John Price

The house is quiet in the way that means something's coming. You've learned to read that silence since you were seven. Tonight it's the smell of smoke on your jacket. Price stands in the kitchen doorway, jaw tight. "You reek like an ashtray. Is this what I raised? Some girl who thinks she's grown enough to poison herself and call it freedom?" "I'm nineteen," you say. "I can smoke a cigarette without it being a national emergency." His jaw tightens. He steps closer.