the idea. Was it worth bringing up, worth opening herself up to her dad’s ridicule? Persey wasn’t sure. Weirdly, it was the tension at the table that kept her from abandoning her plans altogether. She couldn’t live like this indefinitely.
So when her mom broke the silence with a muffled sneeze, Persey pounced on the opportunity.
“Bless you,” she said, then quickly followed with “And I’m going to join the stage crew for the spring musical at school. You know, for an extracurricular.”
The words came pouring out so quickly, Persey wasn’t even sure if her dad had heard them all. He sat there, tablet still in hand, staring at the blue-lit screen. His face was immovable, and the only proof that Persey had spoken the words at all came from her mom, who almost spit a mouthful of wine across the tablecloth, followed by a sputtering cough as she tried to swallow her gulp.
Ten seconds. Twenty. Should Persey say it again? Maybe he was lost in work thoughts? She was about to repeat herself when her dad spoke.
“Why?”
So I can stay as far away from you as possible. “I thought it would look good on my college applications,” she lied.
That elicited a dry laugh from her dad. “There won’t be any college applications with your grades. Besides, you haven’t even taken the SATs yet.”
Persey grimaced. Nothing intimidated her more than the thought of three straight hours of standardized tests. The PSAT last year had been torture, and so far, despite his pestering, Persey had refused to sign up for the real thing.
“And why should I allow you more time away from studying?” he continued. “So your grades can get worse?”
This wasn’t going the way she’d hoped. “But I—”
“Give me one good reason.” He laced his fingers together in front of him, the company CEO confronting a troublesome employee. “One good reason why I should let you. Just one. Can you do it?”
Persey’s mind raced. He was laying a trap: no matter what excuse she gave, he’d have a comeback ready, a biting criticism. She looked to her mom for support, but she was at least three glasses into bottle number two, which meant her mom’s mind was dulled into nothingness. Persey wanted to cry—from anger, frustration, resentment. She couldn’t take two more years of this strain. She wouldn’t turn eighteen until after graduation, so there was no escape from her father before then. This plan to join the stage crew had offered her a glimmer of hope, a crutch that could help her get through the next two-plus years, but it was on the verge of defeat. She didn’t know what she could offer up that would convince her dad to…
The answer came to her in a flash, a gift from her subconscious, and she smiled, despite knowing that it would piss off her dad.
“If you let me do stage crew, I’ll take the SAT.”
It was replacing one evil with another, but even though test taking was an anxiety-inducing clusterfuck, it was better than the extended pain of endless hours in this house. It was worth the gamble.
Her dad’s hard stare faltered for just a moment, and Persey held her breath. Would he go for it? Had she won?
“Fine,” he said. “But if you score under one thousand, the deal is off.”
Persey had no idea whether or not she could actually break one thousand on that test, but as she bused her plate to the sink, she couldn’t help feeling as if she’d finally won a battle.
PERSEY STUMBLED THROUGH THE OPENING AND GULPED down a cool breath of fresh, fully oxygenated air. She leaned forward, hands on her knees, panting. That oxygen thing—had it been an illusion? Were her elevated heart rate, sweaty face, and shortness of breath merely results of the power of suggestion?
No way. She’d felt the heavy air, the burn of her lungs as breathing became more and more difficult. The oxygen deprivation had been real.
But was it meant to scare us or to kill us?
The answer might be scarier than the question. She stood up, worried that this test was some kind of preview for what the rest of the day had in store, and looked around. She was in a large, airy room with hardwood floors and a lofty ceiling. Brightly painted walls—one electric blue, one pumpkin orange, one a neon shade of plum—were dotted with open shelves displaying a variety of framed records, and spaced on the wall she’d come through were posters of musicians and