Dreams are the catalyst for naughty behavior. It’s why I’m prescribed one hundred and fifty milligrams of trazodone before I go to bed. Which I wash down with five milligrams of Ambien, ten milligrams of melatonin, and fifty milligrams of Benadryl.

I take them every night, as diligently as a five-year-old chews their vitamin gummies. A handful a day keeps the doctor away.

But, tonight, something seeps through. I’m back there, if only for a second. In that house. That room.

Daddy’s cologne tickles my nose, decidedly off. There’s some sharper smell overpowering the crisp Calvin Klein. The same way Mama smelled after one of her dinner parties, when her words slurred into a sloppy mixture of French and English.

Boozy.

He should be awake by now. I’m going to be late for ballet. Irritated, I march around the leather chaise Mama likes to lounge on, toward the massive closet at the back of their suite.

I hear it first. That slow, unnatural swish. The creak of the clothing rack straining…

A shadow flickers just beyond the open closet door. The light is on.

“Daddy?”

He doesn’t say anything.

And then I look up…

“What the hell do you mean ‘I should have known’?”

I blink my eyes open and find a twisted layer of cotton cocooning my limbs. It’s dark in the room, and something soft tickles my face when I try to sit up. Canopy, I remember as my heart races. I’m in Thorny’s house, in my perfect new room. Rain lashes at the windows—but that’s not the storm that woke me up.

It’s the one playing out down below in the form of shouting voices and shattering glass.

“Keep your voice down,” Elaine pleads. “And I’ve mentioned it. Maybe you forgot, but I did—”

“He’ll be there, won’t he?” Thorny phrases the question like a whip. “I was wondering why you had the nerve to invite him to dinner.”

“Don’t do this.” Elaine gasps. “James, please—”

“Will he?”

“He’s sponsoring the trip, but it’s not—”

“So why wait a few months?” Thorny demands. “For my sake? Because of her?”

“It’s just business!”

“Sure it is.” He laughs, and goosebumps prickle my skin, chafing against the sheets. “So why wait? Be my fucking guest. Go now.”

“James!”

“Go be with him. Don’t let me stop you,” Thorny taunts. “Go perform your ‘business.’”

“Just keep your voice down,” Elaine stage-whispers, but she’s louder than he is. “What if Maryanne hears you?”

“Don’t. Don’t you dare use her as your excuse.”

“You’re the one who brought her here,” Elaine snipes. “Why? Because you wanted to add gasoline to the fire? I’m not the one using her as an excuse… James, please! Where are you going?”

“Out.”

Two sets of footsteps race toward, I assume, the foyer. A heavier set leads the way as lighter, quicker steps desperately gain on them.

“We need to talk about this, please. Just listen to me—”

“Call him,” Thorny says over the sound of a door opening. “Tell him you can be there by the end of the week. You have my blessing.”

The door slams shut.

Elaine sighs. Then sobs, but in smothered little snippets. Eventually, she wanders deeper into the house, though never upstairs.

She’s watching from a window, I bet. Waiting for him to come back.

I burrow beneath the blankets, smothering a laugh into the sheets. Oh, Elaine. I learned that lesson years ago.

He never does.

The thing about bad dreams is that they linger, infesting everything. All the dark thoughts you fight so hard to shove into that deep, dank hole in the pit of your mind escape.

Only when you wake up, the rest of the world pretends like none of the bad things ever happened. You just have to choke on the memories all day until they finally crawl back to where they came from.

“Good morning!” Elaine greets as I descend the stairs. She’s smiling, her hair perfectly coiffed, her dress a flowy, flouncy pink.

She was wrong the other day. I look nothing like the parent who should not be named.

She does, superficial happiness and all.

“Jane should be here any moment,” she says. “You can wait for her in the study. I have some errands to run, but I’ll be back tonight, and we’ll have a chat. Just you and me. What do you think?”

Her white teeth sparkle in the sun, her makeup flawless.

“Okay,” I say.

