It would be kinder if she'd stab me. This is far worse.

"You cannot stay here." She says to me in the morning, looking sober. "You absolutely can't."

Servants take interest in us as they shuffle around, though none lingered.

My eyes settle on the lavish food. Today, I don't even try to guess which ones might be replicated or possibly real. I just can't look away for fear I'll burst into tears.

"You'll get your things and you'll leave today."

"I haven't any place to go," I say.

Hands out, she shushes me. "Shut up." Her eyes follow another servant, and she waits until we are relatively alone before she turns to me again. She whispers, "You're a sixteen-year-old runaway that we—I've been hording, a.k.a. kidnapped for over a month!"

Someone else walks in and I judge from the all-consuming silence that the man in charge is back, maybe looking to have an audience with Gara.

Usually Gara gets up out of her seat and goes to see what's needed. Today, she doesn't budge.

Though the man eyes us, he walks out again.

Gara's jaw works as she mutters, "Your father'll be out soon—"

"But I'm no trouble," I insist. When she shushes me again, I obey. "I won't be any trouble. I'll do my job as a stagehand."

"You're sixteen!" Gara growls, nearly coming up out of her chair. She looks at me as if I've stabbed her. "Do you know the shit I've done, the shit I go through?" She waits for an answer but eventually says, "Bitch, I've seen it all, done it all, the underaged has never been one of them. You...." Her breath hitches and she pauses to compose herself. "Never in my life, never, ever, not even once and when I say I've seen it all, rest assured, from being fondled by the elderly, to being ridden with a fucking saddle and when I say this is my limit. It's my fucking limit."

My heart pounds so hard, each thump reverberates in my ears. I didn't keep it from her with any ill-intent. I didn't keep it from her at all. It's just never come up.

"But I'm seventeen tomorrow," is the best I can manage.

Her fist comes down hard as if she'd wants to swing it at me instead.

Teeth gritted, she says, "I am twenty-six fucking years old. I am jaded and tired. I have one leg in the grave and the other I throw inside now and then for fun. And when I say this shit stops here, that is not an expression, a metaphor, a hyperbole, or a gaw-ro bluff. You will leave this house today. You'll go to the medical section, get your father released early, and go home."

It's stupid to expect her to mention credits. I don't think about it until the words "early release."

She nods when I've finally gotten it.

"Damn right I can't give you even a red point. Next thing you know people're saying Gara pays off young boys to keep them silent."

Until now, I've seen Gara through ups and downs; her bouts of anger never last long, so I wait.

With each second, her hushed demands grow louder. "Get your things."

"Just calm down for a minute. Nobody's gonna care and I'm seventeen tomorrow."

She jumps to her feet and flips the table. Before it lands, she punches it in the center, cracking it in half. That unreal physical feat leaves my jaw slack.

"Do I look like I'm playing?" Gara looms over me.

A crowd forms, but something else concerns me. That awful feeling is coming back, the sort that tells me I've gone too long without taking something.

My hand shakes so I hug them under my armpits.

"If you'd just let me talk to you..." I mutter because I am sorry, and because it won't matter to wait another day.

The way she looks tells me one day, one year won't matter. I don't know where her cutoff is, but that chance is gone now. I'm something she doesn't want to see.

My pa has taught me all the good manners, even for dealing with nobles but never how to handle a situation like this.

I keep my voice down, asking, "Can you at least let me apologize...? I don't want you to hate me."

She doesn't speak. That puts me on edge even more.

A chuckle comes from the hallway and the man of the house saunters toward us, a data diskette in hand.

"A runaway okay, but a sixteen-year-old? That I didn't expect." He winks.

Gara's face loses all color.

Despite Gara's small size, her grip's like a vice as she drags me to stand.

"Out!"

Gara shoves me toward the hallway leading to the large doors beyond.

I fall at someone's feet. A smug smile looks down at me, and then at Gara as the man of the house folds his arms and smirks, pleased.

"Off the rails," he says, chuckling. "You've come off the gaw-ro rails."

Gara marches out.

"For the record," the man says. "I don't give a shit if you stay. It's not my reputation that's going straight into the shitter." He chuckles hardy.

Regret and guilt drive me to try and clean up the food at least, even though there are more than enough servants to do it. One by one I pile the plates, moving slower and slower still as if time is going to make this all go away.

I've gotten nearly all of it off the floor when I hear a voice that fills me with dread.

"Philippe?"

The plates in my hands cascade to the ground, partly out of surprise, and partly out of my need for another pill.

I'm sure I look good this morning. I'm sure of it, so my father taking a step back at the sight of me comes as a shock. My father stands at the mouth of the kitchen, Gara at his back. Sometime in the last twenty minutes she must have had him portaled in.

There's fear in his eyes by the time he looks the massive kitchen over.

He bites his bottom lip and I know what he's thinking.

"I can pay for whatever damages," he begins, turning to face a less-than-pleased Gara who looks equally as haggard. "Please...tell me how much."

Gara's body isn't as tense as she answers. She sounds gentle. "You don't owe me anything. But I owe you an apology. He's got a pretty good habit started. The amount of Ivy he downs isn't going away any time soon."

My pa sucks in a gasp and I tear up.

"I...." Gara opens and closes her mouth again and again. Finally, she says, "I'll pay for the rehabilitation in full, for as long as he needs. But please, please get him out of my house."

My father trembles as he turns to me. "I can...." He glances back at Gara. "I can pay for it on my own—"

"No!" I no doubt share his expression, and I'm trembling, too, because of those fucking pills. "No," I say quieter. "No. You don't gotta pay for anything else. You don't...." A sob leaves my mouth before I can stop it. "No. You don't have to kill yourself for me for any damn thing else."

He gasps—maybe at my tone, or my language. It's probably because of how I'm speaking to him in front of polite company.

I've never seen him look so helpless. My intent is to explain to him that it's a misunderstanding, that I'll fix it; that I'll fix all of it. As soon as Gara calms down, everything will be all right. Words fail me, however.

My pa sheds a tear, the first I've ever seen from him. Then another comes and the helpless expression that he has makes me hate myself.

"Philippe..." he whispers. And then he corrects his error. "Phil...."

But he doesn't say anything else. I'm not sure when he approaches but as soon as he grabs hold of my shirt I bury my face in his throat to keep from howling.

"You don't have to keep working so hard for me. I'm not a project!"

His grip is safe and whatever he mutters in that stupid archaic Topsider language of his, the stupid words calm me.

I lose my job right then and there; my self-respect follows a few minutes later when my father helps me gather my things and removes me from Gara's house.

Instead of taking me home, he takes me to the medical center. I still don't know who's paying for the rehabilitation. I don't ask and I don't care. Rehab, my six month long lesson. It's not just the pills that I'm fixating on. Letting go of all of it hurts.