  "She's sleeping now."

  "Mother says you should come down."

  Tori eyed him. "Luka, when babies are sleeping, the last thing in the world you want to do is wake them up. I'm sure your mother would prefer not to have a screaming kid in her parlor."

  Luka shook his shaggy head. "She says now."

  "I'm not coming downstairs right now," Tori said calmly as she scanned the room for two things. An escape route or a weapon. Nothing leaped out at her, but that was okay. She would keep looking.

  She would be prepared.

  Luka hesitated, then came over to the bed to peer down at the baby. "You don't have a name for her yet?”

  "No. She's so small, she feels too tiny for a name." Tori let her hand rest lightly on the infant's head. "My dad used to call me Little Bit. I've been calling her that."

  "That's not a name."

  She laughed softly, covering her mouth with a hand to keep from waking the baby. "No. It's not. But it's all I've got for her right now."

  Luka sat gingerly on the edge of the bed. His weight dipped it enough that Tori had to shift to keep from leaning toward him. He rubbed his big hands on the thighs of his jeans. She hadn't noticed before that the backs of his palms were covered with hair.

  "You could ask the board."

  Tori's lip curled, but she smoothed her expression. She had no intention of letting some fucking spirit board name her child, whether or not it was operated by a demanding old woman or something from the world beyond. "I don't think so."

  "Mother asked the board to name all of us."

  "Your dad didn't have any say in the matter?"

  For a moment, Luka frowned. "None of us had the same dad."

  Whoa. So mama had done some getting around in her day. Tori watched Luka's face.

  "My dad left when I was pretty young. I didn't see much of him. It's not easy," she said.

  "It's fine," Luka said. "We have Mother."

  Impulsively, Tori touched his hand. The hairs were softer than she'd expected. His fingers twitched.

  "How old are you, Luka?"

  "Eighteen."

  She'd imagined him as much older than that. "I'm twenty-two."

  He smiled at her, then, showing straight and pointed white teeth. He looked at the sleeping baby. "She looks like a Rose."