She turned the tap off and looked at her reflection again. That’s me, she thought, examining the girl in the mirror. That’s what people see when they look at me. She pushed her face closer to the mirror. But who am I?

Her father had said he wanted to know who she was. I don’t even know who I am, she thought. How can he ever know?

For the second time that day she sat down on the toilet to think. It was appropriate, she thought. Wasn’t a toilet where you dumped everything you didn’t want inside of you? It was too bad she couldn’t flush her feelings down it as well. Maybe then I’d feel better, she thought.

She fished in her pocket and found the Valium she’d put there that morning. She hadn’t taken one in a day or two. Now she popped it in her mouth and worked up enough spit to swallow it down. Still, it burned her throat. Not that it would probably help anyway. She had to take two, sometimes three, now to get the mellow feeling she used to get from one. But it was a habit, and she figured it couldn’t hurt.

She wished she’d gotten some pot from Brian. It had been a relief to find out he smoked. His stuff wasn’t as good as the stuff Nick had, but it did the trick. She could use some now to take her away from herself.

You’d just have to come back again, she told herself.

“Why don’t you shut the fuck up?” she said, hitting her thighs with her fists. “Just shut up.”

She was crying. The tears slipped from her eyes and ran down her cheeks. They were hot, and their touch tormented her burned skin. When she wiped them away, her face was left feeling raw. She stood and looked at herself. Ugly red smears scarred her cheeks. She was looking at the face of a monster, someone she wanted to run from.

She opened the bathroom door and, before she could change her mind, ran down the stairs. Her father was still sitting where she’d left him. His hands hung limply between his knees, and he looked tired.

“All right,” Caddie said, sitting on the couch and taking a deep breath. “What do you want to know?”

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 28

Ben looked at his daughter. Caddie, sitting across from him, had her arms across her chest in a defensive posture. It wasn’t, he thought, a great way to begin. But he feared that if he didn’t take her up on her unexpected offer to talk, he might never get another chance.