sense8 homeless au:Ā āin all our bonesā
summary: AU where the sensates are street kids in Chicago, not sensates, but somehow they still find each other, and still need each other, and still become a family.
word count: 53,800
chapters: 40
genre: friendship, angst with a happy ending
rating: T
warnings: violence; homophobic language; mentions of blood; depictions of rape and referenced past rape; prostitution (mostly underage); references to past child neglect and abuse; depictions of and references to emotionally, verbally, and physically abusive relationships; mentions of death; depiction of minor character deaths; description of a past suicide; description of a past fatal car accident; mentions of vomit, diarrhea, and being sick; mentions of bugs; hunger, disordered eating, and food hoarding; mentions of pregnancy complications; depiction of traumatic childbirth and description of a stillborn baby; mentions of drugs; depictions of heroin use, heroin overdose, and heroin withdrawals; depictions of dissociation, self-harm, and suicidal thoughts.
alternate links: ao3 | ff.net
Chapter 1: Wolfgang & Nomi
In which Wolfgang meets Nomi
"Hi," is the first thing she says to him. Then: "My name's Nomi."
It's just past 3 AM. Wolfgang is leaning against a lamppost, freezing his ass off in a thin jacket and a pair of skinny jeans, and she's the first person to walk by in over an hour.
"Hello, Nomi," he says, straightening up slightly.
She lifts a hand in greeting. "Hi," she says again, stepping closer, into the glow of the street lamp. She's about his age, he thinks, sixteen or seventeen. Blonde. Well-off, judging by her coat ā fuck, Wolfgang would kill for a coat like that ā and she's gripping the straps of her backpack with a naĆÆve sort of eagerness.
"You interested?" he asks lightly.
"Interested?"
"Yeah," says Wolfgang. He raises his eyebrows. "Interested."
She gapes at him for a moment. Then she squeezes her eyes shut. "Oh, god, of course," she breathes. "You're aā a prostitute, aren't you?"
Wolfgang feels his jaw clench, but there's no use arguing, so he just lifts his chin and straightens his back and says, "Yes, I am. Are you interested or not?"
She offers an apologetic smile, and he knows her answer before she gives it. "I'm sorry. I'm, uh. No. I'm not. Interested. In that."
He shrugs. "Okay."
"I'm really sorry."
"It's fine." He looks her up and down. Wonders where she's off to at this time of night. Wonders how much money she's got in her backpack, how many wool coats and blankets and decent meals she could buy if she wanted to.
She seems uncomfortable under his gaze. "I'm a girl," she says. "If you were wondering." She clutches more tightly at the straps of her backpack, angling her elbows over her chest.
Wolfgang nods. "Okay."
"Okay?" she repeats. Then, immediately, she grimaces. "Sorry. It's justā some people don't believe me at first."
"Well some people are idiots."
"Yeah," she agrees. "They are."
They stand there in silence for a moment, until finally Nomi lowers her eyes and says, "Could I ask you something?"
Because of course she does. Of course she wants something, everyone wants something, no one ever fucking talks to him unless they want something.
He quirks an eyebrow in response and the girl gives an embarrassed sort of laugh. "I, umā well, I don't know if this is, like, rude. To ask. Or something," she says. "But, you wouldn't happen to know any good, um, places to sleep, would you? Like. Outside? Long-term?"
She smiles at him weakly, and just like that, a picture of her life starts to come together in Wolfgang's mind: Rich family. Shitty parents. Kicked out, probably, but possibly left of her own accord. Hasn't been on the streets long ā a day or two, maybe less. No survival skills. Too nice for her own good.
"Not really, no," he tells her, crossing his arms. And it's true. It's like thirty fucking degrees; there are no good places to sleep outside.
"Oh," she says. "Okay."
Wolfgang can practically feel Felix elbowing him in the ribs for being such an asshole. Just fucking bring her back to the church, Felix would say. But Felix is a pushover who probably wouldn't be alive if it weren't for Wolfgang. And Felix isn't here right now.
So Wolfgang just sets his jaw and says, "That all? Because you standing thereā¦ it isn't really good for my business, to be honest."
The girl's eyes widen. "Oh my god, I didn'tā I'm sorryā Iā" Her voice breaks. "I'm so sorry, I justā But no, you're right, I'll go now. Thank you."
Wolfgang looks at herā at her clean Converse shoes and her painted black nails and her face, inexpertly schooled into something resembling bravery. She turns then, and begins to walk away, one step, two steps, three stepsā
"Fuck," mutters Wolfgang. "Wait."
She glances back, looking almost frightened.
Wolfgang pushes off from the lamp post. "I know a place to sleep," he says, not quite meeting her eye. "It's this abandoned church; my friend and I stay there; it'sā well there's walls at least, and a mattress and shit, so."
The girl wheels around and stands there, facing him, mouth slightly agape. "Oh god, thank you," she says after a moment. "Thank you so much."
"It's fine," Wolfgang tells her, setting his jaw. "It's nothing."
He's going to regret this, he thinks to himself. He's going to regret this so fucking much.
***
But later that night, as he lies on the cold ground next to the mattress, watching Nomi sleep under his ratty old blanket, he finds, to his surprise, that he doesn't.
He doesn't regret it at all.
Chapter 2: Felix & Nomi
In which Nomi meets Felix
Nomi sleeps like someone who's never had to fear falling asleepā deep, even breaths, no thrashing with nightmares, no waking up at every little noise.
It's dark in the church, but there are street lamps outside the broken windows and moonlight filtering through the collapsed rafters, and Wolfgang can make out the silhouette of her shoulder rising and falling as she breathes.
She hadn't protested the rotting old mattress when Wolfgang had shown it to her, just asked again and again if he was sure he would be okay sleeping on the ground, if he was sure he didn't want to share, or at least take the blanket? Or the pillow? Really? Was he sure?
"Thank you," she'd said at last, so earnestly that Wolfgang had felt himself blushing in the moonlight.
"Don't worry about it," he'd muttered.
She'd smiled and set down her backpack at the foot of the mattress, then curled up under his and Felix's lone blanket. "Goodnight, Wolfgang," she'd said, as he lay down on the ground beside the mattress, knees drawn up to his chest, arms pressed between his thighs.
"Goodnight," he'd replied.
Nomi had fallen asleep within minutes. Wolfgang stays awake until dawn.
***
Felix returns as the first hint of light starts to seep into the sky above the church.
Wolfgang scrambles to his feet and meets him at the door, hushing him in the middle of whatever he'd been starting to complain about.
"Listen," he says, "I met a girl, she had nowhere to go, so I brought her back here."
"A girl, eh?" Felix repeats, raising his eyebrows suggestively.
He's joking, Wolfgang knows, but he punches his shoulder anyway. "Shut up. She asked if I knew anywhere she could sleep andā What's so fucking funny?" he hisses, because Felix is, inexplicably, laughing.
"Nothing," grins Felix. "It's just that I always knew you were a big softie at heart, Wolfgang Bogdanow," he says, pressing a finger against Wolfgang's chest.
Wolfgang splutters some attempt at a protest, but Felix just laughs again. "Fine, I take it back, you're still a hardass." He gives Wolfgang another shove to the chest. "So what's her name?" he asks.
"Huh?"
"The girl, what's her name?" repeats Felix, pushing past Wolfgang and starting to make his way toward the back of the church.
Wolfgang jogs to catch up. "It's Nomi," he whispers as he grabs Felix's arm. "Now shut up, okay? She's sleeping."
They stand there for a moment, staring across the church at her sleeping form.
"You gave her the mattress," Felix observes. Wolfgang opens his mouth to apologize, but Felix just claps him on the back. "Good," he says. He looks Wolfgang in the eye. "That's good."
***
Wolfgang wakes up later that day to the sound of hushed voices.
He opens one eye, and finds Felix crouching by side of he mattress, whispering with Nomi, who's sitting up slightly, her elbow bent and her head resting on her hand.
He shuts his eye.
It's afternoon, judging by the sunlight streaming into the church. He wonders how long they've been talking. "Dark chocolate is the best," Felix is saying. "I hate the cheap sweet stuff. Just tastes like sugar."
"But sugar is divine," Nomi whispers back.
"You and Wolfgang will get along," Felix laughs. "Sugar fiends."
Suddenly Wolfgang can feel their eyes in him. He concentrates on feigning sleep, his eyelids shut lightly, his breathing as regular as possible.
"How long have you known each other?" Nomi asks after a moment.
"Four years," sighs Felix. "Feels like forever though."
"That's really nice," Nomi says, and Wolfgang can hear a smile in her voice. "I'm glad you have each other."
"Yeah," says Felix. "I am too."
They lapse into silence, and Wolfgang falls back asleep.
***
When Wolfgang next wakes up, it's late afternoon, and Nomi is gone.
He panics for a moment, glancing around the church, then wakes up Felix, who seems supremely unconcerned. "Said she had stuff to do," he mumbles, obviously still half asleep.
"What? What kind of stuff? Felix!" Wolfgang says, shaking his shoulder.
"I don't know." Felix sits up and rubs his eyes. "Iā She said she was gonna go home to get stuff. She said her parents will be at work and her sister at school. She still has a key to her house. Said she'd bring food and blankets and shit. It's no big deal."
"You didn't wake me up?"
"She didn't want to bother you."
"For fuck's sake!"
"She said she'd be back in an hour or two!" Felix says. "Lighten up."
Wolfgang doesn't lighten up.
And Nomi doesn't come back.
***
They open her backpack the next day, rifling through makeup and clothes and packets of chips.
"You think she's dead?" asks Wolfgang.
"Nah," says Felix. He opens her wallet contemplatively. "I think her bitch parents locked her in her room till they can send her off to that fucking boarding school. Shit, she's got fifty dollars in here."
Wolfgang snatches money out of Felix's hand. Sure enough, there's two twenties and a ten. "What boarding school?" he asks, pocketing the money and tossing the wallet back in the bag.
"Her parents wanted to send her to boarding school for boys," Felix says. "That's why she ran away."
Wolfgang looks up sharply. "Fuck," he mutters. "When'd she say that?"
"You were sleeping. We talked a long time," Felix shrugs and begins to pull out articles of clothing. A pair of underwear. A t-shirt. A bra.
"What else did she say?"
"I don't know. Stuff. You think it'd be alright if we use the money?"
Wolfgang stares at the bra for a few moments and wants to say no, they should save it, what if she comes back. But he's hungry and cold and it's fifty fucking dollars. Soā "Yeah," he says resignedly. "She wouldn't have left it here otherwise."
"Good," Felix grins. "Because I could really go for like ten cheeseburgers."
And Wolfgang tries to smile back, but all he can really think about is whatever hell Nomi must be going through right now.
And what he'd do to her parents if they were here.
Chapter 3: Sun & Capheus
In which Sun meets Capheus, then Jonas
Sun wakes up at dawn.
Mechanically, she rolls up her sleeping bag and stuffs it into her backpack. Then she pulls her beanie down over her hair, hoists her overstuffed backpack onto her shoulders, and heads to the nearest public bathroom.
The water is cold as she washes her hands. Cold like the February wind outside. She examines her fingers under the stream of water, scrubs a bit harder at the dirt ingrained around her fingernails.
Once, when she was six years old, Sun's father had slapped her across the mouth for coming to dinner with dirt under her nails.
She turns off the faucet and wonders what he would say if he could see her now, with her filthy nails and dilapidated backpack and too-small sneakers, her shoulders hunched under a jacket she found last month by the side of the road.
Wonders what her little brother would say.
What her mother would say.
Her mother.
Tears fill Sun's eyes before she can stop them, and she pumps frantically at the paper towels dispenser, only to find it empty. She lets out a sob, a single sob. Then she dries cheeks on her sleeve, dries her her hands on her jeans, and takes a deep, steadying breath.
It's okay, she tells herself, her mother's face swimming before her eyes. Her mother wouldn't want her to cry. Her mother would tell her to be strong.
Sun is so, so tired of being strong.
***
Sun has a sign. "Please spare some change," it says in careful writing. "Anything helps." It's written on the back of a personal-sized pizza box and it earns her five dollars a day, if she's lucky.
This week, she hasn't been lucky. And yesterday she bought a pack of cigarettes, which wiped out all her earnings from the past three days.
She sets down her bag and sits against the wall, her legs hugged to her chest, and rests her sign on the tips of her shoes. Then she takes an empty cup out of her backpack and sets it beside her on the ground.
***
At some point her sign blows down and skitters a few inches across the sidewalk. Sun is too tired to flip it back over.
She buries her face in her knees. She's so hungry. No, not hungry. Last week she was hungry. Now she's justā empty.
It's past noon, and her cup is still empty too.
***
"Hey."
Sun glances up to find a dark-skinned boy standing before her, bundled up in a ragged blue jacket.
He nudges the overturned sign with the toe of his shoe. "Jonas still up to his old tricks?" he asks.
Sun stares at him, unsure how to respond.
"Still giving out those business cards?" the boy prompts.
"I don't know who you're talking about," Sun says then. "Please leave me alone."
At this, the boy laughs. "Where did you get the pizza then?" he presses.
Sun glances at the lid, which is, sure enough, emblazoned with the words Casa di Jonas. "I found that box in the trash," she says, and the boy laughs again.
Then, to Sun's horror, he plops down on the ground beside her, crosses his legs, and turns to her with twinkling eyes.
"I'm Capheus," he tells her.
Sun averts her gaze.
Capheus seems unperturbed. "Sorry," he says, scooting over by about a foot. "Is this better?"
No, thinks Sun. Why are you talking to me. Go away.
She shrugs.
"So you don't know Jonas?" tries the boy. "I thought every kid out here knew him."
Sun shrugs again, feeling a prick of curiosity in spite of herself. "I don't," she says.
"Well he's the owner of this place," Capheus says. He taps the lid of the Casa di Jonas pizza box. "It's like ten minutes from here. I used to go there all the time and he'd always give me free pizza."
Sun looks away quickly and stares down at her nails, her stomach clenching at the thought of food, free food. Furiously, she presses a fist against her abdomen until it hurts, until she can't feel the hunger.
"But he's one of those savior types," Capheus goes on. "Kept asking if I had a place to sleep, kept giving me some social worker's business card and telling me to 'give her a call.' He wouldn't let it go. And free pizza's nice, butā" He looks Sun straight in the eye. "I'm not going back to foster care."
Sun nods slowly, turning his words over in her mind. "He gave youā¦free pizza?" she says, working hard to keep her voice level, to keep from sounding desperate.
"I told you," Capheus laughs. "That's how he is. Probably thinks it's his duty to feed every homeless kid in Chicago." He picks the pizza box up off the ground and flips it idly in his hands, pausing when he notices the writing. His eyes flick over to the empty cup on the ground.
"Hey," he says, more quietly. "Hey, I can tell you how to get there, if you want. You tell him Capheus sent you and I guarantee he'll give you something to eat."
Sun can feel her cheeks heating up. No, she thinks. I'm alright. I don't need help.
"Yes," she breathes. "Please."
***
She stands outside Casa di Jonas for at least fifteen minutes, avoiding the eyes of everyone who walks by, waiting for the restaurant to empty out.
At last it does, and she steps inside cautiously, flinching at the bell that announces her entrance.
The man at the counter smiles at her. Jonas, presumably. "Can I help you?" he says kindly. "Want some pizza? Cheese? Pepperoni? Vegetable? On the house."
"Cheese?" Sun says hesitantly, her voice barely above a whisper. "If that's alright. Um, Capheus sent me."
"Capheus!" exclaims the man. "I haven't seen him in months; is he doing okay?" He sounds genuinely concerned.
Sun glances up briefly, then down again. "He's fine."
"Good, that's good," muses Jonas. He disappears into the kitchen, then bustles back out, saying, "Alright, miss, here you go, one slice of cheese, fresh from the oven."
Sun watches through her eyelashes as he slides a piece of pizza across the counter on a napkin.
She grabs it before she can help herself, breathing in the mingled scents of tomato and cheese and freshly-baked bread.
She takes a bite, a tiny one, and sucks on it, letting the cheesy dough dissolve on her tongue and slide into her empty stomach.
It is, quite possibly, the best thing she's ever tasted.
She laps up a bit of the oil pooling on top of the slice, then takes another bite, bigger this time, not even minding how the molten cheese sticks to the roof of her mouth.
She doesn't stop till she's eaten the entire slice, barely chewing, right down to the crust that scrapes her burned mouth as she swallows it whole.
"Thank you," she chokes out at last, finally looking up.
The man just watches her, a small crease between his eyebrows and pity in his eyes.
Suddenly shame, more painful than hunger, twists in Sun's stomach. She ate too fast. She was too weak. Absurdly, her mind travels to her nails, still dirty, and she curls her fingers into the napkin to hide them from Jonas's view.
"There's more where that came from," Jonas is saying, but Sun just shakes her head.
"I'm sorry," she tells him, the shame blooming up from her stomach and into her chest. "Iā I need to go."
Jonas nods. "Alright. But there's pizza for you here whenever you need it," he says earnestly. "And here's this," he adds, placing something on the counter.
A business card, Sun realizes when she picks it up. Like Capheus said.
Angelica Turing
Child Welfare Specialist
Department of Children and Family Services
Chicago, Illinois
It's sweet, she thinks, gazing down at phone number. It's sweet and it's stupid.
The minute she's outside, she crumples the card in her napkin and throws it away.
Chapter 4: Lito & Felix
In which Lito meets Felix and Wolfgang
When Lito was little, his mother would ask him, every afternoon when he came home from school, how his day was. And Lito would, invariably, reply with, "Good."
It makes him feel a painful prick in his chest to think about that now ā to remember a time when life was an unbroken string of days that could be described as good.
There's no such thing as a good day on the street. Not really. There are a few okay days and many bad days and occasional very bad days. There are some days so awful that he tries ā and mostly manages ā to block them from his memory. But there are no good days, at least not for a teenage hooker who spends his nights giving blowjobs and his days asleep behind a dumpster.
***
The day Lito meets Joaquin starts out as one of the okay days. He buys a burger and fries in the morning and when he wakes up at dusk he's still got enough cash to get an order of chicken nuggets, which he eats with ketchup until he's full.
He says hi to the pregnant girl who busks on the corner and she smiles back. He reaches his own corner to find it mercifully empty of panhandlers or street vendors or other hookers. March is shaping up to be nowhere near as cold as February, so he isn't freezing to death as he stands there in ripped-up jeans and a t-shirt.
And he's barely been there five minutes before a man approaches him ā handsome, tattoos, leather jacket. He's smiling.
Lito shifts a little, touches his crotch almost imperceptibly. "Hey," he says.
"Hey," says the man.
"You're looking a little lonely on this evening, sir," Lito offers.
"I suppose I am a little lonely," says the man. He flexes his fingers, balls his hands into fists. "You want to help me out?"
"Of course," returns Lito. "What's your name?"
The man's smile grows. "Joaquin," he says. And there's something about his smile, something hard and mean that scares Lito a little, but the guy obviously has money and wants to spend it and Lito can't say no to that.
"Joaquin," Lito purrs back. "Let's go somewhere a little more private, huh, Joaquin? What do you say to that?"
And the man nods, so Lito places a hand on his arm and leads him down an alleyway beside a seedy little coffee shop. "How's this?" he asks.
"It's perfect." The man eyes Lito up and down. "Get on your knees," he orders.
Lito complies. "Twenty dollars for a blow, twenty-five without a condom," he recites, reaching to unzip Joaquin's jeans, but the man slaps his hand away.
"Not so fast," he says, seemingly amused. He stares down at Lito for a moment. "I'll bet you give a lot of blowjobs, hmm? Such nice lips."
"Yes," Lito assures him. "Iā I'm very good."
At this, the man chuckles softly. "I'm not interested in a blowjob," he says.
And Lito's stomach flips uncomfortably. "It's ten for a handjob," he supplies. "And forty for anal. And y-you have to use a condom if you want anal."
The man smiles again, the same cruel smile from before. "I'm not going to have sex with you at all, you little faggot," he spits out, and Lito doesn't even have a chance to react before the blow hits his groin. Then there's a punch to his face, and another, and another.
"Stop!" Lito yelps, holding up his hands to shield himself from the blows. "Please! Whatā"
But the man just shoves him to the ground so his shoulder smashes against the concrete, hard, and begins to kick him in the stomach, and the ribs, and the chest, knocking the wind out of him.
Lito doesn't fight back, just closes his eyes and waits for the pain to end.
Except it doesn't end. The blows do, finally, and Lito listens to Joaquin's footsteps recede as he leaves the alley without a word. But the pain is sharp and all-encompassing and keeps Lito huddled on the ground for god knows how long, sobbing.
The thought that finally manages to rouse him is the idea that if he dies, he wants someone to find him in the morning. So he stands up, his entire midsection throbbing, and begins to walk shakily toward the alleyway's entrance.
He's managed to cover a reasonable distance before he realizes that one of his flip flops is still lying on the ground behind him, but he can't summon the strength to turn back for it. So he just keeps dragging himself along, one foot in front of the other. He passes a bottle, smashed on the ground of the alley, and steps on it: presses his foot down until he can feel shards of glass sinking into his bare heel.
Then he continues, feeling a kind of numb satisfaction at the pain in his foot, the one part of his body, of his life, where the agony is self-inflicted. He focuses on it, relishes in it, and somehow it lessens the ache in his stomach and shoulder and ribs, enables him to make it out of the alley and onto the sidewalk in front of the coffee shop.
He lays down under the "CLOSED" sign, shuts his eyes, and falls asleep.
***
"Your foot's bleeding."
Lito opens his eyes. It hurts to breathe. It hurts to think. Slowly, the world comes into focus around him and he stares at the legs of whoever's talking to him. Scrawny legs, black jeans, boots held together with duct tape.
"Did you hear me?" asks the voice. Lito squints up at the person talking to him, who turns out to be a tall, skinny boy with shaggy blond hair. "Your foot is, like, really covered in blood," he says again.
"I don't care," Lito intones. His jaw hurts like hell. Images of the previous night flash through his mindā the hard toes of Joaquin's boots, the cold ground of the alleyway, the broken glass bottle.
He squeezes his eyes shut and that hurts too.
"Is it cut?" the boy is saying.
Lito sighs. "I walked around on glass."
"What, on purpose?"
Lito nods.
"Well that was fucking stupid."
It was. Lito agrees. But he can't find it in him to care. Part of him wants to care. Most of him just wants to die. So he says so. "I want to die," he croaks.
"That's fucking stupider than walking on glass," the boy tells him without missing a beat. He bends down and touches Lito's arm, and Lito is too tired to even flinch away. "Come on," says the boy. "Get up."
Somehow, Lito obeys.
***
The boy's name is Felix. He tells Lito this as they walk, or rather, as Felix walks. What Lito is doing can't properly be described as walking: it's more like limping, or hopping, his arm around Felix's neck, whimpering with every step they take.
Felix talks a lot. He talks about how tired he is and how his jacketās too small and how someone named Wolfie is going kill him. His pimp? Lito wonders.
No, he realizes as Felix continues to talk. His friend, or maybe his brother. Someone good, anyway, someone Felix trusts.
"Wolfie will fix you," Felix says placatingly after Lito lets out a particularly miserable moan. "He's good with injuries. He's got, like, a whole first-aid thing of shit he's stolen."
"Please," groans Lito. "How muchā furtherā"
"Not much. Just around this corner." Felix glances over, eyes him hesitantly for a few paces. "So what happened?" he asks at last.
"Beatā¦ beat up," Lito coughs out. He doesn't elaborate, whether because he's ashamed of being a whore or because can't really form coherent sentences right now he's not entirely sure.
But somehow, Felix guesses the rest. "He didn't even pay you huh?" he says darkly, an edge of bitterness to his voice that Lito hasn't heard so far in their conversation. "Just got you down on your knees then started kicking the shit out of you?"
"Iā howā"
"That's how it always happens," Felix tells him. "How long you been doing this? Two months? Three?"
"One," Lito mumbles.
"Right. And didā did you just lay on the ground out there all fucking night?"
"Yes."
At this, Felix lets out a sigh so sad and world-weary that Lito almost feels guilty.
"Alright," Felix says, his voice firm. "Don't do that again. You'll get better at guessing which ones to avoid. But this shit happens, okay? It's happened to me, it'll happen again to you, but it's no reason to lay down and die. You get used to it."
Lito lets out another whimper. "How long," he manages, "have you beenā¦" He exhales painfully.
"Too long," Felix laughs humorlessly. Lito glances at him, and Felix looks away. "Six years," he mutters. "Well, for me. Wolfie, four."
"You wereā god," Lito whispers. "Young."
They round the corner, and there it is: A church, huge and dilapidated, clearly long-abandoned.
"I was twelve years old," says Felix, as they gaze up at the towering structure. "Alright now, only a few more steps, come on."
Twelve, Lito thinks with each remaining step. Twelve years old, twelve, twelve, twelveā
Felix fiddles with the lock for a few moments and the door swings open.
Lito collapses on the ground as soon as they step inside.
***
Dimly, Lito is aware of Felix calling out and of someone else approaching, kneeling down, pulling off Lito's shirt. Felix is talking animatedly; Lito can't make out the words. He opens his eyes blearily and there's a face bobbing before him. Not Felix. A different boy.
"I'm Wolfgang," says the boy. Expertly, his hands touch Lito's neck, chest, breastbone. His fingers are freezing cold.
"What's your name?" the boy asks brusquely.
"Lito," whispers Lito.
"Good. Did you hit your head?"
"Huh?"
"Last night, did you hit your head?"
"Iā¦ no, I don'tā¦ think so."
"Where does it hurt?"
"Everywhere."
Wolfgang sighs. "At least try to be helpful," he says.
Lito starts to cry.
"Wolfie, man, go easy on him," he hears Felix's voice say somewhere above them. "He's like half dead."
"He is not half dead," snaps Wolfgang, and Lito can't help but be cheered by his apparent conviction.
"M-my stomach," he groans, and immediately Wolfgang's hands are pressing on his abdomen.
"You didn't puke, did you?" he asks. "After he kicked you?" Lito shakes his head, trying not to whimper at the pressure on his bruises.
"I don't think you're bleeding internally," Wolfgang pronounces. "How about your ass? Did heā"
"No," says Lito.
"Well. That's something," mutters Wolfgang.
His fingers move on to Lito's ribcage. Lito gasps in pain, eliciting another sigh from Wolfgang. "You're going to be fine," he chides. "Just a few fractured ribs and a foot full of glass."
"Just?" Lito whimpers.
"Yes," says Wolfgang. "Trust me. It could have been worse."
Lito sniffles and sits up a little. And though he honestly doesn't really think he could feel worse than he does right now, he nods.
***
Wolfgang isn't particularly gentle as he pries glass from Lito's foot with a pair of tweezers, but he doesn't get angry when Lito starts to sob in pain, just grunts an apology and continues his work.
"The pieces were big," he says after what feels like an eternity. "I got 'em all. You're lucky."
"Mmm," moans Lito, feeling anything but.
He presses his face into the mattress they've told him to lie down on, breathing in and out, ignoring the musty scent of body odor and smoke. At least it smells better than the dumpster he's been sleeping behind for the past four weeks.
Wolfgang washes his foot with water poured from a water bottle, smears it with antiseptic, and wraps it in bandages. "Alright," he proclaims at last. "That's that." He hands him the half-full water bottle and four tablets of ibuprofen, which Lito swallows robotically.
"That should kick in soon," Wolfgang tells him. "So just lay down and relax, alright?"
Lito nods and closes his eyes.
He can hear Wolfgang and Felix talking somewhere in the distance, and cars passing by outside, and for a long time he lies there in a swirl of confusion and gratitude and pain, not sure how the hell he's supposed to relax.
But little by little his foot stops throbbing, and his abdomen stops hurting so much, and finally, he sinks into a fitful sleep.
***
He wakes up to Felix touching him on the back. "Rise and shine, sleeping beauty," he's saying, seated beside the mattress. It's dark.
"What time is it?" Lito slurs.
"Like midnight. Wolfgang already went out ages ago but he told me to wait till you woke up," Felix explains good-naturedly. "Only I started to think you were gonna sleep all fucking night, so. Sorry."
"āS'okay," mumbles Lito, feeling a surge of guilt for keeping Felix from working. "You can go. I'mā¦" He grimaces in pain. "I'm fine."
Felix laughs. "Sure you are," he says. "I have more pain meds for you. And water. Wolfie said you should drink lots of water."
"Thanks," says Lito. He reaches for the medicine, then retracts his hand. "W-why are youā¦ helping me?" he asks, before he can stop himself.
Felix shrugs easily. "The world is really fucking shit," he says. "I figure it's best to help if you can, a little. To make it less shit."
"Well it's veryā It's very nice of you." Lito winces as he tries to sit up, but Felix gently pushes him back down against the mattress.
"Just lay down, man," he says. He holds out the pills again, and this time Lito takes them.
"I'm serious thoughā¦" Lito presses on. "Lots of people wouldn'tā¦ helpā I meanā If I saw some guyā¦ You can't justā You gotta protectā¦ yourselfā¦ "
"Shhh," says Felix. "Take it easy, okay? I know it's supposed to be every man for himself on the streets and shit, but sometimesā¦" He clears his throat. "Wolfgang will never tell you how we met," he says after a moment. "But it happened because he was sick. Flu or something. And when you're living out here, you know, eating shit, never sleeping, cold all the time, the flu hits really hard."
Felix pauses, and Lito has a feeling that he's trying to decide how much of this story he should tell. Then he takes a deep breath and continues on: "Right, so I was in this grocery store, just minding my own business, swiping food off the shelves or whatever, and then suddenly I see some kid getting thrown out by the manager for shoplifting motherfucking cough medicine. Andā well, he looked like he was in real bad shape, you know? So I went and stole the stuff for him. Found him puking in an alley, andā¦ well, at first he was like a fucking feral cat or somethingā wouldn't talk to me, wouldn't let me get near him. But I gave him the medicine and he calmed down and brought me back to this place. Which was way better than where I'd been sleeping. So I stayed here and justā¦" He shrugs. "Took care of him till he was better. Probably saved his life, to be honest."
Lito gapes at him in the moonlight, but Felix shrugs again. "Wolfie is the best person in the world," he says simply. "I never would have met him if I hadn't tried to help him. So I guess I learned that, if you help people, sometimes you help yourself too." He flicks Lito's uninjured shoulder. "Now get some fucking sleep."
Chapter 5: Amanita
In which Amanita brings gifts
It's the middle of March when Wolfgang wakes up one afternoon to the sound of a knock at the door. He sits up, grabs the knife from under the mattress, and steels himself.
There's another knock then, this time loud enough to rouse Felix, who glances over at Wolfgang.
"Hello?" calls a muffled voice. "I'm umā I'm a friend of Nomi's? Is anyone there?"
Lito, who they've learned can sleep through anything, doesn't move. They let him sleep.
Wolfgang replaces the knife under the mattress and, hesitantly, he and Felix make their way to the door of the church.
The knocking continues, as does the voice. "Wolfgang?" it says. "Felix? Hello?"
Felix unlocks the door and pulls it open to reveal a girl, with dark skin and dreadlocks highlighted by blue and purple braids, standing there with a smile on her face and a large garbage bag gripped in one hand.
"Hello!" she says. "Iā You must be Wolfgang and Felix?" She peers into the church, looking slightly dismayed at the surroundings.
Wolfgang nods numbly, and her attention snaps back to him.
"Great! Okay, so Nomi gave me this address," she says quickly. "You know she got sent to boarding school, right?"
"We figured, yeah," Felix says. "Is she okay?"
"She's dealing," shrugs Amanita. "I've only talked to her once; she's only allowed one phone call a month or something completely draconian like that."
"Shit," mutters Felix.
"I know right? And each call can only be five minutes, so we didn't get to chat much, but she soundedā¦ okay. Anyway, she talked a lot about you two, and it was all a bit jumbled since she was talking so fast, but from what I could gather she ran away from home last month and you two took her in for a night, and you're the sweetest boys she's ever met but also in dire need of blankets and non-perishable foods, soā" She reaches into the garbage bag and pulls out a folded blanket. "āI'm here to deliver!"
"Fuck yes," cries Felix, grabbing the blanket.
The girl sets down the bag and smiles. "And don't worry about the cost or anything," she rattles off. "That fucking school won't let them have computers but I guess a guy she met there is home for spring break and he's some kind of genius who hacked into Nomi's evil parents' bank account and wired me a buttload of money and it's all untraceable or something soā" She takes a deep breath. "Anyway, I hope you find this stuff useful!" she says brightly. She holds the bag aloft and Wolfgang watches carefully as Felix takes it from her and hoists it over the threshold of the church.
"Thank you so much," Felix says wonderingly, one hand still clutching the blanket.
"You're so welcome," beams the girl. Then: "Oh!" she exclaims. "My name is Amanita Caplan, by the way! I'm Nomi's friend from high school." She holds out her hand, which Felix shakes.
"Felix. That's Wolfie. Welcome to our, uh, home," he grins. He gestures toward the interior of the church. "You canā"
"Actually, you can go now," Wolfgang cuts him off sharply.
Because he's heard the name Caplan before. It was years ago, in another life, but he'll never forget the police officer who showed up at his house one night about a reported domestic disturbance, who pulled him aside and told him that her name was Officer Caplan and she wanted to help him, who asked if his dad ever hurt him or his mom and looked at him with such sad fucking eyes when he said no, never.
And Wolfgang remembers that this Amanita Caplan had had those exact same sad eyes when she'd seen how he and Felix were living, and he thinks of what Officer Caplan would say if her daughter told her about the poor homeless kids she met, and fuck.
"Seriously, you need to go," he tells the girl, who looks so confused that Wolfgang lowers his gaze uncomfortably. "You'll draw attention to this place standing at the door like that," he mumbles.
"Well, you could invite me in," she cajoles.
"Yeah. Or not," says Wolfgang. He lifts his face and glares at her, hard and steely.
Felix is staring at him like he wants to bash his head against the wall, but he says nothing.
