I DROP HER off at Miss E’s next-door neighbor’s house. She an extra set of hands, I heard Miss E say once. The only other adult she trust to take care of her foster kids. She shakes her head but take Cricket just the same. Right after I hug and kiss her, I’m in the car again.

I got one last stop. If she ain’t home, at least I know I tried. And at least I’ll have everything checked off my list for today. When the driver turn the corner my head spins. I ain’t drunk, but I’m not all the way sober either. I stuck my fingers down my throat and threw up what I could. Then took aspirins and drank two gallons of water before I showered.

He don’t complain. He stop the car in front of Maleeka’s house. “Maleeka!” I bang on her front door a bunch of times. I’m taking too long for him I guess, ’cause he already blowing his horn. I put up one finger and tell him to wait. Then run around to the side of the house where the kitchen is. They got sheer curtains at the windows, so she can’t hide from me. “Maleeka! Girl, open this door.”

It’s around three. She still in a robe and slippers. Her hair don’t look dirty, but it still messed up. This time, I use my fist on the door.

“Char! Stop it.” Soon as it’s open, she says, “I saw you, you know.”

“You okay?”

She give me that look like I give people who ask stupid questions. I pass by her, walk really fast into the living room, then the dining room. Some people get sad and so do their houses. Other people get sad and their houses lie, look all neat and happy, smell like good perfume. That’s Maleeka’s house, most of her room too when we get upstairs. I ask if she got the mail I sent to her. She sit on the side of her bed not saying a word.

“Talk to me. Say something.”

The car horn beeps. Next, the driver bangs on the door. I don’t answer ’cause she crying in my arms. Looking out the window, I see him put my suitcase on the curb. “Don’t leave!” I say like he can hear me. “Maleeka, I gotta go.”

I leave her. Run down the steps and out the front door. But he already gone. I smack myself upside the head. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.” When my phone ring this time, I answer. He calling me out my name. Telling me what he’s gonna do to me when I get back. Then he say something he already told me, “This is your last chance, Char.”

His words turn to ice in my blood. ’Cause what if I’m already out of chances? And my last chance to get away from him was the last time I got away?

“Charlie? Charlie? Answer me.”

I take the battery out my phone. Grabbing my suitcase, I run into Maleeka’s house. Dumping my things on her floor, I tell her to pack. Fast.

“Why?”

“You coming home with me and JuJu.”

“But, Char—”

“Hurry up. Sometimes you only get one chance.”

Maleeka hug me so long it hurts. “It’s always been me and Momma. Whenever something go wrong—”

She can’t finish her words because she all choked up. But I think I know what she was gonna say. Whenever something goes wrong, it’s just her here to help her mother out.

I open her closet door. And ask her which clothes she wanna take. She in her drawer ready to pack everything, it seem like. “Maleeka.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m scared.”

“Me too.”

“What if he drive here and make me come back with him?”

She keeps packing.

“Nobody can stop him if he do.”

Sitting on her bed shaking, I watch her fill up the suitcase. She’s almost done when I take my cell out. Twice, I put the battery in wrong. Then I accidentally drop my cell on the floor. Picking it up, I look till I find the number to a place that helps kids like me. Three times I dial the number. The fourth time I get it right. I whisper, “Can I come and see somebody—right now?”

Maleeka says she’ll go with me. So, we headed for the bus, even though JuJu said she’d meet us here at the house. No, I told her. I gotta go right now. While I still got the nerve. Otherwise, maybe I won’t never go. And I’ll end up back where I started or like April or Earle.

“The Roberta Henry Trauma Center,” I whisper to the driver. I watch the door close, and don’t hardly breathe full out until we walking up the steps to the center. Then, all of a sudden, I ain’t so sure. “I don’t wanna go to jail. He made me do those things.”

The lady near the front desk hears me. “It wasn’t your fault. You understand? None of it. And you’re not in trouble. You’re brave.” She smiling when she walk up to us, introducing herself. “My name is Miss Cassandra. I’m a counselor here.”

Maleeka take my hand and squeeze it. I’m staring at the floor when I say Anthony was my pimp. Miss Cassandra stops me to let me know that she is a mandated reporter. “A what?” I look up. When someone under eighteen tells her they have been abused, she has to report it to child protective services, she tells me.

I step back. Then back up some more.

Right then, JuJu runs in. Before I know it, I’m hugging her as hard as she hugging me, talking fast, stepping on my words. Her eyes get big after I repeat what Miss Cassandra just said. “I wanted to talk to you about that, Char, ’cause Miss Saunders is a mandated reporter too.”

“She is?”

My sister say she found that out after I talked to Miss Saunders the other day. “She said the law makes teachers report abuse when they learn about it.” She hug me tighter. “You was so happy that day, Char. And I thought to myself, if I tell her what Miss Saunders’s gonna do, she’ll run again.”

I think I woulda.

“So, I kept quiet the last few days, hoping …”

Miss Cassandra walks up to a door and opens it. After I’m in counseling here, whatever I share will be confidential, she say to me. “That means even the police or a judge can’t make us disclose what you’ve told us, unless you give us permission. That’s the law here, too.”

I nod. Maleeka take a seat in the lobby. Me and my sister walk slow up the hall far behind Miss Cassandra. “JuJu. How come you never put an Amber Alert out on me? Or sent the police looking for me, even if I ain’t want you to?”

She stops, and starts crying, hard. Her shoulders shake, then her whole body. “I wanted to, Char. I wanted to. But I just kept thinking … what if they make it worse? Shoot you, instead of him.” She done enough wrong by me, she say. “Exposed you to more than a child shoulda seen. So, I figured … if I could just get you home, alive … I’d make sure you got better, and I’d do better by you too.”

I take her hand. “I know you aspire for good things to happen for me, JuJu.”

She winks, then whispers, “You think I can get some counseling here too?”

“Maybe.” We turn the corner, watch Miss Cassandra walk into a room. “JuJu?” I say.

“Yeah.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too, Char. And I always have.”