Cinderella Girl Read Free

was right. Joakim wasn’t much to look at and Jennifer was cute as a doll. He had never had a girlfriend before. Jennifer was his first. True, she was eight years younger, but she was his. Wasn’t she? She must be; they’d slept with each other and she had asked him to go along on the Finland cruise tomorrow. And now she’d called and asked if they could go out together.
    ‘Maybe she is. But I’m glad I have someone. I’m leaving now.’
    ‘Oh no, mister, oh no, you’re not. You’re staying here and taking care of your mother.’
    A malicious smile split his father’s face into two grotesque halves and Joakim started to feel sick.
    ‘But she’ll be fine; she’s going to sleep soon.’
    ‘You’re staying home,’ his father said dryly without looking at him, taking a deep drag on his cigarette.
    He didn’t bother blowing out the smoke; it stayed inside him. Joakim felt the tears forming a lump in his throat. He wanted to see Jennifer so much; he
needed
to see her. What if she could see how pitiful he was, always doing what his dad told him to do. To her he acted tough and worldly wise, so far as he could, and he was tall and had a beard and smoked and used snuff. True, he wasn’t supposed to, but his father didn’t notice because he was a smoker himself. Deep down Joakim had a feeling that he was deceiving her. He was twenty-four years old and she was sixteen. He hid behind a beard and sunglasses, and she thought he was a big, strong man, even though any man at all could see he was a wuss.
    ‘But please, Dad, I have to go out,’ he pleaded. ‘I’ve spent the whole day with Mum. It’s Friday night, and –’
    ‘You do as I say. Go in to your mother now, so I don’t have to look at you.’
    Joakim felt his worry turning to desperation, but he wouldn’t give up so easily – not this time.
    ‘I’m not going to,’ he croaked in a voice that broke from the held-back tears. ‘I won’t do it, I’m going out! You can’t rule my life; I can do what I want! I’m an adult!’
    ‘I see, so now you’re suddenly so grown up,’ his father hissed between clenched teeth, and only now did a few streams of smoke make their way out of his nostrils. ‘I haven’t seen any signs of that.’
    His father was right; he was a failure. After a few meaningless years he had left high school with miserable grades.They had determined that he had difficulties reading and writing, but he wasn’t mechanically oriented either. The few jobs available were not meant for someone like him, and further studies were out of the question.
    But his father had found a way. When his mother got too ill to work, he hired Joakim as her personal assistant. For that he got food, lodging and a minimal amount of pocket money. He also delivered newspapers in the mornings and with the money he had scraped together he intended to get an apartment at some point. A life of his own.
    ‘I’m leaving now anyway; I don’t care what you say,’ Joakim snuffled, starting to back up in the direction of the door. ‘And tomorrow night I’m going to Åbo with Jennifer,’ he added, regretting it the moment he said it.
    ‘The hell you are!’ his father roared, leaping up from the armchair and coming towards him with huge strides, the cigarette still in his mouth.
    Joakim ran through the hall and heaved himself against the outside door, but the security chain was on. While he was desperately trying to coax it out of its holder he felt his dad’s arm taking hold of his neck from behind. His Adam’s apple was pushed in with such force that he felt like he was choking. He tried to drive an elbow into his father’s stomach, but the grip only got harder. With no chance of fighting back, Joakim was forced to turn towards his father and he felt his neck crack with an unpleasant sound. While he gasped for air his father took the opportunity to ram a fist into his stomach and he fell down doubled-up on the hall rug. After another kick in the stomach, and