Page 7 of Renegade

On a corner?

Take your pick, Joshua.

Instead, I repeated the lie I’d used countless times before.“My mother is out of state visiting her sister. No, I don’t know when she’ll be home. I don’t have a good phone number for her as she’s staying with several different relatives.”

While Mr. Santiago looked skeptical, he didn’t press for more details and released me to go back to class until the school could decide what to do with me.

I wasn’t waiting around for that and skipped out before the dust settled.

I made it back to the rundown duplex I called a home just as the sun drifted behind some clouds. It was probably going to rain. I found myself looking forward to it. I could pop open the window and let the cooler temperatures act as free air conditioning.

It was only April, and already it was unseasonably warm. I’d been prepared for a spring blizzard, not blistering heat. The girls at school had taken the weather as an opportunity to show off as much skin as possible, while still following dress code.

Then there was me, dressed in winter gear, regardless of the season. I’d tried cutting the sleeves off of a pale lavender sweater, but the whole thing unraveled in the process. From then on, I’d stuck with rolling the sleeves up and dealing with it.

There was a note taped to the door, the edges flapping wildly in the breeze. I pulled it free and despite the heat, my blood turned to ice in my veins.

EVICTION NOTICE!

Ms. Monica McGuire,

You are hereby being notified to vacate the premises named above due to non-payment. You are required to vacate on or before May 1st, 2004, being ten days from the issuance of this notice. Failure to vacate will result in civil proceedings against you for unlawful detainer.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this urgent matter,

Oaklawn Duplex Management

Ten days.

I had ten days until I was homeless.

I had no job. No license. No birth certificate. Monica wasn’t really the type of mother to cut the crusts off your sandwiches after staying up late to scrapbook your latest achievements. When I was fifteen, I’d wanted to take driver’s ed and had approached her for my birth certificate and social security card. She’d looked at me as if I’d grown two heads before going back to staring blankly at the television screen.

That was two years ago and I was still no closer to finding my birth documents. Other kids my age were applying to colleges and preparing to take the SAT, while I was going nowhere. It didn’t help that this was the longest Monica had been gone either. She’d taken off in February, promising that she had a job lined up that was gonna get us back on our feet. I’d given her my last twenty dollars so she could take a cab.

Stupidly, I’d believed her…for a week or two. Then I knew that she’d fallen back into one of her three vices: men, booze, or meth. Once the realization hit, I’d been forced to resort to stealing again just to stay alive.

I never took more than I needed—a couple of dollars from several unlocked gym lockers would hold me over for a couple of days. It was also unlikely that someone would miss it enough to start searching for a thief.

I’d learned early on how to stretch my money and make it last. Dollar Tree carried everything from body wash to canned soup. I even managed to save enough to buy a couple of plates and cups, just in case I ever had company. I never did, but it was nice to know that I was prepared if the opportunity ever presented itself.

Now, it might’ve all been for nothing. I’d been able to survive with no water or electricity, but out on the streets, I’d never make it.

At least the management office would find that, while I couldn’t pay the rent, I’d at least kept the place nice and tidy.

I couldn’t worry about that now. I’d worry about it later.

I tugged my arms out of the sleeves of my sweater and chucked it across the back of the metal springs posing as a couch before sitting down to do my homework by flashlight. I just needed another month; another month to graduate and then figure out what the hell to do next.

I had almost all of it completed by the time the sky began to rumble and fat drops of rain fell angrily against the window. I stood up and stretched my back before opening a can of chicken noodle soup. It wouldn’t fill me up, but it would get rid of the hunger pangs that caused my stomach to cramp up.

I sipped the cold soup slowly, trying to trick my brain into thinking I was eating a much larger meal. I’d done it as long as I could remember. There were a couple of times when I was younger where CPS had put me in foster care. I remember both families being astonished by how much I could eat.

Inevitably, Monica would get her shit together just long enough to be granted custody again and I would miss the way my stomach had felt so full that I thought it might burst.

I finished my soup and slipped out of my jeans before lying down on the couch, trying to align my body on the parts of the couch that still held cushion. I was exhausted from both the lack of food and the fight from this morning.

I closed my eyes, still hearing Becca’s taunts.