“ID?”
I shake my head. It’s in my backpack, which is stashed under a Starbucks dumpster two blocks away. The dumpster they started locking up at night to keep people like me from grabbing the unsold food.
“What’s your name?” he asks. But I stay quiet. If I don’t answer, they can’t put me in some system. And they also can’t send me home. I doubt my parents even told anyone I ran away, so it’s not like my infowill show up in their database, but if Iambeing arrested for shoplifting, at least I can hide my real name so I don’t have a criminal record.
The cop sighs and takes out his handcuffs. As he walks slowly down the aisle toward me, I beg him not to do it. But it doesn’t matter. This guy doesn’t care who I am or what I’ve been through. To him, I did something illegal, and that means my whole fucking life should be ruined.
As he turns me around and puts the handcuffs on my wrists—a little too tight, if you ask me—I can’t help but think this never would have happened if my parents loved me.
Two
Eight Months Ago
The day everything changes is a beautiful day. There’s no reason for me to feel like my whole life is about to blow up. But I’m sure everyone feels like that before the moment their lives go off the rails.
The first shock comes when I see Dad’s car in the driveway behind Mom’s.
They’re both home? At three thirty in the afternoon?
Maybe someone at church died. The last time this happened was my grandmother’s funeral, but the thought causes an ache in my chest and little needle pricks at my eyes, so I ignore it and open the front door, putting my bag on the floor.
There’s a stranger in our living room.
He’s a broad-shouldered white man with dark blond hair and a thin beard that makes him look more creepy than handsome. He’s wearing a baggy blue polo shirt with a gold-stitched cross and matching lettering below that says “Holy Re-Beginnings,” which I fucking hate.
My mom and dad are sitting on opposite sides of the couch, andhe’s in a chair across from them. Neither of them look at me, but the creep-o gives me a smile. His teeth look yellow against his pale skin and blond beard.
“Hi,” I say.
“Nice to meet you,” the man says. “Why don’t you have a seat?” He gestures to the space between my parents and immediately, warning bells start going off.
Who the hell is this man? And why am I supposed to sit between my parents, who won’t even look at me, when I don’t think we’ve ever sat down on that couch together at the same time once in my entire life?
Then it hits me. My parents lookashamed.
Divorce.
It’s my first and immediate thought because my parents arenotin love. They’ve never said it explicitly, but I know what subtext is. They don’t love each other, like they don’t love me.
I learned that last part in fifth grade. I won a prize for a short story competition at school. My story was about us finding a hidden treasure chest filled with pirates’ gold in the local state park. When I came home and showed them the story and the twenty-five-dollar gift card to a local restaurant, my dad skimmed the story quickly.
Then he ripped it up and held it in front of me like a cartoon dad would brandish a rolled-up newspaper at the family dog that piddled on the floor.
“This is about greed,” he scolded. “Greed is a sin.” Then he snatched the gift card out of my hand and proceeded to cut it into pieces before throwing it and my story in the trash.
The whole time, my mother stood silently by.
If my dad had read the whole five-page, double-spaced manuscript, he would have found that at the end we decided not to spend the gold and donated it to a hospital to help people.
But now they’re getting a divorce and, honestly, I feel a little giddy.
I have so many questions. What made them finally decide to do it? Whose idea was it? Who am I going to live with? Mom, obviously, because according to devout Christians, raising kids is women’s work. Am I going to have a stepparent? Holy shit, is this creep in the polo and shitty beard my new step-Chad—er, dad?
I sit down, eager to see where this is going.
“My name is Garrett,” Step-Chad says—Step-Garrett doesn’t have the same ring. “I’m from Holy Re-Beginnings.”
“What is a re-beginning?” I ask.
