I’ve done it plenty of times before. In fact, I’ve just lost one such job, because I had to lie low and lick my wounds for a few days. I didn’t come directly to Zane’s, but after two days on the streets, I called him and he immediately invited me over.
Zane has saved my ass too many times to count. I’ve been on the streets before, running away. Is that what I do best? Run?
The dream returns to torture me.
I rub my chest and call the numbers in the ads. Turns out the positions have already been filled. No big deal, at least that’s what I tell myself. I’ll try again tomorrow and the day after, again and again, until I find something. Another thing I’m good at: not giving up, no matter how lost the cause seems.
Except for Audrey. I gave up on her and now it’s too late to get her back.
Dammit.
Erin is a diminutive brunette, a pixie with large dark eyes and many silver hoops on her ears. My older brother, Tyler, used to hang out with her before he left never to return. Back then I thought she liked me, or at least didn’t mind me.
These days, though, hatred for me emanates from every pore of her being. Maybe it’s because she’s friends with Audrey and Dylan. Dylan certainly isn’t carrying a fucking banner for me.
Well, it’s that or she’s fed up with me hogging the sofa so often. I can understand that. I’m pretty much fed up with myself most of the time. For not fighting enough. For fighting too hard. For running away. For staying and taking it.
For not seeing the way out.
When she arrives and finds me in the apartment, she lifts her chin and frowns. “Hey, Ash,” she says in her most bored voice as she lugs her duffel bag to her room. “Didn’t know you’d still be here.”
Right. “I won’t be after today. I’m leaving in about an hour, in fact.”
A light flickers in her dark eyes. She’s pleased, is that it?
That makes me angry, but what right do I have to be? It’s her apartment. She pays for it. I’m a squatter, and she hasn’t agreed to an impromptu sofa hugger.
All of a sudden feeling tired, I gather my few things—my change of clothes, my toothbrush and toothpaste, my socks, and stuff them in my beaten rucksack.
I have to go back home. I don’t have money to rent a place. My temporary jigs don’t pay much and all I earn goes into Dad’s pockets for his drinking debts. I have to stick it out, get my shit together, find a better job.
Maybe Zane can help me. I should talk to him; open up, tell him the whole story, the whole problem—not just the bits and pieces he’s gathered. Maybe he’s got better ideas than I can come up with.
But I’m not sure I want to open up. Or that I can move out of Dad’s house. Who will take care of him when he passes out drinking? He’s the only family I have left. He’s still my dad when he’s sober.
Meanwhile, I take my leave from Zane’s apartment. I am, once more, on my own.
Chapter Three
Audrey
Time passes fast when you’re busy, so I make sure I have no free time. Apart from the obligatory core courses, I’ve selected extra Art and Modern Dance. My schedule complete, I throw myself into student life.
It’s terrifying and fun at the same time. So much to learn and so many new people to meet. In English class I make a new friend, a girl named Dakota. She’s wild—a cool punk girl, the lead singer of a band and tattoo addict. Her upper back is covered in beautiful ink—a butterfly of death with a central skull—and she rocks colorful arm bands. Yeah, I have a weakness for tats, even though I sport none.
Plus she keeps stealing my chocolate. A girl after my own heart.
We often go for coffee after English class to gossip about our hot, young professor. He isn’t my style—too clean and proper—but I go along for the laughs.
Living on my own is another huge challenge. I have a small apartment all to myself—one bedroom and a living room with a kitchenette.
But its best feature is a bay window facing toward Lake Monona. The lake’s too far to see but the moist breeze comes in the mornings and it feels good on my face as I prepare for classes. I’ve set up my study there, my piles of books and papers and my laptop. That’s also where I sit talking to my mom on the phone in the evenings, telling her about my new life, and listening while she rambles on about her friends and her gym classes.
Mom worked her ass off after Dad died—partly because it was necessary and partly to fill the void Dad’s death had left.
That meant I rarely got to see her, and my only solution was to follow her example. I threw myself into studying and also drawing. Not that I’m a particularly good artist, but it helped me get out my sadness and frustration and fear. The therapist suggested it and I took to it with relief.
Funny how I often end up drawing a boy with tousled dark hair and icy eyes, a tattoo crawling up his neck like a snake.