by Addison Jane
“It’s my mom’s. The number on there is my home phone number. Ring it, and ask for me if you need anything.” He reached out, wrapping his fingers around the back of my neck and giving a gentle squeeze. It felt good, I wanted to close my eyes and enjoy the moment, but a second later he was gone, jogging after his boys.
An arm wound around my waist as I watched them leave. “Come on, Fay. I’ll take a look at your arm.” I nodded and walked with him back over to the tents where everyone was gathered and whispering quietly.
“We made $140,” Layla informed me, her mouth hanging open in awe.
“What?” I gasped, unable to stop the smile that grew on my face.
Kyle hugged me, his face mirroring mine. “Holy shit.”
A soft, “Woo hoo,” came from Eazy, followed by a painful groan and we all laughed.
“We made about thirty.” Daisy smiled, dumping the change from Andre’s baseball cap into Layla’s guitar case with the rest.
Kyle kissed my temple, finally releasing me and ducking into Eazy’s tent. I dropped onto the log next to Layla, sighing with relief that even though the night had brought more trouble and pain than we’d wanted, this money would help us to eat for another week, maybe even more.
“I can’t believe we made that much.”
Layla’s eyes looked around at the others as they mingled and chatted with each other. “Someone dropped in a hundred dollar note,” she whispered quietly, staring at me with her eyebrows raised.
“What?” I gasped, peering over the edge of the case. She was right, most of the money was in coins or dollar notes. But there was a hundred dollar bill laying on the top. “You wanna take a guess at how that got in there?” I asked, rolling my eyes.
“Braydon,” we both said at the same time. He was the only one near the case when it was open as he helped Lay gather the remnants of her guitar.
My pride told me to somehow find a way to give it back to him. Not wanting to accept that much money when I knew it was just out of pity. But I guess it was no different than any other person on the street handing us money. It was all out of pity, and like the street kids we were, we played on that shit.
Heath and Braydon felt sorry for us and our situation, they looked at us like we were in need of some hero to come save us, that we were weak and helpless. But that wasn’t the case at all.
We’d all found ourselves in a situation where we were forced to find a strength within. Whether it be finally telling your family you were gay, standing up for yourself, fighting your addiction, or running from parents who got off on using you as their own human sacrifice. That moment of fortitude had been the catalyst for where we were today. We may have discovered it in all different ways, but we’d never forget how it felt to finally take back that control of our lives.
People were eaten alive out here every day because they’re scared, too scared to upset someone or too embarrassed to ask for help.
I’d been that kid, letting my father break me down for years, always cowering in fear and never standing up or telling someone that something was wrong. And when you’re that broken and in a dangerous situation, there’s only one place that train leads–to death.
Stabbing my father was the catalyst that forced me onto the backstreets of Los Angeles. Because of it, the course of my life had been changed. Maybe not in the way I would have hoped for, but regrets had never entered my mind even for a second. I no longer let people step on me. Instead, I held my head high and believed that I was worth something more.
Because I’d seen what I could do now and who I could be.
I looked around our little home, seeing all my friends smiling because we all knew that tomorrow we could relax a little. And I knew I had to swallow my pride because they were more important to me than that.
I didn’t need Heath and his friends to look down on me, thinking that we had it so bad. Because what we had here, I’d choose over what I had before, any day.
I loved these kids. We were young, a little crazy sometimes, but we all knew that we would have each other’s back in an instant, no matter what the circumstances or repercussions. It was the reason I saved the food Mr. Song gave me and shared it with them, the reason that Layla busked for money but didn’t keep it all for herself.
We all came together to help each other because, without each other, the world out here was a very scary place.
I leaped off the edge of the concrete skate bowl, feeling a rush of adrenaline fill my body as I waiting for my blades to connect with the smooth surface under me. The wind blew past my face, and I couldn’t help but laugh.
Rollerblading was something I loved. It was almost like an addiction. I loved feeling the breeze whip on my skin, even on the calmest of days. The freedom it gave me to swerve and twist and make patterns with my body. I hit the incline on the other side of the bowl, and it threw me up into the air. I bent my knees and landed with a gentle thud on the flat surface outside.
My blades allowed me to fly. It may only be for a moment—a couple of seconds—but for those few seconds I was free. Nothing else mattered but making sure I landed on my feet. And I did, every single time.
My parents had bought me my first pair of blades when I was fourteen. To others, it may have seemed generous, but the only reason they’d bought them was because the school I attended was so far away and I was forced to walk there and home every single day.
It was the first time anyone had ever noticed that something might be wrong at home. My mother was a stay at home parent, and my father worked on the same side of town as the school almost every single day. Yet they refused to drop me off or pick me up, even in the rain.
They also refused to pay for me to catch the city bus, and the school buses didn’t come out as far as us.
When one of my teachers noticed that I was coming to school tired and with blisters from my shoes, she began to question things. I walked for one hour and thirty minutes every single day to school and the same on the way home.
It was exhausting.
