by Aly Martinez
A few years earlier, Slate had given Till the opportunity of a lifetime by bankrolling his efforts to become a professional boxer. A fated chance that had ultimately led us to a moment where I lay paralyzed in a bed and my brother sat across from me as the current heavyweight champion of the entire fucking world, holding the woman I loved.
It didn’t exactly seem fair, but not much in my life was.
“Yeah. Come on in,” I replied, looking around the room at the solemn faces.
My eyes landed on Quarry, who was in the corner, peering out the window. If it weren’t for the softest shake of his shoulders, I wouldn’t have thought much of it.
“Hey, Q,” I called.
He didn’t turn to face me as he answered, “Yeah.”
“You crying over there?” Yep. I went right for it. He was my little brother. Even in a moment that, by all means, should have been emotional, it was still my job to give him absolute hell.
“Fuck you,” he barked at the window.
My lip twitched at his response. “Hey, you can’t be a man and a baby. Either cuss or cry,” I teased, making sure to sign as I spoke so Till could join in the fun.
Slate groaned beside me, and Till shook his head before kissing Eliza’s temple.
“Leave him alone,” Erica urged.
I couldn’t do that at all though. I needed that interaction to keep my mind from spiraling out of control.
In an exaggerated baby voice, I mocked, “Q, you want me to ask the nurse if she has a lollipop?”
“I hate you,” he mumbled, pushing to his feet and storming toward the door.
“I’m just kidding, Quarry. Christ, don’t be so sensitive,” I yelled after him.
When he reached the doorway, he looked up and flipped me off. Tears painted his face, and it would have been a lie if I didn’t admit that it fucking killed me to see him like that, but at least the attention was on him.
“Seriously, Flint? He’s worried about you. Cut the kid some slack, ” Erica huffed as she went after him.
Cut him some slack.
Cut him some slack?
What exactly that meant, I would never understand. We were the Page brothers. Slack was not something we would ever receive—and truth be told, we couldn’t afford to. You know what slack did to a person? It made you soft. Slack left you unprepared and gave you a false sense of safety, all the while slowly working its way around your neck, leaving you a tangled mess and fighting for your next breath. Fuck that. I was doing Quarry a favor by keeping him on his toes. The world didn’t hand out slack.
Where had my slack been when I’d been scrubbing the filth off the floors of our shithole apartment just so Social Services wouldn’t place Quarry and me in foster care? No one had cut me slack when I used to stay awake all hours of the night waiting for my father to come home because I’d known he’d have drugs in his pocket—drugs I could trade to the old lady next door in exchange for a fucking meal to keep us fed. Had slack helped me as I’d searched through the bins at the local church drive for jeans that fit Quarry who, for some reason, wouldn’t stop growing?
No.
I’d had to fight for everything. The same everything that had absolutely never been enough. For God’s sake, hearing and walking weren’t even guaranteed for us.
Fuck the slack. Give me the tension.
Erica was right though. I should have apologized to Quarry, but where would that have left him? He needed to learn that it’s not okay to cry. No one cared about his tears any more than they did the billions I’d shed in my eighteen years. Emotions didn’t pay the bills, or I would have been Donald fucking Trump. You had to get up, brush yourself off, and figure it the fuck out. You found a solution, even if it fucking sucked, and then you moved on. Wallowing got you nowhere, and pity was for the weak.
So, as I lay there in front of my family, I made a decision.
One choice.
Infinite possibilities.
One gigantic lie.
“I’m gonna be okay,” I told the room. However, the announcement was entirely aimed at myself. “Even if this isn’t temporary. I’ll be fine.”
If only I could have found a way to keep from losing myself in the arduous process of pretending to be fine and okay.
Chapter Three
Ash
“HELP ME! PLEASE!” I SCREAMED, almost plowing the well-dressed man over. The concrete was cold against my bare feet, and the torn sweater did little to protect me from the freezing wind swirling around the city.
“Whoa!” he exclaimed, grabbing my shoulders to still me.
“Please. You have to help me. My dad . . . He . . .” I faded off as tears sprung to my eyes. “I need to call my mom. She has no idea where I am.” I grasped his wrist and pulled his arm around my shoulder, burying my face in his jacket.
“Wait.” He took a giant step away, unraveling me from his involuntary embrace. “What the hell is going on?” His forehead wrinkled as his eyes scanned my face, searching for answers I would never be able to give.
“Oh my God!” I whispered, peeking over his shoulder. “He’s coming. Quick, hide me!”
Using the lapels of his suit coat, I dragged him against me. His arms hung at his side, but his confusion was obvious. Mine was not. I had but one focus.
“Please, mister, just help me. I can’t go through that again,” I sobbed.
His tense body momentarily slacked. “Okay, okay. Calm down.” After glancing up and down the busy downtown sidewalk, he guided me into the small alley between two buildings. “Better?” he asked.
Not yet.
I lifted my head off his chest and peeked up through my lashes to give him the weakest of nods. “I’m sorry.” I shoved my hands into the pockets on my sweater.
“What’s your name?”
“Danielle,” I responded then started chewing nervously on my bottom lip.
