Chapter Five

I could smell garbage and filth. It made my skin crawl, and it made my consciousness refuse to surface. It flung me backwards to the time before I lost Jeannette, and I fought that even more than I fought to wake myself up.

I lost the battle, though, and I was suddenly sixteen years old, trapped in a back alley.

“What’s up?” said the haggard man blocking my way.

I should’ve been scared, and somewhere inside I was. But this was what I had been running toward while running from the despair that had taken over my life when my sister died.

I inhaled deeply, breathing in the stench of rotting food and unwashed skin. I thought maybe that second stink was me, but I dismissed it as I met the homeless man’s nervous gaze.

“Do your worst,” I told him.

He frowned, like he was expecting me to say anything but that.

“You can’t hurt me,” I added.

I’m already broken.

“Hurt you?”

I nodded and he laughed falsely.

“Kid, I’m not going to hurt you. I’m just hungry.”

“This is my spot,” I told him, and gestured to the ragged blanket and pile of clothes behind the dumpster.

I’d been sleeping there for maybe four nights, but it was longest I’d stayed anywhere in God knows how long, and I had turned sixteen there, just the day before. I felt an irrational ownership of the place.

He put his hands up and backed away. I relaxed, just for a second, and then he was on me, pinning my arms to my sides. Another man, whom I hadn’t noticed before, came at me, too, and went through my pockets roughly.

“Twenty dollars!” he announced gleefully, exposing his meth-rotted teeth.

And that’s when I got mad. I kicked out blindly, and hit something solid—a shin, or a stomach, or an arm, it didn’t matter which—and the man grunted. I ground my teeth together and clenched all of my muscles. Weeks of eating poorly had weakened me, but I was still stronger than my captor.

“Don’t you know what drugs do to you?!”

My screaming must have scared him, because suddenly I was free, and he was cowering at my feet.

“That’s right!” I hollered. “You’re bigger than I am, and older than I am, but your stupid goddamned dependency has turned you into a scared little thief!”

In my head, I knew I wasn’t really angry at him, but I went on anyway. He tried to scurry away, and it made me feel powerful and in control and I stomped after him, still yelling.

“What do you think you could’ve done with your life?! Would your mom be proud, to see you robbing a teenager of her last twenty bucks? I doubt it!”

The man kept moving back, and it finally struck me as odd. Especially when I realized he wasn’t looking at me, but over my shoulder. I turned, and my mouth dropped open, just a little bit. A cold-eyed police officer in a blue uniform was watching us with curiosity. His hand was resting casually on his holstered weapon.

“Oh, no,” I whispered.

A furious amount of shuffling and dirty blur running past let me know the would-be robber had bolted.

“How old are you?” the cop asked.

I shook my head. There was no point in answering. I didn’t even look my own age—there would be no convincing him I was eighteen.

“Dispatch, I’m going to need social services,” he announced into the radio attached to his shoulder.

Too late, I moved. He was fast, and his arms—stronger and far less relenting than those of the homeless man—came around me. I punched and kicked, but it did no good.

My six months of freedom were over, and the foster system was waiting.

I tried to drag myself out of the dream. It was dark, and it still smelled like garbage. And I thought I might be hanging upside down. My head bump-bump-bumped along in an alarming way.

Why won’t it stop?

A bunch of male voices, competed for supremacy.

“Shit, she’s waking up,” someone said.

The chemical-laden rag came up over my face, and I faded out again.