Trafficked: a novel

by Sophia Rey

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  Trafficked

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  Sophie Rey

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  Copyright © 2018 Sophie Rey

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  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

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  Published By: Jollington Press

  Contact: info@jollington.com

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  READING GROUP DISCUSSION GUIDE

  PROLOGUE

  THERE WAS LIFE BEFORE and life after. That’s how I thought of it. Life before Dad lost his job, and life after he lost his job. The two lives were so different that they couldn’t be considered the same life.

  Life before was practically perfect. Dad, who had a degree in Criminal Justice, had a good–paying job as a counselor. Mom worked as a schoolteacher at my school, Arcadia School, a specialty charter school that ran a program specifically for children on the autism spectrum. I loved it at Arcadia. I didn’t feel weird there like I did at other schools I’d been to, and I had plenty of friends. There were plenty of other kids like me there with Asperger’s. I even worked at the school cafe, the Aardvark Café, with my best friend, Junie. I loved working at the café and made good tips…for teenagers in a high school. When I’d come home from school, Dad would greet me with, “Hey there, my little blond charmer. How’d it go conquering the world today? Did you overcharge all those teachers for their coffee?”

  I’d reply, “Yep, and I bet I made more money than you did!” We’d both laugh at the old and comfortable joke.

  Our family was tight knit. We did a lot of things together – Friday Night Family Fun Feast (where we ordered food in and watched a movie together), rock climbing, trips to places like Prescott, Sedona, or the Grand Canyon. Our favorite thing to do was go camping. We’d tell ghost stories around the camp fire while we ate hot dogs and s’mores. During the day, we’d go hiking or fishing or canoeing. I miss those days.

  Still, life wasn’t perfect then. Kai, who Dad called his “little brown bomber”, was crazy messy. He could be in an empty room and it would be less than five minutes before it looked like an explosion had gone off. For a girl whose brain likes order and neatness, his crazy bent toward messiness was really hard. Even his shaggy mop of brown hair was messy. No matter what we did to it, it would fly in all directions.

  Things changed the day that one of Dad’s clients came to the company and falsely accused him of sexual harassment. He was innocent, but the company didn’t care. They didn’t want bad publicity so they fired Dad without even an investigation. They may not have publicly said why he was fired, but word spread. It wasn’t long before all of Mariposa, the town we lived in, knew about the claim and played judge and jury. We thought about moving to another state where Dad could be treated fairly as a counselor, but after Mom and Dad talked about it, they decided that they really didn’t want to leave Arizona. Mom’s family lived in the valley, and they didn’t think it’d be good to uproot us kids. They were sure Dad would find a new job soon.

  Only he didn’t. We lived on Mom’s income and savings until the middle of the school year, when Mom was told they didn’t need her any more. Apparently, the girl who accused Dad had gone to the school and threatened the principal, she was that determined to make us move out of town.

  So, the middle of my sophomore year we moved. Mom found a job with a new school on the other side of Phoenix in a city called Mesquite. It was an hour away, so there was no possibility of staying on at Arcadia. And there was no school like Arcadia anywhere near Mesquite. I was very upset, but didn’t want to show it because Mom and Dad had their own trials. I didn’t even have a good way to stay in contact with my old friends, due to Mom’s aversion to social media. She read an article about how some kids in Norway stopped using any kind of social media for a couple of months and they were better off without it, more emotionally stable. I didn’t really mind the rule most of the time. After all, most of the high schoolers I know who use it just use it to compare how many friends they have, brag about something, or say things they would never say in person…all things I didn’t like. But I did miss Junie. And it was hard to reach her a lot of the time.

  Kai didn’t like the new way of life. Before, our daily family routine had involved eating dinner, getting homework done, and then taking a family walk along the canal. There were always lots of people walking back and forth. We’d walk to the movie theater and see what was playing or stop by the self serve yogurt place. On the way back home we’d talk about our day or sing songs. A lot of teens might not get into this, but I loved it because I’d done it since I was a little kid…and I loved my family. It was good exercise and Dad was so goofy on these walks. He made it fun just to walk and talk. Often, he’d tell us about some silly thing he’d heard about on the radio or in a conversation. Kai and I both missed those days. We both missed Friday Night Family Fun Feast and family road trips. We both missed the fun times in the car when Dad would tell us about his childhood in Vermont while Mom was grading papers.

  The new normal was Dad being depressed or upset every day about not finding a job, and Mom trying to soothe things over. “Greg,” she’d tell him as she rubbed his shoulders each night. “This is only temporary. You’ll find something.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Dad would respond. “I don’t want things to be this way.”

  He was always apologizing now. Apologizing for losing his temper. Apologizing for not having money. Apologizing for moving. He apologized all the time. I missed my old dad. I missed my old family. I missed our old life.

