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     I tapped my fingers on my thigh in the cadence of everything I wished to say to my father. His beaten blue buick wasn't in the driveway though, it seemed I would miss my chance to say "Fuck you, you piece of shit asshole" to him or "leave him, or rot in the hell of your own creation" to Annabelle. My window was still cracked, the way it'd always been, the way I had left it. I lifted myself on the air conditioner and pressed my palms against the glass to raise it. In it out in twenty minutes, I told myself.  SHE LEAVES SOMETHING IN KITCHEN I'd made a mental list of all the things that I would need to gather, but standing in my room my mind felt blank. I sat down on my bed, and gently collapsed against my pillows. I pulled one close to me and held it tightly against my chest as I took a deep breath. I closed my eyes and felt a strong, sudden pull of sleep. I didn't have to do this, or anything. I could curl up in the fetal position and let the wor...

   From what I could recall, Chuck hadn't been a bad father. He might've been clumsy about doing the things that kids like to do, but he’d attempted them. I could credit him for that. And once Annabelle had come into the picture we had a moment of really pretending to be a happy family. I was around twelve at the time, so although I didn’t want or expect her to be a surrogate mother, I welcomed having a buffer between my preteen awkwardness and Chuck. She took me after school once, we’d gotten fast food and talked about school. Then she took me into a fashion outlet to buy feminine necessities. When we came home late and Chuck had asked where we were, she said “I took her to get training bra’s” as if it were nothing. My face had been burning and Chuck had looked perturbed but it was over, and it had been easier, anyway, than ever expecting spending money or asking for them for myself.  Annabelle wasn’t taking my mother’s place because I’d never had a mother, and she never...