“You earned every pennybecause of me. No one would even know about you if I didn’t let you on our street in the first place. Don’t ever forget that.”
“You don’t understand.” My voice cracks.Stupid little girl.You don’t cry anymore.“I need that money.”
She snorts, counting the cash. “You think me and my girls need it any less than you? Are we dirtier? Is that it?”
“No.” I shake my head. “That’s not what I’m saying. Just ... at least let me keep enough for the bus. Please, Beverly.”
She arches an eyebrow. “Please?”
“I’ll do anything.”
A couple of the women lingering on the sidewalk laugh.
Leaning against the stony wall with a cigarette between her fingers, Cindy nods toward me. “Come on, just let the girl on the bus, Bev.”
A scowl darkens Beverly’s sunken eyes. “You standing in for Monica or something? You gonna leave me like she did too?”
Cindy looks away. Puffs on her cigarette.
Desperation weighs me down like I’m trapped beneath a collapsed building. Three weeks. It’s been three weeks since I heard the music. Since I felt any warmth. I won’t last another night without it.
Beverly takes a step toward me, then another.
I don’t flinch.
She doesn’t stop until her decaying teeth are front and center. “You’re always slipping off into the night. What’s so important about this bus ride anyway? You know you miss the best jobs, don’t you?”
I keep my mouth shut. Anything I say will get me in trouble.
“You got a Sugar Daddy I don’t know about?”
“What? No. I swear.”
Her eyes narrow, and I know that look. She’s already made up her mind. “I’ll tell you what, Princess. You give up your bus ride, and I’ll let you keep the money.”
My heart races against my rib cage. I’m running out of time. I have minutes until the bus gets here. “You can’t do that. I earned it. I get to decide what I do with it.”
She laughs. “Not this again.” Then, her laughter abruptly stops, and her blue eyes turn ice-cold. “I’mthe reason you have any money, and I’m the only one who decides anything around here. You got that?”
I grit my teeth, but the expression doesn’t mask the wetness in my eyes.
“Do. You. Understand?” Her rotten breath hits my nostrils. “When you chose this life, you chose me too.”
A pop of yellow in the darkness pulls my gaze down the street.
Panic stirs in my chest, cold and fast.
“Okay,” I finally say. “No more bus rides. Just give me the money.”
Beverly looks over her shoulder at the approaching bus and shakes her head. “You’ll get it tomorrow. Some of it anyway.”
“You can’t do that. You never said I’d have to wait.”
“I’m not stupid,” she snaps. “I know a liar when I see one.”
The bus rolls past us, stopping at the bench at the end of the block. I watch longingly as two people get on. Then, the doors close. And it’s gone.
Music. Warmth. Hope.
