Chapter 7

Malcolm kissed Abbie by the elevator. “Are you going to be okay?”

Abbie smiled. “I'll be fine, but I think I better take a day off.”

He let her go and pushed the button. “I'll skip the lunch break. Take it easy today. I'll see you for dinner tonight, and don't bother about Trina. She'll come out of it eventually.”

She gave him one last kiss, and he disappeared into the elevator. Abbie sighed and hobbled to her room. She needed to catch up on sleep after a second night with Malcolm. This couldn't go on. He bruised her body with his all-consuming passion. She didn't notice it in the throes of massive orgasm. She only realized how sore and battered her body was when he left her alone.

She stretched out on her bed, but when she closed her eyes and relaxed, the same intoxicating images nagged her mind. A parade of sexual positions made her pussy wet all over again. If he walked into this room right now and prodded her knees apart, she wouldn't be able to resist cumming all over him. He turned her on as much when he wasn't here as when he was.

She started alert when she heard a door open and close in the direction of the living room. She didn't want to get up and go in there. She would much rather lie here and fantasize about last night. Malcolm took her to incredible heights of erotic delight. He screwed her harder than any man she ever met. His enormous cock rattled her very bones. She couldn't help but ride him to heaven and back.

She had to get up, though. She had to finish what she started, even if it didn't work out the way she hoped. She winced when she sat on her swollen, aching tissues. Once she got on her feet, it wasn't so bad. She crept down the hall.

There was Trina, back in her same place on the couch. Abbie paused near the stairs. She pitied Trina. This poor kid got lost in her own world with no one to pull her out of it. She could spend the rest of her life trapped in an internal hell of video games and wordless pictures.

Abbie tiptoed down the stairs, walked over to the couch and sat down next to Trina. Trina jumped to her feet faster than lightning, but Abbie moved faster. She plucked the phone out of Trina's hand, and when Trina darted for her room, the earphones popped out of her ears.

Trina whirled around with her teeth bared. “You give me that back.”

Abbie wound the wires around the phone and closed it in one hand. “Sit down, Trina. I want to talk to you.”

“I will never talk to you,” Trina snarled. “I hate you. You're a fucking bitch whore. Do you think I don't hear you fucking my dad all night long? Don't even think about giving me that fake nanny act. You're nothing but a tramp.”

Abbie colored, but she couldn't let Trina turn the tables on her. Trina kept everyone at arm's length. If Abbie backed down now, Trina would never find a way out of her depression. “Sit down, Trina. We're going to talk.”

“I don't have to talk to you. I'm going to my room.”

Abbie kept her voice calm and low. “If you don't sit down right now, you'll never get this phone back. You can go to your room, but you won't take the phone with you.”

Trina frowned down at her. Then she smacked her lips and threw herself down on the couch. She crossed her arms and glared out the window. “Say whatever you have to say and get it over with.”

Abbie took a deep breath. “You can't read, Trina. You're a brilliant artist, but you can't read or write. I guess you're worried about somebody finding out. That's why you keep so much to yourself. Something went wrong, and you slipped through the cracks. You've been hiding it all this time, and now you're so far behind you can't go to school anymore. Isn't that true?”

Trina went very stiff and still, but she didn't turn around. She stared out the window. Abbie waited with bated breath. “How did you find out?”

“I thought of it while I was looking at your artwork. You drew all those incredible pictures, but there's no writing. I've taken care of a lot of kids in my time. I've seen seven-year-olds writing novels in their art books, along with full-color illustrations. Once a kid learns to read and write, they don't stop. The words and and pictures get all mixed up together, but you don't have that. Your art kept developing, but there were no words, no letters, no math. That's how I figured it out.”

Trina held her shoulders perfectly still. All of a sudden, she sank into the couch with a tense outrushing of breath. “Does my dad know?”

“I haven't told him. I guess you've kept it secret from your mother and everyone else, too. I didn't want to tell your dad until I talked to you first.”

“If you ever tell him or anybody else, I'll kill you.”

Abbie pursed her lips. “Listen, Trina. You can keep this secret and continue living in your own private nightmare, or you can come clean and learn to read. You don't have to go to school to do that. I can help you here. I can work with you to bring you up to speed so no one ever finds out, but you have to learn to read. You'll never live a decent life if you don't.”

Ever so slowly, Trina turned around to face her. For the first time, Abbie saw a light come on in the girl's face. “I know. I want to. I just don't know how.”