“Great!” She skips through the front door, and I watch from the window as her shoulders slump the moment she descends the front steps. Thorny’s car isn’t the one waiting out front for her; it’s a black one driven by someone I can’t see. Just like that, she’s gone in a flash.

Thorny isn’t home, either. I can smell it. The air tastes different without his signature scent of wine and cologne. Mommy and Daddy left the baby home alone.

I can’t resist. I creep up to their room, scouring the neatly made bed and the immaculate closet for clues. Maybe they had make-up sex? That’s what grown-ups do, after all. Scream at each other and fuck.

My parents did it.

“Don’t pretend like you care, mon cher,” my mother used to snipe at my father. “You’ll rant and rave, and then we’ll fuck. Ça va? You never change.”

But Thorny’s not the make-up-sex type. He’s way too brooding for that. No. He prefers to lord his power over those who dare to cross him. For days. For years, even. Silence is his favorite weapon, withheld at will. A truly cruel punishment of his creation would be this: disappearing.

The door to the balcony creaks. When I tiptoe toward it, I find it unlocked. Stepping onto the deck, I spot a hazy figure wandering the beach, sandwiched between ocean and sand.

“He hates going down to the beach,” Elaine had said.

I guess Thorny has his own secrets.

I don’t know how long I watch him. When I finally hear the sound of knocking on the front door, my face feels hot, inflamed by the sun. Jane the tutor is waiting on the front steps, her briefcase in hand.

Together, we work through mind-numbing assignments until Jane asks to see my notebook. When she realizes that it’s still empty, she frowns, disappointed.

“I want you to try writing something down now,” she instructs, placing the book in front of me. “You don’t even have to show me what it says. Just practice.”

Practice. I bite my lower lip and scribble down the first sentence that comes to mind: This is fucking stupid. Stupid. STUPID. StUpId.

“Now, write about something else,” she prompts. “Something maybe you can’t say out loud. We can keep these journals private, if you’d like. Just try forming words in a new way.”

A new way.

My father didn’t slip and fall, I write. He hanged himself.

That’s the naughty truth I’m not allowed to say out loud. There. I lift my pen and wait for the freedom that Jane seems to think can be experienced by scratching out words in watery ink. Nothing yet.

I am bored, I write. Still nothing.

“I think this is a good place for our final lesson,” Jane suggests. “I want you to use our last hour to write. Anything at all. Just get the words out. Play with them. Maybe try writing a story if you’d like—”

“Like my uncle?”

“Well, yes,” she says, smiling. She thinks it’s a fitting aspiration. “Though it’s been so long since he’s written anything. Maybe you can trigger his inspiration? You probably have his flair for drama.”

“I’ll write something different, then.” I sound so unimpressed.

Thorny has been on the New York Times bestselling blah blah blah list more than once. His work inspires legions of fans who love reading lame, by-the-book crime dramas without an ounce of tawdry romance or sex. It’s because Thorny is such a creative mind that Grandmama thought he’d communicate best with a traumatized child. He could tell me fantastical stories to take my mind off the horror I witnessed. Tales of unicorns and princesses who vomit glitter. Normal stuff.

I never told her what tales Thorny wove for me instead. Like when he sat me down, looked me dead in my innocent, teeny eyes, and declared, “I am not your father. Wanting me to be isn’t healthy, Maryanne. Just stop it!”

Lifting my pen, I try to take Jane’s advice.

I hate James Thorne. This time, I do feel something: a prickle in my chest. Probably indigestion—I bet those eggs Elaine made for breakfast were poisoned. Sighing, I rip the page out and crumble it into a ball. I aim for the wastebasket in the corner and miss. Swish. The ball bounces away, and I turn my attention to a brand-new page.

Unbeknownst—another new vocabulary word—to Jane, I spend the rest of her hour drawing stick people in the fringes of the margins. They meander through their happy stick lives, keeping the other figures at a safe distance with their linear appendages. Finished, I take a walk around the house and consider throwing my journal into the ocean.

I start toward the beach but return to the house when I realize how damn hot it is. So hot that my sandals stick to the bottoms of my feet. Seeking the AC, I wander into the living room. Where I find Thorny scowling on the balcony, a beer in hand.