The girl, for her part, seems unfazed. "Suit yourself," she shrugs. She glances at Felix, then back at Wolfgang, and hazards a small smile. "Iā I go to college in California but I'm here on break for another week. So I can come back," she offers, "ifā"
"No," says Wolfgang definitively, taking a step forward, "you're not coming back, you got that? And you're not going to tell a fucking soul about us, or where we're living, or anything, you fucking hear me?"
The girl nods once, still seemingly unintimidated, though she can't have missed the implied threat in his words. "Loud and clear," she says calmly. "But do you want to tell me why you're being such a jackass?"
Wolfgang can't help but admire her mettle.
"Wolfgang's a jackass to everyone; don't take it personally," Felix says smoothly, stomping on Wolfgang's foot. "Right Wolfie?"
"Sure," mumbles Wolfgang.
"I see," says Amanita. Then she sighs, and looks at him with her mother's sympathetic eyes, and Wolfgang can't fucking take it anymore.
"Look, your mom's a cop," he says abruptly.
"That's true," the girl replies. She tilts her head to one side, staring at Wolfgang with sudden interest. "Do you know her?"
"I've met her," he mutters. "And she can't fucking know about us."
"She could help you," Amanita says softly. "I mean, I won't tell her," she adds in a hurry, probably at the look on Wolfgang's face, "but I'm just saying."
"No she couldn't," says Wolfgang.
"Look, you wanna come inside?" Felix asks her, shooting a please-just-be-nice-for-once look in Wolfgang's direction.
Amanita nods eagerly, and for a moment, Wolfgang wants to slam the door in her face. Instead, he sighs and steps aside to her in.
Felix grins.
***
They wake up Lito, who's heard about Nomi but still needs a quick explanation of who this Amanita girl is and why she's shown up out of nowhere like Santa Claus.
Then they sit down in a circle, the garbage bag in the center.
"Alright," says Felix gleefully, glancing at Amanita. "Let's see what's in the bag."
***
'What's in the bag' is more than Wolfgang could ever have hoped for in his wildest dreams.
There are two battery-powered thermal blankets and a pack of batteries, plus two regular blankets softer and thicker than any blanket Wolfgang's ever felt in his life. There are two winter jackets and several long-sleeved t-shirts and about six packages of socks. There are granola bars and protein bars and beef jerky and cans of tuna and boxes of crackers and cups of fruit. There's a sewing kit and hand sanitizer and bottles of water and empty ziploc baggies and an assortment of flashlights.
He, Felix, and Lito pull out each item in silent wonder before carefully laying it down on the blanket Felix has spread over the ground.
At the bottom of the bag is an envelope, containing $200 and a note that reads: "Let me know if you ever need anything. Love, Amanita," followed by a phone number.
For a few moments, all they can do is gape between the note, and the bounty, and the girl sitting across from him with her hands folded in her lap.
At last Felix whistles lowly. "Fuck," he croaks. "Thank you so fucking much."
"It was nothing," says Amanita, waving a hand dismissively. "Andā I'm sorry, I didn't know there'd be three of you; I just kind of got two of everything, soā"
"Amanita," Lito says earnestly. "This is more than enough. Thank you."
"Yeah," Wolfgang echoes, staring down at the note. "Thank you."
Amanita smiles, perhaps a bit sadly. "You're welcome," she says. "I wish there was something else I could do to help."
But there's nothing else she could do, not really, and they all know it.
***
Wolfgang walks her to the door, grabs her arm before she leaves, and says, "I'm sorry."
"Don't be."
"I was an asshole." He frowns. "I justā get like that sometimes when I'mā¦" Scared. "Worried."
"You don't need to explain.
"No. Listen. I've done bad things, okay? Illegal things. If the police start looking into meā¦ I know how nice your mom is, and I don't want her toā"
"Wolfgang," Amanita says. "I understand."
Wolfgang nods, even though of course she doesn't understand, she couldn't possibly understand what it's like to know you killed your father and it wasn't even self-defense because you attacked him from behind. What it's like to have been thirteen and an orphan and sleeping in the rain because you're afraid to ask anyone for help in case it turns out you're a wanted murderer. What it's like to be terrified of even the nicest cops, terrified of being brought into the station because what if they fingerprint you, and what if they fingerprinted the burned car, and your fingerprints are on file, and they send you to prison?
He takes a deep breath. "If Nomi calls you again," he says, "please tell her hi from us. And tell her she's always welcome back here."
Amanita nods, and kisses him on the cheek. "I will," she says.
"Good."
***
note: Felix makes Lito and Wolfgang wear the two new jackets that night because he insists his old one is sufficient, even though Wolfgang knows it's really not. The next day Wolfie spends a bigger portion of the extra 200 bucks than he'd ever admit buying Felix the warmest jacket he can find.
Chapter 6: Wolfgang & Lito
In which Lito has a nightmare
Lito gets nightmares.
Of course he does, everyone on the streets does. Wolfgang does. Felix does.
But with Felix, Wolfgang always knows what to do ā how lightly to touch him, how softly to speak when he wakes up hyperventilating, choking, cowering away from people who aren't there. With Felix it's effortless.
With Lito, it'sā¦ it's different. Lito wakes up crying. He cries quietly, so quietly that Wolfgang is pretty sure Felix sleeps right through it. He cries like someone who doesn't want anyone to hear.
So Wolfgang lies in bed silently and listens, day after day, as Lito wakes up crying, scoots to the edge of the mattress, and sits there sniffling for an hour, his face in his hands and a blanket wrapped around his shoulders.
Until one day Lito doesn't just wake up crying. One day he wakes up sobbing, "Papa, no, please, no, Papa, I'm sorry."
Andā Well, Wolfgang knows all about shitty fathers. So this time, when Lito goes to sit on the edge of the mattress, Wolfgang does too.
***
For a while, neither of them speaks.
"I'm sorry," Lito says at last, with a miserable-sounding sniff. "I woke you up, didn't I?"
"No," Wolfgang says automatically. "Well, yes. But I wake up at everything." He glances at Lito, then carefully fixes his eyes on the boarded-up windows across the church. "Look," he says lightly. "I don't know if you want to talk about it or not, but if you doā¦" He clears his throat. "It could be helpful. Maybe."
Lito doesn't respond immediately. "No," is what he says eventually, "Iā I don't need to talk about it. It's really nothing. God, I'm so pathetic, always crying at my stupid dreams."
"Lots of people cry at dreams," Wolfgang shrugs.
"Do you?" asks Lito, in a voice that suggests he already knows the answer is no.
Wolfgang glances over, unsure how to explain that the only reason why he doesn't cry is because he can't, because once when he was nine his fucking father beat him half to death for crying like a little bitch and ever since then it's like his eyes just forgot how to make tears. "No," he says at last. "I don't."
"You see?" Lito lets out a watery sort of laugh. "You know, my dad would like you. He always said crying was for little girls."
Wolfgang feels his jaw clench.
"He wanted a son like you, not me," Lito goes on. "Someone tough and strong, you know? I was never like that. When I was a kid, I wanted to be an actor. My dad said acting was for fags." He gives Wolfgang a small, sad, lopsided smile. "Little did he know."
"Your dad sounds like a piece of shit," Wolfgang observes, but Lito shakes his head.
"He wasn't really that bad," he says. "Just very traditional andā" He shakes his head again. "My mom left when I was ten. We got pretty close after that. I used to tell him everything," he says, then laughs bitterly. "Well, everything except about being gay."
He looks away, swallows. Wolfgang waits.
"I kissed a boy at my school's Winter Formal dance," Lito says finally, in a small voice. "And then I thoughtā¦ well, that made it official somehow, you know? I felt like, I had to tell my dad. And I guess I hoped thatā¦ since I was his son, he might make an exception. Only he didn't. He kicked me out. Soā" Lito's voice breaks, and he exhales slowly. "Well, anyway, that's what I dream about. About him telling me not to come back, he doesn't want to see me ever again."
"Fucking bastard," Wolfgang mutters, as Lito scrubs at his face with his sleeve.
"See, now I'm crying again," Lito moans. "Fuck. Why can't I just turn it off?" He looks at Wolfgang, his eyelashes glistening with tears. "Can you teach me your secret?" he asks. He says it like he's joking, but Wolfgang knows he's not.
He takes a deep breath. "Sometimes," he says slowly, "I get this feeling in my body. Like, a tightness? In my chest and throat andā heart, it feels like." He makes a fist, presses it to his sternum. "And I knowā¦ that my body wants to cry." He can feel Lito's eyes on him, but he stares straight ahead, straight at the broken stained-glass windows. "But I can't," he concludes.
"Why not?" asks Lito, softly.
"Because my father was like yours," shrugs Wolfgang, still not meeting Lito's eye. "Said crying was for bitches."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"I'm sorry."
Wolfgang feels it then, the tightness, the unbearable feeling that somewhere deep inside him there are emotions that he's lost the ability to process.
Suddenly Lito starts to sob. "I'm sorry," he repeats, through tears, "I don'tā I don't know why I'm cryingā"
But Wolfgang knows, somehow, and Lito is crying for him.
And somewhere in his chest, the tightness lifts.
Chapter 7: Riley & Lito
In which Riley meets Lito
The chairs at the free women's clinic are hard and the waiting room is crowded and the form that Riley's been given to fill out makes her feel like the shittiest mother on earth.
It asks if she's been attending regular checkups with an OB/GYN, whether she's been gaining noticeable weight, whether she's been taking vitamins and supplements. No, no, no, she thinks, biting on her lip.
It asks for an address. An emergency contact. An employer. She has none of the above.
It asks about drug use, wants to know "Amt. per day - pre-pregnant" and "Amt. per day - pregnant" of tobacco, alcohol, and "illicit/recreational drugs." She imagines writing the truth, imagines the doctor reading the form and knowing what a piece of shit she is.
It asks about her baby's father's medical history, and strangely there's no option for I don't know, he raped me one night at a homeless shelter and I never saw him again.
"I'm sorry, I changed my mind," she tells the lady at the front desk, setting the clipboard down on the counter. It clatters against the linoleum and the woman looks up, startled. "Iā I forgot I have to be somewhere," Riley rambles, "I'm sorry, Iā"
"Are you alright?" asks the woman, and Riley just shakes her head, fighting back tears.
"Miss?" the woman prompts, but Riley doesn't answer. She rushes out the door, sprints through the parking lot, away, away, away, because no, she's not alrightā she's pregnant, and homeless, and so, so fucking scared.
***
She ends up at the public library and slips inside, breathing in the warm air.
She gets a piece of paper and a pencil from a librarian, ignores her disapproving gaze, and finds a seat at one of the free computers.
"Drug use during pregnancy" she googles. Ecstasy, she specifies. Then LSD, DMT, marijuana. The same words appear in the results again and again: "preterm labor" "small for gestational age" "miscarriage" "stillbirth" "increased risk."
So many increased risks.
She presses the tip of the pencil against her palm until it breaks the skin, then she opens a new Internet window. "how to have a healthy baby," she searches, and begins to make a list.
-folic acid supplements, she writes.
-vitamin d supplements
-prenatal vitamins
-lots of rest
-regular doctor visits
-don't eat raw food
-three meals a day, gain approx 30 lbs
She stares at the last one, wonders what a doctor would say if they knew that the last thing she ate was a McDonald's Happy Meal yesterday morning.
-no alcohol, caffeine, smoking, drugs, she adds at last.
She jabs her hand again with the pencil, and watches as it punctures the skin. She does it once more, and then again, and again, until her entire left palm is smarting in pain and covered in little bleeding pricks.
Then she logs off of the computer and leaves the library, her list tucked in one pocket of her jeans and her bleeding hand in the other.
***
On the corner outside the library is a boy about her age, his arms crossed, just casual enough to blend in but just sensual enough to stand out, his eyes roving over every man who walks by.
Riley's seen him before, she realizes: He used to hang out on the street across from the corner where she usually busks, but he hasn't been there in a few weeks, now that she thinks of it.
Suddenly, before she can look away, he meets her eye, and his entire face seems to come alive. "You!" he exclaims. "You're the girl who plays music!"
"Ohā Iā" Riley shrugs shyly, lifting her guitar case a little as if to prove her identity. "Yeah, that's me."
The boy lets out a laugh and practically skips over to her. "Sorry, you probably don't recognize me," he says, "but I used toā"
"No, no, I do." She smiles a little. "You'd always say hi to me when you passed."
"Yes, you remember! I've missed you!" The boy nods excitedly, and Riley has a strange feeling, like maybe, somehow, she's known him her whole life. "My name is Lito," he says, grinning, and Riley can't help but grin back.
"Mine's Riley."
***
They walk aimlessly down the sidewalk as night falls, their arms bumping into each other occasionally in a comfortable, familiar way.
"Have you heard of 'neural tube defects'?" she asks as they reach a stoplight.
"No," Lito says, "what are they?"
"I don't know. But I just learned they can happen to the baby if you don't take folic acid when you're pregnant."
"Folic acid?" Lito echoes. "Is that a medicine?"
"I guess. I don't know." Riley laughs hollowly. "To be honest, I don't really know shit about any of this pregnancy stuff." Her voice breaks, and she looks up at Lito.
His face, illuminated red by the stoplight, is etched with concern. "Hey, it's going to be alright," he asserts. "You hear me?" And god, he asks it so gently that it almost makes her cry.
She nods at him.
Lito smiles.
The light changes, and they start across the street.
***
"Want to sit?" Lito asks as they pass a CVS. "Is there anywhere you need to be, orā¦?"
Riley thinks of Jacks back at the squat, no doubt waiting up for her. "No," she says. "Nowhere to be."
Lito smiles. "Me neither."
So they sit down under a light outside the CVS, backs against the wall, Riley's "Pregnant, Homeless, Help if you can :)" sign propped against her shins, just in case.
"When's the baby due?" Lito asks, gesturing toward Riley's stomach.
"Oh, uh. August, I think. I did the math, and. Yeah." She rests her hand on the bump. "I think it's a girl."
"Really?"
"Yeah. It's just a feeling. But if it is I'm gonna name her Luna."
"That's a beautiful name," says Lito.
"Thank you."
"Are you excited?"
Riley opens her mouth to say yes, but all that comes out is a stifled sort of sob. Lito puts his hand on her knee. "I'm sorry," he says.
Instinctively, she rests her head on his shoulder, somehow knowing he won't mind her tears on his jacket. "No, it'sā I am excited," she sniffs. "But I'm justā¦ I don't know. Scared, that I won't be able to take care of her. Andā And I've been using," she admits in a whisper. "Like, a lot. And I know that's bad, and I knew it was bad, butā It just didn't seem real, and what ifā What ifā"
Wordlessly, Lito reaches for her hand, but she pulls it away before he can see how fucked up her palm is. He settles his fingers back down on her knee, frowning. "Shhh," he says softly. "You're okay. You're alright."
"What if I've hurt my baby?"
"I'm sure your baby is fine. All is not lost."
Riley desperately wants to believe him.
***
They part ways eventually, Lito heading back to the library to work and Riley going into the CVS. Because maybe Lito's right, she thinks. Maybe all's not lost. She'll quit the drugs. She'll buy the prenatal shit the Internet said she needs. Her baby will be okay. It will. It has to be.
She made $13.25 busking this morning before she went to the clinic, which isn't enough to buy prenatal vitamins.
But it is enough to buy a little bottle of folic acid supplements. So she does.
***
"Where the fuck you been?" Jacks demands the minute she steps foot in the squat they've been staying at. He grabs her by the arm and pulls her in for a kiss.
"Out," she says, wresting her arm from his grip.
Jacks raises an eyebrow. "Oh yeah?" he says, kissing her again. "Well what've you got to show for it?"
Shugs and Bambie are home, but they won't be any use to her if Jacks decides to go postal; they're huddled in the corner high off their asses and gone to the world.
So there's no point in stalling. With trembling fingers, Riley hands him the eight dollars and twenty-nine cents she has left. She looks away as he counts it, stares at the peeling paint on the walls and the cockroaches scuttling along the ground for what feels like an eternity.
"That it?" he says at last, like he can't quite believe it.
She nods, still not daring to look up.
"You fucking spent some, didn't you?"
"I didn't," she says. "Iā"
"Fucking look me in the eye and tell me that all you fucking made today was eight fucking dollars, you useless fucking bitch."
Riley lifts her eyes. "Iā that's all I made; Iā"
The smack across her face is so hard that she's sent stumbling back several feet.
"Jacks!" she cries, "I swear, I justā" But she's cut off as he wraps his hands around her throat.
"What. The fuck. Did you spend it on?" he snarls, shoving her against the wall.
Riley gasps for air, her eyes squeezed shut and her body gone limp.
"ANSWER ME!" roars Jacks.
"Medicine!" Riley whimpers at last, struggling to breathe. "Just some fucking medicine, Jesus, Jacks!"
"Idiot," he snorts. "What the fuck kind of medicine you need?" One hand still pressed against her neck, he shoves his fingers in the left pocket of her jacket, then the right, and pulls out the bottle of folic acid.
"Fo-licā¦ acidā¦ supplements," he sounds out. "What the fuck, man?"
"It's for the baby," Riley chokes. "Please."
Jacks laughs at her as he lets go of her throat. "Oh fuck that," he says, and before Riley can stop him, he's opened the bottle and dumped the pills on the ground.
"No!" she yelps, lunging forward, but he catches her by the shoulders, holds her at arm's length. He grinds the pills under his shoe.
"Riley, Riley, Riley," he says. "Oh, don't cry, come on. I'm just watching out for you." He trails a thumb down her cheek. "You know that baby's not good for you."
"Jacks, don't say that," she whispers. "It's my baby."
"No it's NOT!" he shouts, slamming her back against the wall. "It's some fucking rapist's baby and you don't owe it fucking shit!"
Roughly, he wipes at the tears streaming down her face. "God, I love you, Riles," he whispers. "I hate that you gotta carry that fucking thing inside you. I hate what it's doing to you. I hate seein' it make you cry all the damn time." He pinches her cheek, so hard it hurts. "And I don't want you spending a fucking cent on it, you hear me, Riley?"
She nods at him.
Jacks smiles.
They kiss.
***
(And they fuck too, later that night, but Riley isn't there for that, she's just watching, floating, far away from the crying pregnant girl getting fucked against the ground of some shitty squat beside a spilled bottle of folic acid supplements.
Riley isn't there, no, that's not her begging Jacks to stop. That's not her curled beside him, half-dressed and shivering and trying to fall asleep. Riley floats even farther away, away, away, back to Lito, back to the CVS, and his hand is on her knee and and her head is on his shoulder andā
And eventually she manages to sleep.)
Chapter 8: Capheus, Sun, & Wolfgang
In which Capheus and Sun save Wolfgang
Capheus knows a lot of things. He knows how to make money, waking up each morning before the sunrise and setting off in search of aluminum cans, pilfering through garbage and recycling bins and filling the bag that sits in the basket on the back of his bike. By 7 AM he's in line at the scrap metal recycling center, where he makes 55 cents for every pound of aluminum he brings in. He gets his money and buys his breakfast and then he's off again for another round of can collecting. There are always fewer to be found during the day, and more people around to tell him to fuck off and get a real job, but he usually manages to gather enough to buy another meal at least, and that's all he really needs.
Then it's night, and time to sleep, and Capheus knows every grate in the city, knows which ones are warmest, which ones are best if you don't want to be disturbed by police in the middle of the night. He knows just how to huddle into his sleeping bag to keep out the chill, knows where to place his head on his backpack so that it's most comfortable.
What he doesn't know is how to fall asleep without feeling overwhelmed by the desperate, crushing loneliness that he somehow manages to keep at bay during the daylight hours, how to fall asleep without thinking about his mother and father and sister and remembering how alone he is in the world and silently crying until sleep finds him at last.
***
Sun is sitting in front of the bakery this morning when Capheus steps out of it, a muffin in his hand.
They chat sometimes. Sun never really talks much, but there's something about her that Capheus is drawn to, something fragile and strong at the same time that fills his chest whenever he's with her, something like hope.
"Good morning," he says brightly.
Sun presses her lips together in an approximation of a smile. "Good morning."
He checks the lock on his bike, then sits down beside her, holding out the muffin. "Want it?" he asks.
Sun gives him a look. "I'm not taking your food."
"It's notā I already had one," lies Capheus. He's not quite sure why.
"You bought two?"
"Yeah, one for you," he smiles, pushing the muffin into Sun's hand.
She takes it gingerly. Peels back a bit of the paper. "Thank you," she says, frowning.
"No problem."
They sit in silence for a while.
"It's a beautiful day," says Capheus at last.
"It's cold," Sun counters, her mouth full of muffin.
Which is true; Capheus's ears feel like they're about to freeze off under his hood. But it's beautiful all the same, he thinks: the way the clouds are dancing through the sky in subtle gradations of gray, the way that leaves are starting to bud on the trees.
"Cold days can be beautiful," he says.
Sun glances over, licking her fingers. "I suppose," she replies. "Sometimes they can be."
***
At Capheus's third foster home, or maybe his fourth, there'd been a boy named Jela whose favorite game was something he called "truth and truth."
"It's like truth or dare," he'd tell anyone who would listen, "except you have to pick truth, and the person who asks the question has to answer too."
Capheus explains Jela's rules to Sun one day in April as they share a bag of French fries.
For a moment she just squints at him skeptically. Then, to his slight surprise, she shrugs and says, "Alright. Truth."
He thinks briefly, trying to come up with something neither invasive nor boring. "When's your birthday?" he settles on finally.
"August 8th."
Capheus nearly chokes on the fry he'd been eating. "You're joking," he says. "That's mine too!"
"Sure it is."
"No, I'm serious!" exclaims Capheus. "How wild is that?"
She gives him a long, steady look. "It is wild," she concedes.
"Maybe it's fate."
"Maybe it is."
***
They spend more time together after that, sharing money and food and an anecdote here and there, something Capheus's dad used to do, something Sun's mom used to say.
As the weeks go by they share other things too: tears, and secrets, and pieces of their histories ā the sad pieces, the hard pieces.
Sun's mother died of cancer. Her father committed suicide.
Capheus's father was shot. His mother died of AIDS. He and his sister got split up when they entered the system, because the only foster parents willing to take an HIV-positive baby didn't want to take her older brother too.
"Have you seen her?" asks Sun.
"Not since then."
"Do you wonder about her?"
"Every day."
"Yes, me too," Sun says haltingly.
Capheus glances over.
"My brother," she says with a small, sad smile. She doesn't explain, and Capheus doesn't ask, but they sleep side by side on the pavement that night, sleeping bag next to sleeping bag.
And for the first time in a long, long time, Capheus doesn't cry himself to sleep.
***
Capheus wakes to the sound of male voices floating over from around the corner. He sits up slightly, feeling his muscles tense as the sound of footsteps approaches.
"This seems like as good a place as any," a man is saying, and something about his tone gives Capheus goosebumps down his arms.
The footsteps stop.
"Okay, so what do you want?" asks a different, younger voice. "Blowjob? Handjob?"
"First," says the man's voice, "I want you to kneel down and close your eyesā¦ That's it, there we go. Good boy. Close your eyes, I said. Good."
Capheus turns to nudge Sun, only to find that she's already awake. She nods once, and puts a finger to her lips.
The man continues speaking. "My name is Dr. Metzger," he says. "And you need to do everything I tell you to do, no fighting, no complaining. Do you understand?"
There's a long pause. "Yes," the younger voice says finally. He sounds scared. Capheus feels scared.
"Excellent. Now, open your eyes. You see this knife?"
"Jesus fuckingā"
The sound of flesh slapping against flesh echoes down the street.
"Hush," says the man, "just look, don't talk." There's shuffling sound, and the man continues calmly:
"This knife is sharp enough to cut through human bone," he says. "I use it to cut through my patients' skulls and examine their brains. It's a beautiful thing, the human brain. Sometimes I wish I could have one to examine at home. One that I could truly pick apart."
Slowly, Sun sits up, leans forward a little, like she's getting ready to jump up and investigate. Capheus puts a hand on her arm. "Don't," he breathes. She shoots him a look, but stays in place.
Then there's a shuffling sound, andā
"You fuckingā psychopathā" grunts the younger voice.
"Settle down. Don't make meā"
Thud.
"Get off of me!"
"Stop struggling."
"Fucking Christ, what're youā No! Stop it!"
There's a scream of pain.
Sun's on her feet in an instant, and this time Capheus doesn't try to stop her.
Together they round the corner to find a teenage boy lying on his back, his arms pinned behind him and a dark-haired man bending over, knife in hand.
"Fucking let me go," shouts the boy, struggling to keep the knife away from his forehead.
"I'm a doctor," replies the man. "I know what I'm doing."
That's when Sun tackles him. Dazed, the man tries to stand back up, but Sun kicks him firmly in the chest.
"Put down the knife," she says, standing above him, her voice deadly quiet.
"This is very routine," the man coughs as he struggles to his knees. "I'm a certified neurosurgeon. Iā"
"Like fuck you are!" yells the boy, scrambling to his feet and lunging forward, but the man is too fast for him; he pushes the boy to the ground and dodges the punch Sun throws at his face. Unfazed, she grabs his arm, fighting to wrest the knife from his hand, but then he tackles her andā
Capheus knows he needs to do something to help, and he needs to do it now, but his feet won't move: He's frozen in place, unable to do anything but watch as Sun ducks away from the man's knife and somehow manages to seize it from him.
"Let go of me," she hisses, one arm holding the blade to the man's throat, the other twisted under his hand.
Then, almost before Capheus can register what's happening, the other boy emerges from the shadows and knocks the man in the head with a brick.
"Take that, you sick fuck," he yells as the man goes limp, collapsing onto the knife in Sun's hand. She cries out. Capheus darts forward and shoves the man's body off of her, letting him roll over onto the pavement like a rag doll, where he lays, eyes vacant and blood coursing from his throat.
Sun sits up, and the three of them blink at each other for a few moments with a mix of relief and horror.
Then they spring into action.
"No pulse," Sun proclaims, her blood-soaked hand on the man's wrist.
The other boy deftly searches his pockets. "Got his wallet," he announces after a few moments. "And a watch."
Capheus grabs the blood-covered knife. "Fingerprints," he says. He stares at it for a second ā it's deadly-sharp, just as the man said, like something a surgeon would use ā then wipes it off on the man's own shirt. "We take this with us. The brick too," he adds.
The other boy looks over at him, approvingly, perhaps admiringly, and picks back up the brick.
"Now what?" whispers Sun. She's breathing heavily. All of them are.
"Now," says the boy, "we get the fuck out of here." He stands up, then pauses. "You, uh. You guys have somewhere you can go?" he asks.
Capheus glances at Sun. "No," he admits. "Not really."
There's a moment of silence. Then the boy nods once and says, with sudden conviction, "Then come with me."
Chapter 9: Sun & Wolfgang
In which Sun and Wolfgang talk
Sun wakes up gasping for air, and it takes her a moment to orient herself, but then she remembers ā the man, the knife, the boy, the church.
She sits up in her sleeping bag, and her eyes land on the boy ā Wolfgang ā sitting at the other end of the building, cross-legged in front of the broken glass windows.
She rises silently, pulls on her beanie. "You can't sleep either?" she asks, joining him, hugging her knees to her chest.
"I slept during the day," says Wolfgang, which, Sun thinks, isn't quite an answer.
She looks around the dingy church interior, lit by slats of moonlight coming through the windows. She can make out the dark form of Capheus in his sleeping bag, in front of the mattress heaped with a nest of blankets. There's graffiti on the walls and rotting wood strewn in the corners, but it's quiet and enclosed and somehow manages to feel like a home.
"This place is nice," she tells him.
Wolfgang shoots her a skeptical glance, like he's not sure whether she's being sarcastic or not.
"I mean it," she says quietly. "It feelsā¦ safe."
Wolfgang gives her a long look, then nods. "You guys should stay," he offers, like it's nothing.
"Oh. I'll ask Capheus," is all Sun says, but she has a feeling that Wolfgang understands the mix of emotions swirling in her chest, the pride and wariness that have a way of tainting her gratitude and making it hard to know how to respond.
Neither of them speak for a moment.
"So. Bad dreams?" Wolfgang asks at last, shrewdly.
Their eyes meet.
"Yes."
"About what, that psycho doctor?"
"Iā" Sun glances at him, then back down at her knees. "My father committed suicide when I was twelve," she says numbly. "Carbon monoxide poisoning. He ran a hose from the exhaust into the car. I was the one who found him in the garage." She takes a deep, steadying breath. "I dream about it sometimes. About finding his body like that. Only just now it wasn't his body, it was Dr. Metzger's. He was covered in blood. And I looked down, and so was I. Then I woke up."
"That's definitely a shitty dream," Wolfgang says. Then, more softly, "You didn't kill him, you know."
Sun looks up.
"None of us did. I knocked him out and he fell on his own fucking knife."
"The knife was in my hand."
"He was trying to cut your fucking skull open; you don't need to feel guilty for grabbing his knife."
"Maybe not." Sun sighs. "But I do feel something."
Wolfgang looks away at that, shifts uncomfortably. "I don't."
"You weren't holding the knife."
"I killed my father."
Sun stares at him.
"I was thirteen," he intones. "I strangled him. Broke his neck. Then I put his body in a car and set it on fire." He glances at Sun. "Do you think I'm a monster?"
"No," she says softly. "But I'm guessing that your father was."
"He was," agrees Wolfgang. "But still."
There's a long, long stretch of silence, so long that Sun thinks maybe the conversation is over. Then Wolfgang clears his throat.
"Actually, I, uh. Used to dream about it too," he says. "About his eyes, right after I snapped his fucking neck. They were open, but they just looked soā dead, you know?"
Sun knows. Metzger's eyes were the same, wide open and lifeless. She nods.
"But those weren't the bad dreams. The bad dreams were the ones where he came back to life, while I was burning the car. He'd walk out of the flames and fucking get on top of me andā" He shakes his head. "I always woke up so fucking glad he was dead."
Sun nods slowly.
"But thenā" He shrugs. "When I think about the fact that I killed him, I justā I feel nothing."
"Sometimes," Sun says, lacing her fingers together, "when I feel nothing, I think it's because my heart wants to feel too many things. So my brain doesn't let it feel anything at all."
Wolfgang frowns at that.
"You're not a monster," she tells him, and he lowers his eyes, but he seems to unfurl a bit, to breathe a bit easier.
"Thanks," he mutters. "Andā" He looks up at her. "And thank you for before, too. With Metzger."
Sun nods. "Of course," she says. "Any time."
And she means it.
Chapter 10: Riley & Luna
In which Riley gives birth
"You know when you have that baby I'm gonna kill it in its fucking sleep," Jacks tells her one night as he shoots up.
The next day Riley leaves him and never goes back.
***
She walks and walks, across the city, backpack on her back and guitar case thudding against her leg. She can feel people's eyes on her, on her greasy hair and her bandaged wrist and her pregnant belly gaping out from her shirt. But she keeps her head down and walks until nightfall. Then she curls up on a park bench, her guitar case serving as a pillow, and falls asleep. It's the first decent sleep she's had in months.
***
She plays her guitar on street corners like she used to, only now she keeps what she makes instead of giving it to Jacks, and it's a strange feeling, to have money in her pockets, to not be reliant on him for food and a few bucks here and there.
She saves up until she can buy prenatal vitamins and folic acid supplements and a maternity dress that will actually fit her growing stomach. She starts getting enough to eat, or at least enough to forget what it's like to be constantly hungry.
It's late April when she feels her baby move for the first time.
She's twenty-four weeks pregnant and the trees are in bloom and for once Riley lets herself believe that maybe, just maybe, everything will be okay.
***
But everything is not okay.
The contractions start on a rainy May morning.
Only it can't be contractions, she tells herself. She's twenty-six weeks pregnant. It must just be crampsā just some sort of cramps.
She heads to her usual corner and plays until she can't, until the rain and the cramps are both too strong and she's hunched over her guitar gripping her abdomen in agony, attracting disturbed looks from passers-by.
Then she grits her teeth and packs up her guitar and stumbles off in search of somewhere to lie down, somewhere out of the rain to sleep off the cramps.
She finds a public bathroom, where at least she knows she'll be dry, and staggers inside. It's one room, with a urinal and a toilet and a changing table.
She shuts the door, locks it, sinks to her knees. There's feces smeared on the walls and clogging the toilet, and the ground is wet with something that's hopefully water but probably piss.
Sobbing, Riley crawls to the corner, curls up on the cleanest bit of tile she can find, and waits.
***
It isn't long before her water breaks. It trickles out between her legs, onto her already rain-drenched dress.
No, she thinks. Please. It's too early. It's too early for the baby to come.
She stares at the wet tile floor and tries to get her breathing under control, unable to think of anything except the litany of pregnancy complications she's read about. Then the contractions get stronger, and she's unable to think of anything except the pain.
She screams and screams for her dad, for Jacks, for someone, anyone. She screams for hours. But she's locked in a bathroom, and no one can hear. And if they could hearā who would care?
***
Luna is tiny and perfect and utterly, deathly still.
Robotically, Riley takes out the knife she keeps in her sock and cuts through the umbilical cord with shaking hands. The ground and her clothes are a mess of blood and afterbirth but all she can see is her babyā her precious, beautiful baby.
Somewhere inside her, Riley knows that something is very wrong, that the baby is too small, too purple, too silent. "Luna, please," she whimpers. She wipes the little face clean with the hem of her sleeve. "Are you cold? Areā Here." She pulls off her jacket and wraps it around the tiny naked body. "Luna," she breathes, cradling the bundle. "Sweetheart, come on. C'mon, open your eyes." She kisses her daughter's soft wrinkled forehead, her tiny delicate ears, her slightly-parted lips. "C'mon Luna. Please breathe. Please wake up. Please."
But Luna doesn't wake up.
Riley presses her to her chest and sobs.
***
She stands up numbly after a long, long time, a lifetime maybe, and sets the baby down on the changing table, still swaddled in her jacket.
She throws away the placenta in the trashcan and cleans the blood from the ground as best as she can with paper towels. Then she vomits into the noxious toilet until all that comes out is bile.
At last she rises and carefully picks up the bundle once more. "C'mon, Luna," she whispers, staring into the small empty face, running a thumb over the downy hair of her eyebrows. "Come on. Time to go, sweetheart."
She picks up her guitar, unlocks the bathroom door, and steps out onto the street.
