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Craig rubs the top of his bald head. I catch myself holding my breath. He folds his arms across his barrel-shaped chest, and it finally hits me just how delusional I’ve been. If life has taught me anything, it’s that anytime you get your hopes up, you’re asking for a fall. My own dad ran out on me. Why should I expect more from an uncle I haven’t seen since I was six?
“You can’t stay here, Teagan,” he says. “I’m sorry but it’s not gonna work out.”
I force my shoulders to shrug, the truth chafing my skin like sandpaper. I’ve been so desperate to move away that I didn’t stop to think about all the smaller steps in between. I figured it would all work itself out. But then, when have things ever justworked themselves out?
Instead of telling Craig the truth, that I have nowhere else to go, I tell him, “It’s fine. I’ll figure something out.”
“Of course you will.” He gives my shoulder a soft punch. “You know why? ‘Cause you’re scrappy, just like your old man.”
I plaster on a fake smile. From the time I was little, people have looked at me like I’m a problem to be solved. For all his faults, Craig looks at me like I’m a solution. The solution to what, I have no clue, but whatever it is, I’ll go along with it if it means there’s a chance I can get the hell out of this shithole.
“When do you think you’ll be ready to leave?” I ask.
He scrubs at his salt-and-pepper beard. “Two weeks? Maybe three? A month tops.”
Dread starts to bubble up inside me, but I play it cool. I say goodbye to my uncle and park myself on a bench in the small, sunburnt courtyard outside the hotel.
I used to run away a lot—before I learned that it can be just as bad, if not worse, on the outside as it is in the homes.
Having lived in the group facility for so long, I don’t know where any of the safe sleeping spots are in this part of town. I just gave Craig most of my money, so I can’t afford to rent a hotel room. I was never particularly friendly with my co-workers or classmates, and I’ve never been kissed, so I can’t crawl into bed with an ex-boyfriend.
At sundown, I find a fast-food restaurant that’s open twenty-four-seven and order a small soda and fries—enough to rent a booth with a window for a few hours. I sit and draw until my eyes refuse to stay open. But as soon as my head drops into my arms, a manager comes over and tells me to find somewhere else to crash. I gather my things and attempt to use the restroom before I go, but the manager chases me out.
Pissing behind a tree is a lot harder than I remember.
I head down the street to an apartment complex I scoped out earlier—my real reason for squatting in this part of town. Starting at the darkest corner of the parking lot, I begin testing car doors. I have to hang back twice after triggering alarms before I find an unlocked Toyota Camry with an empty backseat.
Curled up on the cushion with my bag at the ready, I grab a few hours of sleep before I’m woken by the angry shouts of a middle-aged man, none too pleased to find a stranger asleep in his backseat at six in the morning. Thankfully, I made sure both back doors were unlocked before I fell asleep, so I’m able to scramble out of the car with my bag, just as the man starts to dial 911.
I run. The man doesn’t chase me, but I don’t stop running until I’m far away. Panting and reeling in the empty parking lot of a shopping mall.
My throat burns and my side aches. If there was anything left in my stomach, it would be all over the sidewalk right now. Smoothing my blond, sweat-dampened hair out of my face, I squat on the pavement and force myself to breathe.
It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours since I left the group home, and already, I’m so fucking tired. Not to mentionhungry. There’s no way I can do this again tonight.
I call my uncle. Knowing he never picks up until well after ten, I leave a voicemail.
“Please call me, Craig. It’s really important.”
Leaving the mall, I take the highway overpass into a neighborhood, away from the morning traffic that’s starting to pick up. I walk until my feet are sore, until I find myself standing in the middle of an elementary school playground. With school closed for the summer, the playground is mine to conquer.
I allow myself a moment to forget about last night and the fact that I’m virtually homeless. I climb the monkey bars. I zoom down the slide. I pretend I’m six years old again, without a care in the world. But the fantasy only lasts until my empty stomach starts to coil in on itself.
Taking a seat on a swing that’s too short for me, I check my phone. My uncle hasn’t called or texted. He doesn’t call back all afternoon, and by five o’clock, I know he isn’t going to.
With only ten-percent battery life left on my phone, I know I need to make the next call count. The only person in the world I can turn to now is the last person I want to ask a favor of. But it’s either that or sleep on the play structure tonight with one eye open, which isn’t sleeping at all.
Reaching into my pocket, I grasp the crumpled sticky note I forgot to get rid of. Smoothing out the creases, I take a deep breath and thumb Mary’s cell number into my phone.
She answers on the second ring.
“It’s Teagan,” I say, my voice hoarse. “Do you think you could still find me a bed?”
Chapter Three
Jonah
Stare at the same set of letters and numbers long enough, and after a while, they’ll stop making sense.