When my teacher picked me up on the street one Friday and drove me home, I knew it would cause trouble. But deep down, I hoped that maybe that was what I needed to get someone to finally see that things just weren’t right.
Unfortunately, my father, always the charmer, convinced my teacher it was all because my bike had broken recently, and they were saving up to buy me a pair of rollerblades. He told her they wanted to teach me independence, and that since I didn’t play any sports that they still believed exercise was important.
The teacher had left, seemingly satisfied with the explanation, and I’d been locked in my room for the weekend. My dad bought me food but told me it was up to me whether or not I ate it. He said that it may or may not contain some kind of poison.
It was one of his games.
Would I starve because I was afraid of the poison, even though the food could be perfectly fine? At that point in my life, I was done playing my father’s mind games, and I ate every single bit of food on the plate. Hoping the whole time that he’d actually filled it with poison and that it was enough to possibly kill me.
It didn’t.
But come Monday, I had a shiny new pair of rollerblades.
The skate park was full of kids of all ages, trying new tricks and attempting the impossible. It was one place it the city where we could go and feel like we were normal. We blended in with the other teens, no one looked at us like we were different or scum. We were just kids, enjoying ourselves and hanging out with our friends, just like them. We chatted with other teens, discussing techniques and testing our boundaries.
And during that time, it felt like nothing else mattered. We weren’t worried about where our next meal was going to come from, or whether someone was going to snatch us off the sidewalk. The only concern we had, was pulling the best trick and landing on our feet.
Anything else could wait.
“Fable! Do a flip,” Cody, a kid that we met here quite often yelled at me from the
park bench. Kyle and Andre sat next to him laughing.
I skated toward them, rolling my eyes. “Yeah, then they can put on my gravestone, ‘Fable–Smashed her face into the concrete being a fucking twat.’”
He shrugged, grinning at me. “I’ve seen it done before, plenty of times.”
“I’m a recreational skater, this ain’t the fucking X Games.”
“What’s that? All I heard was… I’m a chicken,” he smart mouthed, standing up and placing his skateboard on the ground. Cody was tall kid, but he was also incredibly thin. He had blond hair that hung around his face, scraggly and long. He was constantly pushing it away from his eyes.
I raised my eyebrows. “Say it again, Cody. I dare you.”
I started to slide forward, advancing on him. But he was ready for me, placing one foot on his board and pushing off with the other. He flapped his arms like a bird and said, “Cluck, cluck, cluck, chicken!”
Kyle and Andre were almost in hysterics by this point.
I gave them the finger before taking off after Cody, but it only fueled their deep laughter. I chased him around the park, him taunting me and me replying with threats of violence. The best part was, I was faster. We made it around the whole park before he skidded to a halt behind the park bench, where the boys still sat watching in amusement.
“They ain’t gonna save you, Cody.” I smirked.
He brushed his hair back from his face and grinned as he held his hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay, I take it back. You’re not a chicken.”
Kyle pushed off the bench and wound his arm around my waist. “Naw, she’s more like a pussy cat, all cute until she shows her claws.” He pulled me against him, my blades rolling to where he wanted me without resistance.
I huffed, protesting weakly, “I’m more like a tiger or a lion.”
Kyle chuckled, his breath tickling my neck. “Sure, babe.”
Kyle had always been touchy with me, and I’d never objected to it, finding comfort in his arms. We’d had a few, I guess you could call moments. Times when we needed to keep warm, and the best way to do it was with another body next to you. But it hadn’t progressed to anything more than touching or kissing.
Everyone knew we were close. He watched out for everyone, seeing the others as brothers and sisters. But with me he was different, maybe a little overprotective.
“Hey, do you guys wanna come to a party tonight?” Cody’s question surprised me.
“What?” I asked as though I hadn’t heard him.
He rolled his eyes. “A party… do you want to come?” he asked again, talking slowly like I was stupid.
“Where?” Kyle asked when it became evident that my brain couldn’t comprehend what was going on. We were never invited to go anywhere. Cody and a couple of the kids at the skate park were the only other people or teens that we really communicated with on a weekly basis.
He’d never asked, but I knew he knew we didn’t exactly have stable homes. He just didn’t care. We shared a passion so he considered us friends.
“Downtown, in the Parkens Hotel. My brother’s friends bought out a whole floor for a birthday.”
I felt Kyle shake his head. “They’d never let us in there, man.”
“My name’s on the door. Meet me outside at nine and you can come in with me.”
“Cody, let’s go!”
Cody gave us a quick wave, tucking his board under his arm and running over to the parking lot where his friend stood beside a car waiting for him.
“A party?” Andre beamed at us. “Dude, a party on a whole floor of a fucking hotel.”
Kyle squeezed my waist before using his hands to turn my body to face him. “You wanna go?”
Parkens Hotel was a bit of a trek from Bayward Street, maybe a thirty to forty-five-minute walk across town. We’d walked past it before though, and I knew for a fact it was prim and proper. Cody said he could get us in, but was the partying going to be worth the effort to get there?
“Maybe…”
“Maybe?” he repeated.