***
It isn't raining anymore by the time she reaches the public library, and the sun is just starting to set. She nearly cries when she sees Lito leaning against the building.
"Lito," she calls, running toward him.
He grins at the sight. "Riley!" he says, pushing off from the wall, "It's been so long!"
Riley doesn't know what to say, so she just nods her head.
"How are you?" he asks, the beginnings of a frown on his face. "Are you alright? Are you crying?"
"I had the baby," Riley croaks.
"Oh!" Lito beams, and opens his mouth to say something more, but then Riley holds out Luna for him to see. He looks down at the purple face and something in his expression shifts.
"Riley," he says, glancing up at her with wide, frightened eyes. He touches her elbow. "Riley, come with me. I'mā I'm going to take you home."
***
They walk in silence, Lito carrying Riley's guitar case and Riley carrying Luna, until they reach an old church.
Lito pounds on the door. "Sun?" he calls. "Capheus?" There's a desperation in his voice that scares Riley.
"Litoā" she whispers, but he whirls around and places his hands on her shoulders.
"Don't worry," he says. "It's going to be okay."
Riley nods, and just then the door swings open to reveal a smiling boy. "What, you forgot how to pick the lock?" he teases. Then he seems to notice Riley. "Oh!" he says. "Hello, I'm Capheus," but Lito shakes his head and ushers Riley inside before she can respond.
"You stay there, Riley, alright?" he tells her. "Just stay there and I'll be back in a minute, I just need toā¦" He looks around helplessly. "It's going to be okay," he repeats at last, then he grabs Capheus by the arm and pulls him toward the far end of the church.
Riley sits down and waits, Luna clutched to her shoulder. She waits for a long time. She hears Lito's voice in the distance, but she can't make out any words.
When Lito and Capheus return to her there's a girl with them, an Asian girl in a red beanie who kneels down beside her.
"My name is Sun," she says.
"I'm Riley," says Riley, wiping her eyes. "Andā and this is Luna."
"May I see her?"
Riley angles her bundle toward Sun, who carefully peels back part of Riley's jacket to reveal the baby's face.
"She's beautiful," Sun says quietly.
"Yes," Riley sniffs. "She is."
"But, Riley," Sun goes on, even more softly than before, "you know that she can't stay here, right?"
And that's when Riley leaves her body.
She watches as a girl in dirty, blood-stained clothes sobs over the dead baby in her arms. It looks like her, like Riley, but it isn't, because Riley doesn't have a dead baby, Riley is floating somewhere above, looking down into the church, watching from afar as Sun takes this other girl, this not-Riley girl, into her arms and hugs her until she stops sobbing, until she nods and says in a strangled voice, "I know, I know I need toā to bury her."
Then the boy who opened the door, Capheus, approaches tentatively, and tells not-Riley something about a shed, and a shovel, and a graveyard.
Riley continues to watch the scene play out, watches as Capheus digs a shallow hole in the grass behind the church. Not-Riley is beside him, shivering, and the other two stand behind her, somber-faced. Sun has a hand on her shoulder.
Riley watches Lito lay a blanket in the hole, watches not-Riley set the dead baby on top of the blanket. Not-Riley doesn't say a word, just buries her face in her hands and criesā cries and cries and cries, andā
And Riley is crying too, and Lito takes her by the hand and leads her into the church so she doesn't have to watch them put dirt on top of Luna, because Luna is not the dead baby, can't be the dead babyā
"Shhhh," he says soothingly, guiding her toward a pile of blankets. "Lay down. That's it. Shh."
Her thighs are sticky and her clothes are soaked in rain and everything hurts so, so much.
"You're safe now," says Lito, covering her with a blanket, stroking her hair as she cries.
She cries till she has no tears left.
Chapter 11: Riley & Capheus
In which Riley recovers a little
Riley had met Jacks in early December, that time of year when stores turn Christmas-themed overnight and people who can afford gloves start to feel festive.
Riley, gloveless, had been playing her guitar in the snow with fingers so numb she couldn't feel them anymore when Jacks had sauntered up to her and introduced himself.
"What's your name, sweetheart?" he'd asked.
"Riley," she'd whispered.
"You look cold, Riley," he'd said. "Why don't you come home with me?"
She'd had nothing to lose. So she'd gone home with him.
He'd been living in a semi-decent apartment at the time, and it had seemed like heaven. He'd given her food and drugs and she'd felt warm and safe and alive, alive for the first time since the shelter.
And if she'd woken up in bed with him the next morning, naked, unable to quite remember how she'd gotten there, well. That part wasn't important, really, was it?
"You're lucky I'm the one that found you," he'd tell her sometimes, holding her close. "I reckon you'd've gone with anyone that offered you a place to stay. And there's some bad folks out on the streets, you know."
And Riley would nod dutifully, and Jacks would run his fingers over the scars on her arms and the swell of her stomach. "Say it," he'd whisper. "Say you're lucky to have me."
And she'd say, "I'm lucky to have you." For a long time, she'd been stupid enough to think it was true.
***
Jacks had always wanted something in returnā money, or sex, or obedience.
But Lito and his friends don't seem to want anything. They buy her new clothes and sit with her to make sure she eats and apparently don't mind that she keeps bleeding through the pads that they give her.
Maybe, she thinks, she actually did get lucky this time.
***
She hears them talking when they think she's sleeping: About how none of them know what she's been through or how she got pregnant or where she was living before Lito brought her here. About how maybe she should go to a clinic, because it's been five days and she's still bleeding and they're not sure whether that's normal. About how no, she's still traumatized and in denial; they need to give her time.
It scares her a little, to realize how much they care. So she doesn't let herself think about it. She doesn't let herself think about anything really, just sleeps and exists and sleeps some more, distant and empty and numb.
And mostly it's comfortable, the numbnessā a cocoon, soft and familiar, that makes everything bearable. But sometimesā¦ sometimes it's too much, sometimes it hangs around her so heavily that she feels like she's choking on it, suffocating in it.
So sometimes, when she's absolutely sure that everyone's asleep, she pulls out the small knife she keeps sheathed by her ankle and slices across the skin of her forearm, short, horizontal strokes, and imagines she's slicing the numbness. Sometimes she cuts deeper than she intends, and gasps in pain, and it's a relief.
When she's done, she wipes the blade on her blanket and puts the knife back in its sheath and pulls her sleeve down over the cuts and breathes, in and out, in and out, until she falls asleep.
***
"Riley," says a voice.
She jerks awake, grasping wildly at her blanket, glancing around in the darkness.
There's someone crouched beside her. Capheus, she thinks, as she begins to get her bearings.
"What's happening?" she gasps.
"Nothing," he says gently. "I think that you were having a nightmare. You were talking in your sleep."
Riley frowns.
"It's alright," he goes on. "I'm here, okay? Right here."
"Whatā what was I saying?" Riley asks.
Capheus shrugs. "I don't know," he says. Then he shrugs again, as though reconsidering. "You saidā¦ you knew it was your fault."
And all at once Riley's dream comes back to her in terrible, vivid detailā the harsh fluorescent lights, the smell of antiseptic.
"I was seeing a doctor," she says quietly. "In the dream. And he was asking me so many questions, about theā the baby, and thenā then he told me to leave. He said that it was all my fault, and I killed her." She sniffs. "And I knew he was right."
Capheus stares at her, eyes wide in the moonlight. "No. No, Riley," he says, "he wasn't right."
"Yes, he was," Riley sighs, her voice pained and desperate, tears spilling down her cheeks. "Iā I read about it. In the library. It said thatā that drug use increases the risk of s-stillbirth." She sniffs again, wiping her nose on the hem of her sweatshirt. "And when I was with Jacks, we used toā we did all kinds of shit, we'd be f-fucked up all the time, and I tried to stop, I tried, butā but I couldn't," she whispers. "Not till I left. Iā I wasn't strong enough."
"Riley," says Capheus. "It's okay. It's okay to not be strong all the time."
Riley draws a ragged breath. "Butā"
"Listen," Capheus says. "When people are sick, and then they get better, everyone says how strong they are. But what about the people who don't get better?" He's speaking slowly and carefully, as though trying very hard not to let emotion seep into his voice, and Riley guesses that this is something he has personal experience with. "Were they just weak?" he goes on. "Did they deserve to die? No. Of course not, of course they didn't."
"That's different," mumbles Riley.
"A bit different, yes," Capheus concedes. "But the point is that strength is not always possible. Sometimes, when a terrible thing happens to someone, they aren't strong enough to handle it, and that's alright. That's not their fault."
Riley opens her mouth to say something, but the words die in her throat.
"You haven't seen her grave, have you?" asks Capheus quietly.
She shakes her head.
"Do you want to?"
"Yes," she says, somewhat to her own surprise. She does.
***
The night is cold and clear and the grass is wet with dew. Riley sits on her heels, and Capheus crouches beside her.
There's no headstone for Luna, no marker at all, just a little patch of freshly-disturbed earth. She carefully runs her hand over the dirt.
"Sometimes it helps," says Capheus. "To visit. To say goodbye."
Riley smiles sadly. "Death doesn't let you say goodbye," she tells him, and silence falls, broken only by the sound of the wind in the trees.
"I think there's something wrong with me," she says, after a while.
"How so?"
"I wasn't there when you buried her."
"You were there for most of it."
"No I wasn't." Riley shakes her head. "I went away. Inā in my mind." She glances up at Capheus's kind, moonlit face. "Do you everā¦ do that?" she asks hesitantly. "Just, go away for a while? So whatever's happening doesn't seem real?" Don't talk about that shit; it makes you sound fucking psycho, Jacks used to tell her.
"I don'tā¦ think so?" Capheus says slowly.
Riley nods. Inhales. Exhales. "I was raped," she says then, staring down at the dew on the grass. "I was at a homeless shelter and this guy came into the bathroom andā"
"Riley," Capheus breathes, but Riley presses on.
"I barely remember it," she says. "It's like I wasn't even there. Like I actually left my body." She shrugs, then swallows thickly. "Do you think it sounds like I'm crazy?" she asks.
"I think it sounds like you're hurting."
"Oh."
Gently, Capheus rests his fingers on her shoulder blade. "Is this okay?" he asks. She nods.
His hand is warm as he rubs small, soothing circles on her back. They sit there quietly for a while. At last Riley speaks.
"Maybeā Maybe I will say goodbye," she says. She looks away from Capheus, upward, at the sky, at the moon. "Luna means moon, you know," she murmurs. "Iā I'd like to think she's up there. In the moon. Watching over me or something." It sounds stupid to say out loud, but Capheus just smiles.
"That's a lovely thought," he says.
Riley nods gratefully, blinking her eyes against rapidly-forming tears. Gently, oh so gently, she presses her hand against the soil that covers her daughter.
"Luna, sweetheart, Iā I love you," she says shakily. "And I miss you. And I'm so, so fucking sorry."
She takes a deep breath, kisses her fingers, and presses them to the dirt.
Goodbye.
Chapter 12: Riley & Kala
In which Riley meets Kala
The first time Riley leaves the church to busk after two weeks of recovery is a bright, crisp day in mid-May. The morning goes well ā by noon she's already made a decent amount of money, and no one has tried to give her a hard time. She's just about to put away her guitar so she can go get some lunch when when a nicely-dressed girl approaches her tentatively.
"That was beautiful," she says. "You have a beautiful voice."
"Oh," says Riley, looking up. "Thank you."
The girl smiles, and opens her mouth to say something else, but just then a boy jogs up to them.
"Kala, there you are," he grunts. "I didn't know where you went." His eyes land on Riley, and he frowns. "Who the fuck is this?" he demands, turning back to the girl. But he doesn't wait for an answer, just grabs the girl's arm. "Let's go," he says, and alarm bells begin to ring in Riley's head, because there's something about him ā his tone, his manner, his sneer, that reminds Riley of Jacks.
The girl glances at Riley, then at the boy, then nods obediently, and the pair of them leave without another word. Riley's eyes follow them down the block until they turn and enter a bookstore.
Then she pockets her earnings, packs up her guitar, and sets off in their wake.
***
It doesn't take her long to spot the girl standing alone near a shelf of books, her back to the door.
"Hey," says Riley softly, sidling up beside her.
The girl jumps, then smiles. "Oh! Hello again!" she exclaims.
"Yeah, hey," Riley repeats.
The girl nods toward the shelf in front of them. "Are you, uhā¦ a fan of teen romance?" she asks, her eyes on the placard labeling these books as such.
"What?" says Riley. "Oh. No. I mean, maybe. I don't know." She presses her lips together. "Actually, I just wanted to, uhā say thank you. Again. For the compliment."
"Oh! Of course!"
"My name is Riley."
"Kala." The girl's smile grows, and the flips a swath of long, dark hair over her shoulder. "It's nice to meet you."
"You too," Riley says. She pauses, then goes on, as nonchalantly as she can manage. "Hey, so that guy you were with. Is he your boyfriend?"
"Hmm? Oh, Rajan? Yes," the girl says shyly. "He's here for LSAT prep books but they don't have the ones he wanted, so he's speaking to the managerā¦" she goes on, staring at the floor. "He told me to wait here, soā well, actually he told me to wait at the front of the storeā" She frowns.
"He's very possessive of you," Riley says cautiously.
Kala just shrugs, seeming embarrassed. "He's just protective," she counters.
"So he's not, like, a dick? Orā¦?"
"I'm sorry?" Kala looks up, eyes wide.
Riley stands her ground. "Just, does he ever hurt you?" she asks. "Make you uncomfortable?"
"Rajan? No, never." The girl sounds shocked.
Riley nods slowly. "Iā hold on," she says, unzipping her backpack. She pulls out an old receipt ā prenatal vitamins, $13.95 ā and the pencil she took from the library all those months ago. Hastily, she flips over the receipt and scrawls the cross-streets of the church across the back.
"Listen, this might sound strange, but if you ever need to get away from him, orā or from anyone, or anything like that," she adds, "and you don't have somewhere to go, you can come here, okay?" she whispers, handing it to Kala.
The girl frowns down at the address. "I don't mean to be rude," she says, "but I don't think you'reā"
"It's a big building, you can't miss it," Riley presses on. "Just knock on the door, say Riley sent youā You'll be welcome any time, day or night, I promise."
"Alright, but why wouldā"
"Kala!" barks a voice. "What the fuck are you doing?"
Kala wheels around, shoving the paper in her back pocket. Her boyfriend is by her side in an instant, glowering down at her.
"Nothing, Rajan," she says meekly. "Just talking."
He puts a hand on her shoulder and throws Riley a disgusted glance. "Well come on," he says. "We're leaving. This store doesn't have anything I need." He gives her shoulder a little shake. "I told you not to move."
"I'm sorry," Kala mumbles.
Rajan nods once, then turns to face Riley. "And you leave us alone!" he snaps at her. "We haven't got any money for you, okay?"
"Rajanā¦" Kala moans. I'm sorry, she mouths to Riley, a horrified, apologetic look in her eyes.
Riley gives her an understanding smile.
"Come on," Rajan mutters, shooting Riley one last glare.
Then he tightens his grip on Kala's shoulder and steers her out of the store.
***
Riley tries her best not to worry about a girl she doesn't even know.
She worries anyway.
Chapter 13: Truth & truth
In which the kids play a game on a rainy day
Felix is pretty sure it's not supposed to rain in June, but here it is, raining anyway. He wakes up to the sound of it, pattering against the floor of the church, and to the feeling of dampness in the air. He isn't wet, exactlyā the mattress is in the back of the church, where the roof is still mostly intactā but he doesn't exactly feel dry either. He looks at his watchā 4:16 PM.
"Fucking rain," he mutters to Wolfgang, not bothering to check if he's awake. Wolfgang's always awake. "Think it's gonna last all night?"
No want wants to get a blowjob in the rain. Which means they don't work in the rain, which means no money, but also no having to suck anyone off, so.
"Mm," Wolfgang hums, shifting slightly under the blankets as thunder rumbles in the distance. "Probably, yeah."
Felix pulls one of the blankets up around his face and lets his breath warm his nose. It's so fucking cold. June has no right to be this cold.
"The others'll be back soon probably," he says. "They'll want to get out of the rain."
And right on cue, Capheus arrives, a bag of cans still hanging from his bike. "I'll turn them in tomorrow," he says, shedding his wet jacket and pulling a blanket around himself as he takes a seat by the mattress. "You guys working tonight?"
Wolfgang shakes his head. "Probably going out later to get something to eat," he says, sitting up.
But then Riley and Sun arrive home together, bearing three slightly-soggy bags of McDonald's.
"We brought dinner," Riley announces.
"Shit, I fucking love you guys," exclaims Felix, elbowing Lito awake as Sun begins to distribute the foodā a burger and fries for everyone, plus chicken nuggets to share, and cookies for dessert, and Felix honestly can't imagine a better meal.
The rain continues to hammer down as they eat, but they're safe and full and somewhat dry, and does life really get much better than that?
***
"It's called truth and truth."
They've finished their food and are now sitting back, surrounded by crumpled napkins and greasy burger wrappers, listening to Capheus explain the game he thinks they should play. "It's like truth or dare," he says, "but there's no dare; you have to pick truth. And when you ask someone a question, after they answer it, you have to answer too. So, for example, I would say, Riley, truth or dare? And then she would say truth."
"Truth," Riley echoes.
"And then I ask a question. Like, say, what is your favorite color?"
"Blue," says Riley.
"Now I answer too. Mine's yellow. And then it's my turn to say truth, and someone asks me a question. Truth."
"Favorite season," says Sun.
"Summer."
"Spring. Truth."
"Sun," says Capheus, "when's your birthday?"
Sun pauses, gives Capheus a look that Felix can't quite read. "August 8th," she says slowly.
And suddenly everyone in the room except Felix is saying "Me too!"
Then there's stunned silence, which Felix breaks petulantly. "Bullshit," he says, crossing his arms. "Whose idea was this? Wolfgang?" he guesses, since he knows Wolfgang's birthday actually is August 8th.
But Wolfgang shakes his head and shoots Capheus an accusatory glance.
"I swear," says Capheus, holding up his hands in a display of innocence, "my birthday is August 8th. And so is Sun's!"
"And mine," says Riley.
"And mine too," Lito says earnestly, staring around at the others. "Is this real? Were we really all born the same day?"
"No fucking fair," Felix whines. "My birthday's November 27th; how come I didn't get this memo?"
Wolfgang elbows him in the ribs. "You never get the memo," he says.
The others laugh.
Felix pouts.
"What does it mean?" asks Riley in a hushed, wondering voice.
"I think it means we're soulmates," Capheus says, smiling broadly. "My turn. Truth."
They go on for a while, asking favorite animals and foods and movies. First crush. Best subject in school.
"You guys are playing it so safe," Capheus laughs eventually. "Ask something more exciting. Askā Wolfgang, what's your biggest fear?"
There's a split-second of silence. Then: "My dad," Wolfgang says. Felix glances over, but Wolfgang doesn't meet his eye. Something shifts in the room; everyone seems to sit up a bit straighter.
"Oh." Capheus pauses. "I'm sorry; I didn'tā"
"Don't be," Wolfgang mutters uncomfortably. "He's dead. It's in the past. What's yours?"
"My biggestā¦ Well, I was going to say spiders," says Capheus, with an embarrassed sort of laugh. "Butā" He swallows, then continues more quietly. "I think my biggest fear is that my little sister might have died. Because sheā she was sick when she was born, and she went to a different foster home than me, and I don't know what happened to her," he explains. "And I like to imagine that she's having a good life somewhere, but then I thinkā I don't even know if she's still alive." He looks around at the rest of them, lips pressed together. "Soā¦ that's my biggest fear. Uh, truth."
"How long were in foster care?" asks Riley.
"Oh. Six years. Since I was nine," Capheus says. "And I ran away two years ago. You?"
"Four years," says Riley with a shrug. "Left last summer."
Capheus nods, and Riley says, "Truth."
"Where were you living?" Lito asks her. "Before you came here, I mean. You never told me."
Riley looks up at the ceiling. "With my boyfriend," she says. "Ex-boyfriend. But then I left."
"Was he theā"
"No," says Riley quickly. "That was someone else." Capheus, on the sleeping bag beside Riley's, puts a hand on her arm, and gives Lito a look.
The message is clear to Felixā stop talking about thisā and apparently to Lito too, because he nods and moves on. "Me, I was staying behind a dumpster in an alley," he says conspiratorially. "Thankfully only for one month. Then Felix found me."
"You're welcome," says Felix.
"Truth," Lito laughs.
"Where's your mom at?" asks Wolfgang curiously.
"My mom?"
"Yeah, you said she left when you were a kid," Wolfgang shrugs. "Where'd she go?"
"Oh," Lito says. He hesitates. "I don't know. Sheā she was in New York for a while. Then California. But then she stopped calling. I miss her very much." He looks up at Wolfgang. "Where is yours?"
My dad said she left us, Wolfgang had told Felix once, years ago. But he did something to her; I know he fucking did something to her.
What, Felix had whispered, horror-struck, like you think he killed her?
To which Wolfgang had shrugged, said, I don't know, but she wouldn't have fucking abandoned me like that, and looked up at Felix with such pained, desperate eyes that Felix hadn't had the heart to point out that moms abandon their kids all the time, because moms can be pieces of shit.
"I don't know either," is what Wolfgang tells Lito.
"Do you miss her?" Lito asks.
"Yes." Wolfgang sets his jaw. "Truth."
"Your favorite memory," Sun offers. "What you think of when you're sad."
"Swimming," Wolfgang responds immediately. "I used to swim all the time; there was this poolā I just always feltā safe. In the water."
Sun nods. "Mine is when my little brother was born," she says. "My father took me to visit him and my mother in the hospital. I'd never seen my parents so happy." She smiles, but the corners of her eyes are wet. "He was so little," she goes on. "I held his hand and kissed his head. I loved him so much." She pauses. "I still do."
"Where is he?" asks Capheus cautiously.
"I haven't seen him in five years." Sun says. She slaps away a tear. "My caseworkerā¦" she whispers, "she told meā told me that she had to think about permanency goals for him. Because people would want to adopt a four-year-old. But not a sibling group," she says, shaking her head, the same sad smile still on her face. "I hopeā I hope so much that he's with a nice family," she concludes.
"I'm sure he is," says Lito.
"My foster homesā¦ they were never nice," Sun says quietly. "But maybe he was luckier." Sun shrugs one shoulder. "Truth."
"Which was the worst?" asks Felix.
"The worst?"
"The worst foster home you had."
Sun frowns at him, then lowers her eyes, and Felix regrets the question.
"The one I ran away from," she says simply, running a hand along the fabric of her sleeping bag. She pulls out a loose thread by the zipper and flicks it away. "It was very bad. I don't want to talk about the details, if that's alright."
"Shit," Felix says. "No, I'm sorry, I shouldn't'veā I shouldn't've asked. You don't have to talk about it, fuck." He thinks of the Facchinis, how he didn't tell Wolfgang about them for years. "I ran away from mine too," he tells her. "The worst one, I mean. They wereā" He shakes his head. "They were real assholes. Truth."
"What's something no one here knows about you?" Riley asks. "Not even Wolfgang. If anything."
Felix glances at Wolfgang beside him. There's only one answer, he thinks. "Uhā okay," he says hesitantly. "Okay, I canā It's kinda fucked up, okay? But I, uh." He takes a deep breath. "I killed a puppy."
He can feel the others' eyes on him, can tell that they're holding their breaths. He stares into his lap. "It was my first foster home," he says. "They had this dog, right? This puppy. And one day one of the other kids thereā this little girl, probably like three or somethingā she colored all over the dog in marker. Like on the white parts of the fur, you know? And I saw, and I knew she was gonna get in so much fucking trouble if they saw, right?" He swallows. "Soā I thought I would give the dog a bath. Only I was like five; I didn't know how to give it a fucking bath; I just put it in the kitchen sink andā fuck," he mutters, glancing up for a split second, "I couldn't even reach the faucet without standing on a fucking chairā¦"
"What happened?" asks Wolfgang grimly, but Felix is sure he can already guess, sure that all of them can already guess.
He covers his face with his hands. "I started running water on him," he says. "And the sink filled up. And by the time I finishedā I don't know how it happened." He presses his fingers against his eyes, hard, and they come away wet. "He was just tiny little puppy," he whispers into his palms. "And I fucking drowned him."
"You were only a little boy," says Capheus.
"And it was an accident," Lito adds.
"What did they do," asks Sun, very quietly, "when they found out?"
Felix grimaces, not daring to look up at anyone's face. "They freaked out. Sent me back. It went down on my record as fucking animal cruelty; everyone thought I was a real messed-up kid." He laughs bitterly. "I guess I was. I guess I am."
"Felix, I'm so sorry," says Riley. "I'm so sorry that happened to you."
"No, it'sā fine," says Felix. "I just don't really tell people often. Or ever. I don't know." He rubs impatiently at his eyes. "Your turn."
Riley nods. "Alright," she says. Then again, more determinedly, "Alright." Wordlessly, she pushes up the sleeve of her sweatshirt and holds out her arm.
It's covered in scars. Down her forearm, onto her palm, the skin is corrugated, streaked with bumps, with lines, some healed, some not.
"I don't want to talk about it," she says, pulling the sleeve back down. "I just want you to know."
"If you ever do want to talkā" says Lito.
"I know," Riley whispers, wiping her hands across her face. "I know. Thank you." She clears her throat. "Truth?"
Sun is the one who speaks up. "What are you most proud of?" she asks softly.
"Still being here," Riley says after a moment. "Surviving. Being alive. Howā how about you?"
But Sun just shakes her head. "Nothing," she says faintly.
"Sun," says Riley, leaning forward slightly, "you should also be proud to be alive." She glances around. "We all should."
And she's right, Felix realizes. They should be proud. And he is proud. He honestly is.
And here, surrounded by the others, he's glad, too: He's glad to be alive.
It's a strange, unfamiliar feeling. But it's a good one, he thinks. Warm, and light, and good.
Chapter 14: Kala & Wolfgang
In which Kala meets Wolfgang
Kala isn't sure what she'd expected, when the girl at the bookstore had given her that address and said it was a big buildingā an apartment building maybe, or a large house. Certainly not an abandoned church. Her mind goes to drug deals and squatters and murder, all of which she associates with dark abandoned places.
But Riley had seemed nice.
Kala tries the door and it's locked. "Hello?" she calls out. It's earlyā just past 6 AM. Maybe no one's awake. She knocks lightly, hears something inside. Movement. She knocks a bit louder. "Is anybody there? Umā" She clears her throat. "Riley sent me?"
There's another sound then, the sound of metal rattling on the other side of the door. Then it opens, and Kala finds herself face to face with a blond teenage boy.
He's frowning at her, arms crossed and jaw set. "Riley sent you?" he repeats.
"Um. Yes, sheā" Kala holds out the paper she's been worrying between her fingers, the one with the church's address on it. "She gave this to me? It was about a month ago, actually, but she saidā she said I could come here, if I needed to?" She glances over the boy's shoulder into the interior of the church. "Isā is she here right now?"
"No. She's not," says the boy, taking the paper from her and peering down at it. He flips it over, still frowning. Then he looks up. "But uh. You can come in, if you want. Just, uhā Hereā" He holds out a hand, which Kala takes, and she steps up into the church. He looks her over for a moment, hand still clasped around hers as she stands on the threshold. Then:
"Sorry," he says hastily, letting go. "Uh. Yeah, justā¦ follow me."
He leads her to the back of the church, where a dirty mattress lies covered in blankets and surrounded by sleeping bags.
"You can put your bag anywhere, and just, uhā¦ sit anywhere. Yeah." He scratches his cheek. "What's your name?"
"Kala," says Kala, sitting down gingerly on the ground beside a sleeping bag. She keeps her duffle bag in her lap.
The boy sits too, on the edge of the mattress. "I'm Wolfgang," he says, his eyes trained on her as she glances around, taking in the scene: the high, open ceiling, the broken windows, the piles of timber heaped on the ground.
"So you live here?" she asks quietly.
"Yep."
"With Riley?"
Wolfgang nods. "And others too. There's six of us. Well, seven now, I guess," he adds. "Counting you."
Kala glances down at her duffle bag. Fiddles with the zipper. "Youā you'll want to know what happened, I expect?" she says softly. "Why I'm here?"
Wolfgang shrugs his shoulders. "I assume that you left whoever did that to your face," he says. "Don't really need to know the rest."
Kala reaches up reflexively to touch her cheek, winces as her fingers brush against what must by now be a bruise. "My boyfriend," she says softly.
Something blazes in Wolfgang's eyes, and Kala gives a nervous laugh. "It wasā he'd never hit me, before," she tells him. It feels important to her that this boy know that. "He was always very good to me."
"You don't have to explain," mutters the boy.
"But I want to," Kala says. "Heā he took me in when I left my mother's house. I was fifteen. I had no one. And he alwaysā wanted more. Than I did. But he never forced himself on me. Ever." She stares at Wolfgang, begging him to understand.
At last, very slowly, he nods. "But?" he prompts.
Kala sighs. "Last night, he said he'd waited long enough," she murmurs. "And I thoughtā Well, I owed him, didn't I?" She wipes in annoyance at her stinging eyes. "So I said yes. And he was so happy. But thenā I justā I couldn't do it," she whispers. "I started crying. I pushed him off of me."
"So he hit you."
"Yes." Kala looks away. "Thenā¦ he said I'd 'ruined the mood,' but that next timeā¦ He said next time he won't take no for an answer. So this morning, after he left for his internship, Iā I packed my bag andā" She stares down at her hands, blurry through her tears, unable to meet Wolfgang's eye. "It's just, he'd never done something like that," she says. "I thought he never would. I thought he wasā I told myselfā" she chokes out, but by now she's crying too hard to form any more words. She covers her face with her hands.
They sit like that for a long time, Kala crying into her fingers, Wolfgang looking pointedly away.
"I'm sorry," Kala says at last.
Wolfgang shakes his head. "Don't be," he mutters, which almost makes her start crying again.
"Thank you," she says as she rubs at her eyes. "Iā Riley promised I would be welcome here but Iā" She breathes in deeply, then exhales, trying to pull herself together. "I never thought I'd use the address," she admits finally. "Riley, she took me aside and said, 'If you need to get away from him, you're always welcome to stay with me, come any time day or night,' and I thought she was crazy. I thought, oh, I could never leave Rajan, he's never hurt me, he would never mistreat me." Kala sniffs wetly. "But I thinkā¦ I think that he had been mistreating me for years, and I just never realized. But Riley realized. She watched us for all of five minutes and somehowā" Kala shakes her head, finally looking up. "How could I have been so stupid?" she whispers.
The boy stares at her for a moment, then shrugs. "It's hard to leave," he says simply. "Doesn't make you stupid. Justā" He shrugs again. "Human. I guess."
Kala bites her lip, and Wolfgang smiles grimly.
"Thank you," whispers Kala, and she smiles grimly back.
Chapter 15: Felix & Kala
In which Felix talks to Kala
Felix is the one tasked with buying Kala a sleeping bag, so he does, except the only one they have at Goodwill is neon purple and patterned with unicorns.
"Sorry it looks like it's for a ten-year-old," he mutters as he hands it to her that night, but Kala just hugs him and looks like she wants to cry.
"Thank you," she says, and Felix shrugs and nods and looks at Wolfgang, who's staring at Kala like she hung the moon.
Felix smiles. "You're welcome."
***
Felix likes Kala. He likes her soft smile and the way she makes Wolfgang laugh and how she's always awake in the early morning, reading books he's sure he'd be too stupid to understand.
He asks her once, one morning, what she's reading. Lito and Wolfgang aren't back yet and the others are still asleep, but Kala is sitting up in her purple sleeping bag, a book in her lap, twirling a strand of hair around her finger.
"Oh, it's just, um. A book about chemistry," she tells him, sounding embarrassed. "I know that's terribly nerdy, isn't it? I justā"
"No," says Felix, "it's cool. Science and shit. That's cool."
"You like science?" asks Kala, her eyes lighting up.
"Well, not really," Felix admits. "Reminds me of school."
"I see," Kala says with a smile. "Not a fan of school then?"
"Nah," Felix laughs. "I dropped out in sixth grade and I don't miss it one fucking bit," he says.
"Sixth grade?" repeats Kala, her smile faltering. "Is thatā" She hesitates. "Is that whenā¦"
"I ran away from foster care, yeah." Felix plucks the book from her hands and begins to flip through it idly. "It's fine though. I told you, I don't miss it."
Kala looks unconvinced. Felix hands her back the book. "You like it though, huh?" he asks. "School."
"I do," says Kala softly.
"You think you'll go back in the fall?"
"I don't know. I hadn'tā I hadn't really thought about it." She pauses. "Doā¦ do none of you go to school?" she asks after a moment.
Felix shakes his head.
"It would be my senior year," Kala murmurs.
Felix doesn't know much about high school, but he knows it must be better than living in a shithole abandoned church and panhandling for money. For a moment he imagines an alternate Kala, laughing with friends, going to prom, applying to college.
"Kala," he says, "do you have aā¦ a family, or something?"
"I do," says Kala, but she doesn't elaborate, which Felix presumes is her way of saying they're a bunch of shitheads.
"Right," he sighs. "I justā I mean, the rest of our lives are kind of already fucked. But youā¦ yours isn't. You have, likeā a future."
"You think I'm too good to stay here or something?" Kala asks quietly, glancing away.
Yes, Felix thinks. "No," he says. "I want you to stay here; I just don't want you toā¦" He shakes his head. "Look, you're fucking smart. You should finish high school and go to college and cure cancer or some shit."
Kala stares down at the book in her hands.
"Kala?"
"I've never belonged anywhere," Kala mumbles, and fuck, she's crying. "Not at home, not at school, not with Rajan." She rubs her eyes. "But you guys b-bought me a sleeping bag. You let me stay. You make me feelā feel likeā"
"Like you belong," Felix mutters.
Kala nods, eyes shining with tears. "And like I'm part of a family," she says.
Felix nods too, because he understands. He understands wanting a family.
"And Felix," Kala says gently, "I still have a future. We all still have futures."
Felix raises his eyebrows. "My mom was a junkie who left me behind at a crackhouse when I was five," he says. "I'm pretty sure I never had a future."
