Page 21 of The Sun
I turned around, squaring my shoulders and glaring at both of my idiotic brothers. “Don’t say shit like that about her, or I’ll put ghost pepper juice on your toilet paper.”
Judah held up his hands. “Sorry, butt munch.”
“That’s the lamest name. Don’t go around calling people at school a butt much or you’ll end up shoved in a locker, dipshit.”
I went to my room, shut the door, and fell back on the only thing in that trailer that was clean—my bed.
The smile I had on my face faded when I tore open the envelope and noticed Sunny’s letter only consisted of two lines.
Elias,
I want to break up. There’s no changing my mind, so please don’t write me. I’m sorry.
Sunny
Sittingon the edge of the bed, I clenched my jaw while staring at the paper. Her dad must have found out. That would be the only reason Sunny would do that.
The last letter she had sent contained a small, two-year calendar she’d printed off with little notes on each day, counting down until I’d be eighteen and could move back to Fort Morgan. After that, the days counted down to her eighteenth birthday when her parents could no longer tell her what to do.
My brothers and I were supposed to go back to Birmingham in two weeks to see my paw, and I’d talked Billie into stopping in Fort Morgan to space out the ten-hour drive. Sunny and I had planned to meet at the beach. Leaning over my knees, I wadded up the note and tossed it at the wall.
Something in the living room shattered. I shot up from the bed and through the doorway with my fist clenched at my side. Billie stood in the middle of the crappy living area, her hair going every which way like she had stuck her finger in an outlet and gotten zapped. The window behind the TV was broken, and Atlas and Judah both had sick smirks on their faces.
“What the hell happened?” I asked, glaring at my brothers.
“Those little shits,” Billie said, then went into a coughing fit that doubled her over. “Drank the rest of my vodka.”
“Like you need it you ole’ drunk,” Judah grumbled, and Billie flipped him the bird while whispering she wished she could kill him.
“Who broke the window?” I asked.
“She did,” Atlas said, pointing at Billie. “Threw the vodka bottle clean through it.”
I glanced at Billie, disgusted that these were the cards I had been dealt in life. A mother addicted to love and meth, a convicted murderer for a father, and then passed on to an alcoholic prostitute for truckers of an aunt—turned out that was what “lot-lizard” meant.
No wonder Mr. Lower nearly had a coronary when he found me in Sunny’s bed. Looking around this filthy trailer, at the hell I had come from, I couldn’t say I blamed him for not wanting his daughter tainted. This was not a life most people escaped.
Dejected, I reached for the door.
“Where the hell you going, kid? I need more vodka.”
“That’s your problem.” And I slammed the door behind me.
I wound my way through the trailers that littered London Village Mobile Home Park until I came to the old brown one right by the entrance.
I plodded up the cinder block steps and knocked on the door which sent Benny’s dogs barking. He cracked the door and peeked out before opening it wider and shoving his three wiener dogs back to let me inside.
“You need to use my intraweb doohickey to do another report?” The dogs followed him as he shuffled to the side of the room to move papers from his desk.
“No, sir. Can I. . . Can I use your phone?”
“Course you can.” He grinned a toothless smile, the wrinkles around his eyes creasing so much his eyeballs looked like nothing more than slits. “Callin’ your girlfriend again?”
Billie didn’t make enough money to pay for a phone much less the internet. I relied on Benny when I couldn’t get to the library and needed to type a paper or do some research. I brought him his groceries once a week, so I guessed it was a fair exchange.
About a month ago, Sunny and I had worked out a day and time for me to call her at Daisy’s house. Benny pulled his hearing aids out to give me privacy, but ever since that night, he’s always asked about Sunny with a grin.
“Well, something like that,” I said. “I guess.”