“Okay, Danielle. How old are you?”
“Seventeen,” I answered. I would have gone younger, but I was five foot nine with a thirty-two double-D bra. No one bought the truth anymore.
“Shit.” He swallowed hard.
I pressed to my tiptoes to look over his shoulder, and he followed my gaze.
“Who are you looking for?”
I cleared my throat. “I’m not looking for anyone. Can I, um . . . Can I just use your phone to call my mom?”
“Yeah. Sure.” He began to pat down the pockets on his slacks. “Shit, I must have left it in my car.”
“Oh God.” I started to cry all over again.
“No. It’s okay. I’m just parked right out front. We can go grab it.” He smiled, forcing me to look away.
“I can’t go back out there. He’ll see me. You don’t understand what he’ll do if he finds me. I just want to go home.” My teeth began to chatter as I wrapped the ratty sweater tighter around my body.
He dragged his suit coat off and draped it around my shoulders. “You have to be freezing.”
“Thank you,” I said softly, the smallest of smiles growing on my lips.
“Listen, I’ll go grab my phone. You hang out here for a few minutes.”
I nodded and leaned against the brick wall of the building.
“I’ll be right back.” He held my gaze as he backed away. My Good Samaritan cautiously looked up and down the sidewalk before exiting our hidden alley.
“I bet you will,” I mumbled, inching myself to the corner to watch him go.
When he got a few feet away, I made my move.
Once I’d shed his jacket, I dug through my sweater pockets and pulled out the car keys I had easily lifted from his pocket. After a quick swipe with my sweater to remove, or at least smear, any possible prints, I dropped them to the ground beside his jacket.
He seemed like a nice man. It was the very least I could do.
Feeling guilty as hell, but without so much as a backward glance, I sprinted in the opposite direction down the alley. I zigzagged through a few of the side streets finally stoppin
g to pull out his phone and dial the number to my father’s latest disposable phone.
One ring later, he barked, “Where are you?”
“Corner of Price and Fourteenth.” I pressed end.
I waited several minutes until my father’s sedan came rolling to a stop in front of me.
“What the hell took so long? There is a very good chance that I’m going to lose a few toes to frostbite,” I snapped, climbing inside and sliding on the pair of Oscar the Grouch slippers that were waiting on me. “Remind me again why I had to be barefoot?”
“Studies have shown that men are more likely to help women who are barefoot. Here.” He offered a large, plastic cup of water.
Knowing the drill, I dropped my newly acquired iPhone inside. Within seconds, the screen blinked to black.
I cried a little each time we had to inhumanely put such a beautiful beast to sleep. I could have given that phone a wonderful home in my back pocket. He would have been so happy sending out my tweets. I could almost imagine his delight while helping me create cat memes. Unfortunately for me and the shiny little guy, cell phones were traceable. So, regardless of how many of them I managed to pickpocket, they all suffered the same fate.
“Ash, don’t look at me like that! We’ll get you a new phone soon,” he lied.
I heard that promise along with numerous others on a daily basis. All. Lies. I was never getting a new phone, not after he had given mine to his beautiful new wife. The whore.
“Here. You want this one?” He spun the cheap, disposable flip phone in his fingers.
I rolled my eyes. “As amazing as that offer may be, I’ll pass,” I retorted sarcastically, causing him to chuckle.
“All right. What else did you bring me?” he asked, rubbing his hands together.
I dug into the pockets of my sweater. “Watch.”
He lifted it to inspect it. “Oh, come on, Ash. This is fake!”
“Wow. I’m so sorry, Pops. Maybe you should hustle yourself from now on. Are there any studies that show how men react to a comb-over? We should give it a try.” I smirked.
“Don’t you dare catch that attitude with me. That is, unless you want to move up to Minneapolis.” He quirked an eyebrow.
“What? No!” I shouted. “You said we could stay in Tennessee.”
“Then quit your bitching. This place isn’t cheap. If you want to stay here, you need to bring me back something better than a fake Rolex. And don’t even act like you didn’t know the difference when you targeted him.”
I gritted my teeth.
Oh, I knew the difference, all right—which was precisely why I had taken that one instead of leaving it. I wasn’t a bad person. Sure, I was a thief, but I only took what I needed in order to appease my father. I hated every single second of robbing people, especially the nice ones who seemed like they genuinely cared about me. It was freezing outside, and he’d offered me his coat. Unlike my father, who had taken my shoes and shoved me out of the car two blocks away.
I didn’t want to rob people; however, I was willing to do whatever it took so I didn’t have to move again.
Fifteen years. Twenty-two houses. Well, house might have been a little-too-liberal use of the word. Sure, we had lived in houses. Nice ones. Big ones. But we’d also lived in trailers, apartments, and, on more than one occasion, our car. Conning people didn’t exactly provide a steady income.
Reaching into my pocket, I retrieved the rest of the man’s belongings. “Here.”
“That’s my girl!” He snatched the wallet and business card carrier from my hands. “Where’s his car keys?”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged, awkwardly looking out the window. “Maybe he carpools.”
“God damn it, Ash!” he boomed.