Kala takes his hand in hers. "Having a sad past and a hard present does not mean you have no future," she replies. "As long as you're alive, you have a future."
Which isn't true, Felix knows.
But it's a nice thought.
Chapter 16: Will & Sara
In which Will makes a promise
Her name is Sara Patrell.
She's young, maybe fifteen, with blonde hair and hollow cheeks, and they're not friends, not exactly, but Will knows her name and she knows his and some nights they share blankets, so they're something.
"I'm quitting, you know," she tells him one June evening as they shoot up together. "I'm gonna get clean."
Will glances over, watching as she unties her arm and sits back against the wall.
"Right," he says.
"No, really," insists Sara. "That was it, my last hit ever, I swear to fucking god." Her head lolls toward him. "You should quit too," she says hazily, reaching out and grasping his arm. "You and me, we should do it together. I hearā" Her eyes drift shut. "I hear withdrawals are a real fucking bitch."
"Okay," Will shrugs. He doesn't mean it, but Sara smiles dreamily, clearly reassured.
"You promise?" she asks.
"Sure," says Will.
Sara's grip loosens and they both nod off to sleep.
***
When Will wakes up the next day, Sara's dead.
***
He shakes her body, calls her name, but she's cold to the touch and her mouth's full of vomit and he knows it's too late.
He has no money for a pay phone and no way in hell is he going to walk down to the police station, but he can't just leave her here to be found god knows when, by god knows who. He can't let her be carted off to the morgue as a fucking Jane Doe.
He thinks of his dad, who'd know what to do, but screw his dad. Then, inexplicably, he thinks of Jonas, with his pizza and business cards and well-meaning lectures.
There are treatment programs for kids like you, he'd told Will last time he'd visited Casa di Jonas. They can get you the help you need to get clean, to get off the streets.
Fuck you, Will had said, and vowed to never go back.
Only now he doesn't know where else to go.
***
The pizzeria isn't open yet, but Will pounds on the door anyway, until Jonas appears with a frown and lets him in.
"Please, you have to call the police," Will pants the moment the door is opened. "There's a girl, her name's Sara, you have to tell them, it wasn't my fault, I just woke up andā"
"Whoa, now, slow down," says Jonas, catching Will's arm as he stumbles inside. "Here's a chair, alright? Why don't you have a seat."
Will sits, breathing heavily, hands pressed against his face.
"Now what happened?" Jonas prompts. "Is someone hurt?"
"No," says Will, shaking his head frantically, "she's dead, she's fucking dead."
"You found a dead body?"
"No, Iā I mean yes, but I knew her; we used toā to, like, shoot dope together sometimes. Butā but when I woke upā" He takes a deep breath. "Oh my god," he moans, "she was just lying there, and covered inā in pukeā"
"So she overdosed," Jonas intuits somberly.
Will nods into his hands.
"On what?"
"Heroin," says Will. "She's inā in the alley behind BPOā the bar, you know? Andā¦ and I just left her there, but someone needs to get her, someone needs to know."
Jonas puts a hand on Will's shoulder. "I'll call the authorities," he says. "And I want you to stay here, alright? What's your name?"
"No!" gasps Will. "I can'tā I don'tā They'll arrest me."
"They won't."
"No, pleaseā" Will stands up so fast that the chair clangs to the ground behind him. He freezes.
"Okay. It's okay," says Jonas, his voice conciliatory as he bends down and rights the chair. "I'm not going to force you to stay. But I want you to have this, alright?" he adds, holding out a small card.
Will nods robotically and takes it, already knowing what it is. "Please, tell them her name is Sara Patrell," he says, shoving the card in the pocket of his jeans. "I don't know if she's got a family or anything, butā¦ I know that's her name."
"I'll tell them."
"Okay," whispers Will.
Jonas nods and pulls out his cell phone, which Will takes as his cue to leave.
He pushes open the door, breaks into a run, and runs until he can't, until his legs are on fire and he's gasping for air.
Then he stops, and staggers to his knees, and starts to cry.
Chapter 17: Sun & Kala & Will
In which Sun and Kala meet Will
It's near sunset when they see him, the boy curled up at the mouth of the alley.
It's Sun who sees him first. She doesn't stop, has no intention of stopping, but she does slow down enough to catch Kala's attention. And Kala, of course, stops.
"Do you think he's okay?" she asks in a hushed voice.
Probably not, Sun thinks, eyeing the obvious track marks clustered in the crook of the boy's splayed-out arm. "He's a junkie," she says stiffly. "He's fine. Let's go."
But Kala doesn't move, just keeps watching the boy. "He really doesn't look fine," she says with such simple earnestness that it makes Sun look again. And it's true, he doesn't look fine: He looks ill, and malnourished, with sunken cheeks and dark circles under his eyes, and he's drenched in sweat, his face a mask of pain.
But that's because he's dopesick, he needs a fix, and soon he'll get one, and what's it to them if he's miserable in the meantime?
"You can't help everyone," intones Sun.
"I know," Kala says, frowning slightly. But maybe we can help him, say her eyes.
And Sun finds she can't argue with those eyes.
***
The boy looks even worse up closeā his skin sallow, his lips cracked, his track marks red and inflamed.
Kala kneels beside him and reaches out tentatively to touch his elbow, but Sun hangs back slightly, ready to jump in should the boy prove violent.
"Excuse me," Kala says to him.
In an instant, the boy is struggling to sit up. "I don'tā¦ I don't want any trouble," he says hoarsely. He squints up at them. "Pleaseā¦"
"We don't want any trouble either," Kala assures him, glancing back at Sun. "We just want to see if you're alright."
The boy opens his mouth to say something, then closes it again, and suddenly he's leaning over and coughing up bile onto the asphalt. "Shit," he mutters, wiping his mouth, only to vomit some more on his hand.
Sun feels her fists unclench, her muscles relax. Whatever she'd been afraid that the boy would do now seems unlikelyā he barely seems coherent, much less dangerous or volatile. She crouches down next to Kala, rummaging in her backpack for the clump of napkins she took from Taco Bell this afternoon. "Here," she says, handing them to the boy.
He takes them and cleans his fingers carefully, not meeting her eye.
"Thanks."
"You're welcome," Sun tells him.
He slumps back to the ground, curls in on himself, and closes his eyes. "What do you want, anyway?" he asks in a small voice.
"We don't want anything," Kala says. "We were just worried about you." Kala pauses. "My name is Kala, and this is Sun. What's your name?"
"Will."
"Will," Kala repeats. "And Will, you're withdrawing from drugs, yes?" she probes, her tone soft.
The boy nods shakily, his eyes still shut in pain.
"I'm guessing an opioid, judging by your symptoms?" Kala continues. She glances at the track marks on his arm. "Heroin?"
"Noā I-I meanā yes, but I'm quitting," the boy says, a note of panic in his voice. "I promised. Iā it's been two daysā"
"Okay," says Kala soothingly. "That's alright. That's good. Have you been staying hydrated, drinking lots of water?"
"Water?"
"Yes, water."
"Do you have some?"
"No, I'm sorry," says Kala, "not with me. It'sā it's at home."
There's a pause. Then Kala looks over at Sun, eyes pleading.
Sun knows what she wants. She wants to bring Will back to the church. And there's a part of Sun, the smart and self-serving street kid part, that yearns to say no, because that's the safer answer, because volunteering to take care of a drug addict is a very bad idea.
But there was a girl, Soo-Jin, from Sun's last foster home, who used to say that Sun's heart was as soft as a baby bird. And it's that baby bird part of Sun that nods in acquiescence, that glows warm when Kala smiles and turns to the boy and says, "Will, if you come home with us, you can have some water there, alright? What do you say to that?"
"I'm thirsty," is what he says.
"I know," murmurs Kala. "Can you walk?"
"I don't know."
"Try, okay?"
Will grimaces, but nods. "Okay," he whispers.
And the answer is no, Will can't really walk. But he staggers along, holding onto Sun and Kala's arms so tightly for support that Sun's pretty sure he's cutting off her circulation. "I'm sorry," he says every time he has to stop to vomit on the ground.
"It's alright," they tell him.
And at last, as darkness starts to fall, they reach the church.
Chapter 18: Will & Riley
In which Will is miserable but Riley makes him less so
Will was sixteen when his dad caught him shooting up in the basement for the third time and gave him a choice: get clean or get out.
And Will had gotten out, gone to Diego's, talked Diego's mom into letting him stay.
There was a time when Will thought that rock bottom was sleeping on Diego's couch and skipping school to get high.
But at some point he'd started leaving needles and bottle caps everywhere and Diego's mom had sat him down and said she was worried about him, he needed help, he needed to call his dad. And Will hadn't wanted help. Hadn't wanted to call his fucking dad.
So he'd left.
There was a time when Will thought that rock bottom was eating out of trash cans, shooting up in alleyways, sleeping on the ground.
Then he'd decided that no, rock bottom was the first time he stole a bike and sold it to a chop shop for cash.
The first time he sold his mouth for cash.
The time he let a guy fuck him against a wall and leave him doubled over in pain with nothing to show for his trouble but a crumpled ten-dollar bill.
But Will knows better now. Rock bottom is none of those things: Rock bottom is detoxing from heroin. Rock bottom is being so dopesick he can't think straight, dopesick enough to let a couple of girls bring him back to their squat, a big abandoned church, then curling up in their blankets and barely even wondering who they are or what they're really after.
Rock bottom is shitting into the garbage bag they gave him to puke in, not caring who sees or hears. Will is beyond caring, beyond everything except enduring the pain wracking his body and the cravings wracking his mind.
It's not that Will's never tried to quit before. He has, of course he has. But he's never lasted forty-eight hours, never truly experienced the puking and the diarrhea and the feeling that every atom in his body is being ripped apart. He doesn't sleep, can't sleep, just lies there in the darkness listening to the others breathe.
Sometimes one of them comes and makes him drink Gatorade or take medicine. He does what they say. The Gatorade makes him throw up. Everything makes him throw up.
Someone tells him to sleep, and maybe this time he does, because suddenly it's light outside and there's a girl crouched beside him. She's stroking his hair.
He groans.
"Good morning," she says quietly, retracting her hand. "How are you?"
He's freezing and covered in sweat, everything hurts, and his head is pounding. "Bad," he mutters. "Where'sā Kala? Sunā"
"The others are working, but I'm here to take care of you, alright?" says the girl. "Do you remember me from last night? My name is Riley."
Will tries to nod but he's not sure he manages it. He shivers against the cold.
"You need another blanket?" the girl asks. "We have an extra; hereā"
Will wants to tell her no, he'll probably just puke on it, but she's already draping it over his back. "How's that?" she murmurs, touching his shoulder. Her hand is warm.
"Good."
"I'm glad." She trails her fingers down his arm. "Will?" she says softly.
"What?"
"It's hard to stay clean, you know."
Will opens his eyes.
"I never used heroin," she goes on, "but I, umā I used other stuff, for a while. And I still think about it, how easy it would be to go find some, to get high and justā you know. Feel happy." She pauses. "I justā anyway, it's not over once you quit."
Will shakes his head. "I'm done," he mumbles. "I promised. I fuckingā promised."
"Promised?" Riley prompts gently.
"Sara," croaks Will.
"Sara?"
And Will wants to tell her that Sara was his friend, if there's such thing as friends on the streets. That she was beautiful and clever and funny, that she loved cats and believed in ghosts and was scared of thunder. That he might be the only one who even misses her. That she was just a kid, too young to be turning tricks to survive and shooting dope to forget.
Too young to die.
But he doesn't tell her any of that, because for some reason the words come out as tears instead, and then he's crying, and Riley is saying everything's okay, shh, she's right here, just listen to her voice.
So he listens, and she talks about her favorite songs, and her mom and dad, and how she'd love to travel to England one day, or go back to Iceland, which she visited once as a little girl.
Will falls asleep to her description of the Northern Lights.
Chapter 19: Will & Felix
In which Will meets Felix
Will wakes up to the sound of people talking, hushed and indistinct at first, then louder, closer. He makes out the name Riley, and the name Kala, something about drugs, and finally a complete sentence, spoken decisively by an unfamiliar male voice:
"Wolfgang is not going to be happy about this."
"Why not?" says another voiceā Riley's, Will thinks. She sounds almost amused. He opens his eyes blearily, enough to make out two forms standing at his feet.
"Firstly," says the boy's voice, "he smells like shit. Secondly, how much money did you guys spend buying all this fucking Gatorade for him? And thirdly, what makes you think he's gonna stay clean? For all we know the second he feels better he's gonna fucking rob us blind or some shit and go get high."
"Oh for fuck's sake. Rob us?" repeats Riley. She's doesn't sound amused anymore, just exasperated.
"Yes!" cries the boy. "He's a fucking junkie! That's what junkies do, alright? You can't fucking trust them!"
"Well I've been a 'junkie', Felix," Riley says. "And I never robbed anyone, thank you very much. And I got clean and I've stayed clean and you're being really shitty right now."
"I'm just sayingā"
"Hey," Will groans at last.
In an instant, Riley is seated beside him. "Hey, you alright?" she asks. "You need anything?"
But Will's looking beyond her, to the boy standing a few feet away with his arms crossed.
"I'm notā¦ gonna rob you," he says. "But I don't blame youā¦ for thinking it."
"The fuck does that mean?" demands the boy.
It means he'd seen the bike that boy Capheus had parked by the door last night ā old and rusted, sure, but functional ā and he'd considered how much it would fetch him from the Old Man of Hoy. Fifteen dollars? Twenty?
And he'd watched how Kala had taken money out of a turquoise backpack before leaving to go shopping for him, and he'd wondered about that money, wondered how much was stashed there altogether, how much dope he could get from Whispers for it.
"Means Iā¦ thought about it," Will slurs, hating himself, Sara's face floating in his mind, "butā I madeā¦ a promise. To a girl. That I'd quit."
The boy looks unconvinced. "Yeah? Who's the girl?" he asks.
"Sara," Will says. Riley touches his hand, and Will closes his fingers around it instinctively. He takes a deep breath. "She wasā she died. Right next to me. OD'd. And the last thing I did wasā¦ promise herā¦ promiseā¦"
"Promise her you'd quit?" Riley supplies softly.
Will nods. "And I'm gonna fucking keep that promise," he says, mostly managing to keep his voice from trembling. Dimly, he notices how tightly he's squeezing Riley's hand, but he can't seem to let go. Even more dimly, he's aware of someone crying, or at least sniffling, and at first he thinks it's him.
But it's not. It's the boy. Felix. "I'm sorry," he says, wiping his eyes. He sits down by Riley, next to Will's knees, and stares into his lap. "I'm sorry she died; that must have been really fucking brutal; I didn't mean toā I didn't mean that stuff I said, I justā I'm sorryā"
Will shakes his head. "It's fine."
"Rileyā¦" says the boy, still not looking up.
"It's alright, Felix."
None of them speak for a moment.
Then Felix says, very quietly, "Um, my mom? She was a drug addict. So I'm kindaā¦ I don't know, justā She'd always say she was getting clean, and sometimes she'd even actually do it, but then shit would get bad or she'd find a new boyfriend or something and then she'd just go right back to the drugs."
"I didn't know that," Riley says softly.
"Well I've never told anyone before 'cept Wolfie and Kala," Felix mumbles. "And now you guys. Anyway. Just. I mean, if you do take our money, you'll be fucking sorry, okay?" he finishes, crossing his arms again, obviously trying to regain some sense dignity.
"Understood," Will nods obligingly.
"Good," says the boy. "I'm Felix."
"Will."
"Nice to meet you."
***
It's not long before another boy, Lito, shows up. He doesn't ask any questions except, "Is he okay?"
"He's detoxing," Riley tells him, and Lito frowns, kneels down, and touches Will's head.
"He feels feverish," he says.
"I know," Riley tells him. "We've been giving him Tylenol. And plenty of water. He's alright."
"You wake me up if you need anything, okay?" Lito instructs.
"I will," says Riley.
***
When Wolfgang arrives, Will tenses up, ready for another confrontation, but it soon becomes clear that Felix's claim that Wolfgang would 'not be happy' was mostly bullshit, because Wolfgang, once apprised of the situation, does little more than shrug, introduce himself, and flop down the mattress beside Lito.
Felix continues to hover around, and Riley makes Will keep drinking, and at some point he falls back asleep.
***
When he wakes up it's mid-afternoon and Riley's gone, but Felix is still there, seated beside him, playing idly with a bottle of Gatorade.
"I made Riley go to bed," he explains. "She was practically falling asleep. Said she'd been up half the night with you."
"Oh," says Will. He hadn't realized.
"How're you feeling?"
Will shrugs. "Okay. Better. Dunno."
"How bad do you want some heroin right now?" Felix asks, sounding genuinely curious.
Will shuts his eyes, unsure how to put the magnitude of want into words. "Have you ever wanted food so badly that you'd eat anything, like literally anything?"
"That bad, huh?"
"Worse," says Will.
"Were you using for, like, a long time?"
"Year and a half," Will sighs. It doesn't seem like long, he thinks. It doesn't seem fair that it's possible to fuck up your entire life in just a year and a half.
"You been on the streets since before then, orā¦?"
"No. My dad kicked me out," says Will. "'Cause of the heroin thing."
"That's fucked up."
"I deserved it."
"No you didn't." Felix frowns. "Parents are always abandoning their fucking kids. It's fucking bullshit."
"Maybe," says Will. He thinks of how his dad cried when he left. "I don't know."
He really does feel better than beforeā His muscles don't ache as bad, his head feels clearer, his nausea is gone.
"Want some water?" asks Felix, stifling a yawn. "Or Gatorade?"
Will drinks some water. "You should sleep," he says, handing back the bottle. "I'll be fine."
But Felix shrugs. "Not tired." He yawns again. "Plus, I was an asshole. So I owe you."
"You don't," murmurs Will, but he's already mostly asleep.
"Maybe not," says Felix. "But I want to stay, don't worry."
So Will doesn't. And he drifts off to sleep.
Chapter 20: Will & Wolfgang
In which Will and Wolfgang have a chat
It's been five days since Will's last hit, and the worst of the withdrawal symptoms seem to be gone.
He lies curled on the ground, sleeping in fits and bursts, never more than a couple hours at a time. Mostly he exists in a kind of exhausted stupor, his body tired beyond belief, while his brain, wide awake, screams for drugs, for death, for something.
The weight of the past settles in his stomach, spreads out into his heart and throat and lungs like some kind of toxic sludge.
He replays the last couple years in his mind's eye, sees himself as a junkie and a thief and a whore. He thinks of all the people who've had their way with him in back alleys. He can still feel their hands on his body. It makes him want to vomit.
It was easy, before, because he never used to care. He'd do whatever the fuck he had to do to make money and then he'd get high and that was that, no big deal.
Only now it feels like a very big deal.
***
The others come and go, and wake and sleep, and to distract himself, Will watches.
He memorizes the rhythm of their existence, the details of their lives: How Kala's duffle is full of books. How Sun hides food beneath her sleeping bag. How Riley goes out behind the church in the dead of night and stays there for hours. How Capheus leaves with his bike before dawn.
How the girls depart together a few hours later, just as Lito and Felix and Wolfgang return and go to sleep, jumbled together on the mattress. How sometimes Lito wakes up crying, or Wolfgang wakes up shaking, or Felix wakes up gasping for breath.
(Will turns away his face, tries not to eavesdrop as they comfort each other in low voices. It's okay, he hears anyway. You're okay. You're safe. He's dead. They're gone.)
How the three of them head out to work as the sun begins to set. How Capheus and Riley and Kala and Sun come back at dusk.
The rhythm repeats, and Will clings to it, and slowly but surely, another day passes.
***
He wakes up to the sound of a paper bag crunching down in front of his face, inhales the scent of food.
He looks up to find Wolfgang staring down at him, arms crossed.
"Eat," he says.
Will stares at the bag. It's McDonald's. "I'm not hungry," he mutters, which isn't exactly true. He's nowhere near as hungry as he probably should he, since he can't remember the last time he had something to eat, but there's a hollowness in his stomach that wasn't there yesterday.
"Yeah, that's what heroin does," says Wolfgang. "Suppresses appetite. You need to eat anyway. Kala says so." He toes the bag an inch closer to Will. "I told her I'd force-feed you this shit if I had to."
"Iā I feel bad when you guys spend money on me," Will mumbles, turning away his face. I don't want to eat, he thinks. I don't want to do exist.
"Too bad," says Wolfgang. "Come on. Get up." He crouches down and reaches into the bag. "What do you want," he asks, "burger or fries?"
"Iā" Will sighs in resignation, sitting up slightly. "Burger," he says.
Wolfgang hands him a burger. It's warm and the wrapper is greasy and his empty stomach leaps at the smell.
"Wolfgang," he says quietly.
"What?"
Will glances over at Wolfgang, who's staring at him stonily, then back down at the burger. "Do you ever hate yourself?" he asks.
"Sometimes, yeah," Wolfgang says. He shifts position slightly, so he's sitting cross-legged, and pulls a couple french fries out of the bag. "Why?"
"I hate myself so much right now," Will whispers. "I just keep thinkingā The things I did to make moneyā all the bikes I stole and pockets I picked andā" He closes his eyes. "I let people do fucking disgusting things to me. And I did disgusting things back."
"Sex isn't disgusting," says Wolfgang, popping a fry into his mouth.
"But it feels disgusting," says Will. "When I think about it."
"Don't think about it."
Will shakes his head. "I can't. I try and I just can't. I don't get how you do it, honestly," he admits softly. "How you can stand not being high all the time."
"Well I've never gotten high," shrugs Wolfgang. "Guess I don't know what I'm missing."
"Yeah, butā Doesn't it ever get to be too much?" Will hesitates, unsure how to explain the toxic sludge feeling in his chest, the desire to tear off his own skin and hose down his insides until he drowns. "Haven't you ever just wished you were dead or something?" he asks at last, quietly. "Like really wished it?"
Wolfgang goes still. "Yes," he says, eyes narrowed. "I have."
"So what do you do?" Will asks. "I meanā you're still alive, so obviouslyā¦" He lowers his eyes, holding onto the burger so tightly that he can feel it squishing under his fingers.
Wolfgang inhales deeply, then lets out a sigh. "Okay," he says. "Listen. I don't talk about this shit much, but I've been on the streets since I was thirteen. And at first things wereā¦" He pauses, eats a fry. "They were bad, okay? After a couple months I started thinking, what's the point of this? And I decided there was none. So I gave up. Just curled up in an alley and waited to die."
"What happened?" asks Will.
Wolfgang chuckles slightly. "I got hungry," he says. "So fucking hungry. My stomach had never hurt that bad before. It was all I could think about. And I realized thatā¦ my body, it wasn't gonna let me die without putting up a fight, you know? It still wanted to live. And after I realized that there was part of me that wanted to live, I justā¦ obeyed it. Like how an animal would. Don't starve, don't freeze, don't get killed, you know?" He shrugs. "That's how I made it through the winter. I had nothing to live for, I was fucking miserable, every single day I wanted to die. But I just focused on the part of me that was hungry and the part of me that was cold and the part of me that had to take a shit or whatever, because those were the parts of me that were still fighting. Eventually I met Felix andā¦ yeah. Things got better. But I know sometimes life is like a goddamn fight to the death. And sometimes you're fighting against your own self. But there's always a part of you that wants to keep going. You just have to find it."
Will peels back the wrapper of the burger. "I guessā maybe I am a little hungry," he mutters.
"See?" says Wolfgang. "Now eat up."
Will takes a bite. And another, and another. The burger settles comfortably in his stomach.
And for the first time in days, the present seems realer than the past.
Chapter 21: Riley & Sun
In which Riley talks to Sun
It's dawn, and Riley is outside by Luna's grave, and her arm is wet with blood. Time passes slowly. Birds are chirping.
She goes back inside.
The others, mercifully, are still asleep. She digs through the backpack where Wolfgang keeps first-aid supplies as quietly as she can.
She finds a roll of bandages easily enough, wrapped in plastic, but she can't seem to open it. Her hands feel too heavy to work properly, and her mind feels too foggy to think straight, too clouded with shame and self-loathing and sadness.
Maybe that's why she doesn't register the sound of footsteps until it's too late, until Sun is already knelt down beside her.
"Shit," Riley says, yanking her sleeve down to cover the cuts on her arm, though she knows that Sun already saw. "I'm sorry," she breathes. "I thought you were asleep, and I justā Shit. I'm really sorry."
"Why would you have to be sorry?" asks Sun, wide-eyed and frowning slightly.
"I don't know." Riley looks down and starts fumbling with the bandages again. Her fingers are shaking. She wants to cry.
"Here," offers Sun, leaning over and prying the roll from Riley's trembling hands. She tears the plastic open in one smooth motion and says, softly, "Let me help you. With your arm."
Riley stares at her, unsure what to say.
"Please," says Sun.
So Riley pushes up her sleeve.
Sun surveys Riley's arm, and Riley watches her face, waiting for her to turn away in disgust or something. She doesn't.
"Did you clean them yet?" she asks.
"No."
Sun rummages in the backpack and pulls out a bottle of Bactine and a package of Kleenex. She wipes the cuts clean. Then she starts to wrap them.
"I'm sorry," Riley says again, watching the bandage coil around her arm under Sun's deft hands.
"You don't need to be sorry."
"I know," mumbles Riley. "Just, my boyfriend, he'd alwaysā" She inhales sharply at the thought of Jacks. Most days she tries not to think of him. "He used to get mad. When he caught me doing it."
"I hate him," Sun asserts, eyes focused on her work.
"He overreacted a lot," Riley says quietly. "It's ironic, he'd get so upset about me hurting myself that he'd hurt me even more."
"I wish he were here right now," mutters Sun. "I'd break his arms and give him a concussion."
Riley smiles a little. "I guess he would deserve it," she says. But something in her fights against the statement, makes her clear her throat and add, "He wasn't always so horrible though. Sometimes he could be sweet. I meanā I wouldn't have stayed with him if he was, likeā¦ bad all the time." She's not entirely sure that's true, but it makes her feel better to say it, to believe that she'd chosen to be with Jacks out of something other than pure desperation.
"No one is bad all the time," Sun shrugs, winding the bandage around Riley's arm. "I still hate him."
Riley presses her lips together. "You know, the guy who got me pregnant, it wasn't my boyfriend." She's not sure why she says it, since she doesn't want to talk about this. Or maybe she does.
Sun stills for a moment, then continues wrapping. She's reached Riley's wrist now. "I know," she says. "You mentioned once."
When they played Truth and Truth, Riley recalls. She nods. "I wasn't sure if you remembered," she mumbles, picking at the hole in the knee of her jeans.
"I remembered."
Riley nods again, this time more to herself than to Sun. "I don't know if I said or not," she says, though she knows for a fact that she didn't, "but it wasn't really consensual."
Sun looks up. Riley looks away.
"That's when I started theā the cutting. After that." She stares down at Sun's fingers frozen around her bandaged arm. "But I know that I should stop," she says. "I know I need to stop. I promise I know."
Sun ties off the bandage and rips away the excess and takes Riley's uninjured hand in both of her own. "It's hard to stop," she tells her. "Even if you want to."
Guilt, hot and painful, coils in Riley's stomach. "Sun," she whispers. "I don't know if I want to." She hesitates, then continues: "Sometimes, I think about how I'm sure I could wake up any of you and tell you I want to hurt myself andā and you wouldn't let me. And that's why I never wake anyone up. Because I don't want to be stopped. I want to cut myself. It feels good." She twists the hem of her sweatshirt around her bandaged hand and chokes back a sob. "I know that sounds fucked up," she finishes, but Sun shakes her head.
"It doesn't," she says. They sit in silence for a moment. Then Sun speaks again, without any real inflection to her voice. "I used to do it too. Not cutting. But I used to punch walls. I punched them as hard as I could. The more it hurt, the better. My hands were always bruised. Sometimes they bled. That was best."
She meets Riley's eye for a moment, then shrugs and looks away. "Finally I punched a hole in the wall," she says. "I was sent to a different foster home. And there was a girl there named Min-Jung. We shared a room. When I tried to punch the wall it woke her up and she came and held my hands until I felt better. She did that every single night. Then one night, I didn't want to punch the wall anymore."
"So you stopped."
Sun nods.
"See, I don't think I'm like you," Riley admits, swallowing thickly. "I don't think I can just stop."
Sun rubs her thumb over Riley's knuckles. "You can," she says. "Maybe not yet. But you can."
"Maybe not yet," repeats Riley.
"Alright," says Sun. Then, softer, "That's alright." She sounds, Riley thinks, almost disappointed.
"I'm sorry," Riley whispers.
Sun hugs her.
Riley hugs her back, mostly with one arm, and cries.
Chapter 22: Nomi & Felix
In which Nomi returns
It's not until the church comes into view that Nomi starts to get scared, the adrenaline of her escape having worn off some and the reality of her situation beginning to sink in.
She's been waiting for this moment for weeks, but what if they don't live here anymore? What if they're out right now? What if they don't remember her? What if they don't want her to stay?
It's late June, mid-morning. She approaches the front door and stands there for a few moments in the church's shadow, her heart pounding. Then she knocks loudly three times.
"Hello? Wolfgang? Felix? Are you there?" she calls. "It's umā it's me? Nomi?"
Probably only a couple of seconds pass, but it feels like an eternity. Should she knock again? Should she leave?
But just then the door swings open, and there's Wolfgang, gaping at her.
"Oh my god," she breathes, lunging forward to hug him. He stiffens at first under her arms, then relaxes.
"Nomi, you're okay," he says softly. "We were worried about you."
"Oh my god," she repeats into his shoulder. "Yes, I'm okay; I'mā" She's crying now. "I got back from school two weeks ago and my parents have literally been keeping me locked in my room; it was like a Rapunzel situation; Iā my little sister helped me escape todayā" She gives a watery laugh. "God, I'm justā I'm so happy to be hereā"
By now Felix has come up behind Wolfgang, along with a dark-haired boy Nomi doesn't know.
"Felix," she cries, letting go of Wolfgang and hugging him too. "It's so good to see you."
"You too," he says, hugging her back. "And this is Litoā"
Nomi turns to the third boy. "Oh right! Amanita said there was someone else," she says brightly. "I'm Nomi; it's nice to meet you, Lito."
The other boy smiles.
"And it's not just him anymore either," says Felix. "There's like a million of us now."
Before Nomi can respond, Wolfgang speaks up. "Are you hungry?" he asks. "Tired?"
"I am kind of exhausted," Nomi admits. "I got like no sleep last night; I was so nervous about todayā¦"
"Good, you can sleep in Sun's sleeping bag," Wolfgang says with a nod. "We'll be sleeping too." He stares at her for a few moments, like he can't quite believe she's really there.
Well, she can't quite believe it either.
Then he says, "C'mon."
She wipes her eyes and follows them to the back of the church.
***
"That's Sun's," Wolfgang tells her, pointing to a scruffy navy blue sleeping bag.
Nomi slips inside. It smells like cigarettes, but she doesn't mind. Anything is better than home.
"We'll talk more tonight," Wolfgang tells her, yawning, as the boys flop onto the mattress she slept on last time she was here.
Nomi nods.
"Sleep tight," says Felix.
"You too," says Nomi, nestling down in the sleeping bag.
But sleep won't come. She wants to sleep, and her eyes are tired, but her mind is racing, bursting with a million questions and fears.
She lies there for maybe an hour before she accepts defeat.
Then she sits up.
"Felix," she whispers. She prods him in the shoulder.
"Huh?" he mumbles, rolling over to look at her. "You okay?"
"I, um. I have a question," says Nomi.
Felix rubs a hand over his face. "Sure, what is it?"
"Okay," Nomi says, "sorry if this is weird, but I can't stop thinking about it, soā¦" She lowers her eyes. "Do they make you get naked? Like, when you'reā" She hesitates. "āworking?"
Felix frowns for a fraction of a second. "Sometimes," he shrugs, then lifts an eyebrow. "They have to pay more for that though. Why?"
"Because." Nomi pulls the sleeping bag up to her mouth, and says, in a small voice, "I think I can do itā like, the sex part. I really do. I just don't want to get naked. That would just beā¦" She wonders how to describe the dysphoria that she knows would overwhelm her if she had to have sex with countless strangers while naked. "It would make me uncomfortable," she says at last.
Felix squints at her. "Wait, who are you planning to have sex with?"
"Iā I don't know," Nomi mumbles, embarrassed. "Whoever, likeā usually wants to have sex with you guys, I guessā¦"
Felix blinks at her questioningly for a moment. Then his eyes widen. "Nomi," he says. "Jesus Christ. You know you don't have to be a fucking prostitute, right?"
"I don't?" Nomi whispers.
"No! Did you thinkā holy shit. We would never make you do that. Fuck, there's lots of other ways to make money."
"Like what?" asks Nomi, suddenly feeling very stupid.
"Like panhandling or something," says Felix. "You can go out with Sun and Kala. Just sit on the sidewalk and hold a sign asking for money."
"Oh." Nomi's cheeks are burning. "I just thoughtā since you guys do itā" She frowns. "Why don't you panhandle too?"
"Iā I don't know," mutters Felix. "It's complicated."
"Oh."
Felix sighs and runs his hand through his hair. "I guess," he says, "when it comes to panhandlingā¦ old men, people feel bad for. Women, girls, people feel bad for. Anyone with a baby or a dog, people feel bad for. Guys like me and Wolfgang? People are either scared of us or they want to fuck us. They aren't gonna give us money for free."
Nomi's stomach clenches. "What if people are scared of me too?" she asks, suddenly panicked. "What if they don't know I'm a girl? Felixā"
Felix sits up on the mattress. "Listen to me, Nomi," he says firmly. "Don't worry, okay? It's gonna be fine. You'll be with Sun and Kala. They'll show you the ropes. Alright?"
Nomi nods. "Alright," she squeaks.
"Just try and get some rest," Felix tells her.
"Okay," says Nomi, nodding again, and Felix smiles wearily before rolling back over, into Wolfgang's side.
Nomi closes her eyes, and her mind is still buzzing, but Felix said it was gonna be fine, and she trusts him. She really does.
And soon enough, she falls asleep.