I shrugged, but inside I almost felt excited. “It would be kinda cool. To be able to go to a party and be…” I couldn’t find the words.
“Regular fucking teenagers, who don’t have to scrounge dumpsters for their next meal?” Andre offered darkly.
“Andre,” Kyle snapped.
“No…” pushing out of his arms, I swirled around on my blades, “…he’s right. Just one night where we get to pretend that our lives don’t revolve around hiding from predators, or walking the streets looking for money or someone to rob. People won’t know who we are or where we come from, and they won’t stare at us like we are a waste of air.”
Kyle watched me with a sympathetic look. “One day, babe, this will all be a memory.” He talked to me softly, it was calming.
Kyle told us over and over, our time on the streets was not permanent. We all had to start at the bottom of the staircase in order to get to the top. For us, there was no elevator or escalator, no free ride. It was all about taking one step at a time until you got to the top.
“So, you wanna go to the party?” Kyle asked, eyeing me carefully.
I looked over at Andre, his eyes lighting up.
A party with other kids could be just what we needed to feel good again. The streets weighed heavily on everyone. We tried not to show it, to act strong because we had to, but when it came down to it, we all knew that we were just part of a statistic.
And those statistics didn’t look good for any of us.
I pushed my shoulders back and lifted my chin. “Yeah, let’s go.”
The group of us took to the streets. The night sky was hard to see from beneath the towering buildings that made up our home, but I imagined that tonight it was littered with stars and that the moon was full and beaming down on top of us.
Coop, Daisy, and the remaining members of our little family, Sketch and Phee had stayed home with Eazy. He was still in a lot of pain even though he tried not to let it show. After three days I thought maybe he’d be feeling better, but he could still barely stand, and it was a fight to get any kind of food or liquid into him. I was beginning to think Braydon may have been right when he said E needed a hospital.
Layla skipped along beside me, humming a tune I’d never heard. It wasn’t uncommon, Lay would often compose her own music and write lyrics that match the haunting sounds of her melodies. But this one, it wasn’t deep and sad like the others. She was happy. Happier than I’d seen her in a very long time.
Kyle checked his watch as we crossed the street. “It’s almost nine.”
Luckily, I could see the high-class hotel in the distance, even making out some figures standing outside. The Parkens Hotel was owned by a huge movie director. It was infamous for the celebrities that stayed there, and the hotel staff were made to sign detailed non-disclosure agreements along with in-depth background checks before they were even allowed to step through the door. I read entertainment magazines in my spare time—a lot of shops threw them out or gave them to us for free when they were out of date. So I was up to play with anything that included celebrities or rock stars.
The fact that I’d be walking inside was a thrill in its own, but it wasn’t that, that had my body fizzing with excitement.
I’d never been to a party before.
I was almost fifteen when I was sent to juvenile detention for the attack on my father. The day of my probation hearing was the day I lost all respect and faith in the law.
I sat in the courtroom next to my lawyer. Her name was Mrs. Leighton, she’d been appointed to me by the state, and was kind but stern.
“How are you feeling, Keira?” she asked me with a kind smile.
“Scared,” I answered quietly.
She raised her brow. “Why are you scared? From what I’ve been told you’ve been perfect, no behavioral issues, problems with others, even your school work’s been amazing.” She told me, flicking through her papers and reports about my time away.
I waited until her eyes met mine again. “I can’t go back there, Mrs. Leighton. I knew they had said and done everything they could to pretend like they have a great home to come back to. But it’s simply not true.”
“You don’t believe they’re doing these courses to make your home life better?” she enquired.
I shook my head quickly.
“I’ll do what I can to keep you safe, Keira. You’re my priority.”
I heard the doors behind me open, and I knew instantly it was them. A chill ran down my spine, and I suddenly felt sick to my stomach. I didn’t turn around, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing my nerves.
We all stood as the judge entered, it was a different judge than I’d had the first time I was here. He was older, probably closer to his sixties, with an awful comb-over that was slicked across the top of his head, reminding me of Donald Trump.
He went over the basics of the case—what had happened, what the verdict had been, notes from the guards and teachers about my behavior at the detention center. I twisted and turned my hands together underneath the table as the judge started reading statements from my parents.
“Mr. Campbell’s letter reads…” he said in his deep, gruff voice, “…Keira’s behavior has always been difficult to handle. She was constantly trying to push the boundaries with very little regard on consequences, and the effect it had on us as parents. At the time, me and my wife were unsure how to deal with such a troublesome teenager, and I regret the way that we tried to handle her outbursts. After attending parenting courses for the last year, we feel as though we now have the right strategies and the confidence to deal with Keira’s behavior in a more positive way. I apologize sincerely to my daughter for not doing this sooner, and hope that she can forgive us, and come back to our family so we can work on all of our issues together.”
I sat stunned, my mouth gaping open as I stared at the judge in absolute awe. I could see by his face that he believed the complete dribble of lies that was scrawled across the page. Mrs. Leighton caught my eye, sadness in her face as she reached over and took ahold of my hand.
