My friends are fiercely protective of me and there’s no way I could survive this whole ordeal if it wasn’t for them.
“Thanks,” I say with measured enthusiasm. I want to appear grateful, but not super desperate, so Lila won’t feel pressure to keep giving me things. “I really appreciate it.”
“I know you do. That’s what friends are for.” She puts her arm around me as we go to her locker. “Now let’s talk about what you can do for Valentine’s Day. I need to live vicariously through you, unless you can find a way to get Conor to go on a double date.”
I laugh, but quickly put my hand over my mouth. It’s become an automatic reflex to cover my mouth when I laugh, and to smile with my lips closed. I was in the process of getting braces when everything happened. So when the orthodontist bills could no longer be paid, the braces had to come off. My teeth shifted so much in the aftermath that I’ve developed a gap between my two front teeth. My teeth are worse now than they were before I got braces.
“I was thinking of inviting myself to one of his Dungeons & Dragons nights,” Lila sighs. “There’d be no way he could resist my elf mage.”
“Ah, now I see the real reason you want to go Cleveland.” I wink playfully at her.
“I don’t care that he’s a huge nerd,” she says, cheeks warming.
“Hey, you know I also happen to be a proud and true Nerd Lover.”
Brady isn’t your typical heartthrob. He’s tall and gangly, he’s stepped on my feet so often they’ve become slightly numb, and he wears thick black glasses. But he’s sweet and dependable. To the outside world, he probably seems like Clark Kent, but to me he’s Superman.
It doesn’t surprise me that Lila has a crush on Conor. While he’s one of those guys who revels in geek culture, it works on him. He’s one of the few kids in our class who isn’t white, and he wears his Filipino heritage with the same pride as his Tolkien knowledge. It’s rather cool to be around someone so at ease with his geekdom at seventeen.
“I’ll put a good word in for you,” I promise with a wink.
“If this works out, I so owe you.” She starts fiddling with her hair.
“Of course it will. You know, Parker makes an excellent name for a firstborn girl or boy.” I bump her on the hip as we make our way to English literature class.
We both laugh as we walk into the room. To anybody looking at us, we’re two normal teenage girlfriends.
I have such a debt to all my friends. But at the end of the day, I feel as if I owe much more to myself. There really is only one person who can save me.
And that person is me.
You know that saying, “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone”?
Well, I feel like that every time I’m around a mom.
My mother was never like Hope’s mom. She made it known to Hayley and me that she considered us nuisances. We grew to believe she’d only had kids because she’d felt she was supposed to. Small-town people had kids, or so went her logic. We were peddled around when we were younger to work events, treated more like accessories than people.
So it really shouldn’t have come as a surprise she bailed when things got rough.
I thought our borderline-contemptuous relationship was normal until middle school, when I started seeing how my friends were treated by their parents. That was also the time I began spending more and more time at other people’s houses. I became accustomed to having second, third, even fourth “homes,” courtesy of my friends and, now, my boyfriend.
“Need anything?” Brady’s mom asks me as I stretch out on the floor of Brady’s room after school with my books.
“I’m okay. Thanks, Helen.” Brady’s mom is practically my mom, so I don’t mind calling her by her first name. She insists more than Hope’s mom, and I feel like part of the family. “Well, you know where everything is. Dinner’s in an hour.”
“Need help?” I offer, although she never takes me up on it. Brady once told me she thinks I work too much, so she wants me to feel as if their house is a vacation for me.
It’s more than a vacation. It’s paradise.
“You spending the night tonight?” she asks.
“I think I’m going to head home, but thanks.”
She rubs my shoulder before heading back downstairs.
I get it’s peculiar to some people that I occasionally spend the night at Brady’s, but who is there at home to worry about me? Brady’s family even offered for me to stay with them permanently, but no way would the family court have allowed that, even though I sleep in Zach’s room, since he’s away at college.
Besides, this is practically my home. I feel comfortable here. I don’t have to be on guard. I’m allowed to come and go as I please. I have the code to the garage door so I can let myself in, like today when Brady dropped me off before his Rube Goldberg meeting. I even have a bag of clothes here for when I crash. The second I got in today, I took a nice, hot shower. It’s funny that a shower longer than five minutes is now a luxury.
On second thought, there isn’t anything funny about it at all.
These days, I approach the few things I have control over with an almost manic energy. Primarily my grades. I cross off calculus on my list of things to do, happy to be caught up. I start working ahead in a couple of classes, grateful for the quiet and a chance to study. I’m not the best student in our school—that honor goes to Dan. However, I do whatever I can to get a full scholarship somewhere. Anywhere.
I’ve been working with our guidance counselor on a list of schools that offer generous financial aid packages for people in my “unique situation,” as he calls it. I need to keep my grades as high as possible. I’m taking the SATs for a second time to get an even better score. The only thing I lack is a lot of extracurricular activities, since I always have to work. I used to play flute in the marching band, but had to drop out.
I used to do a lot of things.
The one thing I do have is one hell of a topic for my personal essay.
My phone beeps with a text from Brady letting me know they have to work late tonight and he’ll miss dinner.