Chapter 23: Nomi & the cluster
In which Nomi finds her place
Nomi wakes up in the late afternoon. She looks over to find Lito sitting on the mattress, flipping through a book, frowning.
"Hey," she says.
Lito looks up with a start. "You're awake," he says.
"Mostly," yawns Nomi, sitting up. "Where'd everyone go?"
"Felix and Wolfgang left to go work. But we didn't want you to wake up alone so I volunteered to stay back," Lito says. "I thought it would be fun to become acquainted, no? And also we need to go buy you your own sleeping bag."
"Oh." Nomi nods. "Okay, yeah. Thanks."
Lito smiles and closes the book. Advanced Placement Biology, Nomi reads on the cover. It's a test prep book. "Are you in AP Bio?" she asks.
"Oh, definitely not," laughs Lito. "This book isn't mine. It belongs to a girl named Kala who lives here." He sets it down on a purple sleeping bag.
"How many are there now? Who live here?" Nomi asks.
"There's me, Wolfgang, Felix," says Lito, counting on his fingers, "then Capheus and Will, Kala and Sun, Rileyā¦ so nine, including you."
Nomi nods slowly. "And all of you areā homeless?"
Lito raises his eyebrows.
"I'm sorry," Nomi says hastily. "That was a stupid questionā"
"It's fine," laughs Lito. "We are all homeless, yes."
Nomi glances upward at the afternoon sky peeking through the church's gaping roof. "I guess I am too, now, huh?" she says after a moment. "Homeless."
"I guess you are," replies Lito. "But hey," he adds, and Nomi looks at him. Lito smiles. "You have us."
***
He asks about Amanita as they walk to Goodwill.
"She's in college," Nomi tells him stiffly. "In California. She's taking summer classes."
"Does she know you left home?"
"Yes," says Nomi. She glances at Lito. "Sheā she didn't want me to come back to you guys. She wanted me to stay with her mom. But I couldn't. Becauseā Well, like, my parents will definitely report me missing, and her mom's a police officer, and I'm sure it's against the law to, likeā¦ harbor a missing child. I couldn't just force her to hide me like I'm a fugitive or something."
"I understand," Lito says.
"I feel bad," Nomi mumbles. "I love Amanita. And I know she's worried about me. I feel bad putting her in this position."
"I'm sure Amanita will understand," says Lito. "You have to do what you have to do. And anyway, she doesn't need to worry." He nudges her in the arm. "We'll take care of you."
Nomi smiles. "I know."
***
The sleeping bag they buy is forest-green. Lito pays for it, and they're about to leave the store when suddenly Nomi pauses beside a rack marked "Shirts - Women."
"You alright?" Lito asks.
"Yeah, I justā¦ Nothing," says Nomi. "It's nothing."
"Are you sure? I think it's something," Lito wheedles.
Nomi sighs. "It's just, someday I'd like to buy new clothes for myself. Likeā¦ girls' clothes." She glances down at the jeans and t-shirt she's currently wearing. "These are clothes my parents made me wear," she says. "I kind of hate them."
"Oh," says Lito quietly. "I see." Then, with conviction, "You should get new clothes," he tells her. "Right now. I brought enough money."
"What? No, it's your money, I don't want toā"
"It's money from the stash we all contribute to. For emergencies," Lito corrects her, as though that makes everything better.
"This isn't an emergency," Nomi says uncomfortably.
"If it's important to you then it's an emergency," Lito tells her.
Nomi gives him a look. "My clothes are perfectly good," she says. "You shouldn't waste emergency money buying me more. It's fine. Really. I'm just being stupid."
Lito frowns deeply. "Let me tell you a story," he says. "When Felix found me I only had one flip flop on."
"One?"
"Just one, yes. So of course he and Wolfgang said I needed new shoes. And I told them no, the other flip flop was back in an alley and I'd be able to find it. And I remember what Felix said: He looked me in straight the eye, and he said, 'You're a fucking idiot if you think we're about to let you go back to work in fucking flip flops.' And you know what they did? They took out money from the emergency stash and bought me brand new shoes." He lifts his foot slightly. "Nice shoes, no? I told them they shouldn't have spent so much money on me and they acted like I was crazy!"
Nomi smiles slightly, glancing over at the rack of women's clothes.
"Are you sure?" she asks.
"I'm positive," he says. "Go for it."
So she does.
She picks out a pair of dark skinny jeans, a plaid blouse, and a fleece-lined red jacket. She wears them out of the store, tags and all, and throws her old clothes in the first dumpster they pass. It feels damn good.
It feels like freedom.
***
Nomi learns a lot over the couple weeks.
She learns to accept the shame that comes with begging, learns not to avert her eyes from people's faces when they look at her with pity, but rather to gaze at them as sadly as possible, because those are the people who'll put money in her cup.
She misses daily showers, because hand soap and paper towels in public bathrooms just don't quite do the trick. After a week her skin feels almost sticky with built-up grime, and her hair hangs lank and greasy no matter how many sinks she washes it in. But she learns to live with it, gets used to feeling dirty all the time.
She learns to be grateful for fast food, which is cheap and warm and better than nothing, even if it does get slightly nauseating when eaten for every meal.
She learns about the others, too. She doesn't ask about their pasts, and they don't ask about hers, but things come up.
Wolfgang returns home one morning with a sprained wrist and says it's nothing, he'll be fine, his dad used to break his bones.
Felix laughs about the burns he has on his hands from trying to use the stove when he was four and hungry and his mom wasn't home.
Sun mentions that her foster father used to lock her in the bathroom overnight for starting fights at school. "There are worse punishments," she shrugs, like it's no big deal, and Nomi's stomach drops.
Kala talks about the time her mother kicked her sister out of the house for the night, then flushed her cell phone down the toilet the next day for "staying out late."
(Nomi shares things about own parents sometimes, when she's out with Kala and Sun. She tells them about how they cut off her hair when she came home after running away, how they shipped her off to a school where she didn't belong, how they called her the wrong name and used the wrong pronouns and never said I love you.
Kala and Sun listen, and for once, Nomi feels truly heard.)
***
It's been two weeks since she ran away, and it's not that she wants to go home (because she doesn't, she wouldn't, not for all the money in the world).
It's just that it's colder tonight than it has been the past few days, and she misses her house. Misses her pajamas, her pillow, her bed. It's silly, she thinks, to crave such superficial things. She knows, knows, that she's lucky to have a safe place to sleep and food in her stomach and clothes on her back, knows it could be so much worse.
But still.
She flips over in her sleeping bag and adjusts her arms under her head. Her hands are cold. She tries not to care.
She tries to be like the others, who never seem bothered by stupid things like cold hands and a lack of pillows.
It doesn't work, and suddenly she's crying.
She turns onto her stomach, pressing her hands to her face to muffle the noise of her sobs.
"Nomi?" whispers someone. Will.
Nomi sniffles.
"Hey, what's wrong?" Will asks softly. She hears him sit up. "Something happen?"
"No," Nomi mumbles into her hands. "I don't know. I'm sorry. I can't sleep." She's crying in earnest now, probably loud enough to wake the others, but she can't seem to stop. "I'm sorry," she repeats. "I'mā I'm just scared. And uncomfortable. And I don't like b-being homeless," she chokes out through sobs.
"Hey. It's okay." Will scoots closer to her. "No one likes being homeless," he says gently.
"No, I know, of course, I don't know why I said that. I don't know why I'm being so weird," says Nomi.
The others are stirring now, sitting up; she can make out their silhouettes in the darkness. What's happening, someone asks. Who's crying? Nomi? What's the matter, what is it?
"Sometimes I just feel like an intruder," she confesses quietly, speaking more to herself than to any of the others. "Like you guys all know what you're doing and I'm just a burden who showed up and now you have to like, take care of me, because I'm so useless andā"
"Nomi," says Kala. "You are not a burden. And you are not an intruder. Please never feel like that."
"Technically you were here before any of us," Riley points out.
"And we all take care of each other, not just you," says Sun. "We all need each other."
Nomi wipes her eyes, the knot in her chest beginning to loosen. She draws a shuddering breath. "I'm sorry for waking you guys up; I didn't mean to start crying, I justā"
"Nomi. Don't apologize," says Capheus. Then, after a moment's pause: "Let me ask you something," he says. "When is your birthday?"
"Iā my birthday? August 8th," sniffles Nomi, bewildered.
"Shit," says Will.
"Incredible," whispers Kala.
"Wait, what? Why?" Nomi asks.
"Would you believe me," Capheus says, "if I told you that we were all born on August 8th too?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that we all have the same birthday," he says. "You, me, Will, Kala, Sun, Riley, Lito, Wolfgang. Everyone but Felix."
Felix snorts.
"You're joking," says Nomi.
"I am not."
Nomi just sits there for a moment, half expecting them all to burst out laughing and tell her they're just joking. They don't. She frowns. She's heard of the birthday paradox, but she wonders what the chances are that eight strangers would meet each other and end up being born on the same day. "That'sā¦ that's kind of creepy, don't you think?" she says at last, unsure how else to describe it.
"It is, a bit," laughs Riley. "But I think it's beautiful, too. Like we were meant to find each other."
"I agree," says Capheus warmly. "It is a beautiful thing. We belong together, all of us."
And Nomi nods in the darkness, suddenly choked up. She digs the heels of her palms into her eyes and all she can say is, "Thank you."
"Of course," Riley tells her.
"Any time," says Will.
"You're okay?" asks Capheus.
Nomi smiles. "I'm okay."
And she is.
Chapter 24: The cluster & Will / Riley & Sun
In which Will reaches a milestone, and later Riley does too
When Will is one month clean, they celebrate.
Riley buys a tub of ice cream, one of those plastic gallon containers. She gets the flavor "birthday cake," since that seems the most celebratory of the grocery store's options.
She buys a card too, which they all sign, and Sun decorates the outside of the envelope with little Sharpie doodles of a moon, a river, stars, a sun, a tree.
When Will arrives back at the church with Capheus, he's welcomed by a barrage of hugs and congratulations.
"You guys didn't have to do this," he mumbles as Riley pushes the card into his hands. "It's only been a month."
"A month is a long time," says Riley firmly.
So Will opens the card and wipes his eyes and thanks them profusely. Then Riley presents the tub of ice cream, and the nine of them sit down around the container and dig in with plastic spoons.
"So how does it feel?" Kala asks. "To be a month clean?"
"Good," says Will. Then he shrugs. "Weird." He scoops up some ice cream.
"Weird how?" asks Nomi.
Will looks down. "I guessā¦ I don't really trust myself enough to feel like I really quit," he tells his spoonful of ice cream. "Like what if I fuck up and start using again?"
"Then you start over," says Riley. "It's not the end of the world. You quit once, you can quit again. And if that happens, you know that we'll be here for you. But for what it's worth," she adds, "I don't think it'll happen."
Will glances over at her. "Thanks," he mutters. Then he lowers his eyes again and says, softly, "Also, I've uh. I've been thinking about my dad."
"What happened to him?" asks Lito cautiously.
"Nothing," says Will. "Iā When I first started using, he told me I could choose to either quit heroin or get out of his house. I chose heroin, soā¦"
Lito frowns. "He kicked you out?"
Will nods.
"Mine too," says Lito. "My dad. He kicked me out too."
Will's head snaps up. "What for?"
"Being gay," Lito shrugs.
"Damn. Would you ever go back?" Will asks, after a moment. "If you could?"
Lito licks his spoon and shrugs again. "I don't think so," he says. "Why, would you?"
Will shifts uncomfortably. "I don't know. Iā I used to hate him so fucking much for it. I never wanted to see him again. But lately I've been wondering if I should go stop by or something. Let him know I'm okay. Maybe I owe him that, or something."
"You don't owe him shit," snaps Wolfgang, stabbing his spoon into the ice cream.
"No, I know, that was the wrong word," Will says. "But I guessā I don't know. I kind of miss him?"
Wolfgang snorts. Kala shoots him a glare, then turns to Will.
"He's your father," she says gently. "It's natural to miss him."
"I would do anything to see my parents again," Capheus adds. "There is no shame in wanting to make amends."
Will nods slowly, staring down at his spoon. "Yeah," he says. "I was thinkingā Well, my dad always said it takes sixty-six days to form a habit. So I thought maybe when I've been clean sixty-six days I'll go back home and tell him."
Riley puts a hand on his shoulder. "You should do it," she says. "If it feels right."
"I agree," says Lito. "If that's what you want to do, you should."
Will looks up. "Okay," he says quietly. "I guessā I guess I will then." He pauses. "Maybe. I don't know."
"I have an idea," says Felix, and everyone looks over at him. "How about you don't worry about it right now and just eat your ice cream before the rest of us finish it."
Will laughs. "You know, I like that idea," he says, and finally, he eats his spoonful of ice cream. "I think that this is the best ice cream I've ever had in my life," he says, swallowing. He smiles at Riley as he scoops up some more.
"Good," says Riley. She smiles back, and for a moment, surrounded by her friends and so proud of Will she could burst, she feels happy. Truly, truly happy.
***
The thing about happiness, though, is that it never really lasts.
The evening passes and the ice cream melts into a pool at the bottom of the tub. Wolfgang and Felix and Lito leave for work. Night falls. Riley can't sleep.
She lies in her sleeping bag and tries to think about good things, happy things, tries to remember Will's smile and the creamy sweet taste of birthday cake ice cream.
But those memories seem faint now, like something that happened in a dream. A heavy, choking feeling creeps into her chest, and there in the darkness, her mind remembers other things instead. Tonight it's her father, unconscious and bleeding beside her in the front seat of their wrecked car. She remembers crying and holding his hand, remembers the paramedics arriving too late, remembers how she never got to say goodbye.
She wonders what her dad would say if he could see her now. He'd ask what happened to his confident, fun-loving daughter, and what would she tell him? You died and foster care was hell and I ran away and got raped and my baby died, that's what happened, she thinks. At some point life cut her open and carved away the happy little girl she used to be.
It makes her want to cry, to think that she'll never be that girl again. She is crying, she realizes, and her wrist itches, and her forearm, and the palm of her hand.
Silently, she unsheathes the knife that she keeps by her ankle and pushes up her sleeve.
But right at that moment the moon breaks through the clouds and the moonlight shines down through the church's rafters, falls blue on her scars. She thinks of Luna, imagines Luna watching her.
And then, with sudden conviction, she pulls down her sleeve.
***
She doesn't sleep that night, but she doesn't cut herself either.
Instead, she sits in her sleeping bag, deep in thought, until dawn breaks and Sun wakes up and notices her with a frown. "Riley?" she whispers. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," says Riley quickly. "I'm just thinking."
"Thinking," Sun repeats.
"I had an idea," explains Riley. "And actuallyā Well, to be honest, I was waiting for you to wake up."
"To tell me the idea?" Sun asks. Riley shrugs one shoulder, suddenly embarrassed, but Sun smiles reassuringly. "What's your idea?" she prompts.
Riley inhales deeply. "Okay," she says. "It's about, um, the self-harm stuff I do." Sun nods, and Riley goes on. "Um. So, sometimes when I stop, um. Cutting. It's because I get this feeling, like Luna is watching me. It feels real, like a physical sort ofā¦ presence. And then I stop, because I don't want her to see me hurting myself." Riley swallows thickly. "I think the blood would scare her, you know? Sheā she's only a baby," she whispers, now on the verge of tears. She sounds crazy, she knows. She wonders if Sun thinks she's crazy.
But Sun just nods again, for which Riley is inexpressibly grateful. "Right, soā my idea," she says. "You know that Luna means moon?"
"I do," says Sun.
"Right, so I thought maybe it would help if I maybe drew on my arm, like, pictures of moons. Then I wouldn'tā¦ you know. I wouldn't be able to cut myself without seeing the moons and thinking of her."
Sun's expression is unreadable.
"And then I thought," Riley presses on, "maybeā¦ you could do the drawings? You don't have to," she hastens to add. "I just remembered how you drew on Will's card yesterday and thought, you know, maybeā"
"Riley," says Sun. "I would be honored." She says it so simply, so seriously, that Riley lowers her eyes.
"Oh," she says. "Iā okay."
"I could do it now, if you like?" Sun offers. "Or later."
"Um, now sounds good."
Sun sits up and digs through her backpack for a minute. At last she pulls out the Sharpie she used on Will's card and scoots her sleeping bag closer to Riley's. "Give me your arm," she instructs gently.
Riley pushes up the sleeve of her sweatshirt and holds out her arm, which Sun takes in her hands.
"There's lots of scars and stuff," Riley points out needlessly. "I don't know if it'll be hard to draw on, orā"
"Riley. It's alright," Sun says with a soft smile. And then she starts to draw, carefully leaving gaps around the fresher cuts.
She draws four full moons down Riley's forearm, stacked one on top of another, and a crescent moon on her wrist.
"Could you do my hand too?" Riley asks.
Sun nods, and draws a circle on Riley's palm. She's about to add in craters when Riley stops her.
"Actuallyā" she says. "Do you think you make that one a sun instead? To remind me of you maybe?" she explains, a bit shyly.
Sun blinks at her. "Of course," she says quietly after a moment, and adds triangular rays around the circle. "How is that? Do you want more moons?"
Riley shakes her head haltingly. "It's perfect," she says, staring down at her arm until it blurs before her tear-filled eyes. "Sun, thank you, I don'tā I don't know what to say."
Sun inclines her head. "You're very welcome," she says solemnly. "I hope that it helps you. But Riley," she adds. "Don't be hard on yourself if it doesn't."
"I know, I justā I just wanted to try it," nods Riley, wiping her eyes. "It can't hurt, right?" she says weakly.
"No," Sun agrees, with a small, hopeful smile. "It can't hurt."
"Alsoā" says Riley, handing Sun her knife. "Get rid of this for me, alright?"
Sun promises she will. "I'm proud of you," she says, slipping the knife into her backpack.
Riley runs her fingers down her arm and looks up at Sun and smiles. "Me too."
***
She goes three days without hurting herself before she gives in and scratches at her healing cuts until they bleed.
She stares at the blood, and revels in the stinging pain, and hates herself.
She traces over the Sharpie moons with her finger and resolves to do better.
And she does.
Until six days later, when she buys a four-pack of razor blades from a convenience store.
She doesn't mean to do it, doesn't even quite realize what's happening until she's already left the store. Her heart is pounding and her hands are shaking and her arm feels so fucking strange.
There had been a lady, earlier that day. A lady with a little baby girl in her arms, who'd given her ten dollars and told her to take care of herself. Then the baby had giggled and reached out for Riley, and the lady had said, "She likes you," and Riley had frozen, because all she could think of was Luna.
And that's why she needs these razor blades, she tells herself. Because Luna should be chubby and giggling and alive, not rotting in the ground. Because Luna deserved a decent mother, not a homeless fucking drug addict like Riley was. Because everything in the world is broken and wrong and it's all Riley's fault.
She walks down the street without knowing where she's going, until she reaches a Starbucks and slips inside, gripping the package of blades.
A few moments later, locked safely in the Starbucks bathroom, she pulls off the package's cardboard backing and removes a single blade. She touches it to her skin, glides it over the crescent moon on her wrist one timeā
And stops.
Shaking, she throws the blade into the toilet, then dumps in the other three, and flushes. She flushes again, and again, and again, until she's crying so hard she can't breathe and has to lean against the sink, gasping for air.
She turns on the faucet and holds her wrist underneath. It hurts. She dries it off and wraps it in paper towels.
Then she heads back to the church.
***
She doesn't tell Sun, but Sun sees the makeshift bandage peeking out from her sweatshirt sleeve and knows.
"Riley," she says.
"I'm sorry," Riley whispers.
Sun hugs her tightly. "It's alright," she says. "Don't be sorry."
Together they clean and re-bandage the cut. Riley explains about the baby.
"I wasn't thinking straight," she says.
"I know," says Sun. "But you still stopped."
"I did," Riley concedes.
"That's good."
"I know."
"Tomorrow you will be a different person than you were today," Sun says. "And you'll try again."
"Okay," Riley nods.
She hopes Sun is right.
***
Riley goes a week without cutting.
She doesn't tell anyone, because she doesn't want to jinx it, but she buys herself a pint of mint ice cream and eats the whole thing in one sitting.
Another week passes, and then she tells Sun.
"It's been two weeks," she whispers in the pre-dawn stillness. "Since I cut myself."
"Two weeks," Sun echoes softly. They're the only ones awake. She reaches over and touches Riley's hand. "I'm happy for you," she says.
Riley nods. "I am too." She glances down at her forearm, at the scars and healing cuts circumscribed by faded Sharpie moons. "It's thanks to you, you know," she says softly, looking over at Sun, but Sun shakes her head.
"You did it yourself," she says. "I only helped a bit."
She helped more than a bit, Riley thinks, but she lets it go. "Don't tell the others," she says. "Not yet. In case I fuck it up." She swallows, looks away. "I'm really, really scared I'm gonna fuck it up," she whispers.
"What was it you said to Will?" Sun says. "If you fuck up then you just start over. It's not the end of the world. And we'll be here to help you."
"Thank you," Riley manages, through the lump in her throat, blinking away tears.
Sun just smiles, and squeezes Riley's uninjured hand, and together, they watch the sky grow light.
Chapter 25: Wolfgang & Kala
In which Kala comforts Wolfgang
Wolfgang is a good whore.
He's good at catching the gaze of potential clients, good at standing out in a crowd. He's got pretty eyes and pretty lips and pretty blond hair, and he can pass for eighteen as easily as fifteen, depending on what one prefers.
He's good at not complaining. He can handle being called a bitch, being slapped around and shown who's boss. He never cries, never flinches, doesn't much care what you say to him as long as you pay him when you're done.
Not that he doesn't have rules, because he does: No kissing, no anal, no blowjobs without a condom. But clients mostly go along with them. And if they don't, he's good at making excuses and slipping away, or fighting them off, if it comes to that.
Besides, he's got a sixth sense for the bad ones, and usually manages to avoid them entirely. He's been doing this for years, after all.
But even good whores can have bad nights.
Even good whores can make mistakes, say yes to guys who set their teeth on edge.
Even good whores are sometimes left crumpled behind boarded-up buildings, pants around their ankles and bleeding from their asses.
Even Wolfgang.
***
He lies there in a heap for a while. Then, shakily, he stands up and pulls up his pants and begins to make his way to the church.
It's dark out, probably around midnight, and the late-July air is warm but Wolfgang just feels cold.
He picks the church's lock with shaking hands, dropping the bobby pin at least twice in the process, then pushes open the door as quietly as he can.
Everyone's asleep. Limping, he heads for the back of the church, maneuvering around the others' sleeping bags, and lowers himself onto the mattress.
He tries to ignore the smarting pain in his asshole, tries to focus on other things instead: how cold his fingers are, how sharply the springs of the mattress dig into his shoulders, how fast his heart is beating in his chest.
His breath catches in his throat, and somehow, he knows that he's supposed to be crying right now. Hell, he wants to be crying right now.
He sits up and presses on his eyes, hard, till all he can see are swirling yellow splotches. No tears come.
"Wolfgang?" A whisper, hesitant and confused. It's Kala.
Wolfgang freezes.
"Is that you?"
"Yes," he grunts.
"Are you alright?" comes Kala's whispered reply. "Why are you back here already?"
"I'm fine," hisses Wolfgang. "Wasn't feeling well." He lies back down.
"You mean you feel sick?"
"Yeah."
"Oh." There's a pause.
"I'm fine," Wolfgang repeats. "Just gonna get some rest and I'm sure I'll be good as new tomorrow."
"Alright. Iā I hope you feel better," Kala says. She doesn't sound entirely convinced, but she shifts in her sleeping bag and her breathing evens out and soon Wolfgang is pretty sure she's asleep.
He waits for a few more minutes. Then he grabs his blanket, stands up, and limps to the corner of the church.
***
It's colder in the corner, and darker, and the ground is even less comfortable than the mattress, but Wolfgang finds that he can breathe easier here, alone, away from the others. He curls up as tightly as he can, his face tucked into his knees, his hands between his thighs. It's summer, he thinks. He shouldn't be this fucking cold.
"Hey."
Kala's voice comes to him like something from a dream.
He doesn't answer.
There was a community pool he used to go to with his mom sometimes. He wishes he could go there now, longs to be back in the water, to float in it. Maybe drown in it.
"Wolfgang," Kala whispers, "you aren't really sick, are you?"
"Yes I am," he snaps.
"You're not very good at lying," Kala says sympathetically as she sits down at his feet. "What's wrong? You can tell me."
Wolfgang snorts.
"Are you injured?" she prompts.
"No."
"Did something happen?"
"No."
"Alright," says Kala. Then, more quietly, "Do you want me to leave?" she asks.
Wolfgang pulls the blanket more tightly around his shoulders. Swallows. "No," he mumbles finally. "You can stay."
So she does.
Silence falls, and it's Wolfgang who breaks it. "Why are people so bad at dealing with shit?" he asks grimly.
"I'mā¦ not sure I know what you mean," says Kala.
"I mean how people react to things in the most useless fucking ways. Like freezing up."
"What, when they're scared?" asks Kala.
Wolfgang makes a noncommittal noise.
"That's not useless, though," Kala says. "It's instinctual. It's an acute stress response; fight, flight, or freeze."
"Fighting is much better," mutters Wolfgang. "Why would anyone freeze when they could just fight?"
"Sometimes fighting isn't an option," Kala says matter-of-factly. "Imagine that you're an animal, faced with a much bigger, faster animal. Neither fighting nor fleeing would be a viable choice. All you can do is freeze. For example, you might play dead."
"What if you're a whore and you agree to give some guy a blowjob, but then before you can react he's shoving you to the ground and sticking his dick up your ass?" Wolfgang asks sardonically, only half aware of what he's saying. "And instead of fighting him off or getting away you just freeze like a little fucking bitch."
The silence that follows is painfully, agonizingly long. Wolfgang curls up tighter. He feels like he's suffocating.
"Wolfgang," Kala whispers at last, "did that happen to you? Tonight?"
"Something like that, maybe," mumbles Wolfgang. "It's fine."
"Wolfgang, no, that's terrible. That's horrific. That'sā I don't even know what to say."
"Don't say anything," Wolfgang mutters. "I told you, it's fine."
But Kala presses on. "Are you in pain? Are you bleeding?"
"What, from my asshole? Yeah, I'm pretty sure," he says ruefully. "Hurts like fuck."
"Wolfgang," breathes Kala, audibly on the verge of tears, and he's glad that it's dark, so he can't see whatever expression of pity or horror is no doubt on her face.
He doesn't want her to cry. Certainly not for his sake. "I'll be alright, okay?" he tells her. "I'll take a few days off. Go to a clinic tomorrow to get tested and shit."
If anything, this seems to make her more upset. "This has happened before, hasn't it?" she infers, sounding horrified.
"Once or twice," says Wolfgang tiredly. He closes his eyes and holds his breath, tries to imagine he's under water. Under water, where nothing hurts and reality is just a muffled hum in his ears.
But then Kala places her hand on his calf, and he's back on the floor of the church. "If you want to talk about it, I'm right here," she says. "Or if you don't. I'm still here."
Wolfgang doesn't respond right away. Part of him wishes he'd never told her anything. Because there's something about Kala that makes him want to be better than he is. And getting assaulted in some back alley while whoring himself out is not better.
"He paid me," he says finally. "So it's not like it was rape or something."
And suddenly Kala is crying.
"Shit, Kala." Wolfgang scrambles to sit up, which is painful as hell, but fuck it. He puts his hand on her shoulder. "Kala, please don't cry."
"I'm sorry," Kala sniffles, drawing a ragged breath.
And then, before he knows what's happening, she's got her arms around him, her tear-streaked cheek pressed against his.
He sits there stiffly for a moment. Then he melts into her.
"You're safe now," Kala whispers against his shoulder, holding him tightly.
And Wolfgang doesn't feel safe, can't remember the last time he felt safe.
But here in Kala's arms he feels better, at least.
And that's something.
Chapter 26: Lito & Kala / Lito & Felix
In which Kala shows Lito old photos and Lito talks to Felix
Lito arrives back at the church in the early morning to find Kala sitting cross-legged on her sleeping bag, staring at something in her lap. He frowns. She should be out with Sun and Nomi right now.
"Kala?" he says into the stillness.
She starts and looks up, as though she hadn't heard him come through the door.
"What are you doing here still?" he asks, sitting down on the edge of the mattress.
"Lito," she whispers. "Wolfgang was hurt."
"Hurt?" Lito's mind goes to terrible places, visions of hospitals and paramedics andā
"Last night, while he was working. Aā a client?ā assaulted him andā He said it wasn't rape, but Litoā"
Oh. Lito's stomach drops. "Hey, it's alright," he manages to say, because Kala sounds like she wants to cry. "Kala, it's alright. Where is he now?"
"He's with Felix; they went to a clinic to get him tested forā for STIs. He told me to tell you and the others what happenedā¦"
"Is he okay?"
"No," says Kala. "I mean, he acts like he is but he's obviously not; he's in shock; he'sā" She sighs. "He's Wolfgang," she says at last.
"Of course he is."
"I'veā I've been trying to distract myself, looking at old photographs," says Kala, wiping her eyes.
"Is it working?"
She laughs weakly. "No, not really."
"May I see?"
Kala nods, and turns the stack of photos toward Lito.
The first one shows two young girls with their arms around each other, their faces painted brightly.
"Is this you?"
"My sister and me," Kala says. She sniffs. "Her name's Daya; she's three years older."
"I like your face paint," Lito smiles.
"Thank you," laughs Kala. "I'm a tiger."
"Very fierce."
"Yes," Kala says. She wipes at her eyes again, and flips to a photo of a man holding a little girl on his shoulders. "There's Daya and my father in front of his restaurant," she says.
"Your dad has a restaurant?"
"He did," says Kala. Lito notes the change in tense, but doesn't press the matter.
The next photo depicts a tiny Kala clutching a giant stuffed elephant. "I loved that elephant," she says fondly. "One day my mother threw him away. I cried for hours." She shuffles through the stack, and pulls out a photo of her father holding hands with her and her sister on a beach. The girls are older here, maybe nine and twelve. "We went on vacation to India," Kala explains, her finger ghosting over her father's face.
"It looks like fun."
Kala nods, then says, very quietly, "The photos from this trip are the last ones I have of him. He passed away a few weeks later."
"How?"
"He had a heart attack. Right in his restaurant."
Lito wants to tell her how sorry he is, but Kala has already moved on to the next photo. "My sixth birthday," she says, pointing at a picture of herself sitting in front of a cake. Her hair is in braids. Behind her stands a lady with her hand on Kala's shoulder.
"Is that your mother?" Lito asks.
"Yes."
"Didā¦ she die too?" Lito probes softly.
"No, she's still very much alive," says Kala, her voice brittle.
"Oh." Lito hesitates. "Whatā what happened?"
"She was always narcissistic and emotionally abusive," Kala states. "She got even worse after my father died. I left home when I was fifteen to get away from her."
"I'm sorry," whispers Lito.
Kala smiles, a bit sadly. "It's alright. At some point I just accepted that she'd just never love me in any way that mattered," she says, and something about her matter-of-fact tone makes Lito's heart break. "She made sure that my physical needs were met, at least. And I had my father, for a while. And my sister."
"Your sister, where is she now?" Lito asks.
"She left home too. A couple of months before I did," says Kala. "She got married and had a baby. Moved across the country."
"That must have been difficult."
"It was. It is." Kala shrugs. "We were very close. I miss her terribly." She rifles through the photos until she reaches one of her sister, all grown up, smiling beside a man and a toddler. "She sent this to me on my birthday last year."
"She looks very happy," Lito says slowly. "But I'm sure she misses you too."
Kala nods, staring down at the photograph. "My old boyfriend didn't let me talk with her on the phone."
"Why not?" Lito frowns.
"I don't know, he didn't really like me to have friends orā¦ I don't know. He said she didn't care about me, if she moved so far away."
Lito isn't sure how to articulate the rush of fury he suddenly feels toward this former boyfriend, so he just swallows. "You know that's not true, right?" he says.
"I know," mumbles Kala. "After I left himā Rajanā I wanted to call her, but what am I supposed to tell her? That I'm homeless?"
"Tell her that you miss her."
"Someday," Kala says softly. "Someday I'll call her and tell her everything." She bites her lip and straightens the stack of photos. "Iā I really shouldn't be looking at these," she says. "I thought it would take my mind off of Wolfgang butā¦ it just makes me miss everyone. Even my mother." She laughs hollowly. "Isn't that strange? After everything she did, I still miss her sometimes."
"I miss my dad sometimes too," Lito shrugs. "He kicked me out, he said awful things to me before I left. But he's still my dad."
"I hate that," says Kala. "How we're tied forever to people who hurt us."
"I still want to make him proud," Lito muses, more to himself than to Kala. "He never finished high school, my dad. He always used to tell me how proud he would be when I graduated. And sometimes I think to myself how if I ever get, you know, a GED or something, I'll partly be doing it for him, to finally make him proud. And then I think, he doesn't deserve for me to make him proud."
Kala nods. "When I was young, I was afraid of everything. I couldn't sleep if the light was off or if it was too quiet. I hated sleeping in bed alone. I'd always wind up in my sister's room and sleep next to her. My mother would be cruel to me about it, call me spoiled and a coward." She runs her finger along the edge of the photos in her hand. "The other day it occurred to me that she'd have to be impressed if she could see me now, sleeping here, in the dark, in just a sleeping bag." She presses her lips together. "I suppose I'm still a coward though," she says.
"You are not," retorts Lito.
"I am." Kala shakes her head. "Do you know why I left Rajan? Because he wanted to have sex with me. He was my boyfriend for two years, and he wanted to have sex. And so I left. And meanwhile you and Felix andā W-Wolfgangā Every nightā" She makes a noise somewhere between a hiccup and a sob, and shoves the stack of photos into her duffle bag. "Lito, I'm so worried about him," she says in a trembling voice, covering her face with her hands.
"I know," Lito tells her. He touches her hair. "I am too."
"I can't stop thinking about it. Iā I didn't sleep at all last night. Just imaginingā"
"I know," Lito says again, soothingly. "But how about we both get some sleep now, hmm? You must be tired. I know I am."