Abbie's heart beat faster. “Do you want me to work with you and teach you? We can do that during the day, and your dad never has to find out.”

Trina's eyes widened. “You would do that? You would keep it a secret from my dad?”

“Of course. I won't tell him if you don't want me to. I only want to help you. Nothing matters as much as that. I know your dad would agree with me. If he knew what we were doing, he would want me to keep your secret. He wants you to be able to trust me, and I'll do anything to make that happen.”

Trina blinked back tears. “No one has ever done anything like that for me.”

Abbie held out the phone. “Whatever you decide to do, it will help you to have one person in the world who knows the truth. When your dad is out of the house, we can work together to get your reading skills up.”

“What about when I go home to my Mom's? What will happen then?”

“If we start right away, you'll be reading by the time you go home. If we work hard, we can make it so no one ever finds out.”

Trina bowed her head and nodded down at the phone in her lap. “Okay. I'll do it. Just don't let my dad find out.”

“Don't worry. You can trust me. Now tell me. How much you do you know? Do you know the alphabet?”

“I know the alphabet. I got stuck trying to figure out how to put all the sounds together to make the words. My first-grade teacher got frustrated with me, and she had too many other kids to work with to spend anymore time with me. She told my mom not to worry about it, that I would figure it out in time, but I never did. One year after another passed, and I managed to get everyone focused on my artwork so they never noticed I couldn't read.”

“And did you quit school when you couldn't hide it anymore?”

Trina nodded. “My last teacher wanted me to write a report on an art show in town. I didn't do it, and she said I had to do it as a punishment. She said I couldn't come back to school until I did it. That's when I said I wouldn't go back. My mom never found out the real reason why.”

“I see. Well, let's start with the basics. Let's get some paper and a pencil, and we'll start going over the sounds of the letters.”

Abbie got a notepad and a pencil from her room and settled on the couch next to Trina. Trina still cuddled her phone in her hand. Abbie wrote a big A in pencil. “What's that?”

“A.”

She went through the whole alphabet and even mixed up the letters. Trina got them all right. “That's very good. You're good at this. You're halfway there.”

Trina brightened up. “Really?”

“Sure. It's great you know the alphabet. That's half the battle right there. Now I'm going to point to a letter, and you tell me what sound it makes.” She pointed to the letter B.

“That's a B. That says B-uh.”

“Right. Great. Now, what's this?” Abbie pointed to the letter F.

“F-uh.”

“Terrific. You're doing great. What about this one? This is a hard one.” She pointed to the A.

Trina frowned. “A says Aye.”

“That's great. I knew you would be good at this. If you can get A, you can get anything.”

Trina looked up at her. “Are you sure that's right? My old teacher said A says Aah.”

“It does, sometimes, but that's nothing you need to worry about. Keep telling me the sounds. What about this?” She pointed to the O.

Trina laughed for the first time. “That's another easy one. That says Ooh.”

Trina's laugh made Abbie laugh, too. “You're too good for me. Since you're so good, let's move on to something more complicated. What's this?”

Abbie wrote TO. Trina scowled down at the page. “I don't know that. That's too hard for me.”

“Think about it. You just told me the sounds of both these letters. What sound does T make?”

“T-uh.”

“And what sound does O make, Miss Smarty-pants?”

Trina's face cracked open in a big grin. “Ooh.”

“Now put them together. Smear them together like you're spreading jam on a piece of toast.”

Trina couldn't stop grinning. “T-uh...Ooh.”

“Faster.”

“T...oe. Toe.”

Abbie burst out laughing. “Very good. That's excellent. It actually says Too, but you did perfectly. You said the sounds together perfectly. You're gonna be a great reader.” She put the notepad on the coffee table.

Trina looked back and forth between the notepad and Abbie. “Is that it? Aren't we gonna keep doing it?”

“That's enough for today. You did very well. If you keep going like that, you'll be reading in no time.”

Trina frowned again. “I want to keep going.”

“You don't want to do too much, too soon. If you want to do something, you can practice in your art book. Try writing the letters and putting the sounds together. That's the best thing you can do.”

Trina hopped off the couch. “Okay. I'll do that.” She picked up the notepad. “Can I take this and copy it?”

“Sure. Let me know if you need help with anything.”

Trina disappeared, and when Abbie peeked through her open bedroom door an hour later, she spotted Trina covering page after page with letters. Her lips moved with her pen.