Page 21 of Broken Pieces
There is nothing to eat here. There never fucking is. Hunger has become background noise, a constant hum I carry with me.
I sling my bag over one shoulder and move between the beds, careful with every step. My eyes stay low, locked on the floorboards instead of the faces around me.
The hallway smells like mildew and teenage despair. I pass the chipped mirror by the front door without glancing at it. I don’t want to see my face. Not today. Not when I already know I look like shit.
Outside, the sun is too bright for the way I feel. It slams against my eyes and turns the world harsh, a spotlight I never asked for.
Cassie waits at the gate. She leans against the chain-link fence with her hips cocked and her head tilted, the picture of someone daring the world to try her.
The lollipop juts out of her mouth, bright red against her smudged lipstick, the stick resting between fingers stained with ink from drawing on herself. Her eyeliner is thick, smeared at the corners, more war paint than makeup.
Her hoodie hangs open, showing the black tank top underneath, the faded name of her obsession stretched across it.
Broken Oasis. The four guys she never shuts up about, the only band she claims actually gets it, the ones she swears saved her life one song at a time.
Black combat boots on her feet are scuffed to hell, laces trailing loose, threatening to trip her but never quite daring.
She has been my friend since I was ten.
We met in a different foster home, one where fists spoke louder than words. The walls there carried bruises the same way we did. We learned early that survival meant silence.
We have been through enough shit together to skip the small talk. We don’t do it. We don’t talk about feelings either. That is our rule. We keep it sharp, keep it shallow, because going deeper means bleeding and neither of us can afford more scars.
But she is here every morning, waiting at the gate, lollipop between her teeth and eyes scanning the world for trouble. That is her version of love, and it is worth more than every empty promise I have ever been handed.
“You look like shit,” she says, the words muffled around the candy stick. She pushes off the fence and falls into step beside me.
“I feel worse,” I mutter, tugging my sleeves down over my hands until only my fingertips show.
“Late night?” she asks, her voice flat, no judgment in it, just curiosity.
I shrug. I don’t give her anything else, and she doesn’t press. She never does. That is part of why she is still here.
We pass the liquor store. The metal grate is halfway down, the sign in the window still buzzing weakly. An old man is slumped against a wall, a bottle in his hand, chin resting on his chest. He isn’t dead, not yet, but the smell rolling off him says he’s close enough to dream about it.
We keep walking, past the corner where two girls we know used to turn tricks until one of them didn’t come back.
Cassie tucks her hands into the pocket of her jeans, shoulders hunched against the morning air. “I saw Rivera last night.”
My spine stiffens before I can stop it.
I keep my eyes fixed straight ahead on the cracked pavement. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” she says again, drawing it out this time. “On Main. With that Samantha bitch who still thinks I give a shit about her opinions.”
My mouth goes sour, a bitter taste coating the back of my throat.
I try to swallow it down, force it into silence the way I do with everything else, but it sticks and refuses to move.
He was with someone else. After talking to me on that rooftop. After the laugh I swore I wouldn’t let matter.
I don’t know why I let myself believe it meant anything. One scrap of honesty under the stars. That’s all it was. Nothing more.
He probably does that with every girl. He talks just enough to make them think they matter, drops a grin sharp enough to convince them they’re special.
That is Zane Rivera.
Always chasing something he will never keep, always restless, always reaching for the next warm body to distract him from whatever ghosts won’t let him sleep.