Kala nods distantly, and Lito pats the space beside him on the mattress. "If you want?" he offers. "Since you said you don't like sleeping alone?"
Kala smiles a little and moves to the mattress.
Lito gives her the better of the two pillows and settles down under the blankets. Kala scoots a bit closer to him, so their shoulders are touching.
"Goodnight," she says. "Orā good morning, I suppose."
Lito laughs. "Good morning."
Within minutes, Kala is asleep.
***
Lito stays awake until Wolfgang and Felix get back an hour or so later.
"Hey," he says.
"Hey," says Felix wearily. Wolfgang says nothing, just gets into bed next to Kala. Felix slides in beside Lito, and they all lie there in silence. Kala doesn't wake up, and soon Wolfgang is asleep.
"How is he?" Lito whispers, nudging Felix.
Felix rolls his eyes. "Too tough for his own good," he whispers back. "I told him he can't work for a week and he tried to fucking argue with me."
"When'll you get the test results?"
"Three days." Felix exhales sharply. "Fucking bastard," he mutters, crossing his arms over his blanket. "If you're gonna fuck someone till he bleeds, the least you could do is wear a fucking condom. I want to fucking kill that guy." His voice breaks.
"Me too," sighs Lito. He glances over, and finds Felix's cheeks are wet with tears. He looks away. "Felix," he whispers gently. "Wolfie'll be alright."
"I know that," snaps Felix, rubbing his eyes. "I know. I'm gonna make fucking sure of it."
And suddenly Lito imagines all the times this must have happened in the past, when it was just Felix and Wolfgang, patching each other up, talking each other down, sleeping side by side on the mattress.
Nearby, he feels Kala pull closer to Wolfgang in her sleep.
"Felix," he says, "We're all gonna make sure of it."
Felix glances over at him.
"Together," says Lito.
And Felix stares at him for a moment, then nods and closes his eyes. "Together," he repeats tiredly, but not without some measure of relief.
He turns onto his side, and eventually his breathing evens out.
Lito looks over at Kala and Wolfgang, nestled together in their sleep.
It's a beautiful word, he thinks. Together.
And gradually, he too falls asleep.
Chapter 27: Wolfgang & Riley
In which Wolfgang talks to Riley
It's been three days since Felix ordered Wolfgang to take a week off. Three boring fucking days of lost income, but Felix had been adamant, so Wolfgang's been doing as he's told, sleeping when he can and trying not to think too much.
It's dawn, and Wolfgang's awake, has been awake for hours, when he hears Riley get up. He watches through half-closed eyes as her shadowy form slips out through the back door of the church.
He gets up too, and follows her outside.
***
The morning sky is lightening on the horizon, and the clouds are tinged with pink.
Riley is seated on the grass, cross-legged.
"Wolfgang," she says.
"Hey."
"I thought you were asleep."
"I don't sleep well," says Wolfgang. "Nightmares and shit."
"Oh." Riley nods knowingly. "Yeah, me too."
"So you come out here?"
"Sometimes." She gives a little shrug. "Usually." She glances away from Wolfgang then, seeming embarrassed. "Iā I know it can't be healthy. To visit her so often."
"Who gives a fuck?" Wolfgang grunts, sitting down beside her on the grass. "You do what you gotta do, right?"
"Right," says Riley softly. She pulls up a clump of grass, clears her throat. "It's been three months though," she mumbles. "And physically, I'm healed, you know? I thinkā I think I hoped that once I stopped bleeding and my boobs stopped leaking and everything, I'dā I don't know. I'd feel better emotionally too." She gives Wolfgang a sidelong glance. "Only I guess it never really works like that, does it?"
"I guess not," says Wolfgang.
They sit in silence for a while.
"You know why I like it out here?" Riley says at last.
"Why?"
"Because out here I feel like I can be honest with myself." She runs her hand along the grass, over the mound of dirt where Wolfgang knows her baby is buried. "I lie to myself a lot," she explains. "About everything. Like, Iā I used to wonder what I'd tell Luna about her father when she asked. I'd think of all kinds of lies I could tell her. But I think deep down I was doing it for me. Because I wanted to believe they were true, the lies." She takes a deep breath and exhales shakily. "Because that was easier than the truth."
"And what's the truth?" asks Wolfgang lowly.
Riley looks over with a small, regretful smile. "He cornered me in a bathroom and raped me," she says.
"Shit, Riley."
"Yeah." She plucks some more grass and rolls the blades between her fingers. "So how are you doing?" she asks then.
She doesn't specify, but he knows what she means.
"I'm fine," he mutters. "Came back negative for all the shit they tested me for, so."
"That's good news," Riley says earnestly.
Wolfgang nods, and Riley looks over at him.
"I'm sorry it happened," she tells him quietly.
Wolfgang shrugs. "Sex is always shit. Sometimes it's more shit than others. Doesn't matter to me."
Riley seems to hesitate. Then: "Itā it doesn't have to be shit," she says, staring at the grass in her hand. "The first time I had sex, I liked it. There was this boy at my school. His name was Magnus." She glances at Wolfgang as if waiting for a response, but he's not sure what she wants him to say.
"Okay," he settles on.
"Youā you've never had that?" Riley asks softly.
Wolfgang shrugs again, not meeting her eye. "The first time I had sex I was thirteen and starving," he says. "So I don't know."
"Wolfgangā¦" she starts, but he shoots her a look.
"It's fine," he says crisply. "The cheeseburger I got after was fucking amazing. That's all I remember."
Riley doesn't respond immediately. "You know what Capheus told me once?" she says finally. "He said that it's okay to not be able to handle everything. That sometimes, something happens that's too terrible to handle." She glances at Wolfgang, and goes on more quietly: "I think about that a lot. About how that's why we have to tell all these lies."
"Who says I'm lying?" Wolfgang mutters.
Riley just looks at him. Wolfgang looks away.
He remembers being eight years old and curled up in bed with broken ribs, telling his mother that it didn't hurt, no, not at all, he's strong. Remembers being fifteen and insisting to Felix that his mother hadn't left, because she wouldn't have abandoned him, not ever. Remembers being thirteen and seventeen and every age in between, telling himself that he hadn't just been raped, because whores can't be raped, because they get paid, because they ask for it.
Riley touches his arm, and he flinches back to reality. "Wolfgang," she says.
"What?"
"The lies I tell myself most often," she whispers, hand resting on his arm, "are that I'm fine, and that I'm fucked up beyond hope. But I'm starting to realizeā¦ that neither is true."
Wolfgang stares straight ahead. His chest feels tight.
Riley squeezes his arm. Then she stands up and brushes off her hands on her jeans.
"You should come with me today," she says lightly. "Keep me company."
"Company?"
She smiles. "You know. Come sing with me. On the corner."
Wolfgang looks up at her sharply, then away. "I can't sing," he mutters.
"Says who?" teases Riley.
"My father."
Riley stills. Then, cautiously, she crouches back down. "I bet," she says, "that your father was wrong."
"He used to beat me for it."
"Fuck him," says Riley.
Wolfgang sets his jaw. Somewhere inside him, his father is laughing, and Wolfgang is twelve years old, and scared.
Except he's not. He's seventeen, and his father is dead. "Fuck him," he echoes.
Riley smiles. "Then come on. Get up. Let's go sing."
And they do.
Chapter 28: Sun & Nomi
In which Sun and Nomi eat bagels
There's a loose floorboard under Sun's sleeping bag, and beneath it, Sun keeps food.
It's small things, mainly: packages of chips and Cheez-Its and pretzels she's bought at vending machines, protein bars and cookies she's taken from stores, occasionally something like half a burger or a bag of French fries.
Sometimes, late at night, or early in the morning, she'll let herself eat someā just a little, because technically her stash is for emergencies. A few pretzels here, a granola bar there, that's all.
This morning it's Doritos. She counts them as she eats, one two three four five six seven. She'll stop at ten. (She had two full meals yesterday: two burritos and a taco. She shouldn't be hungry. She isn't hungry, not really. And yet.)
She eats Dorito number ten, glances around, andā her eyes meet Nomi's.
Because Nomi is awake. Watching her.
Sun lowers the bag to her lap. "Nomi," she says faintly.
"Good morning, Sun," replies Nomi with a yawn. "What kind of chips are those?"
"Justā¦ Doritos."
"Do you keep them in your sleeping bag, or something?" Nomi asks.
And there's no judgment in her tone, just genuine curiosity. Which is probably why Sun answers.
"Under it," she says.
Nomi sits up, smiling conspiratorially. "So you like midnight snacks, then?"
"I just don't like being hungry," says Sun.
At this, Nomi laughs. "Oh man, I feel you," she sighs. "Seems like these days I'm always kind of hungry."
Sun isn't sure what to say in response, because the hunger that Nomi means, the two-meals-a-day hunger that makes your stomach grumble sometimes, is different from the hunger that Sun is talking about, the no-food-for-a-week hunger that makes you pass out.
"Doā¦ you want some?" she asks at last, uncrumpling the bag in her hands and reaching inside. She hopes that Nomi says no.
But Nomi says sure. So Sun gives her a handful of the chips, and Nomi pops them in her mouth.
"Sun, these are stale," she groans good-naturedly. "How long have you had them?"
Sun just shrugs. Probably since before she moved into the church, she thinks, back when half her meals came from the vending machine at the park.
"Sorry," she says. "I didn't realize."
Nomi looks at her funny, then laughs. "It's okay," she says.
But it's not, Sun thinks. It's not okay. She needs to be more careful. Needs to stop letting people learn her secret. Needs to keep her food safe.
***
Because Felix had found out too, soon after Sun and Capheus had moved into the church: He'd come home early one morning, caught Sun sorting through her stash, arranging packets of pretzels and half-eaten granola bars and day-old bags of French fries neatly on a blanket.
"What's that?" he'd asked, and Sun had frozen, mortified.
Felix had sat down on the mattress and stared at Sun's array of food for a long time, frowning.
"Shit," is what he'd said at last. "I do that too."
"Do what?"
"You know," he'd shrugged. "Hoard food and shit."
"Where?"
"Around." He'd gestured vaguely toward nothing in particular, and Sun hadn't pressed him. Her stash was a secret too, after all.
"Wolfie gives me shit for it sometimes," Felix had told her with a sigh, stretching out on the mattress. "Not like, angry shit. But like, you're-not-five-years-old-anymore shit. 'Cause that's why I used to do it, 'cause my mom used to leave me home alone without anything to eat or whatever." He'd rolled his eyes. "And like, I know. But it's just to be safe, right? Just in case."
And Sun had agreed. "Just in case."
***
She and Nomi and Kala eat at Taco Bell most days, because it's fast and filling and usually all they can afford.
They order burritos off the dollar menu, and sometimes Sun puts half of hers into her pocket. Just in case, she thinks. Just in case.
Nomi brings it up one day as she watches Sun wrap up her partially-eaten burrito. "Aren't you still hungry?" she asks.
Sun just shrugs. Tucks down the edges of the wrapper.
"Will you eat the rest later? Doesn't it get cold?"
She says it so innocently that Sun can't possibly be annoyed.
"It does get cold," she admits. "But I don't mind."
Then she slips the burrito into her oversized jacket and revels in its weight in her pocket. It's comforting, that weight. She'll eat it tonight, probably. Or tomorrow. Or maybe not at all, but at least she'll have it if she needs it.
Just in case, just in case, just in case.
***
In Sun's worst dreams, she's hungry.
She dreams about wandering the streets, begging for quarters, weak and light-headed. She dreams about digging through trash cans, pausing at apple cores and ice cream cones, ants crawling on her hands. She dreams about finding a to-go box of lo mein noodles, still warm, and cramming them into her mouth with dirty fingers.
She wakes up with a start, and her hand goes to her pocket, where she knows she's got half a cold burrito secreted away.
Trembling, she unwraps it, and swallows the crusty tortilla and congealed beans as quickly as she can.
Then she pries open the floorboard where she keeps her stash. She pulls out a bag of Cheez-Its, tears it open, and starts to eat. You're not hungry, she tells herself. It was just a dream.
She keeps eating anyway: two bags of Cheez-Its, a bag of peanuts, four slices of stale bread, half a bag of Lay's.
She's about to move on to a granola bar when she hears someone moving nearby her, rustling blankets, sitting up. Sun goes still.
"Sun?" says Nomi in a groggy half-whisper. "You okay?"
"Yes."
"You're crying."
"I'm not."
But she is. She scrubs at her eyes.
Her stomach is churning. She sniffs, hiccups, and acid burns her throat.
"Sun, what's wrong?"
She's dry-heaving now.
"Sunā" says Nomi.
But Sun is already on her feet, running to the back door. She pushes it open, vomits onto the steps behind the church, and starts to sob.
***
Nomi is beside her in an instant.
"Sun, hey, it's okay," she says softly. She leads Sun down the steps, around the splatter of vomit, and they sit down together on the grass.
"Do you feel better now?" asks Nomi.
Sun nods.
"Did you wake up with a stomachache or something?"
"No, Iā" Sun sighs. She can still taste bile in her mouth. "I ate too much," she confesses. "And too fast."
"What, just now?"
"I ate half a burrito I saved from dinner. Then I couldn't stop. I just kept eating."
"The food you keep under your sleeping bag," infers Nomi.
Sun nods again.
"Did you just feel really hungry, orā¦?"
"I had a dream," whispers Sun. "It was aboutā when I was first on the streets." She pulls her knees to her chest. "I was hungry in the dream."
"Oh."
"I ate noodles from a garbage can."
"In the dream?"
In real life too.
Sun shrugs, and she's fairly sure that Nomi understands, because she puts her hand on Sun's back and asks, "Is thatā¦ why you keep food now, hidden like that? Because of when you were hungry on the streets?"
"No," says Sun. "No, I've been doing that for years." She wipes her eyes and sits up a bit straighter. "You can go back to bed now," she tells Nomi. "I'm alright."
"Don't be silly," Nomi says. "I'm staying right here."
Sun is glad.
They sit there without talking for a long time, and it's nice. Sun stops crying.
Finally Nomi clears her throat. "Look, I know this donut place," she says. "It's open 24/7. And it's got bagels and croissants and stuff too." She pats Sun's shoulder. "I think we should go."
"Now?"
"Yeah, why not?"
"I'm not hungry."
"I am," says Nomi.
And Sun's not sure how to argue with that.
So they go.
***
They order two bagels each, and the man behind the counter must feel sorry for them, because he throws in two extra bagels and half a dozen donut holes for free.
They sit in the shop's squeaky chairs and spread cream cheese on their bagels and eat in silence.
Sun chews slowly. Nomi watches, making no effort to hide the concern on her face.
Sun finishes her first bagel and wipes her mouth on a napkin. "I started doing it in foster care. Hiding food," she says then, quietly. "Some of the homes I was in were stingy with meals."
Nomi blinks. "Like what, they starved you?"
"Not starved," Sun says. She doesn't like that word, starved. It sounds so needy, so pathetic, so desperate. Was she ever that desperate? (Yes, says something inside her, but Nomi doesn't have to know that.) "They justā withheld food, sometimes."
Nomi stares at her. Sun spreads out a napkin and, carefully, begins to wrap her second bagel.
"Sun," Nomi says. "Just eat it."
"I don't want to."
"Are you full?"
No. Sun lowers her eyes.
"Just eat until you're full?" cajoles Nomi, nudging the bagel closer to Sun. "Please? You'll still have plenty left over. The guy gave us extras."
Full, Sun ponders. What is full?
"Sun, listen to me," says Nomi, leaning forward. "I know that money's tight. And sometimes our food is shitty. But you're not going to starve. Not with us. We won't let you. I promise."
Sun nods haltingly.
Then she picks up the bagel. Slowly, she takes a bite. One bite, two bites. She chews and swallows, chews and swallows, and doesn't stop until she's done.
***
The weight in Sun's stomach feels good as they walk home, almost as good as the weight of one and a half extra bagels in her pockets.
But best of all is the weight of Nomi's arm around her shoulders, and the weight of Nomi's reassurance in her heart.
Full, Sun thinks.
This is full.
Chapter 29: Capheus / August 8th
In which the kids turn eighteen
A few months after his father's death, Capheus and his mother had been evicted from their apartment.
At the time, he'd been six years old, and he hadn't understood that they were technically homeless. All he'd known was that after that, they'd had to move around a lot, and his mom had had too many boyfriends.
It wasn't until years later, in foster care, that he'd realized they probably hadn't been boyfriends at all, just men who'd been willing to give some lady and her kid a place to stay in exchange for sex.
His mother had never complained. She'd always taken care of him, even after getting sick. "As long as we're together, Capheus, something good is going to happen," she'd tell him.
He'd always believed her.
Then she'd died, and he hadn't known what to believe anymore.
***
There are lessons that every foster kid, every street kid, every castoff kid of any kind learns, sooner or later: Don't trust adults. Don't accept gifts. Don't hope for much.
If you're smart, don't hope for anything at all.
Capheus isn't stupid. He knows that no one makes it off the streets, at least not unscathed, not without a price. He knows that it's no use hoping for a future that will probably never come.
But sometimes, Capheus lets himself hope anyway, lets himself hope that his mother was right, that something good could still happen.
And sometimes, he thinks that that hope is what keeps him alive.
***
Capheus's shoes haven't fit right for at least a month, but today they're almost unbearable.
"I need to stop," he tells Will at last, as they zigzag down a residential street in search of cans. They've only been out for an hour or soā it's just starting to get lightā but he thinks his feet might fall off if he keeps walking. He sits down on the curb.
"What's up?" asks Will, joining him.
"Nothing," says Capheus as he pulls off his dilapidated shoes. "Just my feet hurt." He glances down at his blistered toes, sticking out from the gaping holes in his socks, then removes his socks to expose his ankles, where the skin is rubbed raw.
He sighs, takes a box of bandaids out of his backpack, and gets to work.
"You need new shoes," Will observes.
"Too expensive," mumbles Capheus.
"Bullshit," says Will. "How long ago did you outgrow them?"
Capheus shrugs. "Not very long ago. The bandaids help a lot." He pulls his threadbare socks back on and stretches out his legs. "Just let me rest for a bit. Then we'll get back to work."
Will doesn't argue, though he clearly isn't satisfied.
They sit there for maybe fifteen minutes, until a nicely-dressed woman emerges from the house behind them, high heels clacking against the driveway. She unlocks her car.
Then: "Excuse me," she says shrilly, noticing them.
Capheus jumps and starts to put on his shoes.
"Excuse me," the woman repeats, gesturing toward the blue bin on the curb. "This is my recycling."
"Yes, ma'am," says Will dutifully, standing up.
"Have you been going through my recycling?"
"We're sorry," Will tells her, as Capheus pulls on his second shoe.
"That's stealing, do you know that?" she says tersely, eyeing the bag of cans hanging from Capheus's bike. "What kind of person steals someone else's trash?"
"We're sorry," Will repeats.
"I could call the police on you," says the woman, pointing a manicured finger at him.
Capheus leaps to his feet. "Please," he says. "That won't be necessary. We'll be going now."
The woman crosses her arms. "Okay. But I don't ever want to see you here again, you hear me?" she says. "This is a nice neighborhood, okay? People like you two don't belong here. Go take your trash somewhere else."
"Fuck you," snarls Will.
The woman pulls out her phone.
"Will," gasps Capheus frantically, grabbing his bike.
And they run.
***
Capheus is pretty certain his feet are bleeding by the time they stop running five blocks away.
They sit down in front of a yogurt shop, panting, Capheus's bike parked beside them.
"What a fucking asshole," mutters Will.
Capheus is inclined to agree, but he sighs. "We don't know what's going on in her life," he says. "Maybe her cat is dying or something."
"Fuck her cat," says Will. "She treated us like pieces of fucking dirt."
"But we're not."
"Are you sure?" Will says darkly. "Because that's how it feels, most of the time."
"We are not pieces of dirt," repeats Capheus.
Will shakes his head. "Sometimes I just want to scream or something," he says. "Like right now; I just feel so angry and shitty andā¦ and fucking miserable. All at the same time."
"It's alright to feel many things at once," says Capheus calmly.
"But I don't want to," mumbles Will. "It's fucking overwhelming. I'd rather just feel nothing."
Capheus glances over at him. "I see," he says softly.
Will looks up at the sky, which is by now light blue. "You know what I miss about heroin?" he asks after a while.
"What?"
"It made the world feel small," says Will. "Likeā¦ I don't know if this makes sense, but it felt like the sky was close, or something. Like everything was close. But sitting here now, the world just seems so fucking huge."
Capheus nods thoughtfully. "I'm glad the world is huge," he says. "I figure the larger the world, the more opportunities there are out there."
Will raises an eyebrow. "What opportunities?" he asks bitterly.
"Iā¦ I don't know," says Capheus. "Maybe they haven't appeared for us yet. But I believe that they're out there."
"Do you really?" Will asks quietly, eyes fixed upward. "Like, honestly?"
"I want to," shrugs Capheus. "So I do."
"You say that like it's easy."
"It's not," Capheus admits. "But it stops me from giving up."
They lapse into silence.
"It's our birthday in a week," says Capheus at last.
"I know that," mumbles Will. "Are we gonna celebrate it or something?"
And Capheus hesitates, because holidays don't exist on the streets, not really: No costumes on Halloween, no turkey on Thanksgiving, no presents on Christmas, no champagne on New Year's. As for birthdaysā¦ Capheus doesn't even remember his last two birthdays.
But this year, he thinks, could be different. There are eight of them now, after all, and they'll be turning eighteen.
"I think we should," he says with a smile.
***
And it turns out that the others agree.
That night, they make plans to have a gift exchange.
"Whoever's name you pull, that's who you'll get a present for," Nomi says, writing their names on eight slips of paper, folding the slips in half, and letting everyone choose one from her cupped hand.
"Nothing too expensive," cautions Wolfgang. "Whoever got my name, if you spend more than a fucking dollar you'll be sorry."
"Spend as much as you want on me," says Lito, and everybody laughs.
And Capheus can't remember the last time he was really, truly excited for something, but he's excited for this.
It's a good feeling.
***
August 8th dawns warm and clear. None of them go to workā instead, they all sleep in till mid-morning, waking up only when Felix arrives with breakfast.
"Happy birthday," he greets them, plopping five bags of McDonald's down on the ground.
They eat until they're full, then they decide it's time for presents, and get into a circle.
Will volunteers to go first, handing Capheus a lumpy, newspaper-wrapped package. Capheus tears it open, and finds inside new shoes and three pairs of socks.
"I don't care what you said," Will tells him. "You really needed new shoes. And your socks were a wreck too, soā¦"
Capheus touches the canvas of the sneakers, the neat stitches by the sole. "Thank you," he says, unable to keep from grinning broadly. "My feet will be very happy."
"And they were pretty cheap too; I just got them at CVS," Will adds.
Capheus laughs. "Just how I like them," he says. "Thank you."
"No problem."
"My turn?" asks Lito, who is seated beside Will.
Capheus nods, and Lito produces a small box from his pocket, which he hands to Kala.
"Lito, this is beautiful!" she exclaims, opening the box and lifting out a heart-shaped locket.
"I thought you could put photos in it," Lito says. "Maybe of your father and sister?"
"I will," says Kala, smiling. "I definitely will." She pulls back her hair and puts on the necklace almost reverently.
Lito smiles at the sight.
"And I have a gift for you too!" Kala tells him. She digs in her duffle bag for a moment, then presents him with a thick, glossy-covered book. How to Prepare for the GED Test, reads Capheus.
"You said you wanted to get a GED someday to make your dad proud," explains Kala. "But I think you should do it to make yourself proud."
Lito bites his lip. "Kalaā¦ youā you have to promise to help me study," he says gruffly, wiping at his eyes.
"As much as you want," Kala assures him, and they hug.
It's Nomi's turn next. She hands her gift to Wolfgang, who looks down at it, frowning.
"I'm sorry if it's a stupid present," Nomi says quickly. "But justā well, you said not to spend more than a dollar. And basically I justā I've noticed that you don't really sleep that well? And when my sister had trouble sleeping when she was little, my parents got her one of these and she used to watch it and it calmed her down and helped her fall asleep."
Wolfgang holds up the present, which is shaped like an hourglass and filled with globs of colored liquid suspended in water. The colored drops move up and down hypnotically, rhythmically.
"Thanks," Wolfgang says slowly. "I neverā I never thought of getting something to help me sleep."
"Yeah," says Nomi. "I hope it helps. At least a little."
"I'll let you know," Wolfgang nods. "But even if it doesn't, it's still cool as shit."
Nomi laughs, and Wolfgang gives her a rare smile.
"Myā uh, my gift is for Sun," says Riley, who's next in the circle. "I just got it for like five bucks, so it's probably really bad quality," she rambles, handing over a black plastic box, "but you're good at art, Sun. I thought maybe you'd like somewhere to do it that wasn't my arm."
Sun opens the box to reveal an array of colored pencils, a little set of watercolors, and a pad of white paper. "I used to draw a lot," she says softly. "My father always said it was a waste of time."
"Well it's not," says Riley. "It's a beautiful talent."
Sun smiles shyly. "Thank you," she says, running her fingers over the colored pencils.
"Of course," says Riley.
Then Sun reaches in her pocket and pulls out something small wrapped in tissue paper. "For you, Nomi," she says.
Inside is a rainbow-colored bracelet. Nomi beams, sliding it onto her wrist. "I love it," she says. "Did you make it?"
Sun nods. "It's like a friendship bracelet of sorts," she explains very quietly. "There's one color for each of us. I hope you look at it if you ever feel lonely and remember how many people love you."
"Oh my god, Sun!" Nomi says, examining the bracelet. "That's like the sweetest thing ever; c'mere." And she pulls Sun into a hug. "Thank you so much," she whispers.
"You're welcome," replies Sun, hugging her back.
Next is Capheus. He gives his gift, a cheap drugstore notebook, to Will, and hastens to explain: "The other day, when you were talking about being overwhelmed by so many thoughts and feelings, I thought of this therapist I had in foster care," he says. "She told me to write down my feelings in a journal. And it helped me a lot. It helped me not to be so angry."
"I can't really imagine you being angry," Will says, glancing up as he flips through the notebook's pages.
"I was," shrugs Capheus. "After my mother died."
"Oh." Will closes the book.
Capheus waves a hand dismissively. "Just try it, okay?" he says with a smile. "Try writing in it. See if it is useful to you."
Will nods firmly. "I will," he says. "Thanks."
Capheus nods too.
And then, last of all, comes Wolfgang. He pulls what looks like a rock out of his backpack and gently hands it to Riley.
She just stares at it.
"It's a gravestone," Wolfgang says. "Forā You know."
Riley presses her lips together and nods, her eyes shining with tears. "Thank you," she says brokenly. "Thank you so much; Iā" She sniffs, and turns the stone around so the rest of them can see.
LUNA, it says on the other side.
"I wrote it in nail polish," Wolfgang offers. "So it shouldn't fade or anything."
"And I'm the one who found the rock," cuts in Felix.
Riley laughs wetly. "Thank you, Felix," she says, ruffling his hair. "And thank you, Wolfgang. This isā the best gift I could ever want."
Wolfgang looks embarrassed. Riley kisses his cheek.
Then Felix produces a box of twelve cupcakes and sticks a candle in eight of them. He hands them out and lights them and they all sing "Happy Birthday" together, laughing as they reach the part where they have to try to cram in all eight names.
"Now make a wish," says Felix.
I wish that something good will happen, thinks Capheus, blowing out his candle.
***
And it's one thing to make a wish. But it's another to actually hope it might come true.
Today, Capheus chooses to let himself hope.
Chapter 30: Will & Deshawn
In which Will gets some bad news
A few months ago, if you'd asked Will if he expected to live to see his eighteenth birthday, he would have told you that the chances weren't great.
And yet here he is, eighteen years old and sixty-four days clean of heroin. He's been keeping track, because he's decided for sure now: On day sixty-six, he's going to go back and visit his dad. He's going to knock on his door and tell him that he's officially clean.
(A few months ago, if you'd asked Will if he ever planned to see his dad again, he would have told you no fucking way. But things change. Will's changed. Getting clean has changed him. And he finds himself thinking that maybe over the past year and a half, his dad's changed too.)
***
It's the last day of August, and it's raining. It's also the sixty-sixth day since Will quit heroin, and he's on the bus to his old neighborhood.
The others had wanted to come with him, but Will had insisted it was something he had to do alone.
And the others, reluctantly, had agreed.
"Whatever happens with your dad, you'd better come back here tonight," Wolfgang had said.
"I'll be back," Will had told them. "I promise."
And Riley had hugged him goodbye, and said, "Good."
***
He reaches his stop and steps off the bus onto the rain-drenched street. His street. He looks around, and it's strange to think that this used to be his life: porches, yards, neighbors.
His old house looks different than he remembers. The plants are lusher. The porch is cleaner. The car in the driveway is new.
But that's to be expected, he figures. Of course his dad's life continued on after Will left. So what if he's gotten a new car and weeded the front garden?
It's not like that means he won't remember Will anymore, does it?
Will steps onto the porch and walks up to the door. Then he squeezes his eyes shut and, before he can second-guess himself, knocks.
He fidgets on the doorstep, waiting, listening to the rain pouring down on the street. He hopes he doesn't look too bedraggled. He wants his dad to know he's doing good now. Nervously, he zips up his jacket and puts his hands in his pockets.
Moments that feel like hours pass, and finally the door swings open.
But the person in front of him is not his father: It's a boy who looks maybe thirteen.
"Who are you?" Will demands shortly.
"Uh. My name's Deshawn?" The boy raises his eyebrows. "Who are you?"
"Where's Michael Gorski?" asks Will.
"Who?"
"Michael Gorski," Will repeats. "He lives here."
The kid shakes his head. "No he doesn't; you got the wrong house, man." And he starts to close the door.
"Wait, stop!" Will cries. His mind is racing. "This is definitely the right house."
The boy's eyebrows continue to creep up his forehead, but he keeps the door open. "I don't know anyone named whatever you said."
"Did you just move here or something?" tries Will.
"Like a year ago?" says the kid. "Seriously, I think you got the wrong address."
"Well, who lived here before you?" Will asks desperately.
"Dunno," shrugs the kid. "Some dude who died."
"Died?" Will can barely hear his own voice, his heart is beating so loudly.
"Yup."
"No," says Will. "No, he didn't die."
"Uh, yeah, did," says the boy, rolling his eyes. "I know for sure, 'cause my mom's paranoid as fuck about that shit, like ghosts and stuff? She was afraid the place'd be haunted. Made the real estate lady swear the guy died in a hospital, not at home."
Will feels slightly nauseous. His heart is still pounding. "Hospital?" he manages. "Howā how did he die?"
"No idea, man. But listen, what was that name you said before? 'Cause now that I think about it that might've been this dude's name."
"Michael Gorski," Will says weakly.
"Yeah, I think that was him. I'm like ninety-nine percent sure." The kid nods in a self-satisfied kind of way. "Sorry if you needed him or something," he adds belatedly.
Will just stares at him.
"Hey, you okay, man?"
"I'm fine," Will hears himself say.
"Okay, cool," says the kid. "So, uh. See ya?"
Will nods numbly.
The kid shuts the door.
Will takes a deep breath, turns, and walks down the porch's steps. Then he reaches the sidewalk, and begins to sob.
***
He wanders down the street in a kind of daze.
He's passing familiar landmarksā the sidewalk he used to decorate with chalk, the house that used to go all-out with the Christmas decorations, the corner where he used to pet the neighbor's cat, the tree root he sprained his ankle on when he was tenā but it feels like he's in some kind of nightmare where everything is horribly distorted and wrong.
He leaves his old neighborhood, leaves behind the streets he knows, walks and walks and walks until he reaches some museum that he visited once on a school field trip.
The rain is still falling, harder now than before. Will doesn't have an umbrella, and he doesn't bother with his hood. He sits down on the museum's main steps, buries his face in his knees, and lets the rain drench him to the bone.
***
"Young man?"
Will looks up. There's a middle-aged businessman with reddish hair staring down at him, frowning. "Do you need some help?"
"No," Will says.
The man keeps staring.
Will frowns. "What, you want something?"
The man doesn't answer. But something about the look on the man's face clicks, and oh. He wants Will.
Which is fine. Will can give him what he wants. Why not? It's not like anything matters anymore, really. "Do you know somewhere dry?" he asks flatly.
The man seems surprised, but Will's pretty sure he understands what's being offered. "Iā my car isā¦ dry," he says.
"Okay." Will stands up. "Lead the way." He feels strange. Disembodied, almost. He knows that he's soaked with rain, but he doesn't feel any sense of coldness, or wetness. All around him, inside him, is just a strange, reckless emptiness.
He follows a few paces behind the man, head bowed, and suddenly he realizes what's wrong with him: He needs heroin.
He needs it more than anything on earth.
It's a comforting realization somehow, and he clings to it. The man keeps glancing back, like he's afraid Will might slip away, but there's no danger of that, not now that Will knows he needs drugs, which means he needs money, which means he has to do this.
They reach the guy's car. It's a nice car, a very nice car, and Will almost feels bad that he's about to get the upholstery all wet.
"My name is Croome," the guy tells him as he opens the door. He smiles nervously at Will, who can tell he doesn't do this very often.
"Okay, Mr. Croome," Will says smoothly, and they slide into the backseat.
***
As far as guys who hire teenage prostitutes go, Croome actually turns out to be among the not-so-terrible ones. He uses lube and a condom, and even stretches Will a little first.
And when Will starts crying after a few minutes, he stops cold.
"Is something wrong?"
"My dad," Will says through tears, before he can stop himself. He draws a ragged breath, his face pressed into fabric of the seat. "He died."
"Oh." The man pats Will's shoulder uncomfortably. "I'm sorry," he says. There's a moment of silence. Then: "Do you think you could stop crying, though? I can't do this if you're crying; it feelsā¦ wrong."
Will kind of wants to punch the guy. Instead, he swallows hard and rubs his eyes and sniffs.
He stops crying.
"Okay," he says through gritted teeth. "Keep going."
And Croome does.
***
He pays Will wellā really well, to be honestā and seems almost apologetic as he lets him out of he car.