There’s a part of me that’s growing concerned—not about how much time he’s spending working on the machine, but how much time he’s spending with Hope.
I can trust Brady, but part of me feels like there’s no way I can ever trust Hope.
Brady is full of apologies when he finally arrives, close to ten. His dad was about to drop me off at home, but Brady insists on taking me.
“I promise to make it up to you,” he says for the second time on the short drive to the outskirts of town, to the River’s Edge trailer park.
“You don’t have to make up for anything,” I tell him. “I know how much the project means to you.”
Besides, he doesn’t have to be tethered to me at all times.
Then, of course, I’m reminded of how much I need to rely on him. He doesn’t have much of a choice, because neither do I. Sometimes I wish for nothing more than to have a normal relationship with my boyfriend, to not have to depend on him so much.
“I can always get a ride from someone else or stay at Lila’s,” I offer. Brady has more on his plate with the machine. He doesn’t need to always worry about me.
Brady clenches his jaw. “It’s not a big deal, Parker.”
It shouldn’t be, but it is. I don’t want to add any more stress to Brady’s life, but I know I do.
“I know it’s not, so I can ask Lila—”
He interrupts me. “It’s fine.” He says it with such a final tone in his voice. He then clears his throat and rubs my leg as he turns into the entrance. “Well, we know what’s next week.”
The abrupt change of subject means that Brady’s done talking about my ride schedule. I’m grateful to talk about anything else … except Valentine’s Day.
“I have to work.” I know I’m beginning to sound like a broken record.
“Well, I guess it’s a good thing pizza is my favorite food.”
/> I look out at the trailers. I don’t want to offend Brady, but it always feels uncomfortable when I have to serve my friends or classmates. I know some of them work at McDonald’s or other food places, and it shouldn’t be a big deal. But it is. It’s another reminder of the caste system and how far I’ve fallen. What makes it worse is my friends who do know the truth always leave me a huge tip. When it first started happening, I tried to give the money back, but that made it even more uncomfortable. So I gave in. And hated myself for it.
When Brady makes the sharp right turn to our trailer, I feel utter dread at the sight of Hayley’s beat-up car out front. If I’d known she wasn’t working tonight, I would’ve stayed at Brady’s house.
I’m about to tell Brady to turn around, when the curtain in the living/dining room/my bedroom parts and Hayley peers out.
There’s no going back now.
“Good night.” I give Brady a quick kiss.
I take the three steps leading up to our front door slowly, dreading what’s waiting for me on the other side. These days, Hayley is almost always drunk, angry, or both.
As soon as I see she’s not alone, I’m not sure if I should be relieved or not.
“It’s my precious baby sis,” she slurs, then puts her arm around me. “Parker, this is Thomas.”
Thomas looks me up and down, leering the entire time. Even though I’m cloaked in Lila’s old winter coat, I fold my arms over my nonexistent chest. He’s made himself comfortable on the couch/my bed. He tips his trucker cap at me and stares some more.
A chill goes down my spine that has nothing to do with the frigid temperature inside the trailer.
Thomas reaches into his fleece jacket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. He puts a cigarette to his lips and scratches his brown stubble before he ignites his lighter.
“Would it be possible not to smoke in here?” I ask, my voice tiny, afraid of Hayley’s response.
Thomas pauses, his lighter in midair. Hayley glares at me while I want to cry. My protective, loving older sister has been replaced by this bitter person in front of me. The life in her blue eyes has been dimmed. She wears her blond hair in a constant messy ponytail. Lines that didn’t exist fourteen months ago map her face.
“Parker,” she says in a scolding tone, “don’t be rude to our guest.”
Thomas puts his cigarette down. “It’s okay. I’ll go outside.”
“No, you can go to the bedroom. I’m allowed to smoke there.”
“Even better,” Thomas replies with a laugh. He makes a point of brushing past me as he makes his way to Hayley’s tiny bedroom.
Once he’s gone, she turns on me. “Happy now?”
She doesn’t even wait for a reply before she joins him and closes the bedroom door.
It’s the most we’ve spoken in weeks.
Of course I’m not happy. I’m miserable. We’re miserable. But there’s absolutely nothing either one of us can do about it. I can’t let anybody know how bad things have become. If I said something to Brady, his parents would call social services, then Hayley’s guardianship of me would most likely be taken away.
Then what would happen to me?
What happened to us wasn’t Hayley’s fault. But it wasn’t mine either.
Problem is, Hayley doesn’t see it that way.
Hayley was “that girl”: head cheerleader, prom queen, most likely to succeed. While my hair always hung straight, her naturally wavy hair bounced behind her as she happily trotted around school and the football field. She always dated the hottest guy in class, had a ton of friends, and was out almost every night doing this or that. Her weekends were filled with parties.
While Hayley enjoyed high school, she loved college at Miami of Ohio. She was in a sorority and had a pretty serious boyfriend. Listening to her speak passionately about her classes and how much fun she had with her sorority sisters made me want to study even harder so I’d get into a good college.
That was over a year ago.
