Page 25 of Lies He Told Me (Bratva Crime Syndicate 1)

A blank slate.

That could work.

6

Joy

I wake up forgetting.

I’m back in bed. Mom’s left something yummy-smelling in the oven before heading off to work. Damon’s passed out in their bed, praise the heavens. The apartment complex construction has clattered alive next door, but I can hardly hear it through my earplugs.

For one brief, blissful moment, my life is actually good. Or close enough to it for me not to mind the difference.

Then there’s a shout—too loud. Too many voices.

I startle. I’m not home. Or rather, I am. But home isn’t what it used to be.

My eyes open, and I take in the ripped tent canvas with numb recognition.

This is home now. Home, sweetshitty-falling-apart tenthome.

With the way the army green fabric of my tent is wiggling in the breeze, I figure it’ll need repairing in another month—or maybe even sooner, if I’m as unlucky with this as I have been in the rest of my life. But there’ll be no avoiding it, unless I’d like to wake up with eyes in the holes, peering through and seeing what they can steal from me.

One night, when I woke up to pee, that’s what I saw in the opening I forgot to zip closed: eyes. Pupils wide and blank with trauma-induced madness, budding sociopathy, or just plain garden-variety indifference. Who knows the real reason? Who cares?

Not any of the normal people on the street, that’s for sure. They look right through the homeless like me as if we’re not even there. Like we’re invisible.

Since that night, I’ve gone to sleep gripping a pointed mirror shard under my pillow. I stay in my tent once the sun goes down whenever I can help it.

Now, though, the morning sun is the only thing peeking through the holes in my tent. I take out the earplugs. Outside, the fire is definitely crackling, beckoning warm fingers to me.

Even though I know the cold will descend only when I dare get up and going, I can still sense it, closing around me on all sides. My tissue-thin excuse for a sleeping bag came unzipped in the night, shifted, baring my leg to the chilly morning air.

And yet, I put off moving. I need just a few more seconds before the cruel, frigid world comes rushing back in to knock me upside the head and remind me that my lot in life is the shittiest one imaginable.

I’m too cold. Too hungry. Too tired. Too miserable.

But the day is starting, and my problems aren’t going to solve themselves. I draw in a sharp breath. Here goes. One leg, then the other. The cold tongues them gleefully.

Go, go, go!I screech to myself through chattering teeth.

If I move fast enough, I can beat the cold. Can stop it from settling, from wrapping its frigid claws around my legs.

A quick self-wardrobe check to ensure that my holey hoodie isn’t gaping weird, and that my too-big sweatpants are more or less covering my ass, then I’m out.

Seeing the familiar figure cross-legged at the fire, I exhale. It’s Teddy. Thank God.

His dog, Chowder, erupts into a chorus of happy barking, so excitedly that his furry gray body topples over. He stays there, on one side, stubby legs cycling and stubbier tail wagging like he doesn’t notice he’s inverted, barking like it’s Christmas.

“Hiya, Joy.” Teddy nods towards me, though he doesn’t look at me. Which I like, considering how people look me over and lick their lips, both here in Tent City and out there on the streets.

Even after seeing him month after month, I can’t help but marvel at how Teddy really looks the part. Like some teddy bear someone left in the park—sweet, round face, deep-set button eyes, faded brown beard. He wears mismatched layers of plaid and velvet in just about every shade and then some, though years in the sun have drained the fabric of much of their original color.

Chowder finally gets it into his head to get to his feet and trot up to me. As I scratch his furry head, Teddy shakes his. “Not much in prospects today.”

There rarely is. Odd times, we’ll luck out and there’ll be some festival, some free food or something like that, but those are few and far between. Usually, it’s just the same routine.

“Soup kitchen?”

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