"Doā do you need an umbrella, or anything?" he asks.
Will shakes his head.
"Alright. You have a good weekend, then," says Croome, with a hesitant little laugh.
A good weekend. Fuck this guy.
"You too," Will says stiffly, and slams the door of the car.
Croome drives away. And Will, with more money in his pocket than he's had in a long time, sets off in the direction of BPO bar.
If he's lucky, Whispers will be there to give him what he needs.
Chapter 31: Will & Whispers
In which Will visits Whispers
BPO bar is crowded, and noisy, and stuffy in a humid sort of way.
Will glances around, and sure enough, there in one of the back booths sits Whispers.
There's a book in his hands, but he isn't reading it: He's staring right at the door of the bar, right at Will, his expression one of mild surprise.
Will lowers his eyes and makes his way over.
"William," Whispers says as he approaches, like he's greeting an old friend. "What a treat. It's been too long."
"I need dope," Will says flatly, standing by the edge of the table. "However much this'll get me." He fishes in his pocket for the cash from Croome and shoves it toward Whispers, who picks it up, counts it thoughtfully, and tucks it into his coat.
"Do have a seat," Whispers says then, gesturing toward the booth across from him.
Will crosses his arms but obeys. The vinyl squeaks under his drenched jeans.
"You look well," Whispers murmurs, gazing at him over the rim of his glasses. "A bit wet, butā¦ it's good to see some meat on your bones." He reaches across the table and trails his thumb down Will's cheek.
Will slaps away his hand. "Stop touching me," he says. "Just give me the fucking stuff."
Whispers makes a tutting noise. "Don't be rude, Will," he chides. "We've scarcely even exchanged greetings." He smiles. Will glares back. "Where have you been these past months, hmm?" Whispers probes softly. "Have you been going to someone else? I certainly hope not. You know I can't abide disloyalty."
"None of your fucking business," spits Will.
Whispers lifts an eyebrow at the retort, but continues on placidly: "And what about your little friend?" he asks. "Whatās her name again? Sara? Such a nice girl. I haven't seen her lately either."
"Don't you fucking talk about Sara," snarls Will. Then, in a rush of brazen fury, he says: "I got clean, okay? That's where I've 'been.' I got fucking clean."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. Sixty-six days ago. So fuck you."
"And yet," says Whispers, "here you are."
Suddenly Will feels like he's going to cry. He looks down. Leave, says something inside him. You don't need this.
But he does need this. He can't leave. He squeezes his eyes shut, and tears spill down his cheeks.
"Oh, Will. There there," says Whispers, leaning forward, with a smile equal parts mocking and sympathetic. "Don't cry. Some people just aren't meant to stay clean."
"Shut up," mutters Will.
Whispers pats the back of Will's clenched fist. "Some people are just too weak," he simpers. "And that's alright. It's nothing to be ashamed of, Will." He reaches into his coat and pulls out a small plastic bag. "I believe this is what you're after?" he says, handing it to Will, who snatches it from him and shoves it into his jeans.
"Thanks," he mumbles. He sniffs and wipes his eyes on the collar of his jacket before standing up.
"Enjoy it," Whispers tells him, smirking. "I'll see you again soon."
The worst part is, Will knows he's probably right.
***
Will ends up in an alley a few blocks away from BPO.
He sits down next to a dumpster, sheltered slightly from the rain by a fire escape overhead. Then he digs through his backpack until he finds what he's looking for: a grubby little bag that he somehow never got around to throwing away. Inside there's a syringe, and a spoon, and cotton, and a nice thick shoelace.
He ties the shoelace around his bicep.
It was stupid to think he could stay clean, he thinks, as he pours a dose of white powder into the dip of the spoon. Whispers is right. He's too weak. And life is too much. And his dad is fucking dead, and he never even got to say goodbye.
He draws up rain water from the ground of the alley and squirts it on top of the powder. He stirs the mixture a few times with the plunger of the syringe. Then he gets out his lighter and holds the spoon over the flame.
Sixty-six days. Sixty-six days, and he's going to throw it all away. He watches the flame dance blue and gold under the metal spoon. He feels its heat on his fingers. He stares at the mixture, at the powder and water melted together in a noxious swirl.
He imagines returning to the church and admitting to everyone that he fucked up. He imagines their shock, their disappointment. It makes his stomach turn.
Maybe he won't go back, he thinks. Maybe he doesn't deserve to go back.
His vision blurs as tears cloud his eyes. Blinking them away, he rolls a small piece of cotton between his fingers and sets it down in the spoon, then picks up the syringe and draws the solution up through the cotton, into the barrel.
There's a pinch as he inserts the needle into his vein. He watches blood plume up into the syringe, and for a moment he thinks of his father, of his friends, of Sara.
Then he thinks of nothing, and injects himself with heroin.
***
The rush is nearly instantaneous.
Warmth is what it starts as, warmth that begins in his chest and spreads out till his whole body feels like it's wrapped in an thick, downy blanket. Then comes the calmā light and tingly, a wave of security that passes over him and settles in his lungs, and he breathes it in, and breathes it out, and everything is alright. He's safe and warm and happy, far away from the rain, from the alley, from everything bad in the world.
And he's sleepy. Overwhelmingly sleepy.
So Will closes his eyes, and slips into oblivion.
Chapter 32: Angelica
In which Angelica gets a phone call
It's just past noon when Angelica gets the phone call from the hospital.
Is this Angelica Turing?, they ask.
She should be on her lunch break right now, but she's not, because there's too much paperwork, too many cases.
"Yes, it is," she says.
Hello Ms. Turing, they tell her, they're calling about a patient who's currently on ventilation in the ICU following what appears to be a heroin overdose. He is in serious condition. He had no ID on him but he did have her business card in his pocket, and if she would be able to come down to the hospital and try to help identify himā¦
Angelica has already grabbed her keys.
***
She doesn't recognize the boy in the hospital bed. He's a teenager, maybe eighteen or nineteen, pale, with stringy brown hair and a tube down his throat. Half of her is relieved to find that he isn't one of the children she's worked with over the years. The other half wants to cry at the sight of any child in this situation.
She wonders where he got her business card. Probably from Jonas, she thinks, which means he's probably homeless.
She sighs, pulls up a chair beside his bed, and listens as they tell her what happened: how he was found unconscious in an alley by a couple police officers, who were able to administer Narcan in time to get him breathing again. How his respiration was still severely depressed when he arrived at the emergency room, which made intubation necessary. How they're not sure how long he went without oxygen before being discovered.
"But will he be alright?" Angelica asks tentatively.
They're hopeful, is all she's told.
Angelica nods, and sweeps some of the boy's hair off his forehead. He looks so young. She wonders if anyone misses him right now.
She stays as long as she can, until she has to return to work.
Before she leaves, she squeezes the boy's limp hand. "I'll be back this evening," she whispers to him. "Alright kiddo? Just hang on, okay? I'll be back."
She tries to imagine that he hears her.
Chapter 33: Will & Angelica
In which Will meets Angelica
Will wakes up in a bed; that's the first thing he notices.
The second thing he notices is that he feels like shit. Vaguely, bits and pieces of his surroundings begin to register in his brain. Everything seems very white: the ceiling, the bedsheets, the walls. There's a beeping sound coming from somewhere nearby. There's an IV in his hand.
Fuck.
He sits bolt upright, glancing around wildly, and that's when he sees the lady sitting by his bed, a blonde lady in a white dress.
She's talking to him, he realizes: "It's alright," she's saying softly. "It's okay, kiddo. No one's gonna hurt you. You're in a hospital, but you're okay."
"Who the fuck are you?" Will asks hoarsely, hoping he doesn't sound as terrified as he feels.
"My name's Angelica," says the lady. "The hospital called me because you had my business card on you. I'm guessing you got it from Jonas?"
"Jonas," Will murmurs, remembering the social worker's business card. He must have kept it.
"That's right," says Angelica soothingly. "You're okay, honey. You can lay back down."
Will leans back against his pillow and swallows. His throat feels raw. "What happened?" he whispers.
She gives him a sad smile. "You overdosed, kiddo."
Will stares at her. Shit.
"Some police officers found you and gave you Narcan," Angelica goes on. "You just got out of the ICU about an hour ago. They had you sedated and hooked up to a ventilator and everything."
She reaches out like she wants to touch him, then stops and retracts her hand. Will flinches anyway.
"I know it's a lot to take in," says Angelica. "But you're gonna be okay now."
Will blinks groggily as fragments of the day come back to him. (He doesn't think about his dad, no no no no no.) But he thinks about Croome. Whispers. The alley, the rain, the drugs.
"I fucked up," Will breathes.
"You're alive though," says Angelica. "That's what matters."
"No, Iā I quit. I got clean. And now I fucking relapsed, and OD'd, andā" Will shakes his head. He let everyone down, he thinks: Himself. His dad. Sara. The others.
Suddenly, he feels his stomach drop.
The others. They're waiting for him. He promised he'd come back.
"What time is it?" he asks frantically, sitting back up.
Angelica frowns. "Just after 7 PM,ā she says. "Whyā"
"I have to leave," says Will. "I have to goā" He reaches to pull the IV out from his hand, but Angelica grabs his arm.
"Hey," she says softly. "Take a deep breath, okay? The doctor's gonna say when she thinks you're ready to be discharged, but you gotta stay here till then."
Will looks at her helplessly. "No," he says. "You don't get it; Iā I have friends. They're gonna be worried. Theyā I have to tell them I'm okay; they're gonna be freaking outā"
"Alright," says Angelica quickly. "Alright, what if you just give them a call, hmm? Do you know their phone numbers?"
"No," Will practically shouts. "No, theyā shit, what if they do something stupid? What if they go to the policeā" He thinks of Wolfgang.
Angelica nods. "Okay honey, shh, it's alright. How about this, okay? How about if I go visit them and tell them where you are; how does that sound?"
Will shakes his head. "No," he says, looking away. He's too tired for this. He just wants to sleep.
Angelica sighs softly. "I want to help you, kiddo," she says, and she sounds so fucking sincere that Will glances over at her. Then he shuts his eyes, and takes a deep breath, and says:
"But what ifā what if I told you we don't have, like, a house, or whatever?"
"That's alright," says Angelica calmly, as if she'd expected it or something.
"So if you found a group of kids living in, like, an abandoned building," Will probes. "What would you do? Like, as a social worker?"
"Thatā depends," Angelica says. "How old are these kids?"
"Eighteen," says Will immediately, opening his eyes. "We're all eighteen."
Angelica nods. "I'm not the police," she tells him. "I'm not gonna make them leave, if that's what you're asking."
"Or report them, or anything?"
"As long as there are no minors involved, then no."
"Okay," sighs Will. "Okay, it'sā it's a church. An abandoned church. The door'll be locked. Knock and sayā¦ say that Will sent you." He tells her how to get there. Then: "I swear to god," he says, fighting to keep his voice even, "if you screw shit up for usā"
"Will," says Angelica, "I won't."
And for some reason, Will believes her.
Chapter 34: Angelica & the cluster
In which Angelica visits the church
Angelica doesn't leave the hospital until Will's doctor has checked in on him. She waits outside his room, pacing, staring at the closed blinds of his window.
"How is he?" she asks as soon as the doctor emerges from the room.
Dr. El-Saadawi smiles slightly. "He's doing very well," she replies. "Even better than I expected. His vitals are good, breathing is good. He doesn't seem to have sustained any brain damage." She gives a brief nod. "He's a very lucky boy."
Angelica feels a rush of relief.
"I'd like to keep him overnight to monitor him and make sure no complications arise," Dr. El-Saadawi goes on. "But I predict he'll be ready to leave tomorrow."
"That's wonderful news," says Angelica. "Thank you. Heā his name is Will; did he tell you?"
The doctor nods. "He did. Will Gorski. That's about all he'd say about himself though; I'm about to contact local law enforcement and see what they can dig up on him. Hopefully he's got some family somewhere."
"He's a homeless teenager," says Angelica grimly, shaking her head. "I wouldn't bank on him having any family. At least not any that he'd want a visit from."
Dr. El-Saadawi blinks. "He's homeless?"
"He is."
The doctor sighs. "I see," she says. "Well, it would help me sleep better to check, at least. I'd like to avoid discharging him onto the streets, if possible."
Angelica understands the sentiment, but also knows that these situations must be handled carefully. "Ask him before you call any family," she says. "Please."
The doctor stares at her for a moment. "Yes. Alright," she agrees at last.
"And call me if there's any change in his condition."
The doctor promises she will.
***
It's still raining when Angelica exits the hospital, even harder than before, if possible. She sighs, wishing for the hundredth time that day that she were wearing something other than a dress. Then she zips up her raincoat, opens her umbrella, and steps out into the downpour.
Despite her umbrella, she's wet by the time she reaches her van, a behemoth that Jonas jokingly calls "the school bus." It used to belong to her friend Raoul, and when he offered it to her after her old car broke down, she couldn't really say no ā social workers don't exactly make a fortune, after all.
She turns on her windshield wipers and starts to drive, trepidation bubbling in her stomach.
These friends of Will's, they probably aren't going to like her. They certainly aren't going to trust her. She wonders vaguely if they're going to be drug users like Will. If she had to bet, she'd go with yes.
She hopes they don't prove dangerous.
She hopes this isn't a mistake.
***
The church is right where Will said it would be, in a run-down part of town about a half hour drive from the hospital. It's still light out when Angelica arrives, and she parks by the curb and sits in her car for a few moments, watching the rain lash against her windshield.
Then, before she can second-guess herself too much, she steps out of the car, umbrella in hand.
She walks up to the front of the church and raps on the door. "Hello in there?" she says against the crack. "Open up please? Will sent me."
She hears scuffling coming from inside, followed by the sound of a lock turning. Then the door opens maybe three inches, and a teenage boy with wet blond hair peers out at her, frowning.
"Where is he?" is all he says. His voice is steely.
"He's safe," Angelica tells him. "May I come in?ā
The boy glares at her, his eyes hard and his stance imposing. But Angelica knows a scared kid when she sees one, and this boy? This boy is terrified.
"Fine," he says at last, still glaring. He opens the door a bit more and stands aside to let Angelica enter. "The ground's wet," he tells her unnecessarily as she steps inside the church and her rainboot sinks into half an inch of water.
"I see that," she says, glancing up at the caved-in roof, which isn't doing much to keep out the deluge.
The boy leads her to the back corner of the church, where the ground is still flooded but at least the roof is intact. Here, near an assortment of soggy wet sleeping bags, a group of teenagers sit crammed together on a mattress.
"She says Will sent her," the boy announces gruffly, crossing his arms and jerking his head toward Angelica.
"Iā that's right," says Angelica.
The kids watch her with wide eyes, uniformly drenched and shivering. Only a few of their jackets have hoods, and the blankets they've got tucked around them are just as wet as they are.
She sighs.
Part of being a social worker is becoming numb to terrible things.
And Angelica has seen plenty of terrible things: horrific cases of abuse and neglect and poverty and violence and dysfunction. Malnourished infants left alone in roach-infested apartments. Concussed toddlers in emergency rooms who already know how to lie about falling down stairs. Children with multiple untreated STDs from years of sexual abuse.
She's good at her jobā good at compartmentalizing, good at staying objective.
But something about the sight of these kids holed up in a miserable old church, soaking wet and huddled together for warmth in the middle of a rainstorm, pricks her at the very core of her heart. She feels a surge of protectiveness toward them, a desire to help, a need to helpā
But no, she tells herself. Not so fast. If there's one thing she's learned over the years, it's that you can't help everyone, and if you try, it'll only end up destroying you.
She isn't here to save these kids, just to tell them about Will. So that's what she needs to do.
Carefully, she crouches down next to the mattress, trying not to let her dress drag too much in the water on the ground. "I'm Angelica," she tells them, "and for the sake of transparency, I'm a social worker, but right now I'm not here in that capacity. I'm just here as a friend."
"Andā¦ you know where Will is?" asks one of the girls, fiddling with a bracelet on her wrist.
Angelica takes a deep breath and nods. "He's in the hospital," she says. There's a collective sort of gasp. "But he's going to be alright," she hurries to assure them.
No one speaks for a minute.
Finally, a girl with curly black hair echoes in a hushed voice: "The hospital?"
Angelica nods.
"What happened to him?"
"He overdosed," says Angelica, as gently and succinctly as she can. "On heroin. Some police officers found him unresponsive in an alley. He was pretty out of it for a while, but he's awake now, and talking, and his doctor says he should make a full recovery."
"So he's okay," says a boy with dark skin, frowning.
"He's okay," Angelica affirms.
There are a few moments of silence, broken only by the sound of rain. Then one of the girls starts to cry.
"Riley," murmurs a dark-haired boy, taking her hand. "She said he's okay."
"I know," the girl, Riley, sniffs. "I justā" She wipes her face on the sleeve of her sweatshirt and glances up at Angelica, clearly embarrassed. "We've just all been so worried," she whispers.
Angelica nods. "I know," she says quietly. She swallows the lump in her throat. "I'm sure you have been."
"When will he be getting out?" the brown-haired boy asks, still holding the girl's hand.
"They want to keep him overnight for observation, so sometime tomorrow," says Angelica, glancing around at the cluster of concerned faces staring back at her. Then, before she's thought it through, before she even realizes what she's saying: "You could visit him tonight, if you want," she offers. "Visiting hours go for about another hour. And I can drive; my car is huge; it'll fit you all no problem," she adds, grateful for once to have such an oversized van.
"Yes please," Riley whispers immediately, and a few of the others nod.
But the boy who opened the door shakes his head. "No," he says, staring at Angelica with undisguised suspicion.
"Wolfgang," Riley says, "we have to. You know we have to."
The boy, Wolfgang, just clenches his jaw.
"Come on, Wolfie," says another boy, elbowing him in the shin. "Will needs us, man."
And at this, the boy's expression softens somewhat. "Fine," he says, looking straight at Angelica. "But you drive us to the hospital and drive us right back here, got it? And if you fucking try anythingā"
"Of course," says Angelica, nodding fervently. "I understand. You have my word."
She waits for a moment to see if anyone else will object. No one does.
"Well," she says. "I'm parked right outside."
She stands up and begins to head for the door.
And one by one, the kids follow suit.
Chapter 35: The cluster & Will
In which Angelica takes the kids to visit Will
The lady wasn't lying about having a big car.
Lito calls shotgun, and the eight of them pile inside, Felix squishing into the back row with Capheus, Kala, and Wolfgang. The area in front of their seats is cluttered with what appear to be several child-sized suitcases. Felix kicks one aside to make room for his legs.
"Are you all comfortable enough?" asks Angelica, glancing in the rearview mirror as she turns the key in the ignition.
"We're fine," says Capheus.
"Good," says Angelica. She pulls onto the road, her windshield wipers sloughing the rain off the glass.
Felix sits up straight, his backpack between his knees. It's been years since he's ridden in a car that didn't belong to a client. It feels weird.
Angelica changes lanes. "So what are your names?" she asks lightly.
Kala, Nomi, and Lito actually answer. (Stupid, but whatever.) The rest of them don't, and Angelica doesn't press them, just segues into some story about garlic bread and her friend Jonas.
She rambles most of the way to the hospital, pausing now and then as though waiting for one of them to cut in. No one does.
It's not until they're pulling into the hospital parking lot that Kala speaks up. "If I may, what are these suitcases for?" she asks politely. "The ones here in the backseat."
"Oh, those are, umā" Angelica sighs as she angles into a parking space. "Sometimes when I take kids to a new placement, they've just got all their stuff in a trash bag," she says. "Everything they own, just tossed in there like garbage. And I can't stand that. So I like to always have some spare suitcases with me to offer them instead."
Which, fuck. Felix lowers his eyes uncomfortably, because once upon a time he'd been that kid clutching a shitty trash bag full of his few shitty possessions, in a car on the way to his next shitty foster home. And it had sucked. And if someone had given him a real suitcase it would have made his fucking life.
"That's very kind of you," Sun says softly, probably remembering her own time in foster care. "I'm sure the children appreciate it very much."
"I hope they do," murmurs Angelica. She turns off the car.
And Felix still might not trust her, or even particularly like her, but he finds himself thinking that she probably does mean well, at least. She probably does just want to help.
"Well," she declares, inhaling deeply. "Let's go, shall we?"
And they go.
***
"You're here," is the first thing Will says, as the eight of them enter his room. He sounds surprised.
There are tubes going into his arm and a monitor showing his heart rate and he looks kind of like shit. That's when it really hits Felix, that Will almost died. That they almost fucking lost him. It makes his chest hurt.
"Of course we're here, silly," says Riley, hurrying to Will's side and taking his hand.
"How?" he asks.
"Angelica brought us," Sun explains.
Will glances around at them, and a few moments pass in silence. Then: "I'm so sorry," he says. "You all must be pissed; Iā"
"Don't be stupid," Wolfgang cuts him off.
"We're just so glad you're okay," says Nomi.
But Will shakes his head. "Felix," he groans weakly. "Youā you knew I'd relapse. You were right. I'm too fucking weak."
Felix gapes at him, remembering the day they met, and what a fucking dick he's been. "Noā Will, don'tā don't say that," he stammers. "I was an idiot, seriously; that stuff I said back thenā¦"
But Will doesn't seem to be listening. "It wasn't on purpose, I swear," he moves on, his voice pitched with desperation. "The overdose. The doctor, she said it's easy to OD after you've been clean for a while, because you take the same amount that you used to but your body's lost its old tolerance or something, so thenā¦" He shrugs. "You know."
"That's true," says Kala gently. "I think I've read that a third of relapses result in overdose. Maybe more."
Will doesn't respond. He stares straight at the wall in front of him, frowning, eyes unfocused.
"Will?" Riley strokes the back of his hand with her thumb. "What's wrong?"
Will swallows. "Shit," he says faintly. "My dad."
The rest of them exchange glances.
"It didn't go well?" Wolfgang guesses grimly.
Will continues to stare straight ahead. "He died," he whispers.
There's a moment of stunned silence.
"Oh god, Will," Riley murmurs at last. "I'm so sorry."
And that's when Will starts to cry.
"What happened?" asks Lito tentatively, squeezing Will's shoulder. "If you want to talk about it."
Will shakes his head. "I don't even know. Iā I went to my house and there was thisā this kid there, and he saidā" He lets out a sob. "He said my dad had been dead for a year. And I justā fuck, I never said goodbye or anything," he sniffs. "He died thinking I hated him andā and not knowing where I was, andā probably all aloneā¦" He's crying harder now, so hard Felix can barely make out what he's saying. "That's why I did it," he chokes out. "Nothing m-mattered anymore. I just wanted to likeā forget, you know?"
"I know," says Riley softly. "We know." She leans over and hugs him. Then Kala does too, and then Wolfgang, and then everyone all at once, bending down, squeezing his arms, his hands, resting their heads on his chest and shoulders and hair: one giant, wet, healing embrace.
And in that moment, Felix knows that Will is gonna be okay.
Chapter 36: Angelica & Dr. El-Saadawi
In which Angelica talks to the doctor, talks to Will, and drives the kids home
The hospital allows no more than four visitors in a room at a time without a doctor's approval, and Angelica really hadn't expected eight grubby, shabby, soaking-wet teenagers to inspire any exceptions to be made.
But Dr. El-Saadawi had surprised her.
"Thank you," Angelica tells her as the kids file into Will's room. "I know this means a lot to them."
Dr. El-Saadawi nods curtly. "I'm glad he has someone to visit him," she says. She sighs, and sits down in one of the chairs outside the room. "The police got back to me. Turns out he's a runaway."
"I see," says Angelica, also sitting down. She'd expected as much. "Runaway from where, if you know? Foster care, homeā¦?"
"Home. Nineteen months ago. There's a missing person's report."
"So he does have a family."
But the doctor shakes her head. "None living. Father died a few months after he left. Police couldn't find any other relatives."
Grimly, Angelica wonders if Will knows about his dad. Wonders what drove him to run away. "And he's eighteen?" she asks, just to be sure.
"Turned eighteen earlier this month," the doctor confirms. She hesitates for a moment, then glances at Angelica. "There's something I was hoping you might talk to him about," she says slowly. "A hospital social worker met with him while you were gone. Explained about possible next stepsā treatment, support groups, that sort of thing. He said he wasn't interested."
"You want me to try and get him to reconsider?"
"If you can." The doctor sighs again. "You said he's homeless. I'm sure you know that without any rehab or formal support, the chances of relapseā¦"
"I know," Angelica says softly. "I know." And she does. She knows that getting clean on the streets is difficult enough, but staying clean is almost unheard of. She knows that being discharged from the hospital is only the first step in a long, uphill battle for Will.
"I don't want to see him back here in a month, and hear that this time we couldn't save him," says Dr. El-Saadawi.
The words make Angelica's stomach curdle. She swallows. "I'll talk to him."
***
9 PM arrives and visiting hours end and it's time for the kids to go. Angelica holds the door open as one by one, they each hug Will goodbye and join her in the doorway.
"I want you to keep this," says one of the girls as she lets go of Will's shoulders ā Nomi, Angelica thinks she said her name was. She slips a colorful bracelet off her arm, then gently takes Will's limp hand in her own and slides the bracelet onto his wrist. "At least until you get out."
Will nods dutifully, wide-eyed.
"We'll see you tomorrow," says Riley from the doorway, and Will nods again. Then, slowly, the eight of them leave his room, waving over their shoulders, calling out final goodbyes, obviously trying their best to put on a cheerful front.
Angelica hangs back. "I'll be right out," she tells the kids. "I'm just gonna talk to Will for a second."
They nod, and Angelica closes the door. Will stares at her. His eyes are red. Angelica guesses he's been crying.
"Hey, kiddo," she says. "How're you feeling?"
Will shrugs. "Fine." He pauses, then looks down. "Thank you," he mumbles. "For bringing them."
"You're welcome," Angelica tells him, as if anyone could have seen those kids and not done the same.
There's a moment of silence. Angelica clears her throat. "So," she says. "Your doctor said you should be getting released tomorrow."
Will just nods.
"She also said you don't want to try out any kind of treatment program."
"I don't."
"Why not?"
"Because," Will snaps. "I don't need rehab."
"If I may," says Angelica. "I think you should reconsider. If your long-term sobriety is important to you, I really, really thinkā"
"I don't need rehab," Will repeats. He gestures toward the door. "I need them."
And Angelica's not sure how to argue with that.
***
The car ride back is quiet, for the most part. The kids whisper amongst themselves. Angelica makes occasional small-talk.
There are questions she'd love to ask, like how long have you guys known each other and how did you meet, because something about these kids, the way they interact with each other, the way they seem to understand each other, is unlike anything she's ever seen. Alliances on the streets are supposed to be tenuous and self-serving, formed only out of necessity, yet the bond between these kids seems anything but 'tenuous.'
She keeps her curiosity to herself though, because personal questions are not the way to get answers from distrustful kids.
"I can't believe it's still raining," she says instead, conversationally.
"I know," agrees the boy sitting beside her. Lito, his name was. "And in August too."
"I hope it stops soon," says the curly-haired girl, Kala. She pauses. "I love rain, usually. But it makes everything soā¦ wet."
By everything, Angelica assumes she means the church. And suddenly all she can do is imagine these kids curling up tonight in sopping wet sleeping bags on the floor of that godforsaken building, imagine the inch-deep water seeping into their skin and keeping them awake, with nothing to do but worry about Willā¦
"Come home with me," she says abruptly. "Just for tonight."
The kids go silent.
"I have a guest room and a sofa bed," she tells them. She knows it's a long shot, knows that a typical group of street kids would never, ever agree to stay at a virtual stranger's house, not unless they felt unfathomably desperate. But at least she can try. "It's nice and warm," she offers cajolingly. "There'll be food, pillows, blanketsā¦"
"We've already got blankets," mutters the boy named Wolfgang. There's a pause. Then, quietly: "Why?" he asks.
Why. Angelica glances at him in the rearview mirror. Why would you let a bunch of homeless kids stay in your own house, is what he's asking.
We're not worth it, is what he's implying.
"Because I hate to think of you guys getting rained on in that church," Angelica says simply. "I figure if I have somewhere you can stay, why not let you stay there?"
The silence that follows feels almost electrified, buzzing with the weight of a hundred unasked questions and unvoiced fears. "But only if you want to, of course," Angelica adds.
"We want to," says Lito, a hint of panic in his voice, as though he's afraid she's going to rescind the offer if he doesn't speak up quickly enough. "Please."
Angelica shoots him an encouraging smile. Then she glances back in the rearview mirror. "And how about the rest of you?" she asks, though somehow she knows that Lito wouldn't have said yes if he weren't already sure that his friends were on the same page. "Does that sound alright, coming back to my place?"
"Yes," says Kala tentatively. "Itā it sounds wonderful."
"Thank you," says Riley.
"Yeah," grunts Wolfgang. He clears his throat. "Thanks."
"Of course," Angelica says. For a brief moment, she wonders what she's gotten herself into.
Then, she changes lanes, and starts toward home.
Chapter 37: Angelica's house
In which the kids spend the night at Angelica's place
Felix's heart is pounding as they pull into Angelica's driveway.
I want you to go into this with an open mind, his caseworker had told him once. He'd been ten years old, and they'd been sitting in a car outside his soon-to-be new foster family's house. Sometimes I feel like you distrust people just because you can, she'd gone on. Felix? Look at me.
He hadn't looked at her, and she'd sighed. Just, how about for once you to try to give people a chance, she'd said. Okay?
No, not okay.
Not okay then and not okay now.
Because if there's one rule Felix lives by, one rule he's lived by his whole life, it's that you can never fucking trust anyone.
Don't believe promises, don't accept charity, don't let people know how you're really feeling, when you're hopeful or scared or happy or sad. Don't give them anything they can use against you, anything they can hurt you with.
(And Felix has been hurt so many timesā hurt because he trusted people, hurt in places that will never fully heal.)
He's not sure what he's afraid this Angelica lady will do. Kill them? Rape them? No, probably not. There's lots and lots of creeps out there ā pedophiles who become foster parents, serial killers who prey on street kids, general sickos who get off on hurting people weaker than themselves ā but Angelica doesn't seem like the type.
What she does seem like is someone who means well but somehow still manages to fuck things up. To fuck you up. Someone who'll make you trust her only to let you down.
Yet she'd offered to bring them home and Felix hadn't said no. He'd imagined being warm and dry and in a moment of weakness, he hadn't fucking said no. None of them had.
Felix sighs.
"You okay?" Kala whispers to him as Angelica turns off the car.
"Yeah," says Felix stiffly.
It's dark outside, but he thinks he sees Kala smile reassuringly, like maybe she doesn't believe him.
Which is fine. Felix doesn't believe himself either.
***
Angelica's house is nice. Not like a mansion or anything, but a nice, small, single-story house.
She has them leave their wet bags and shoes and jackets in the entryway, then leads them into the kitchen.
"You probably haven't had dinner, huh?" she says. "Are you hungry?"
They all shake their heads no. (Of course they're fucking hungry, they haven't eaten since yesterday, but you don't admit that to a stranger.)
"Are you sure?" wheedles Angelica, because apparently she can't just let things go. "I've got plenty of cereal. And let's seeā¦" She opens up her refrigerator and peers inside. "Oh, I baked banana bread last weekend," she says. "And I've got lots of leftoversā spaghetti, Chinese, pizza. A whole box of pizza, actually," she laughs. "Jonas dropped it off last time he visited."
"Pizza sounds kind of amazing, actually," Nomi says quietly, and Felix resists the urge to kick her.
Immediately, the lady pulls a giant pizza box out of the fridge and puts it down on the counter, looking all fucking pleased with herself.
She piles eight slices on a plate and sticks it in the microwave. It smells really good as it heats up, which pisses Felix off. Soon the microwave beeps.
"Thank you," says Nomi as Angelica sets the steaming plate on the dining table.
"Of course," smiles Angelica. "Enjoy it, okay? I'm gonna go find some spare sheets for the couch."
She bustles off down a hallway, leaving the eight of them crowded around the table.
Felix swallows the saliva pooling in his mouth and crosses his arms. "I don't trust her," he mutters.
"Me neither," shrugs Capheus, picking up a slice of pizza. "But it's free food."
Which is the problem. Because Felix has been screwed over enough times to know not to accept shit for free. But he's been hungry enough times to know not to turn down food, ever.
In the end he takes a slice. They all do. And it tastes cheesy and greasy and doughy and amazing.
They're licking their fingers as Angelica returns, her arms piled high with bedding. "So," she says, "who's sleeping in the guest room and who's taking the sofa bed?"
They exchange a glance before Kala voices what they're all thinking. "If it's alright, I think we'd all like to sleep in the same room?" she says softy, twisting her hands together.
"Oh!" Angelica looks surprised, but doesn't argue. "That works too. Iā The sofa bed is a bit bigger than the one in the guest room, I think, soā¦ I'll just get it all set up then."
"Thank you," says Kala. "That would be perfect."
***
The couch folds out into a queen-sized bed, and Angelica prepares it quickly, occasionally asking one of them for help with stretching out and tucking in the sheets. "Let me go get some pillows," she says at last. "And blankets. Oh, and how about clothes? You guys are soaked; if you want I have tons of sweatpants and sweatshirts and old t-shirts you can change into. And socks; I have lots of fuzzy socksā¦"
But Wolfgang shakes his head firmly. "No thank you," he says. "We're fine."
Angelica nods, like she'd expected that answer. "Alright," she says. "Just me know if you change your mind."
She heads back down the hallway.
Lito prods the mattress with his finger. "Dry clothes do sound nice though," he says wistfully.
"We already owe her enough," grunts Wolfgang.
"You really think she minds?"
"Of course she minds," Felix cuts in. "No one likes doing shit for free."
Lito shrugs. "What about gifts?"
"No such thing as a gift," Wolfgang mutters. "Everyone wants something in return."
"Not you guys," Nomi says softly. "You took me in, bought me new clothes. Wasn't that a gift? Did you want anything in return?"
No one answers immediately.
"That's different," says Riley at last. "We all help each other."
"Well maybe Angelica helps people too," suggests Nomi.
Capheus sighs. "Maybe."
