Chapter 1
The cat bats at the pile of feathers on the ground, throwing them up in the air, then trying to catch them as they gracefully float back down.
I wish my life was that easygoing, but it's not.
I like to sit behind the pillow factory, where I am now, and think. It smells of smoke and chemicals, but it's quiet, and it gets me away from home.
Home. It sure doesn't feel like one. My parents argue all the time. My dad drinks himself to madness, and the house is too tense for me to stay there for more than an hour at a time.
I wouldn't leave my two little sisters, Valerie and Alaina, at home with only my parents, of course, but they're at school right now. I'm too old for the local schools and am not sure what to do with my life, so I always seem to end up behind the pillow factory.
The cat skitters out of sight as I hear the crunch of gravel meeting boot tread. I look up to see Ethan, my only friend in the whole world. Of course it's Ethan, as no one comes back here except for me and, sometimes, him.
"Hey," he says.
A small smile creeps across my face. "Hey."
He sits down beside me, sharing the wooden box I'm perched on. I can smell the ashes that cover his hands. His mother must have made him clean out the chimney today.
"I brought you something." He holds up a paper bag, which I immediately rip open. Inside is three apples and a loaf of bread, still warm.
"Oh, thank you!" I say. My father won't work and he won't allow my mother to, so, at fifteen, I'm the main provider of the family. I scrounge through trash cans, beg for food, and do odd jobs around town, anything to keep us from starving. And sometimes Ethan will bring something. His family isn't rich or anything, but both his parents are in their right minds, and his father works.
Ethan scoots closer, closing the space between us. "How's Valerie?"
"She's... thirteen," I say as if this is self-explanatory. I know exactly what he's asking, but I don't want to talk about it. Valerie's been going through this stage where she's been swooning over a new boy every day. Recently she became very popular, and all the boys have been asking her out. She seems to have developed a pattern: date one guy for a few days, break up with him, date the next guy on the ever-growing list of boys with a crush on her, repeat. Some guys have been persuasive enough that she's dated them twice, but never three times yet. I don't like it. I think she's too young for any romantic relationship, and she's bound to get her heart broken soon. Some guys aren't good people, and won't respect you. And part of me is worried that she'll turn it into a side hustle to help provide for us.
Ethan shrugs.
I look down at my hands. "She dumped Alex. Eddie's come and gone. Now she's dating some guy named Landon. She seems to have a really big crush on him, unlike all the other boys she dates, but I don't trust him. He seems like someone who... doesn't know what real love is. Big red flags are going up all over."
"I see. She just doesn't know how love works, Nicole. How's Alaina?"
"She's learning how school works. At least she's not like Valerie, breaking all those guys' hearts. She told me she likes this one guy, but I promised her I wouldn't say who."
"You're going to keep that promise, right?" asks Ethan.
I can't help myself. "Why? Are you asking because you want to know who it is?" I tease.
He slides his fingers under my chin, lifting it so he's looking me squarely in the eye. "No, that's not why I'm asking. I just want to make sure you keep your word." I playfully backhand him at this point. "And, yes, I am curious, but I don't want to invade her personal space. So no, I won't ask."
I swat his hand out from under my jawbone. "You are making no sense, you know that?"
Ethan purses his lips and looks down his nose at me. "I know."
I let out an exaggerated huff of exasperation through my nose. "You're hopeless."
My friend mimics my tone. "So 're you."
This is not turning out to be the fun conversation we usually share. I must be unusually touchy today because Ethan did nothing out of the ordinary, yet I'm still irritated. I roll my eyes and settle back against the brick wall of the pillow factory. It's rough, and I can feel every bump, every grain in the texture through my thin, torn shirt.
Ethan, realizing that I'm not just pretending to be slightly aggravated, backs off. "I'm sorry."
I turn away. "It's fine." But my annoyance shows through, making the words sound cold and harsher than they were meant to be.
Ethan lightly lays a hand on my shoulder. "How are you doing?"
This takes me aback. Ethan and I are good enough friends that we'd tell each other anything, but we just don't talk about each other. It's almost like an unspoken pact. We don't talk about him and how his sister Larita died a few years back, due to a medication overdose. We don't talk about me, about my wreck of a home life. And we don't talk about us. There's never been anything romantic between Ethan and me (I'm glad because it would just complicate things), so there isn't anything to say in that department.
"Not good," I say. "Father broke a window today. And banished Mr. Boo, our dog. And gave me this." I pull the neckline of my soiled, torn T-shirt down until my shoulder is visible, revealing a large, purple bruise.
Ethan winces and sucks in his breath through clenched teeth. "Ooh. That looks like it hurts."
I shrug and pull my shirt back up. "It does, but it's not a big deal."
"And I'm sorry Mr. Boo is gone. He was a sweetie."
I shrug again. "He was."
My friend seems to be debating something, then takes a deep breath. "Nicole, what happened to the bouncy, eager little girl I knew in school? You just seem... numb all the time, and I'm worried about you. I don't think it's good for you to cut yourself off from emotion. Aren't you no better off than a robot if you do?"
"I don't know. I guess... after my father started drinking, something snapped. He went crazy. Beating my mother, hitting me and my sisters, breaking things, yelling at us. It just became too much, seeing it day after day. I guess I just... shut down, or my emotions did, at least. I couldn't let myself be hurt daily on an emotional level too. You know?"
Ethan pulls me close and rocks me back and forth, resting his chin on my greasy hair. "Yeah. I know." There's a pause before he continues. "When Larita died, I went through a stage where I didn't want to feel anything, but you helped me through that."
My voice is barely audible when I speak again. "The scariest times aren't even when Father's beating us. Sometimes, I'll get up in the middle of the night, and he's just standing there, watching me. I'm afraid to stay out there with him, but I'm afraid to go to sleep. He haunts me in my dreams, and who knows what he might do to me and mother and Valerie and Alaina while we sleep."
Ethan doesn't say anything. He just holds me for a while, rocking me back and forth. We stay like this for at least a half-hour before he says his mother is expecting him back. Then he's gone, leaving me alone and wondering about this personal conversation we just had, and whether it means anything.
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