Page 58 of Broken Pieces
I push on anyway, one foot, then the next, pretending movement can drown the guilt clawing its way up my throat.
The streets are dead.
The only sound is the echo of my boots and the low hum of traffic bleeding in from somewhere two blocks away. Dolores’s place isn’t far, and the thought of heading back into that house twists my gut.
I fucking hate it there.
Each step drags heavier than the last. My feet don’t want to carry me back. They want to run until the night swallows me whole.
Reality cuts deep. Less than twenty-five days and the system’s grip will be gone for good.
Twenty-five days until my name slides off their books and I can vanish wherever the fuck I want. But now, how the hell am I supposed to stay in that house with Skylar down the hall, knowing she had her mouth around my cock.
The thought shreds me, fucks with my head until I can’t breathe straight. I can’t stay there. Not another night.
By the time I cut across the empty lot to Dolores’s house, my head is already sprinting ahead of my body. Pack up my shit. Get out. Don’t wait for the clock to run down. The state won’t give a fuck about me now, not with only a few weeks left on the leash. They’ll shrug and move on. That’s the only plan leftworth holding onto, walk out, and burn the whole place from my memory. Whatever comes next, I’ll figure it out once I’m gone.
The front gate sags, hinges shrieking when I shove it open. The sound crawls up my spine and dares me to turn back.
Just ahead, the house sits in the dark, porch light dead for months. Windows blank.
I walk the short path and climb the steps, each one groaning under my boots, loud in the quiet.
The back door sticks. It always has. I lean my shoulder into it, trying not to make a sound, but it still drags loud through the frame, a scraping sound that always gives me away.
I freeze.
Wait.
Any second now I expect to hear her voice tear through the house. That sharp, cracked yell that carries from one end to the other, dragging your name through it like you’re filth for daring to breathe too loud.
But nothing comes.
Which means Dolores is done for the night. Probably screamed herself hoarse at the little ones, slammed a few doors, then shoved them into their rooms whether they’d eaten or not. Right now, she’s either crashed on the couch or in her bedroom with one of those trashy paperbacks and a drink in her hand, her version of peace.
The kids are always quiet once the yelling’s over.
I don’t bother shutting the door.
I won’t be here long enough for it to matter. Just grab my shit and get out before the walls remember I was ever part of them.
I move down the hallway, past the frames Dolores keeps nailed to the walls. Photos meant to convince the system this place is something it’s not. All those kids from years ago, frozen in time, their names probably long gone from her memory. Smilesstretched too wide, faces pressed behind glass like that makes them real. Smiling hard enough to make your teeth ache.
My room’s at the end of the hall.
Door shut, same as always.
I push it open. Smells of old sweat and dirty socks, something sour shoved under a bed and forgotten about.
One kid’s curled in the corner, legs folded underneath him, a book cracked open in his lap. He doesn’t look up, just keeps reading, eyes locked on the page as if maybe if he stares hard enough, the words will crack open a trapdoor and take him some place better. He’s smart. Too fucking smart to rot in a place like this. If he was anywhere with clean floors and real meals and someone who gave a shit, he’d be the kind of kid who makes it. But here… He’ll get swallowed. Forgotten. Just another file in a drawer no one opens.
The other two are sitting on the bottom bunk, shoulders pressed together. A cracked phone screen glows between them. One earbud each. Some video playing.
They look up when I walk in, eyes blank, then drop their gazes like I was never here.
That’s the rule. Don’t ask. Don’t talk. Don’t fucking look too long.
Around here, survival’s a quiet game, heads down, mouths shut, pretend no one bleeds.
