All Out of F-stars
Some words are worse than others
“I don’t want to be ten,” Deidre screamed. She stomped her foot so hard the wood floor in the living room almost cracked. A vertical fracture appeared on the nearest wall. “Do you hear me?! I don’t want to be f-staring ten years old.”
“You get a phone when you’re ten,” Deidre’s father, Luke, said. Never mind that you have to get a phone and if you can’t afford one, the government will give you one.
“I don’t want a f-staring phone, either.”
Luke stepped closer to his daughter and tried to hug her, but she retreated before he could complete the embrace. Luke opened his palms and whispered, “Okay,” signaling that Deidre won the battle of the hug. But she could not win the war. Her birthday was Saturday, in four days, and she was going to be ten with all the requirements that entailed, no matter how loud she screamed.
Luke remembered when he turned eighteen, and his father said he had to register for the draft. Luke hollered bad words and hated his father for nearly a week, even though the military draft was not his father’s fault.
Twenty-two years later, the same fateful, dark anger swelled inside Deidre. He saw it in her burnt-red cheeks, clenched fists, and furious gaze.
