I started my job at Shelfmart. I couldn’t figure out why James said Penny was so terrible. She let me work the hours I wanted, and I enjoyed arranging the colorful bags of chips and cookies and treats Mother never had the money to buy. I learned to ride the bus and navigate the different schedules. I could go anywhere.
The world was so big!
I asked Sheila if it would be okay if I got a phone. There was one at the shelter that everyone could use, but to have my own in my pocket seemed like the ultimate independence.
She suggested one where you only pay for the minutes that you use, since the other kind was expensive and required credit cards and an address to send the bills.
So I got one. Penny was the first person to get my number. Then I gave it to Sheila.
As soon as I put together enough money, Sheila saidshe would help me find a place to live. She showed me how to make a budget for how much I could pay for rent, bills, and fun things.
I saw a doctor, and he confirmed I had epilepsy. He told me I’d been in the hospital when I was seventeen and had started new meds. They were very important because they would prevent the seizures that would make me lose my memory. If I didn’t take them, I could have a seizure at any time and forget who I was.
When I picked up the pills at the Shelfmart pharmacy, I didn’t recognize them. Mother gave me sleepy pills and vitamins. But never these. And they were expensive. I didn’t have to pay for them because Sheila got me on some sort of medical assistance plan. But why hadn’t Mother gotten assistance?
Maybe she hadn’t wanted me to take them. If I knew I was eighteen, I would have left her. My anger burned hot. More lies. She hadn’t kept me safe at all.
I had the pharmacist check to see if I had taken this medicine before. He said yes, he’d found a prescription from a year ago. But it stopped being refilled.
No medicine, no protection.
Mother let it happen.
She wasn’t the man behind the curtain.
She was the wicked witch.
Obviously, my old boyfriend hadn’t been any help. No one had helped me. And no one would now. I had to take this road on my own.
I couldn’t dwell on Tucker or Grandma Flowers or the friends I mentioned in my notes. I lived for today. For my job. For the women I helped at the shelter. The only thing I really knew for sure was to stay far away from Mother.
CHAPTER 20
Tucker
I couldn’t find Ava.
She never visited Grandma Flowers. The hospital put me off a second time. I went to the places we’d been, bowling and mini golf and parks, as if somehow she’d be there.
But of course, she wasn’t.
The internet revealed nothing more. Besides, looking at computer screens had gotten difficult, causing migraines I couldn’t control. Pretty regularly, I had the sort of seizure that laid me low for days. I rarely went to my community college classes, and Shelfmart quit scheduling me.
I stayed in bed, the windows blacked out, wishing my head would fall off because it wouldn’t stop hurting. Both Bill and Carlos kept intense hours between work and school, so my world shrank. Sometimes, if I was feeling up for it, the three of us would sit on my front porch and talk. Video games were a thing of the past. Even movies were hard.
Over time, their visits became rare. They might be my best buds, but we had nothing in common anymore. Theirlives would move on, classes and girlfriends and futures. Mine was stuck.
As the weather turned cool, Gram went in and out of my room, fetching me washcloths and grilled cheese sandwiches and pain meds that had no effect.
On one of those days, Bill texted a million times, but even the phone screen was too bright to read. Finally, he showed up at my house without bothering to ask if he should.
“Be careful with him,” Gram said as she led him into my room. “He’s had a bad time.”
I couldn’t even chastise her for saying it. Opening my eyes was like shoving a knife into the sockets.
Bill sat on the edge of my bed. “Man, it’s dark in here. Did you turn into a vampire?”
“Something like that. What the hell are you doing here?”
