Page 1 of Her Crew

Chapter 1

Tegan

A mundane female voice burbles through the loudspeaker, droning on about the mall closing in thirty minutes. She sounds ready for this day to end. Maybe she’ll quit and create a job opening for me.

I applied for a position here this afternoon, though the manager hardly spared me a second glance. After the demoralizing interview, I retreated to the little food court inside the mall and watched and waited for people to come and go. I’ve been here ever since.

A couple stands to leave as the loudspeaker clicks off. I crane my neck to look at the pair of green trays they shoved to the corner of their table. I hope they left something behind.

I drag myself out of the black metal chair and stroll toward the abandoned trays. Though I’ve been snacking on other discarded food items all evening, my stomach lets out a growl when I spot the remnants of lo mein and orange chicken. They even left behind a good portion of their rice.

I’m thankful for this food, but I can’t believe how wasteful people are. Must be nice to know where your next meal is coming from. Hell, it must be nice to know there will be a next meal.

I sit down and pretend I’m the pretty girl who ordered that chicken. Designer clothes cover my body instead of the shreds of fabric covering me now, and instead of dark, unwashed hair, my tresses are clean, styled, and practically perfect.

After swirling the bits of chicken through the sweet orange sauce, I bring it to my mouth. It tastes delicious. With that first bite hardly down my throat, I reach over and twist the fork tines in the lo mein and bring it to my lips. My eyes close, and I moan quietly.

If I weren’t so unkempt, maybe I’d look like I actually belong here. I could just sit here and pretend my friend rushed out of here and left me to finish my meal. That’s a dream I’ll hold on to because it’s so far from reality.

In reality, I’m unbelievably poor. I compulsively eat whatever I can find because it’s the only thing I can control. Getting denied for every job I apply to? No control. The clothes I wear? No control over that, either. But I’m making a conscious decision to scrounge leftovers from abandoned trays several hours a day. Feeding myself is my current hobby, and it’s the only thing that brings me joy.

The apron of fat on my stomach is proof of just how much joy I seek each day.

I scrape the tray and eat every morsel. Overeating leaves me with a pain in my gut, but it’s better than the hunger pangs. Among other things. When I’ve scrounged up every last drop of that delicious sauce, I bring the trays to the little nook above the garbage cabinets and set them down. I might be a bum and a slob, but I’m not a jerk to service workers.

A plastic cup with a few sips of coke stands on top of some trash in one of the cans. The couple who left their food took their drinks with them, and all that sodium has left me parched. I reach into the silver-rimmed circle and pull the cup from the shadows. Without a breath of hesitation, I suck the straw into my mouth. The room-temperature, watered-down, flat-as-fuck soda hits the back of my throat, and I close my eyes. I needed that.

I toss everything into the garbage and swipe my hands down my pants to get rid of the sticky residue. With a full belly, I turn for the exit.

A security guard stands near the large glass doors, ushering people out. He turns away from me as I walk through, and the door closes behind me. The few remaining patrons head for their cars under the watchful eye of security cameras and towering lights, though not all the lights work. I doubt every camera does, either.

Instead of hopping into a car and turning on the heat to dispel the frigid chill, I walk toward home. The long walk is safer than the place I’m heading, despite the freezing temperatures and the risk of getting snapped up by a serial killer.

My brain zones out as I take the familiar path from the mall to the trailer park. One minute, I’m on the sidewalk. The next, I’m in front of the rickety black fence surrounding the trailers huddled around a winding path.

A sign for Galeton Park stands just inside the gate, the paint peeling from every single letter. A lock once secured the gate closed every night, but the owner gave up after kids kept damaging the fence to break in. Or maybe they were desperate to break out. The abandoned lock still hangs from the bent gate. Now this flimsy fence can’t even keep people out of our sanctuary.

Sanctuary. I scoff.

This place provides no shelter from the storm. It is the fucking storm.

I trudge past the heady scent of weed, meth, and body odor until I reach my front steps. The door is unlocked, despite my constant reminders to my mother. Even after someone broke in and stole our shitty television while she was on the couch in a drug-induced stupor, she still can’t be bothered to conserve what little possessions we have left.

That’s probably how I’ll find her once I’m inside. She’ll be asleep on the couch, with a needle sticking out of her arm. Alive, but barely. And entirely in spite of my intrusive thoughts wishing she’d die already.

The door struggles against the damaged linoleum floor as I push it open. A hinge at the top of the door dangles by a single screw and more determination than I can muster. My mom keeps saying one of her boyfriends will fix it, but it’s been broken for almost a year now.

My foot hits a bucket beside the door, and I curse as I grab it to keep it from tipping over. Water drips from a brown spot in the ceiling, and the cold droplet seeps into the crown of my head. Another brown stain creeps down the side of the wall. The water collects above the dropped ceiling, so it rains indoors for days after it finishes raining outside.

“Baby?” my mother says as I right the bucket below the drip.

She’s not passed out. Lovely.

I follow her sing-song voice to the living room. A man sits beside her on the couch, and I know exactly why he’s here. My bloated gut sinks.

My mom has offered me as payment for her drug habit since I was a young teen. As I’ve gotten older, it’s become less frequent. That told me everything I need to know about the suitors she picked for me. Now that I’m legal, they hardly show any interest at all.

The man shifts on the couch, and his smile fades as he eyes me up and down. I’m not what he expected, and it’s not just the greasy hair, stained clothing, and legal status. This man is repulsed by my weight.