No One Needs to Know Read Online Free Page B

ability to smile in a way I hope is reassuring.
    “Come on,” I say, standing. “Let’s go watch cartoons. I’ll let you spoil dinner with some popcorn.”
    She sniffles again, then wipes her eyes and follows me the three feet it takes to get to the living room, where she flops down onto the couch. I go to our adjacent bedroom and dig through the stack of DVDs sitting on our battered dresser. I got them all for ten bucks at a garage sale, and we’ve seen all them, but it doesn’t matter. Any cartoon featuring an animal is fine with Carolyn.
    Two and a half hours later, she’s smiling, or at least as well as she can without wincing. The bag of frozen peas she’s been using to ice her face has mostly melted, which I guess means it’s halfway to being ready for dinner.
    I’ve sat next to her on our ratty couch this whole time, despite feeling like I could climb out of my own skin. When the door creaks open and my mom walks in, still wearing the blue polo shirt and apron that comprise her maid uniform, I jump off the couch and signal her to meet me in the kitchen. Since the lights are low and the TV is still on, my mom walks right past Carolyn without noticing her eye.
    She drops her purse on the table, her eyes trained on mine like she knows I’m about to drop a bomb.
    “Carolyn got hit again,” I whisper.
    Her face pales and she glances over her shoulder. “Is she okay?”
    “Does a black eye count as okay?”
    Mom’s jaw drops and she freezes for a moment, then spins and starts toward the living room, but I grab the ties on her apron and yank her back.
    “Don’t freak out. She’s calmed down now,” I say, glancing over her head to be sure Carolyn’s not watching. “But this isn’t working.”
    “What’s not working?”
    “This!” I hiss. “We can’t live here if it means sending her to Hilltop Elementary.”
    “I’m doing the best I can,” my mom says, the weariness creeping into her voice. “If we could afford to move, we would have done it already.”
    “She barely survived last year. This year is worse. We need to move,” I say. “If we can find a place on the other side of Division, she’ll be able to go to—”
    “We can’t afford to rent over there. You know that.”
    “I’ve been saving a little money. I could help with the deposit.”
    “And then what?” Mom asks, sinking into a chair at the kitchen table. “It doesn’t help to move in if we can’t keep up with the rent.”
    “Can’t you scrape together enough to get us to June? After I graduate, I’m going to work full time—”
    “You’ll end up like me,” my mom says, her voice falling. “You can’t just start working, Zo. That’s not what we’ve always talked about. You need to focus on you, and college.”
    “How am I ever going to focus knowing Carolyn’s still here?”
    “It’ll help her if you help yourself first.”
    “By the time I get a degree and can get a real job, she’ll be sixteen and the damage will be done. That school is going to ruin her. I don’t even like walking through these neighborhoods, and she spends all day here!”
    “What do you want me to do? I’ve been applying for better jobs all over town. No one even calls me,” Mom whispers, rubbing her eyes.
    “You’re going to have to do better,” I say, reaching for my hoodie. “I gotta get out of here.”
    I shove my arms through the sleeves and then slip out the back door before my mom can protest. If I spend one more minute in that house, I’m going to go crazy.
    I zip the front of my sweatshirt as I find the sidewalk and head down the hill, away from the crappy Hilltop neighborhood, the place we’ve lived for the last few years. I turn onto Tacoma Avenue, meandering past the courthouse and the strip of bail bond stores, past McDonalds, and then a few blocks later, I finally hit Division. This one road stands between Carolyn and a new elementary school, but who am I kidding? It’s a road and a pipe dream away.
    My