Brave New Worlds

her spandex jeans. Each visit, her dad makes her write down her complaints before they leave the house, and then goes over them with her. He tells her that he wants to be sure she says the right things so she doesn't get in trouble. But the truth is, he doesn't give crap about her. He's just protecting his own sorry ass.
    He got drunk last night at dinner. Her mom, Drea, accidentally took too many vitamins and nodded off at the table. Trina pretended she was a duck, and let it roll off her back. Quack, fricking quack. At least dinner was ready. Peanut butter and Fluff: the ambrosia of champions. But after a few drinks, Ramesh got The look . He started talking through his teeth like a growling dog: "they're pushing me out. Looking over my shoulders all the time. Even the janitors. Cameras everywhere. A man can't work like that. "
    He rubbed his temples while he talked like his thoughts were hurting him, and Trina tried to be sympathetic, but she'd heard this song before. Every time he got drunk, it was the same. Meanwhile, cameras were recording his every word, and where would they live if he got fired? Worse, what if that blood in the sink turned out to be cancer, and in a week or a month from now, he was dead?
    In the corner, the television was set to "Entertainment this Second!" Drea pretended to be interested in what Ramesh was saying, but she was looking past him, at the show.
    "Those fuckers are killing my work!" Ramesh shouted while banging his fist against the table like a gavel. Everything jumped—even his stinking vodka bottle. The salt shaker rolled into her lap. She was scared to call attention to herself by putting it back, so in her lap it stayed. Her little friend, salty. She and salty, against the world.
    She hated salty, all of a sudden, because his sides were all greasy with thumbprint scum. She hated her dad, for ruining dinner. She hated their crappy apartment, and the kids at school who called her pink lung. Mostly, she hated the way Ramesh shouted, because Drea was so out of it, Drea had checked out months ago. It was Trina he was yelling at. I can't fix your problems. I'm thirteen years old, remember ? she wanted to say.
    But she didn't. It would be too hard to explain. The salt spilled like bad luck, and she let the shaker drop from her lap. It rolled under the table. "Fuck you, you fucking no good drunk," she grumbled under her breath, only the words got away from her. They rushed from her chest, and then burst into a holler that practically echoed inside the kitchen. She spun at her mother, to make sure it wasn't Drea who'd spoken. But Drea's earpods were inserted. On the television, beauty queens in bathing suits wrestled in a pool of mud for the title of "hottest bitch. "
    Had she really just said fuck you To her own father? She was already blushing from shame when she felt the blow. It came while her head was turned. Her dad, a dirty fighter. Another reason to hate him. At least it was his open palm and not his fist that tore across her face and knocked her out of her chair.
    She lay stunned on the floor. From the table, Drea shook her head, "Don't fight, babies. It's beneath you," she said, but she might have been talking to the mud-slingers.
    Trina's face broke like glass. Her lips pulled wide, ready to explode into the worst crying jag of her life, so she squeezed her fists so tight her fingernails pierced her skin, and tried to stay calm. Ramesh was kneeling next to her. His long limbs wobbled drunkenly until he gave up kneeling, and sat down. She flinched as he ran the plastic Smirnov bottle along her swelling cheek. It was so cold it got stuck and pulled her skin. "Let me see. Hold still," he told her.
    "You're a terrorist," she sobbed. "that's why they want to get you fired. A dirty Indian terrorist," she said, even though she was half Indian, too.
    "Shh," he said. "I'm sorry. That was unforgivable. I'll never do it again. " He was still holding the bottle against her skin. He smelled like mice and formaldehyde, and though he wasn't supposed to, he'd worn his white lab coat home from the office. It made him feel important, because he could tell people he was a doctor, too.
    Trina tried to stop crying, but she couldn't. She pushed the bottle away and hid her face between her knees. It was dark in there, and she wanted to come out and let him hold her, but she hated him so much.
    "I'm so sorry," Ramesh crooned. His long limbs didn't quite fit under the table, so he was hunched like a