Page 47 of Queen of Nothing

Sal might be happy right now, but he’s an unpredictable ticking timebomb, and at least one of us needs to be done eating if he starts crying again.

“There are no photographs on the listing.” Serena’s slender hand reaches my bowl—and she steals a strip of cheese. “What time is the showing?”

I check my phone screen. “Soon.”

“I’ll stay here with Sal. I still feel nauseas.”

“You don’t want to see the place?”

She shakes her head. “Do you have enough cash to make payment upfront?”

I nod, mouthful of lettuce, and let my teeth crunch down on that healthy goodness.

It should be funny, how desperate I am for a Ceasar salad in a small town, when it’s actually quite sad when I think back to dining out, to the restaurants and fusions and cafés I would go to.

My family wouldn’t be caught dead in a diner like this, or a town like it.

But that’s the whole point.

I grab my backpack, tug it over my shoulder. “Be back soon.” I leave the keys on the table. “I’ll walk.”

Without a word, she’s starting on her pumpkin soup, now that the steam has settled.

The bell jingles above the door as I leave the diner and start up the main street.

Buildings border the road, only a few truck-like cars parked along it, and the walk is quiet.

I pass a handful of people huddled out front of the hardware store.

Locals.

I know because they pause to look at me, watch me pass them by, and then whisper about me.

A new face among them.

Doesn’t bother me.

I’m used to stares from my days at the academy. Those stares weren’t so nice, most of the time.

I almost smile at the contrast.

From the wainscoted walls and hardwood floors of the academy, nestled in the white landscape of the alps, to here, a fishing town on the coast of Maine.

My family would have a fit if they saw me now. Strolling up a street that stinks of fish, in a place that whispers its existence in the world, wearing dirty old jeans and a t-shirt that’s been stretched by the grabby hands of a fussy baby.

If they could smell me, the stale food, the mustiness from motels and the car, the faint stink of baby sick…

Grandmother would cane me for it, for all of it.

If she got her bony, strong hands on me, I’d be welted and bruised.

But if Dray got his hands on me—

That one sends a shiver down my spine.

I wrestle the thought of him out of my head.

I try to avoid thinking about him. Any time he pops into my mind, I focus on my surroundings until he’s gone.