Pretending to Be Erica by Michelle Painchaud

supercilii,” she murmurs. Sal squeezes her hand—a
good job
.
    “We weren’t expecting the car to break like it did, really,” he keeps on.
    “Depressor anguli oris,” the girl mutters again. Another hand squeeze.
    The truck driver looks at her. “Is she all right?”
    “A little Tourette’s. She’s on meds for it, but she still says strange things sometimes,” Sal lies, and smiles.
    Violet watches as he says it. “You gave it away with your zygomatic major. Too pinched.”
    “Those are some awfully big words for a girl your age.” The trucker laughs nervously.
    “How many kids do you have?” Violet asks. The trucker scratches his head, smiles, and shifts gears. The eighteen-wheeler gives a little stutter.
    “None.”
    His smile doesn’t crinkle his eyes. Violet picks up on it. “A flat orbicular oculi. You have a kid. Maybe one you don’t want to have. Or maybe you lost it. Did it die?”
    “That’s enough, Abigail,” Sal whispers. “Don’t push it.”
    The trucker goes quiet. Sal makes apologies, squeezes Violet’s hand hard to let her know she needs to be quiet.
    But she’s curious. “Did you love your kid?” she asks.
    The trucker pulls the brim of his hat down, uncomfortable.
    “Did you hug it? Did you ever get to kiss it? Was it a boy or a girl?”
    “Abigail, I’m warning you—” Sal begins.
    “How did it die?”
    The truck screeches to a stop. The trucker, so genial before, puts his face in his hands.
    “Get out.”
    “We’re sorry,” Sal says, scrambling for words. “She’s just so uncontrollable sometimes—”
    “I said get out.”
    “We don’t have any way to get back—”
    “We’re close to Dallas. Someone will pick you up. Get out.”
    Violet watches the trucker’s face—drawn, his muscles taut. He’s honest. Broken and honest. He cared about his child enough to break down at her prying. Would Sal ever break down if she died? Sal exhales and yanks Violet from the seat with him, watching the truck sputter exhaust as it drives away. Reality seeps in with the cold night air. Streetlamps are faint, the darkness heavy. Sal rolls his sleeves up calmly.
    “Sal, I didn’t mean to—”
    Terror. Cold terror grips her intestines and twists them around each other. Sal keeps rolling his sleeves, slowly, and finishes at the elbow. Takes his first step toward her.
    “No! I’m sorry! I won’t do it again! I just wanted to see—”
    The sting of a palm on her face. Everything condenses to those five points of white-hot acid on her skin. Stars shatter themselves in her eyes.
    Just once. It’s always just one hit. One hard, unforgiving warning.
    “When I say stop, you stop.”
    He pulls her by the arm into town. Miles and miles of cold air nipping at the red slap. It fades. Nothing too permanent. Sal is never that messy, that uncontrolled. At the first gas station he walks into, he rips off a disposable phone.
    The little girl watches him work, the sickly light of the gas station showing his bones—white on black on muscle on sunspots on death. Sal’s face is never angry. Even in the darkness, even when he hits her, he never shows his real emotion. The face game is useless on him. He hides everything too well. Or he just has nothing to show.
    After the discipline comes the apology. The worst part isn’t the pain—it’s the fact that he always tries to make up for it. To pretend he’s sorry.
    He comes out, beaming, a candy bar offered to her in his hand.

    Violet plays poker with Sal and only wins when he lets her.
    Red and blue chips in the pot.

    In a different world, Violet is a girl like Erica. Maybe not as rich as Erica, but just as well loved, by a mom and dad who are around and have jobs and a small but tidy house. Maybe that Violet’s had a few boyfriends—blushing, stolen glances, smoldering hearts, smoldering afternoons on a sunlit bed, exploring, hands, mouth, crooks of necks, crooked smiles.
    This one has only read cheap romance paperbacks out of