  CHAPTER 1

  THIS IS THE PITS, Em, isn’t it?” Amy grumped as she sat down next to me early in our junior year. We watched the other unfortunates of our P.E. class run around the field in back of the gym three times, running the 100–yard dash. What a waste. They get everyone all worn out before the fun starts. This quarter we were working on tennis. It’s one of my favorite sports, and I’m actually pretty good, but it was worth sitting out just to avoid the dash…and the showers. I don’t hate P.E. In fact, I like to exercise, but I do hate those group showers, and I hate the way I smell if I don’t take one even more.

  “That’s for sure,” I agreed. �
��I wish we could do the tennis without the dash. Then I’d be in there. You’re excused, too?”

  “I’m claiming a headache today. I don’t do it a lot, but it's picture day today for the cheerleaders and I don’t wanna get all sweaty doing that stupid 100 yard dash.”

  Amy had become my friend soon after moving into this school last year. She didn’t replace Junie as my best friend – we still talked or texted almost every day – but she was a good friend, and I was grateful to have someone like her as my good friend. We actually met in P.E. class. She had the prettiest bouncy blond hair and looked every bit the cheerleader. I was worried when she made the cheerleading squad that she would drop me, but even though she was busy – very busy – she was still my friend. I was glad to have a few minutes just to sit and talk; didn’t happen often these days.

  “Do you like being a cheerleader?” I asked her.

  “Of course I do. You get to cheer during the basketball and football games, and the hottest guys ask you out.”

  My brain processed this for a minute before I responded. “I could never be a cheerleader.”

  “Why not? You’re cute enough. They pick cheerleaders based mostly on looks and bravado. As long as you can do a good cartwheel and look like you mean business, you’re in.”

  I already knew that. I also knew I was pretty. People had been telling me I was cute since I was four years old and I still had the big blue eyes and thick dark brown hair I had when I was little. Lots of guys asked me out and I’d had a steady boyfriend my sophomore year, but I knew cheerleading was out of the question.

  “Can I tell you something I’ve never told you? Something I don’t tell many people?” I leaned in close so no one would overhear. ”I have a form of autism called Aspergers.”

  “What does your having autism have to do with you trying out for cheerleading?”

  Wow. She didn’t even bat an eyelid! Maybe she knew me a bit better than I thought, and it wasn’t a surprise to learn I had Aspergers. I started to explain, “Well, everyone who has autism is different, but we all have quirks. In my case, I don’t do well under pressure; I talk too fast when something interests me; I have problems remembering things I don’t find very important . . .and I don’t always think the way other people do. It’s hard to think of the right thing to say sometimes. And I get angry about stupid stuff.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, remember last year right after I moved here and I got suspended? I never told you what happened. I’d left my lunch on the table while I went to find a plastic fork, and Mrs. Morrison dumped my lunch in the garbage. Well, I lost it. I couldn’t stop myself. I exploded, screaming that she was a bitch, and running around ranting about how they shouldn’t hire people who were too stupid to know they were throwing away someone’s lunch. She didn’t mean to do anything wrong; she was just throwing stuff away. But I had a fit about it and it got me suspended. My mom tried explaining to the principal that freaking out when things don’t go as they’re supposed to is a side–effect of almost any autism diagnosis, but it didn’t help. I was so embarrassed!”

  Amy looked at me with a hint of pity in her eyes. Didn’t want that! Time to change the subject. “Besides, I’m not that coordinated. I don’t think I could ever do a cartwheel, or any other kind of gymnastics for that matter. I’ve seen the way the Prairie Dogs do their cheering…lots of back flips and arial cartwheels. I love those great pyramids you guys make.”

  “Hmmmm. That’s true,” she admitted. “And our team is pretty competitive. But hey – I know! Emily, why don’t you try out for color guard?”

  “What’s that?”

  “You run with a flag and twirl it around in some kind of formation. They go out before the band at football games and at band competitions. I know you could do it because they had a guy doing it last year who had cerebral palsy and he did o.k. It’s like doing a little dance while you’re holding a flag.”

  “Really.” I was surprised. I’d thought about going out for some kind of sport, but it seemed impossible. Our school is really big…about 1,500 kids. You have to be very good to make a team in any of the “big three” sports: baseball, basketball, tennis for the girls or football for the boys.

  “The cool thing,” Amy continued,” is that it only lasts for a few weeks at a time. Six weeks in the spring; six weeks in the fall. It doesn’t go on and on like football and basketball.” She looked at her phone. “Oops, looks like our free time’s almost up. Beat you to the locker room!”

