Read Online Never Said by Carol Lynch Williams - Free Book Online

on the bed, sweaty from nerves. Closed my eyes. Did the deep breathing that hadn’t worked all day. Thirty minutes later, my heart had calmed down and my head no longer ached. I was changing my clothes when I heard, “What’s your problem?”
    Dad. Shouting. “Are you crazy? You must be. How can you do your runway walk like that?”
    Uh oh.
    The calm I had felt was shoved aside. I felt cold at Dad’s words. Now what? A spasm of worry similar to what Mom might have been feeling earlier that day when Annie simply didn’t show up for work coursed through me. Why hadn’t I paid more attention to my mom? Tried to ease the way she felt?
    I headed down the stairs unsure of where to put my feet, like I might step wrong and fall face-first into the foyer. Fights, yelling, anger. It all unnerved me.
    Hesitating, I waited on the Persian rug in the foyer, listening to Dad. Taking in his anger. Hearing the heartbreak in his voice.
    I was afraid to see why he sounded like this. His sorrow scaredme. This was serious. And Annie was silent. I almost didn’t allow myself to peek.
    Dad hollered. Said, “What? Why?”
    In the background, I could hear Mom weeping.
    I looked into the living room, white as heaven. My father and sister stood toe to toe, squaring off. Mom sat in the corner, perched on a chair, her face covered with her hands.
    Annie’s hair was nearly gone.
    It was as if she’d cut it raggedy short with a butter knife. She’d colored it purple, red, black. What was left of her hair looked bruised.
    Our father was right. This was not a beauty queen’s haircut.
    Annie stood there so stiff, so small looking, so defiant. She argued, “My life” and “My hair.” Then she said, “I wanted it this way.”
    Dad went silent. Took in a breath. “You’re fired,” he said. And that was that.

sarah
    N ot that much more before, a few months before the haircut, before Annie started gaining weight, Mom and Dad and I sat in an audience of more than three hundred people. Dad had invited his whole office. Paul and Emma Jean and David were there, with their families. Everyone wore an Annie: Queen of the Night T-shirt to support her. (She played that aria on the piano.)
    My parents clapped like crazy when she won Miss Springfield and won a scholarship to boot. She dipped her head to accept a glittery crown. Her face was bright. She didn’t cry like some winners do, but pumped her fist in the air. Laughed. Yelled into the microphone, “Mom! Dad! Sarah! I love you!”
    Melanie was runner up. She laughed too. Grabbed Annie in a huge hug, and they almost danced. Then Annie waved to all those people like she meant it.
    â€œLook at her,” Dad said. “That’s my girl.”
    â€œOur girl,” Mom said.
    â€œYou could be a winner too, Sarah,” Dad said. Then he was cheering for Annie again.
    I was hot with emotion. Thrilled for Annie. But burning from the inside out. Had my dad really said that? We both knew I’dnever stand on a stage like that. Ever. No matter what Dad said, I couldn’t do what Annie did.
    I didn’t want to.
    No matter how much he wanted me to be like Annie, I was just Sarah.

sarah
    H ere’s what I’m thinking,” Annie says. We’re in the family room after dinner, a fire roaring in the fireplace. “Mom? Sarah?”
    Dad keeps checking his phone. After the haircut, he quit looking at Annie when she spoke. When she pierced one of her ears in numerous places, he didn’t talk to her for a week. When she pierced her nose, I thought he might collapse from anger. I think he doesn’t look at her straight on anymore because he’s afraid something new has happened.
    Mom’s watching The Bachelor. A long-ago season, and I’m not sure why she’s turned it on now. She knows the outcome.
    Mom pauses the show.
    Annie’s animated. Her eyes are bright. Liquid looking. Like