She was twelve credits shy of graduation when my parents’ payments to the university stopped. She went from being a carefree college student, to someone forced to move home at twenty-one to be the guardian of her fifteen-year-old sister.
At first we bonded over our shared circumstances. Then the shock turned to anger. We pooled our meager resources and hatched a plan: We’d both get jobs and save enough money to leave town together after my high school graduation. It would give Hayley time to save up for her last semester, while I would focus on getting a scholarship.
We cringed when we looked at the trailer for the first time, but the price was right. We mapped out a budget, splitting the costs of rent and utilities down the middle. We would each fend for our own groceries, which was only fair since I was able to go on the state lunch subsidy program. We both had jobs at restaurants, so we could eat at a discount (or in my case for free, within reason).
Hayley began working two jobs. During the day she was the receptionist at a hair salon downtown, then she’d bartend five evenings a week.
The first few months were a challenge, but we survived.
Then Hayley gave up.
The nights at the bar became later and later. She’d stumble in drunk at three o’clock in the morning and kept missing her shift at the salon. I tried to get her up before I left for school, but she stopped even acknowledging my efforts. It wasn’t long before she lost that job. Instead of getting a new one, she decided to stick to bartending. It covered her portion of our expenses. Saving for the future went by the wayside.
She stopped talking about college. She stopped talking about any future beyond this town.
I used to bring up online courses for college credit, but she would make some excuse: It wasn’t the same, they still cost money, and (the saddest reason) why even bother?
It got to a point where I stopped trying to reason with her, to try to get her to snap out of her funk. It only angered her when I did.
Now we hardly speak. She’s usually asleep when I get up for school, and she’s not there when I return from work. I pretty much only sleep in the trailer. It isn’t a home. It’s a bed. A really crappy one.
Hayley used to be many things, but all that remains is a reminder of what can happen to me if I don’t escape. She may have given up, but I have not.
477 DAYS LEFT
There are certain days I’m able to navigate easily. Others take every ounce of strength to get through.
Today is the second kind of day.
I was exhausted all during school, after a restless night’s sleep. I always have trouble sleeping whenever Hayley has one of her guests over. A couple of months ago, I woke up to one of her “friends” standing over me. Ever since, I sleep with a fork under my pillow, just in case.
Fortunately, it’s Friday. I’m spending the weekend at Lila’s house, which is a few blocks away from The Pie Shoppe. I only have one thing to do before I’m free: tutor Hope.
I splash cold water on my face in an attempt to wake myself up. Brady bought me a soda at lunch, since soda’s not covered on the lunch program. What I really need is a giant coffee. But coffee costs money.
As I walk to Hope’s locker, I debate asking her if she wants to pick up a cup on our way to her house. I can offer for it to be my treat and get a cheap, plain black coffee, but I have no idea what she would order. I don’t think she’s the kind of person who has to look at prices, and I’m not about to waste seven dollars getting coffee.
Seven dollars.
It’s such a meager amount. It was only two years ago I’d get a twenty from my mother for a night out without even blinking. Still, I don’t know how I’m going to get through tutoring without caffeine.
“Hi,” I say sheepishly to Hope, who looks around the hallway, as if she’s embarrassed to be seen with me. She’d have a real reason to be horrified if she knew the truth.
“Who have you told?” she asks, her hand on her hips.
I shake my head. “Nobody.”
 
; “Brady?” she prods, finally saying his name.
“No. It’s not my place to tell. Why? Did he say something?” Now I’m looking around the hallway suspiciously, wondering why she’s so put out.
“No.” She looks at me for a second before she turns her back on me. “Let’s go.”
I follow her, stifling a yawn. It was hard enough for me to concentrate during class today—I’m not sure how I’m going to be when I have to be the one teaching someone. “Sorry,” I say, even though I don’t have a reason to apologize. I don’t want her to think she’s boring me. “I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”
She grinds her teeth as she keeps walking.
I decide to change the subject to the task at hand. “How was class today?” I ask as we get into her car and drive away.
“Fine.”
“You know, Hope,” I tread carefully, “I was really impressed the other day with how quickly you picked up on the mistakes on the test. I bet if you took it now, you’d do remarkably better.”
I try to give her a smile, but her eyes are glued to the road, so I stare out the window as well. A pang of desire hits me as we pass by the coffee shop. Part of me is screaming to ask Hope to stop. If it was one of my friends, it wouldn’t be a big deal.
But Hope isn’t my friend. She barely tolerates me. However, I need the money, and her parents offered me a hundred-dollar bonus for every exam she scores a B or higher on.
I know it’s charity, but I still need to earn it.
We remain silent for the rest of the ride to her house, and once we get inside, Hope excuses herself upstairs for a minute while I start to unpack my things on the dining room table.
I hate to admit I’m a little disappointed Hope’s mom isn’t here to greet us.
Before I have a chance to decide if I should risk eating the banana in my bag that I saved from lunch, I hear the garage door open. Hope’s mom enters a few seconds later.
“Parker! Sweetie, how are you? I’m running so behind today. What can I fix you?” She sets down a bag of groceries and looks at me expectantly.