He sips.

I sneak onto a chair near the window and scribble a doodle onto a page, watching him all the while.

Sip. Sip.

Scribble. Scribble.

I don’t know what gives me away. Maybe I’m writing too loudly. Breathing too loudly. Existing too loudly. He turns and glowers when he finds me, my face pressed against the glass. Tossing his head back, he drains the beer and knocks the bottle over the railing. Deliberately.

Uh-oh. My stomach clenches as he marches toward me. I stand, backing out of his reach the moment he yanks on the sliding glass door. Slam! If I had been any closer, my fingers would have been caught.

“Hello, Uncle James!” Mustering up a cheerful smile, I fold my hands primly over my lap. “Where’s Elaine?”

He says nothing. But he doesn’t move, either. No. Some other emotion has him rooted here, breathing in the same air I am. His eyes gleam, electrified.

Uh-oh. Thorny’s angry.

“So much for the fucking bet. How long have you known?” he wonders through clenched teeth. “Was that one of the first things you sussed out, huh? Did you go through her phone?” He snatches my wrist and I wince. Too tight.

“Ow!”

The second I resist, his fingers latch onto my wrist bone like a vise. “Was it her messages? How?”

“You’re hurting me!” I try to pull away.

He tugs right back, dragging me a step toward him. Up this close, I realize that he’s not cold, callous Thorny now. He’s serious, spiteful Uncle James.

“I bet you couldn’t wait to rub my nose in it, could you?”

Elaine. He’s talking about Elaine. Their hushed conversation wasn’t a dream after all. Naughty girls shouldn’t eavesdrop though, so I school my face into a mask.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about—”

“Don’t play dumb with me!” He’s shouting. “You want to know the truth? Everyone told me to just keep you locked in the fucking psych ward. Refuse to take you back. Let the state have you. Everyone.”

“So, why didn’t you listen, then?” Heat sinks into my skin, creeping through every nerve and pore. I yank my arm and he lets go only to snatch my forearm in an even tighter grasp. I stagger, forced to brace my hand over an end table for balance. “Stop!”

“You’ve been nothing but a burden on this entire fucking family since day one—”

“Get off me!” I dig my feet into the carpet and wrench on my wrist, leaning away from him. “Let me go!”

“I should,” he agrees. “Everyone else is done with you. Lily won’t even welcome you into her home. Caroline’s kids haven’t seen their father in three months. But I took you in anyway—”

“Why?” I stop resisting. Turn to face him. Smile. “Because you’re such a good uncle?”

“You have no fucking idea, do you?” He looks shocked, old Thorny. I’m so stupid that he just can’t deal. “You want to ruin my marriage like you did Caroline’s? Do your worst. That’s the only way someone like you can feel joy, isn’t it?”

“Someone like me?” My throat feels too tight and the words come out wrong. Too soft. Hoarse.

“You heard me. Oh, that’s right. We aren’t supposed to say it out loud. What you really are.” He looks me over and scoffs. “A selfish, spoiled little psychopath.”

He lets me go and stalks toward the archway, probably to hunt for more wine. Halfway there, he pauses to snatch something from his pocket. He throws it at me. A wad of paper bounces off my chest, landing in front of my toes.

It’s my crumbled-up assignment. I hate James Thorne.

“You just can’t get over it, can you?” He shakes his head, overwhelmed with my stupidity. “People die every damn day, and you don’t see everyone else holding on to grudges. Festering over childish little fantasies—”

“But I’m a psychopath,” I parrot tonelessly. “Remember? And do you know what psychopaths do?” I swear we turn at the same time, honing in on a porcelain vase sitting prettily on the mantel. I lunge for it, sensing him right on my heels.

“Don’t you dare!”

He’s too late. I snatch the vase by the neck and pitch it toward the beautiful view of the ocean. Smash! It shatters into pieces.

So much for being a good girl.

“That’s enough!” He grabs my shoulder again, dragging me toward the couch at the opposite end of the room.