“He was nice! I took his wallet. He wouldn’t have been able to pay for a cab!”
“Oh, yeah? Poor guy. Maybe you can write a letter apologizing to him?”
It wasn’t a completely bad idea, but I was relatively sure he was going somewhere else with that statement.
“While you’re in jail!” he finished. “Your prints were on those keys. The first time you get caught, they will have you for every asshole you’ve ever turned.”
“Nuh uh! I wiped ’em.”
“Well, for your sake, I hope you were thorough! Stop leaving the fucking keys!” He banged the heel of his palm against the steering wheel.
“It’s rude. We don’t do anything with them anyway. They just go in the trash.”
“I’m gonna need you to listen to me very carefully.” He pulled off to the side of the road just as we got out of the city. “Your job is to take everything you can get from their pockets. That’s it. If your fingers touch something, it comes home with us. You got it?”
I rolled my eyes.
And he narrowed his. “You know what? Maybe Minneapolis would be a good change for you.”
That got my attention. “No!”
“You’re getting sloppy, Ash.” He sucked on his teeth with a slurping sound that made me want to vomit. “A change might be exactly what you need.” He pulled back onto the road, cool as a fucking cucumber.
I, however, was livid. “Fine! I’ll take the keys!”
“Nah. You’ve gotten too comfortable down here in the South. Everyone’s an easy target. You need the challenge of a bigger city.”
“Dad! No. You swore that we could stay here for a full year. It’s only been three months!”
“I can’t take that risk with you leaving your prints all over the goddamn city. Besides, I’ve got a lead in Minnesota. It could set us up for a while.”
“School starts next week! You promised me I could enroll after Christmas.”
“Well, you know what? Sometimes, shit doesn’t work out the way we’ve planned.” He reached over and opened the glove compartment, pulling a toothpick out and shoving it in his mouth. I had an overwhelming urge to stab it in his eye. “Especially when you bring back five hundred bucks and a fucking case of business cards.”
What he didn’t know was that the nice guy I’d just worked over also had his social security card in his wallet along with that five hundred bucks—or that I’d snuck it out while he’d checked the watch. I’d probably saved that poor schmuck three years of his life trying to get his identity back after my father got done with it. But . . . he was nice.
“Asshole,” I mumbled under my breath. Although it wasn’t nearly quiet enough.
“Just forget it, Ash. I’ve changed my mind. I don’t think school is going to be a good fit for you. Besides, what the hell do you know about algebra?”
“Nothing!” I yelled. “I know nothing about algebra, English, or history as far as you’re concerned. It’s a goddamn miracle I can even read and write.”
“Oh, don’t give me that shit. You always have your nose stuck in some book. Plus, I got you that computer so you could take classes online. Stop being so dramatic.” He went back to staring out the window.
“You did not get me a computer. I stole a computer! From a ninety-year-old man whose grandkids bought it for him so they could video chat with him every day because they missed him so much.”
“What the fucking hell are you talking about?” He laughed. “He was sixty-five and loaded. His grandkids hated him.”
“You don’t know that! It could have happened my way.” I crossed my arms over my chest, full-on pouting.
“Yes, I do. How the hell do you think you got a key to his house? His crooked son paid me to get that computer. There was quite a bit of information stored on that bad boy before you decorated it with puppy stickers.”
Whatever. I liked my version better.
I changed the subject back. “I’m not moving.”
“Debbie’s packing your shit as we speak.”
“No,” I gasped.
“We don’t have the money to stay. If you had actually brought me something of use, I could have squeaked us by a few more weeks, but business cards aren’t going to pay the rent.”<
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Tennessee seriously sucked. I had no friends and I slept on the couch in a one-bedroom apartment that had an ant problem. Yet I would’ve given absolutely anything to stay there. It was the first place my father had actually considered letting me attend school. I hated his wife, but thankfully, the feeling was mutual. She was so desperate to get rid of me that she’d actually convinced my father that school would be good for me. I wasn’t exactly bi-curious or anything, but when he’d finally said yes, I’d wanted to throw her down and hump her.
I’d been begging my father for as long as I could remember to let me go to school. But he’d always answered with a resounding no. He had given me a ton of bullshit excuses over the years, but I knew the truth. It all boiled down to the paper trail. Ray Mabie used a hundred different identities. Very rarely were they actually his own. However, if Ash Victoria Mabie enrolled in a public school, he would have to provide some sort of documentation. God, I would’ve killed to go to an actual school, with actual kids my age. I’d heard that teenage girls were bitches, but I was willing to take the chance. They couldn’t be all that bad. I was pretty freaking awesome. Surely there were others like me.
I sucked in a deep breath and reached into my pocket, palming the social security card that I knew would buy me more than just a few weeks. I began to pull it out, but I stilled as I remembered the soft smile of the man who’d offered me—a stranger in need—his coat. He hadn’t had to do that. He could have walked the other way, like so many others had that day.
Damn it. Why’d he have to be so nice?
“I hate you,” I mumbled as I rolled the window down and tossed the social security card to the side of the highway.
“What the hell was that?” my father asked.
“Gum wrapper. You want some?” I flipped the pack I had hidden in my hand.