  CHAPTER 2

  I TOOK AMY’S ADVICE and tried out for color guard. I thought it might be hard, with all there was to remember. Having Aspergers is what they sometimes call “high–functioning autism”. This makes things easier and harder for me. Easier because I sometimes fit in with the so–called “normal” kids and harder because some of the teachers forget I have a disability and expect me to do things I can’t, especially with my memory issues.

  For example, last week one of my teachers asked me what my zip code was. I didn’t know. I still don’t. We moved about a year ago and it just isn’t that important to me. To tell you the truth, it’s a little embarrassing. But, I used one of the little tricks I’ve developed to make people think I have a good memory. I didn’t tell him I didn’t know. He just wanted to hear a zip code so he could explain a way of looking up something on the web. So I told him my old zip code. He couldn’t tell the difference. Tricks like that keep me under the radar most of the time. But with color guard, there would be a lot to remember. I figured I would just have to work hard. It was actually pretty easy. I practiced walking faster and faster in my spare time, and carrying a flag or something around while I was walking. Then I recorded the routines and practiced them over and over until I knew I could remember them. Pretty soon I knew I’d be able to keep up with everyone. Mr. Krocet, the band instructor, knew I had Aspergers, and he positioned me at the end of the line so I wouldn’t have to do as much of the whipping around as some other people.

  I loved being out there with all the other color guarders, the band, and the cheerleaders. It was fun hearing the music of the band and the cheering of the crowd…and just being part of the “cheer” people, like Junie.

  Better yet were all the times after the games we’d go to Jelly Belly Burgers or Brewsky’s Ice Cream or some other place near Mesquite High. I was part of the “almost in” crowd – not like the football players or cheerleaders themselves, but still a pretty popular group.

  And even among them, I was one of the more popular ones. Guys noticed me and I was one of the few color guarders to be asked out by football players.

  My parents had me on a strict curfew. I had to be in by 9:30 on weekday, 10:30 on weekends. It was probably a good thing. Rob Mahoney, the Prairie Dogs' back–up quarterback, asked me out, and when I told him about my early curfew, he complained. I was glad to have an excuse not to go out with him. Rumor had it that Ashley Morgan was pregnant with his baby and that he’d gotten a few other girls pregnant. I didn’t know Ashley or the other girls well enough to know if it was true, but I didn’t care. The way he looked me up and down every time he talked to me creeped me out. I had much better things to do with my time than to fight off some octopus of a guy.

  The color guard performances and the good times I had going out with the cheerleaders and band people lasted about six months. We “color guardians” (as they call us) still went out with the band and cheerleading crowd after the games, even when color guard season was over. It was the most fun I’d ever had in high school. Amy hung out with me, even though I wasn’t a cheerleader. She said I was a “football player magnet” and I guess I was. Lots of guys started hanging around our Jelly Belly Burgers table after the games. They were interested in me and Amy. Not only was Amy hot, but she was a great gymnast. Her specialties were the balance beam and the floor routine, which had gotten her some scholarships from ASU and NAU. She was funny, talkative, and laughed at all the guys' jokes, as well as telling a few of her own.
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  She was “just the type of girl we want you to hang out with,” my mother had said. And, unlike a lot of the girls I knew who were hiding their true selves, Amy really was a girl you could get to know. She didn’t play games.

  My best friend in elementary school had been a game player. She would hang out with me for a few weeks, and we’d make it a point to, say, hang out and play tennis or something. We’d do that for eight weeks or so and it would become a pattern, then she’d just drop off the planet. It wasn’t just that we’d stop meeting that made it hard for me to like her, but she would completely cut me off…no texting, no phone calls, no communication of any kind. It was like we didn’t even know each other. If I tried to text her after school she would tell me, all of a sudden, that her mom didn’t want her on the phone. Then, after three of four months, she would call from out of the blue and say, “Let’s go to the movies” or something.

  Amy wasn’t like that. She would always sit with me at Jelly Belly Burgers after the games. We sat with the same group of people. She would always include me. When the guys weren’t around we would talk about who we liked and what was good – and not so good – about them.

  Jesse Krueger was one that I was interested in. He was cute but didn’t know it. He was a trumpet player in the school band. Not first chair, but still talented. With his wavy brown hair and fawn brown eyes he was as hot as could be.

  He noticed me one night. The day of our first football game. There was a party after the game and everyone was invited – even the color guard. He was there. He sat with me and Amy and some other color guard people. Since he was shy, Amy and I did all the talking. We actually had a great time, even though he only said about 10 words. That Amy; she could be quite a blabber mouth. She was so funny that night. After the party I asked him for his number and he gave it to me.

  The next day, I texted him and he got back to me right away. We started going out. We were thick as thieves. He was wild about me. Just couldn’t stay away. We went out every night for a few weeks that we didn’t have a load of homework to do.