“That happens to me a lot,” says the girl with brown hair. She closes the gap between us and extends her hand. A thick mark runs vertically up her forearm. “I’m Meredith.”
Two years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself from gaping at the scar on her arm and conjuring up the story of how it got there. But now I welcome the bright blue eyes that are full of life. “I’m Echo.”
*
Meredith and her friend Brigit asked me to lunch and I have to admit, I haven’t been this excited over a meal in a long time. Who asks me out to lunch? No one. No one asks me to share food with them, and these two girls did.
My happy moment consists of peanut butter sandwiches from the coffee shop while lounging on a park bench across from Hunter’s gallery, but I swear this is the best meal of my life.
“I heard that you’re here with your boyfriend,” says Meredith.
Even though I’m giddy, I’m still super-nervous that I’ll say the wrong thing and screw this up. “Yeah. His name is Noah.”
“FYI,” says Brigit. “Hunter isn’t fond of boyfriends. He says that guys our age are unsupportive.”
I pause midbite. “Noah’s supportive.”
“According to Hunter,” Meredith adds, “boys our age pretend to be supportive. Anyhow, I’m thinking that I’m past the unsupportive boy stage. I turned twenty-one last month.”
Twenty-one. Even though it’s not that far, it feels far away from eighteen. “How long have you been studying under Hunter?”
Meredith and Brigit share a glance, then Meredith clears her throat. “I’ve been trying to get into some sort of program with Hunter since I was eighteen, but this is the first time I’ve been accepted for anything. It was only for the summer program, but I just learned that I’ve been accepted into the year-long program starting in the fall.”
She’s grinning from ear to ear, and I can’t help but smile with her. I like Meredith. For the past hour she’s been kind and gentle, and she hasn’t once stared at my scars.
The happiness fades from her face, and she begins to shred her sandwich. “I gave up a lot coming to Colorado. My parents don’t understand my obsession with art. They informed me that if I quit college to come out here, then I wasn’t welcome back home. When Hunter told me last week that I got the year program...”
Meredith sort of chokes then puts a hand to her mouth. “It was a happy day, but when I told my parents that I was dropping out of school...” She smiles genuinely at me even though tears glitter in her eyes. “It was a happy day regardless. How many of us get to follow our dreams?”
That’s a good question. Not many of us do.
Noah
A couple of months ago I sat on a park bench and watched from a distance as my brothers played so I could spy on their home life. It appears my stalking days aren’t over, except this time I can’t hide at some fancy park. I have no idea who I’m searching for, and odds are I wouldn’t know my answer if it smacked me in the face.
But across the street from the empty church parking lot where I parked Echo’s car is a house that can’t hold more than a bedroom and a bathroom. The gutter hangs off the house, and one of the two windows in the front is X’d over with gray tape. The once concrete stairs have crumbled into a pile of rock, and an old plastic milk crate serves as the new and improved step. A front yard of three-foot grass is a barricade warding off whatever moron would want to approach the door. This place screams halfway house for the criminally insane.
A sickness slowly devours me. The longer I stare, the more my thoughts distort. If my mom grew up here, I understand why she ran and why she ran far.
Regardless of that, the question remains, is bad family better than no family? I belonged once, and I won’t bullshit that I don’t miss the feeling.
A couple walks past on the sidewalk, and I pretend to fiddle with the radio to convince them I’m doing anything other than stalking.
Two taps on the window, and my stomach drops. I glance out and a fucking priest in the whole black outfit and white collar waves at me to roll down my window. For a brief moment, I consider talking in Spanish, but my luck, the asshole could also speak it.
I turn the ignition one notch to power the windows and roll them down. “Yeah?”
“Can I help you?” He’s middle-aged nosy, brown hair with a few gray strands in the sideburns, with a master’s degree in condescending looks.
“No.”
“You’ve been here awhile.”
“I have.” One of the first rules I learned in foster care is I don’t owe anyone an explanation at any time. I save that shit for the people-pleasers.
“Are you broke down?”
“No.”
He assesses the car, searching for the mobile meth lab a punk like me with Kentucky plates should have. “Are you lost?”
Hell, yeah, I am. “I’m good.”
“I stepped outside and saw you here earlier and just noticed you’re still here now.” He cranes his head toward the massive church. It’s old-school basilica-style. We took a family vacation once, road-tripping those big bastards. “I work there.”