I scream. Scratch. Dig my heels in. He’s relentless, yanking me across the carpet when I lose my balance.

“You want me to be your fucking father?” he asks, shoving me onto the couch cushions. “Fine. I’ll do what he should have fucking done a long time ago!”

I kick at his arm as his fingers come for me, latching onto the hem of my skirt.

And then I freeze. My mind goes blank. Poof.

Uncontested, Thorny wrenches my skirt up to my lower back, allowing the cool air to tickle me through my cotton undies. They’re too thin. The baby-pink frilly kind no one was ever supposed to see.

When a hard palm lands against my ass, I feel it all. My teeth clatter as my hands grip a pillow in shock.

“Is this what you fucking wanted?” he shouts, striking again. Thwack.

Thwack.

Thwack.

Each sting jolts through my veins, merciless. One. Five. Ten. The exertion has him cursing every time his hand meets my ass.

“Damn it! Maybe if Charles beat your ass, you wouldn’t be such a little—”

He stops suddenly. Steps back, letting me slump forward. I watch him stare down at his hand, his mouth open, his eyes like slits as he looks at me. Really looks at me.

Then I hear it. Soft, little footsteps creeping up the walkway outside, crunching over the path. Elaine. Mommy has returned. Mustn’t let her see the mess.

Thorny is panting, his chest heaving, his face reddened and splotchy. “Get—”

I don’t listen. I’m on my feet, shoving away from him. To the stairs. Up. Into my room, slamming the door in my wake. Twisting the lock.

Screaming.

Screaming.

Just as a door opens downstairs, I break off, biting so hard at the back of my hand to keep quiet that I taste salt. Elaine calls out words I can’t decipher, and someone gruffly barks a response. Two sets of footsteps drift toward opposite parts of the house.

And then there’s just silence. So loud that I can’t hear anything but the lack of noise. No honking horns to block out my ragged breathing. No distant shouting to obscure the scratching hiss my hair makes as I twist it around. Around. Around.

No Thorny spitting in my face all those means words everyone else thinks but never says.

You’re a selfish, spoiled little psychopath.

The joke’s on him; antisocial personality disorder is rarely diagnosed in someone below the age of eighteen. It’s a stigma, you see. Can’t call them sociopaths. What about borderline? Sure. They can slap that term on your medical file and use it as an excuse to psycho-splain away all of your problems, fears, and anger.

You’re the broken one. It doesn’t matter why you scream. Or shout. Or throw things when people refuse to fucking listen.

I’m the only one with a diagnosis.

And the truly manipulative, selfish, psychopathic thing to do would be to yank my skirt off and shove it onto the floor. With one hand, I tug my panties down while grabbing my cell phone in the other. I have to stand awkwardly and hold it at an angle to get the right shot.

Redness paints my right buttock. And it still hurts. I try to sit on the mattress and wince.

All I have to do is send this picture to Mr. Lawyer or the police. He hit me, I’d wail. Like an animal. It was so, so, so scary…

My fingers dance over the right buttons, but I don’t press them. Yet. My brain skips ahead, imagining how this scenario will unfold. Thorny will get investigated. Maybe even charged. He’ll lose his job. His reputation will take a ding.

But voices would whisper: Oh, that little bitch? She deserved it.

I drop the phone, lying back across the bed. A spanking scandal might affect him for a year or two, but then everyone would forget the whiny little psychopath who called “wolf.” No…

James Thorne deserves a much worse punishment.

I brought that stupid red journal upstairs, I realize. I pick it up and drop it so that it falls open to a clean page. Then I hunt for a pen. Pressing the nib into the paper, I hesitate.

Tell a story, Jane suggested.

The best ones start with once upon a time—like mine. Once upon a time, something terrible happened to a young girl named Maryanne. Only one person in the world could comfort her.

And he did.

Until he realized she was tainted. Dirty. Broken.

So he threw her away.

Adjusting my grip on the pen, I start writing.

Dear diary,

He lifted my skirt. Told me not to tell.

Should I?