Freya sat back down. She underlined the sentence again. Then she packed her bag and left.
She straightened. He was already walking away, crumpling his sandwich bag into a ball. freeuse freya parker
Freya finished her juice. The pulp stuck to her teeth. She didn’t brush it away. Freya sat back down
She bent. The wood was warm from the sun, the grain rough against her palms. She watched a mallard dive and surface, shake water from its emerald head. Behind her, the man unzipped his trousers. She counted the seconds. Fifteen. Thirty. Forty-five. A grunt. A rustle of fabric. She straightened
“Freya. Stand up and turn around.”
Freya Parker’s morning began not with an alarm, but with the soft click of her bedroom door. She didn’t open her eyes. She simply turned her head on the pillow, offering the pale curve of her neck. A moment later, her stepfather’s hand rested there, a brief, absent pressure, like checking a light switch. Then he was gone, his footsteps fading down the hall toward the coffee maker.