No, Felix wants to yell. She's a stranger, and an adult, and a fucking social worker. But he doesn't, because just then Angelica returns, this time with an armful of blankets and pillows. She plops them down on the bed.
"Is there anything else you guys need before going to sleep?" she asks brightly, like maybe they're gonna ask for a fucking bedtime story or something.
"No," says Felix.
"Thank you," adds Capheus.
Angelica smiles. "Alright then. I guess I'll just be in my bedroom. The bathroom is at the end of the hallway. And free to knock on my door if you need anything tonight. Anything at all, I'm serious."
They nod.
She bids them goodnight, and retreats down the hall.
It all seems too simple, too easy.
"We'll leave early tomorrow," whispers Wolfgang. "Before she wakes up."
They all agree, and Capheus sets the alarm on his watch.
Then they turn out the lights, and squeeze together on the mattress, and tuck the blankets around their bodies, and try to get some sleep.
***
It's strange to be lying in a bed, a real bed, not just a musty old mattress. Felix hasn't slept in a real bed in years, not since his last foster home, and that hadn't been a bed that good things happened in.
He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to fall asleep, but it's hard when your mind's racing and your clothes are wet and you're one of eight people crammed on a queen-sized bed. It's hard when you're scared out of your mind because you know you can't fucking trust anyone and yet here you are at a stranger's house in a stranger's bed and you don't know what she wants or why she's helping you.
He inhales shakily, and buries his face in Wolfgang's shoulder blade. Wolfie's shirt is warm and mostly dry, and Felix lies there, his heart pounding against Wolfgang's back, for a long time.
He wonders if maybe he should trust Angelicaā just a little bit, just until they leave tomorrow morning. Because shit, he's so fucking tired, and the bed is so fucking softā¦
But No, screams something inside of him. Nothing is free, nowhere is safe, no one is ever truly good; you know that. There are tears in his eyes. He blinks them away, and sighs.
Because maybe it's true. Maybe everything has a price and everywhere is dangerous and everyone has some ulterior motive. Maybe tomorrow Angelica will show her true colors. But maybe, he tells himself, maybe for tonight they're safe. Maybe that's what he'll choose to believe.
And soon, maybe Felix's breathing evens out, and his heart stops beating so fast, and his mind stops racing.
And maybe, finally, he manages to sleep.
***
They wake up at dawn to the tinny beeping of Capheus's watch. The house is still. Hurriedly, silently, they gather their bags and slip out the front door.
It's still fucking raining.
"To the hospital, yes?" whispers Kala.
And the answer is: Of course.
Chapter 38: The cluster & Angelica
In which Angelica makes an offer
It's like 7 AM by the time they reach the hospital. They enter the lobby, soaking wet, and sit down in the vinyl chairs. The receptionist eyes them uneasily.
Wolfgang knows that look, the I-hate-homeless-people-on-principle look. And sure enough, they've only been sitting there for a few minutes before she comes over and asks them to leave.
"Why?" demands Wolfgang, glaring at her.
"You're getting the chairs wet," is what she says.
"The chairs'll dry," Wolfgang retorts.
"Well you're making people uncomfortable," she says, though there's only one other person in the lobby, and he seems to be asleep. "I'm going to have to call security if you don't go."
Wolfgang opens his mouth to argue, but Kala touches his arm. "It's okay," she says, standing up. "We're sorry," she tells the lady.
Riley stands up too. "Come on," she murmurs. "Let's go."
So they do. The lady watches with her arms crossed, and Felix flips her off as the door swings shut behind them.
They sit down right outside the lobby, under an awning that mostly manages to keep the rain off.
"What a bitch," says Felix sourly.
"She was just doing her job," Kala says.
"No, she was being a bitch."
"I think she was just scared," says Nomi. "Iā I used to be kind of scared of homeless people too." She lowers her voice. "Before, I mean. I thought they were dangerous."
"Some of them are," Riley mutters darkly.
Which is true, they all know. For a few moments none of them speak.
Then Capheus changes the subject. "So. Visiting hours start at eight," he says.
"Great," Wolfgang sighs. It's cold outside. He shoves his hands in his pockets. "One hour to go."
***
Except fifteen minutes later, Angelica shows up.
It takes Wolfgang by surprise, though he really should have expected it, he thinks. Of course she wouldn't just let them leave; of course she'd feel the need to check up on them.
She looks like a fucking angel or something as she ducks under the awning, with her white raincoat and her white umbrella and her blonde hair streaming behind her.
"I thought I might find you here," she says. They stare up at her, and she frowns. "Why are you sitting outside?"
"Lady in there kicked us out," mutters Felix.
"She said we were making people uncomfortable," adds Capheus.
Angelica scoffs. "Give me one minute," she says brusquely. With that, she closes her umbrella, yanks open the door, and storms into the lobby.
They watch through the glass as she heads toward the desk and begins gesticulating at the receptionist. Before long the receptionist nods grudgingly, and Angelica comes marching back toward the door. She pushes it open. "Come on," she says, beckoning to them. "Come in."
"What did you tell her?" Lito asks wonderingly as they re-enter the lobby.
"To go fuck herself," whispers Angelica. She gives them a wink. "Though not in those exact words."
And Wolfgang can't help but smile a little.
***
They all sit down together in the back corner of the lobby. Felix gives the receptionist a jaunty wave, and she looks away stiffly.
Angelica laughs. "So," she says then, taking off her raincoat and setting it on the chair beside her. "How did you sleep?"
"Very well, thank you," says Riley politely.
Angelica smiles. "I'm glad," she says. "I barely slept at all."
"How come?" asks Capheus.
Angelica hesitates. "Um," she says finally, "well, to be honest, I kind of couldn't stop thinking about you guys. Andā and Will, of course." She swallows.
They stare at her.
"I, um. I wanted to ask you something, actually," she goes on. "I had planned to talk to you about it at breakfast, but then you slipped out early, so I justā¦" She takes a deep breath. "I wanted to know if maybeā¦ you might want to stay with me on a moreā¦ long-term basis?"
"Stay with you?" repeats Kala.
"How long?" asks Nomi.
"No," says Wolfgang decisively, setting his jaw.
Everyone looks over at him.
"What?" he mutters, not meeting anyone's eye. "We can take care of ourselves."
Angelica nods somberly. "Obviously," she says. "If you couldn't, I imagine you'd be dead." There's a ringing sort of silence. Then Angelica continues. "But what about Will?" she says softly. "Will deserves somewhere safe to detox, doesn't he? Somewhere comfortable and dry."
Somewhere with a bathroom to shit in, thinks Wolfgang, remembering the last time Will went through withdrawals. He bites his lip.
He can feel the others holding their breaths.
Angelica sighs. "What about just until the rain lets up?" she tries. "I hear it's supposed to stop sometime next week. How does that sound, hmm?"
"You'd like usā¦ to stay in your house? Until next week?" asks Sun quietly, frowning.
"Yes," nods Angelica. She glances around at each them. "Yes, I would like that very much."
No one says anything.
No, Wolfgang thinks, automatically, we don't need any fucking help, but he can't quite get the words out, because of course they need some fucking help. Because they're teenagers living in a shitty abandoned church. Because they make money selling their bodies and begging for change and recycling cans. Because there's never quite enough food or blankets as it is, and autumn is coming, and then winter, and winter makes everything worse.
He closes his eyes, and suddenly he remembers being thirteen, and sick, and utterly alone. He remembers staggering into some store and trying to shoplift some food and a bottle of medicine, remembers getting caught and slapped across the face and shoved out the door. He remembers giving up then, giving up and crawling down an alley and curling into a ball, puking and coughing and wanting to die.
And then he remembers hearing a voice, someone talking to him, asking if he was okay. A boy. A boy holding the bottle of medicine he'd tried to steal.
Felix.
He remembers being terrified, trying to stand up, only to collapse back onto the ground.
Are you okay? Felix had repeated.
Wolfgang hadn't answered.
Just take the medicine, Felix had said, setting it down and lifting up his hands in a show of peace. I'm not gonna hurt you.
I don't need your help, Wolfgang had coughed out.
Felix had just given him a look. You got somewhere to stay?
Yes.
Let's go there, Felix had said. Come on, I'll help you get up. It's okay, c'mon.
And Wolfgang hadn't had it in him to argue.
They'd made their way to the church, Wolfgang clutching Felix's arm for support. You live here? Felix had asked, looking around in awe. By yourself?
Wolfgang had nodded, and allowed himself to be led toward the nest of dirty blankets in the corner.
Lay down, Felix had told him. I'll go find you some food.
No, Wolfgang had muttered. I'm fine.
But Felix had shaken his head. You're not, he'd asserted. Then: Everyone needs help sometimes, he'd said softly. It's alright.
And Wolfgang had said, Okay.
He opens his eyes, and he's back in the hospital lobby, and the others are staring at him, and Angelica is waiting for an answer.
"Okay," he says.
And that's that.
Chapter 39: The cluster
In which the kids move in
Will is released from the hospital that afternoon and Angelica drives him back to her house, where the others are waiting.
He's in the throes of withdrawal by now, sweaty and shaking and miserable, and he spends most the car ride retching into a plastic bag.
"We're almost home, kiddo," she tells him.
Will sniffs. "Okay," he says. He coughs wetly into the bag, and lets out a shuddering breath. "Angelica," he says then, weakly.
"Yes?"
"Areā are you really sure you want a bunch of stupid fucked up kids to live with you?" he asks, his voice hoarse and quavering. "Even just for a week?"
Angelica glances over at him, hunched over in the passenger seat. "I'm really truly sure," she says.
"Some of us have done, like. Bad shit," mumbles Will.
"I'm sure you did what you had to do to survive, yeah?" Angelica tells him softly. "That's not your fault."
"I guess," says Will. He coughs again, and spits into the bag. "It's so hard," he whispers.
And Angelica's not entirely sure what he's referring to, but she nods. "I know," she says, pulling into the driveway of her house. "I know, kiddo. It's okay."
She helps Will inside and guides him to the sofa bed, where he curls up under the blankets. The others start ministering to him immediately, speaking to him softly and stroking his hair and bringing him water and cold washcloths.
And there's something about the scene, something about these kids who care for each other so deeply, so completely, that both breaks and mends Angelica's heart at the same time.
***
Once Will is asleep, the kids take showers, and change into Angelica's spare sweatpants and t-shirts. She shows them how to work the television and DVD player, and makes sure they know that they can use the computer and help themselves to anything in the cupboards or fridge.
They thank her again and again.
You're welcome, she tells them. You're welcome, you're welcome, you're welcome.
And they are. They're welcome to everything she has.
***
Sunday dawns dry.
Will stays in bed and Riley volunteers to watch over him, but Angelica takes the rest of the kids shopping for clothes and toiletries and bulk quantities of food.
It's expensive, but it's worth it.
They're worth it.
That evening the kids end up cuddled together on the sofa bed in their new pajamas, watching a film starring Jean-Claude Van Damme.
Tomorrow Angelica will go back to work, and she already knows she'll miss them while she's gone.
***
It's Monday, and the kids eat breakfast in silence, like they're afraid to talk in Angelica's presence. She's about go finish her coffee in her room so they can have some peace when suddenly Nomi clears her throat.
"Um, weā We had a question," she says.
"Of course, anything," says Angelica quickly.
"Okay. Um, we were wondering what you had in mind in terms of, like, a timeline?" Nomi asks, not quite meeting Angelica's eye. "Likeā¦ for us to leave?"
Angelica nearly drops her mug. "Sweetheart," she says faintly, shaking her head, "there's no timeline. You don't need to leave."
Nomi frowns. "But we thoughtā I mean, you said it was just until the rain stoppedā¦"
"I did. I did say that," Angelica admits. "Because you didn't seem to want to stay longer than that." The glances around the table, at the faces gaping back at her. "But now that you're here," she says softly, "you can stay as long as you need, do you understand? I want you to stay. And I hope you want to stay too."
"Oh," says Nomi shortly.
"We do," mumbles Lito, staring down at his cereal. "Want to stay, I mean."
And a few of the others nod.
"Thank you," Riley whispers.
Angelica tries to smile, but something about the expressions on the faces staring back at her, the mix of wide-eyed hope and palpable confusion, makes it difficult. She wants, more than anything, to hug them. To tell them that they're all valuable and worthy of love.
She pulls up a folding chair and sits down behind Capheus. "I know it might seem sudden," she says, gripping her coffee mug tightly. "Or difficult to understand. Butā" She wonders how to explain the feeling she had when she met them, like maybe, in another universe, or in a past life, she knew them, and loved them. "I care about all of you," she says at last.
She's not sure if they believe her.
But she hopes that they will in time.
***
That evening, after dinner, Angelica sits them down and asks if any of them have graduated from high school.
Nomi lifts her hand slowly. "I graduated in June," she says.
"But the rest of you haven't?"
A few of them shake their heads. The others just stare at her.
"Alright," says Angelica, "I'm not a person who has a lot of rules, but I do ask that while you're staying here, you spend your time working toward an education. Studying for the GED."
Wolfgang snorts. "We've got jobs," he says acerbically, crossing his arms.
Angelica looks over at him. He glares back defiantly, chin raised, as if daring her ask what jobs?
She doesn't.
"If you have a job you're at risk of being fired from if you take some time off, we'll talk," she says. Wolfgang lowers his eyes. "Otherwise, I just want you to take a break and focus on your educations instead. Does that sound okay?"
Wolfgang scowls, but the rest of the group nod hesitantly.
"You don't need to worry about any expenses while you're here," Angelica continues. "As long as you're under my roof I'll make sure you're provided for. Food, clothes, everything you need."
"Forgive me for being blunt, but how will you afford that?" Kala asks softly, trepidatiously. "Are you sure you don't need us to pitch in, orā"
"I'll make it work," says Angelica firmly, and she will. She has savings, and Jonas will help if need be. She looks around at their worried faces. "Trust me, alright?"
They don't trust her, she knows.
And why should they? They probably learned long ago not to trust anyone.
But they do seem to relax a little, a few of them hazard tentative smiles, and none of them try to argue outright.
Which is all she can ask for, really.
***
Angelica works long hours and the week goes by quickly.
By Friday, Will's withdrawal symptoms have passed, and the whole lot of them go out for pizza at Jonas's.
"If I had to choose a final meal, it would be pizza," says Felix when the food arrives, and everyone laughs.
Shyly, as they eat, the kids share bits and pieces of their week with Angelica: how they watched Jean-Claude Van Damme's entire filmography, how Kala and Nomi helped the rest of them study a little.
They get home late, brush their teeth, and fall into bed.
And Angelica isn't a mother, has never wanted to be a mother ("I'm a social worker," she laughs when people ask her about it, "I have with more kids than I can count"), but the next morning, when she catches a glimpse of the nine teenagers tangled together on her sofa bed, a cluster of bodies and limbs and hearts, she feels something within her leap in a way she could only describe as maternal.
***
She doesn't ask them about their life on the streets, not yet, but she knows the statistics.
The majority of them have no doubt been subjected to physical and sexual violence. At least some of them have probably engaged in survival sex. All of them have certainly been receiving inadequate nutrition and health care. And only scanty protection from the elements, she thinks, remembering the rain-drenched church.
She knows they have an uphill battle ahead of them, knows that it won't be easy to help them get all the things they've missed out on: doctor's appointments and health insurance and state ID cards and educations and probably years of therapy.
But for now, they have a house to sleep in, and time to heal, and boundless potential.
And they have each other. And really, she thinks, maybe that's all they need.
Chapter 40: Epilogue
In which there are happy endings
It's a Sunday afternoon in September, and Kala is cooking one of her dad's old recipes. The rest of them are helping too, stirring sauces and slicing vegetables and measuring out spices. And there in the kitchen, as he pours a tablespoon of paprika into a tiny little bowl, something clicks inside of Felix. He stops waiting for the other shoe to drop. He realizes, with a rush of some emotion he can't quite identify, that this is his life now. Being safe and clean and warm and full. Not having to worry that tonight's the night he'll be mugged, or raped, or killed. Not having to worry about anything, really.
Which is weird, for a kid whose first memories are of being hungry and scared while his mom gets high on the couch. A kid who's spent his life just trying to survive, just trying to live for one more miserable day, one more miserable year.
He hands Kala the paprika and takes a step back.
He must be making a face, because Wolfgang elbows his ribs. "What's wrong?" he whispers.
Felix shakes his head. "Nothing," he says. "I'm just. Happy. I guess."
Wolfgang looks at him funny, then seems to understand. "Me too," he says softly. He elbows Felix again. "It's nice, huh?"
And it is.
*
*
*
Amanita cries when Nomi calls her.
"Oh my god, Nom, you're okay," she says. "I mean, are you okay? Oh my god, I've been so worriedā"
"I'm okay," says Nomi quickly. "And I'm not homeless anymore. I'm living with a lady; she's like the nicest person ever. And the others are here too."
"Felix and Wolfgang? And Lito? You're all safe?"
"Them, andā¦ and we have some other friends too. There's nine of us now, actually."
"Nine? And you're all in one house?"
Nomi laughs. "It's pretty crowded," she admits. "But it's everything I've ever wanted, Neets."
Amanita swallows. "I'm glad," she says. "God, Nomi, I'm so glad you're okay. Andā I'm sorry for what I said," she adds quietly. "About how you shouldn't stay with them. I'm sorry I got mad. That really wasn't what you needed, huh."
"It's okay," says Nomi. "I know it was because you were worried. And you wanted to help. And you love me."
"I do, Nom," says Amanita. "I love you so fucking much."
"I love you too," says Nomi.
And now they're both crying, and Amanita says she'll visit over Thanksgiving break, and Nomi can't remember the last time her heart felt so full.
***
She calls her house too, and her mother answers the phone.
Nomi shuts her eyes. "Hello, I'm in a class with Teagan," she says in a measured voice. "I was calling about a project we have together. Is she available?"
"Oh," says her mother. "Yes, Iā¦ I'll go and get her."
Nomi waits with bated breath, until finally her sister picks up the phone. "Hello?" Teagan sounds confused.
"Teagan, it's Nomiā Shhh," she adds, when Teagan inhales sharply. "Don't say anything in front of Mom. Just go to your room."
"No, I haven't started the project yet either," says Teagan loudly. "Yeah, let me go look in the textbook." Nomi hears the thud of her sister's feet as she runs upstairs, then the sound of a door slamming shut. Then, "Nomi!" Teagan squeals. "It's really you? Are you alright?"
Nomi blinks back tears. "Hey, T. Yeah, I'm alright. I'm good, actually. Like. Really good."
"Where are you? I miss you, Nom. I can't believeā"
"I know," says Nomi. "I miss you too. I'mā There's a lady who's letting some of my friends and I stay with her."
"Why didn't you call?"
"Iā I couldn't, at first," says Nomi. "But I called as soon as I could, okay?"
"I know," Teagan says simply. "It's fine. So can I come see you?"
"Of course," says Nomi. "We'll have to work out a cover story, but yeah. The sooner the better."
And Teagan lets out a contented little sigh. "I'm glad everything's okay," she says, with all the naĆÆvetĆ© of a sheltered twelve-year-old girl.
But she's not exactly wrong. "Yeah," says Nomi. "So am I."
***
(Nomi keeps it on the downlow, but maybe she also calls up Bug, her friend from boarding school, and maybe he hacks into the Chicago police department's files for her. Maybe she asks him to look into the investigation of the death of one Anton Bogdanow, and maybe he finds that there's nothing but a cursory police report, no fingerprints, no suspects.
Maybe she tells Wolfgang and he hugs her in relief.
Maybe.)
*
*
*
Sun doesn't expect much when she tells Angelica about her brother.
Maybe Angelica won't be able to find him. She's heard stories about kids going missing in foster care ā they move placements and someone forgets to update their file, they run away and no one reports it. Or maybe he's been adopted. Maybe it was a closed adoption, or he's moved to a different state, or his parents will refuse to let him meet her.
But then Angelica tracks him down in DCFS's records: Joong-ki Bak, ten years old, living in a foster home a few miles away.
She sets up the meeting between the siblings, and Sun has never been so excited or so scared for anything in her life.
***
"Do you remember me?" Sun asks the boy standing in front of her. He looks just like their mother.
"I don't know," says Joong-ki.
"My name is Sun," she tells him softly. She wants to hug him.
Joong-ki shrugs. "I'm going to my room," he mutters, glancing at his foster dad, who nods. And Joong-ki leaves without a backward glance.
***
His foster father, Mr. Kim, is an older man with kind eyes and a beautiful dog, and Sun likes him immediately.
He invites her into the kitchen and makes them both tea.
"Will he come back?" asks Sun softly.
"Perhaps not today," says Mr. Kim. "He has some difficulty with new things."
Sun stares into her tea. "Is something wrong with him?" she asks.
The man hesitates. "He isā¦ angry," he says at last. "Angry at the world."
Sun looks up.
"I do not blame him," the man goes on. "He had been through thirteen foster homes before he came here. Thirteen homes in six years."
"He was supposed to be adopted," says Sun, more to herself than to Mr. Kim. "That's why they split us up. He was supposed to have a good life."
Mr. Kim nods thoughtfully. "I cannot fix the past," he says. "But Joong-ki has lived here for a year and a half, and I have no intention of giving him up. Or of giving up on him."
"I promised our mother I'd protect him," Sun whispers. "But I didn't."
"You tried," says Mr. Kim. "All we can do is try."
There's a lump in Sun's throat. The teacup is hot in her hands.
"Joong-ki is trying too," the man says. "He is trying very, very hard. And in time, he will heal."
Sun blinks back tears.
The man looks her straight in the eye, and says, "So will you."
*
*
*
Angelica hires a pair of tutors, Hernando and Daniela, to help them study for the GED.
Lito likes them both. They're smart and patient and funny, and they don't seem to care that Felix has a sixth-grade reading level or that Capheus changed schools too much to learn long division.
Hernando talks about college, how he's majoring in art history and wants to be a professor one day.
"You're good at teaching," says Lito shyly. "I'm sure that you will be a great professor."
Hernando just smiles, and Lito feels his stomach flutter.
*
*
*
Luna is reinterred next to Riley's father.
She's given a beautiful marble headstone, but Riley makes sure the one that Wolfgang made is placed right beside it.
She and the others bring flowers and set them by the grave.
Riley cries, and Will holds her tight.
***
Angelica doesn't pressure them to go to therapy, but she does tell them about her friend, Dr. Silas Kabaka, a psychologist who's agreed to work pro-bono for anyone Angelica sends his way.
Riley takes him up on the offer.
She meets with him twice a week, and little by little, she tells him about her dad, and foster care, and the homeless shelter, and Jacks, and Luna.
She talks, and cries, and Dr. Kabaka listens. They discuss self-harm and depression and suicidal thoughts. She learns the word dissociation.
And it's hard. It's hard to talk about this shit.
But the weeks go by, and she's not quite sure, but it feels like maybe the gaping holes in her heart, the ones carved out by death and trauma and pain, have started to mend, a little.
*
*
*
Will starts going to a support group for teens struggling with addiction.
It's good to see people who've gotten clean and relapsed and gotten clean again. One of the girls there has been clean for two years. Will hopes to get there someday.
He doesn't talk much, and when he does he doesn't tell the whole truth, doesn't mention being homeless and giving head to buy dope. But it's nice. It's helpful.
Will stops hearing Whispers's voice in his head, telling him that he's too weak. He starts hearing other voices, voices saying he is strong, he's not alone, and he can do this.
Slowly but surely, he starts to believe those voices instead.
*
*
*
There's a girl named Zakia who works at the Starbucks that Capheus used to go to sometimes. She'd always given him her employee discount, and she'd never looked at him like he was less than her. How are you? she'd ask.
Could be worse, he'd say, smiling, and he'd pay for his muffin and go. He'd never properly thanked her.
It's time to change that, he thinks.
He bikes to the Starbucks, walks inside, and there she is, behind the counter.
"Hello you," she says. "You lookā¦" She pauses. "ā¦different."
Capheus grins broadly. "I've had a change in circumstances," he tells her.
"A good one?"
"Very good."
Zakia looks at him with soft eyes. "I'm glad," she says. "I worried about you."
Capheus isn't sure what to say, so he nods. "Thank you," he adds after a moment. "For all the muffins."
"You're welcome," she says.
They stare at each other for a second.
"You bike to work, don't you?" he asks then.
"I do," says Zakia. "Why?"
Capheus takes a very deep breath. "Would you like to go bike riding together sometime? With me?"
Zakia blinks, then smiles, and says, "I'd like that very much."
*
*
*
Felix knows he's got issues. Like how he gets nightmares. And how he hides food. And how he never feels clean no matter how many times he fucking showers.
Some mornings he wakes up early and can't get back to sleep, so he goes to the kitchen and eats cereal out of the box till he feels like he's gonna puke. One morning Angelica finds him and sits down beside him and asks him what's wrong.
"Nothing," he says.
Angelica nods. It's dark in the kitchen, save for the watery morning light coming in through the window.
"I'm a bad person," he whispers into the semi-darkness.
"You are not," says Angelica, but Felix shakes his head.
"You don't even know me," he mutters. "You don't know what I've done."
"What have you done?"
Felix shrugs. "I've stole stuff. Broke the law a bunch of times. Beat people up. Been a fucking whore." He pauses, and shoves a handful of cereal into his mouth. "I killed a puppy once," he says, chewing.
Angelica doesn't flinch. "On purpose?" she asks, and that's when Felix loses it.
"No," he says, starting to cry, pressing his hands to his eyes. "No, I swear to god, it was an accident, I was five, I didn't mean it, I didn'tā" He chokes down the cereal still in his mouth and stands up, ready to bolt. "I didn't mean to," he whispers.
Angelica stands up too. "C'mere, kiddo," she says gently.
Felix steps closer, and she hugs him.
And Felix can remember his mom, but he can't remember her ever hugging him like this. He cries into her shoulder.
"You're not a bad person," says Angelica, and Felix hugs her back.
***
"What would you say about going to therapy or something?" he asks Wolfgang the next day. "Like Riley does."
"Therapy?"
"She said it's helpful," Felix shrugs.
"I don't need therapy," mutters Wolfgang.
"Okay," Felix says. "But I think maybe I do."
Wolfgang stares at him.
Felix shrugs again. "I thought maybe we could go together or something."
So they do.
*
*
*
"I remember you, you know," Joong-ki tells Sun one Saturday as they're playing with the dog. It's the first thing he's said to her in weeks. "One time I broke Dad's briefcase. And you told him it was you."
Sun stares at him.
"I probably never said thanks or whatever, so sorry," Joong-ki shrugs, eyes fixed on the dog as he scratches behind its ears.
"I love you," Sun whispers before she can help herself.
Joong-ki glances up and gives her a sort of nod. "Okay," he says.
Which is a start.
***
There's a boy who comes by twice a day to take Mr. Kim's dog on walks. His name is Kwon-Ho Mun and he's a senior in high school. Sometimes Sun goes with him on the walks, when Joong-ki isn't in the mood to interact.
"So how do you know Mr. Kim?" he asks her one Saturday as they're out with the dog.
Sun hesitates for a moment, unsure what to say. "You've met Joong-ki?" is what she settles on.
"The foster kid?"
"Yes." Sun pauses. "He's my brother."
"Like. Your real brother?"
"My biological brother, yes."
"Oh."
He doesn't ask, but Sun explains anyway. "I was in foster care too," she says.
"But not anymore?"
"I'm eighteen now," she shrugs, and Mun nods, and they continue walking.
***
It's a windy October day a few weeks later when Sun decides to tells him.
"I was homeless," she says, staring at the red leaves overhead. "For a year and a half."
The dog is peeing on a bush. Sun can feel Mun glance over at her. "Whatā¦ what do you mean?" he asks.
She squints at the branches of the tree and sighs. "I ran away from foster care," she says. "I lived on the streets. I begged for money by the side of the road. I was hungry a lot. Then I made some friends. I moved into an abandoned church with them."
"What about now?" Mun asks, softly.
Sun shrugs. "Now I live in a house with a woman. She's a good person. My friends live there too."
The dog pulls on the leash, but Mun doesn't move. "So you're okay now?" he asks.
"I am," Sun nods. Mun's eyes rove over her face, but she keeps her expression impassive. "I don't want you to treat me differently now that I've told you," she says.
"I won't," says Mun.
He doesn't.
*
*
*
Capheus hates himself for it, but sometimes his stomach flips with jealousy when Sun mentions her brother. He's happy for her of course, so happy, but it hurts to think how different his own situation is. Because he knows that his sister could very well be dead. And he isn't sure he wants to learn the truth.
But then her birthday arrives, October 29th. She'd be nine years old. And that's when he tells Angelica.
"I have a sister," he says. "Orā I did. She was a baby, when we entered foster care. We were separated and I never saw her again. She had HIV."
"I'll find her," says Angelica. "If she can be found, I'll find her."
And she does: She finds his sister's file, finds that she was adopted at just seven months old. She contacts the family, and they agree to a phone call. And Capheus cries, with relief, and fear, and hope.
***
He speaks with the mother first, then with the father, and then, finally, with Cleo.
"Are you really my real life brother?" she asks, the moment she gets on the phone. It sounds like she can barely contain her excitement.
"I am," says Capheus. He tries not to cry at the sound of her voice. "And you're my real life sister."
"I always wanted a brother!" Cleo tells him. "How old are you?"
"I'm eighteen."
"A grown-up!" she squeaks.
Capheus laughs. "Kind of."
"What grade are you in?"
"I'm actually not in school anymore."
"Lucky!" Cleo sighs. "I'm in third grade." Then she seems to perk up. "I'm gonna tell my friends I have a brother who's a grown-up!" she declares. "Can I go meet you?"
"I'm not sure," says Capheus. "We'll have to talk to your parents. But I'm just glad to be able to talk to you on the phone."
"Me too!" exclaims Cleo. "You're cool. Do you like YouTube videos?"
They talk for over an hour. She tells to him about school and her friends and her favorite TV shows and what she wants for Christmas, and Capheus pinches himself several times to make sure he's not dreaming. Because his sister is alive. Alive, and thriving, and bursting with life.
And suddenly Capheus realizes that his mother was right, about something good happening.
That's when he starts to cry.
"Are you okay?" Cleo asks.
"I'm fine," he says quickly.
"Oh," says Cleo. "I thought you were crying."
"I am," says Capheus. "But I'm happy. I'm very, very happy."
And he is.
*
*
*
It's November when Kala finally calls her sister Daya.
She tells her everythingā about Rajan, about Riley and the church, about Angelica.
Daya cries. "Kala, I'm so sorry," she says. "Why didn't you call me? I could have helped you."
"You had your family."
"You're my family."
"You left," says Kala softly.
"Because I had to," Daya sniffles. "I had to get away. From Mom."
"I know."
"I'm sorry."
"It's okay."
"Are you angry?"
"No," says Kala, which isn't quite true.
She hangs up feeling confused.
***
Until the next week, when Daya calls Angelica's house.
"I've been thinking," she tells Kala. "I want to see you. I want to visit."
So she comes, the following weekend: She flies to Chicago and stays in Angelica's guest room and she and Kala talk late into the night. It's hard, and uncomfortable, and almost feels like getting to know a stranger. It's been a long three years, thinks Kala.
But then they go to sleep, curled up together, just like they used to. And there in bed, her sister's arms around her, Kala feels certain that they're going to be alright.
*
*
*
Felix turns nineteen. They they throw him a birthday party, and it's the first time in his life he's had a birthday more extravagant than a few extra bucks from his foster parents or a pack of cigarettes from Wolfie.
It feels good. Like he matters, or something.
"Of course you matter, you idiot," says Wolfgang. "We all do," he adds.
And maybe he's right.
*
*
*
They all go to Amanita's house for Thanksgiving. Nomi hasn't seen Amanita in months, and as they hug, she feels her heart blooming in her chest.
Amanita and her mom hug everyone else too, and tears are shed, and dinner is served. They all eat their fill of turkey and stuffing and warm pumpkin pie. Then they head into the living room, where Riley plays the piano and Wolfgang sings and the rest of them listenā tired, happy, and full.
And Nomi feels like the luckiest person on earth.
*
*
*
Wolfgang still visits the church sometimesā picks the lock and slips inside and stays there for a while, thinking.
The others let him go, don't ask questions; they know he can take care of himself, know he'll talk about it if he wants to.
Today it's snowing when he arrives, and the light of the setting sun glints icy gold off the street.
He enters the building and looks around, and it's strange to think that one year ago he was sleeping here with Felix, unaware that seven strangers were about to come into his life and move into the church and wind themselves around his heart.
All their crap is still there in the corner, sleeping bags and blankets and the mattress, by now reduced by weather and neglect to a dirty, moldy mess.
It makes him sad, a little.
His mind goes then, inexplicably, to his first house, the crappy apartment he'd lived in with his parents, where his mother got thrown against walls and he got pummeled to the floor andā
It had never felt like home.
And honestly, neither had this place.
He trudges through the layer of snow that's settled on the ground, sits down on the mattress that he'd slept on for five long years.
He'd put down roots here over time, in the dank, decrepit floor of the church.
But it was Felix who'd been his home.
And when Lito and Capheus and Sun and Riley and Kala and Will and Nomi had moved in, that was the home they'd moved into: A home that existed in their hearts, in their bones, separate from the caved-in roof and broken windows and rotted walls of the church.
And now, separate still, even from the cleanliness and comfort and sturdy reliability of Angelica's house.
Wolfgang touches the fabric of the mattress and feels his chest tighten under his ribs. He thinks of his thirteen-year-old self, that kid who had nothing and no one, and wishes he could tell him that someday he'd have so much and so many.
And maybe it's the dust, or maybe he cries a bit for the first time in years.
It's getting late.
He leaves the church.
He doesn't think he'll be back.
***
When he returns to Angelica's house, the others are squished together on the couch, bundled under a pile of blankets and watching Conan the Barbarian.
They all look over when he walks through the door, and someone pauses the movie.
"Wolfie, come on," says Felix, "get over here, its Conan."
Kala, seated at the edge of the couch, lifts her blanket and pats the spot beside her. Wolfgang nestles in. Felix unpauses the movie.
***
And outside it's still snowing, but inside the nine of them are warm and safe and dry.
And, together, they're home.
the end.