But did he have to ruin me without a chance at the truth?
And yet, if he could do all that, get me shipped hours away… what good would come from thinking about it now?
“No reason.” I took a few more bites before my sour mood spoiled my appetite.
Just once, I wanted someone to believe me, someone to help me.
“Ellen?” I asked, and a strange, tingly sensation traveled down my arms as I gathered my courage.
“What, Lilly?”
“How do I trust someone new?”
The worried lines around Ellen’s eyes loosened.
A day at a time. Moment by moment. Give them chances to earn it before shutting it down.
I marinated on Ellen’s advice on the mile and a half walk back home. It was early evening and I still had to get home and catch the bus to get to Judith’s, but I had time. My shift didn’t start until nine.
The air was cooler, not unbearably so, but the days were definitely getting shorter, so I took my time, scanning my surroundings the entire walk.
Partly because it was smart to do so.
Mostly because it was too ingrained in me not to. It was the indoctrination from prison that still clung to me like a slime I couldn’t rinse away regardless of how many showers I took.
Fallen red and orange leaves crunched beneath my feet as I headed up the uneven sidewalk toward my building. A black, rusted Camaro idled at the curb, lights on, three figures I made out in the seats with its T-Top open.
What I wouldn’t give for another ride in a convertible. My high school best friend, Kendra, used to have a BMW 328i convertible she got for her sixteenth birthday. While I’d adored the Volkswagen Beetle my parents had bought me, I remembered that. The air in our faces, the sun heating our skin when we’d head to the beach at nearby lakes.
Another life.
Emotion clawed at my throat as I sighed and looked away from the Camaro. I moved toward my front door only to immediately have to sidestep as it opened. And then I took another step farther away from the man coming out of it. My neighbor. He’d introduced his name to me once. I quickly forgot it. Every time I saw him he made my skin crawl and my fight or flee instinct turn the dial straight to Run!
This time was no different. As a tendril of panic seized my chest, I pivoted away, blocking my body as he slapped his hand to the metal railing. It wobbled beneath his grip and I flinched when he leaned in.
“Hey, all dressed up, wanna come hang with my crew? I could use some sexy eye candy.”
Head straight ahead. Eyes ahead too. Don’t look at anyone you don’t intend to.
For this guy, I followed the rule. He meant harm. It leeched off him in the way he leered at me and spoke to me. Everything about him gave me the deep urge to get clean.
“No.” I faced him, shoving my bag of leftovers between us. Better to see him coming at me than at my back. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get inside.”
“You’re sure?” He lifted a hand, finger moving toward my hair and I cringed, putting more space between us. My heart was an Olympic track star, running at personal record setting speeds. “I could make it fun for you.”
Bile slid up my throat. I wanted nothing to do with his idea of fun.
A loud car horn made me jump, and I glanced over his shoulder as he sighed.
“Yo Manny!” someone shouted from the Camaro. “Get your ass in or get left!”
“Stuck up bitch,” the guy in front of me, now known as Manny, muttered.
He slid his gaze down the length of my body, eyes sticking to my breasts and then the tops of my thighs, lip curling with a sick pleasure before he glanced at the car.
Yeah. I was definitely going to need a shower to wash the feel of him off me. As soon as I could calm my still speeding pulse.
“Settle the fuck down! I’m making a new friend.” He scowled at me. “Aren’t I?”
Absolutely fucking not.
I stood still, glared right back even though it was the worst thing to do. Nothing made a feral dog attack faster than being threatened with eye contact.
He grinned and nodded once, seemingly deciding something. “Next time, maybe.”
Like hell. I stood still, waited until he jogged down the sidewalk and jumped into the front passenger seat of the car. It peeled off, smoke and thunder sounding like they left their muffler behind.
7
Lilly
It was a gorgeous day where the Iowa sun couldn’t decide if it wanted to be summer or fall. In the sun, I was sweating in minutes but as soon as I stepped into the shade, the crisp air made me shiver. Classes were almost done for the day. I just had to go to my dreaded accounting class, spend a few hours studying, take a quick nap, and then head to Judith’s.
Which meant I was focused on my destination and not the world around me, so Angie took me by surprise when she caught up to me, huffing and puffing.
“I’m out of advice.” I didn’t need this girl who loved her brother so much she wanted to save him to get any closer to me. I lengthened my stride.
“I’m sorry.”
She hurried her shorter legs and stood in front of me, hands up, palms facing me. My feet might have stopped moving. Or working. She was apologizing to me? I couldn’t remember if anyone had ever apologized to me.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, and yep, that was what I thought I heard. “I don’t know you and I don’t know what you’ve been through. What I asked was probably horrible. And you probably don’t want to talk about it at all, and I just, well, I wanted you to know that. I love my brother and I feel desperate. But I shouldn’t have done that to you.”
I blinked at her, stunned. Her doe-like eyes were wide and she pushed her lips to the side of her mouth like she was trying to stop herself from saying more. But it was her earnestness in her gaze that made my pulse flutter.
She meant it.
She felt bad. For me.
Something stuck in my throat. Felt like a clump of a stale, dried roll I used to force down at prison mealtimes. I choked it down and nodded. “It’s okay. No worries.”
“It’s just, you’re so beautiful and well, I thought he’d think you’re hot. And to see you, to have heard…”
Beautiful. Please. I might have been, at one time, in another lifetime. Now I just looked old. Much older than twenty-five and I felt old.
“Don’t really like talking about it or thinking it.”
“Right. Right.” Her braids bobbed at her chest as she nodded.
Curious, I asked her, “So what, you thought some hot chick talking to your brother would set his head straight?”
Her lip curled and she shrugged before gripping the straps of her backpack. “Better than Mom and me.”
“You’re something else, Angie, and besides, I’m way too old for him to think that about.”
“You’re what, twenty-one, twenty-two? That’s not that much older and besides, we started school late so we’ll be twenty in a few months, anyway.”
Twenty. She probably wasn’t all that different than how I would have been had I been able to go to college. A bit naïve, definitely perkier. It was moments like this when what was taken from me was so glaringly obvious to how it made me different.