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“Hey!” I hear my dad yell. “Where you going? What happened with Vince?”
I take off running and don’t look back. I run down the stairs and out of the building, vowing to never go back there again. Living on the streets is better than living here.
Two hours later, I’m back in Milwaukee, sitting in front of Rielle’s apartment. I forgot she wasn’t here. I haven’t slept much the past week, which makes it hard to think straight.
Now I’m sitting in the parking lot, staring at my phone, not sure what to do. Out of sheer desperation, I call up Mateo, my last and only hope for a place to stay tonight.
“Nova? What the hell?” He’s whispering. Why is he whispering? “I thought you moved.”
“I’m back, and I need a place to stay. Can I come over? I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“You can’t.” I hear noise in the background, like a door closing. “I got someone here.”
“Who? A girl?”
“Yeah, so you can’t come over. I gotta go.”
“Does your mom know about this?”
“What do you think?” he says in a snarky tone.
“Okay, well, thanks for nothing.”
“Don’t be giving me shit about this, Nova. You took off and didn’t tell me.”
“Because I needed to hide out. I’m not going back in foster care.”
“I’m just saying, we’re not friends anymore. I don’t owe you anything.”
“Yeah, got it,” I say, ending the call, wondering why I even bothered to call him. I’m starting to wonder if we were ever friends or if his plan all along was just to use me for sex.
Turning off the car, I lean back and close my eyes. The wind rattles the car and seeps through the cracks in the door. I grab my duffle bag and pull out a pair of sweats and some socks. I put the sweats over my jeans and put on two more pairs of socks. I take out all the hoodies I have and pile them on me like a blanket.
I need to sleep. If I could get some rest, I might be able to think clearer tomorrow. When I was driving here, I decided I needed to find a new town, someplace smaller and safer, but I might just have to stay here in Milwaukee. It’s all I know, and it’d be easier to stay here than to start somewhere new. And it’s a big enough city to hide out. I just need to find a job, or several.
* * *
The soundof a garbage truck wakes me the next morning. Bright sun’s pouring in the windshield, blinding me as I open my eyes. I don’t even remember falling asleep.
Picking up my phone, I go to check the time and notice my phone’s dead. And I have no way to charge it. There’s a coffee shop a few miles from here that has charging stations, but I’ll have to buy something to use it. I unzip the part of my bag where I hid my money and find that it’s gone. My dad must’ve taken it, or Belinda did, but I’m guessing it’s my dad. If he was willing to pimp me out, he’d have no problem stealing from me.
No money, no food, and no phone. What a great way to start the day. I look through my bag again, searching for any loose change that might’ve fallen out of my clothes. I don’t find any, but I do find a stick of gum, the one I’ve been saving since Easton left the foster home, the one we were supposed to share.
I unwrap it and put it in my mouth, deciding a stick of really old gum is better than nothing, especially since the last thing I ate got puked out on Vince. I laugh, remembering the expression on his face when he saw what had happened. I bet I was the first girl to ever puke on his penis. It got all over his suit too. That suit looked really expensive. I probably ruined it.
Opening the door, I breathe in the morning air, noticing it seems a little warmer than yesterday, or it could just be that the wind died down and the sun is shining, making it seem warmer. Closing my eyes, I take a few deep breaths, trying to calm myself before starting the day.
After a few minutes, I start up the car and see that I’m almost out of gas. Shit. I don’t have money for gas, but without gas, I can’t go anywhere. I lean my head against the seat and close my eyes, praying for a miracle, even though I don’t believe in them.
I jump when I hear someone knock on the window. I look over and see a man smiling at me. He’s probably in this thirties and has a jacket on with some kind of company logo on it. He motions me to roll down the window. When I don’t, he yells through it.
“You can’t park here. We’re doing repairs on the building. We’ll be bringing in equipment and we need the lot to be empty.”
I roll down the window. “Can I park over there?” I point to the street.
“The street is fine. You just can’t be in the lot.” He glances in the car. “You spend the night here?”
“Um, no. I was running out of gas and realized I don’t have money, so I parked here.”
