I helped Marlo and Mama up and we gave Mama her medicine with a glass of water, walked her to bed, and then quietly returned to the main room. We cleaned up the potato soup, spooning it from the floor back into Tupperware, preserving as much as we could. We didn't live a life where wasting food was ever acceptable, even food that had been on the floor. Later that night, we spooned it into bowls and ate it for dinner. Dirty or not, it filled our bellies all the same.

CHAPTER TWO

Tenleigh

"Hi, Rusty," I said as I breezed into the convenience store where I worked four days a week after school. I was breathing hard and was damp from the rain. I ran a hand over my hair. Outside, it was just beginning to clear up.

"You're late. Again." Rusty scowled.

I cringed inwardly at his harsh tone and glanced up at the clock. Walking the six miles from school in Evansly in an hour and fifteen minutes was impossible. I jogged a good part of the way and usually came in the store sweating and breathless. Not that Rusty cared. "Just two minutes, Rusty. I'll stay two minutes after, okay?" I offered him my prettiest smile. Rusty's scowl only deepened.

"You'll stay fifteen on account of that there was a cracked beer bottle in one of the six-packs Jay Crowley brought up to my register this morning."

I pressed my lips together.

The fact that Jay Crowley was buying beer first thing in the morning wasn't surprising, but what a cracked beer bottle had to do with me, I wasn't sure as Rusty was the one who unpacked the liquor. Even so, I just nodded, not saying a word as I went to the back to get my apron and broom.

It was the first of the month so I had to clear and organize the pop shelves quickly because in about an hour, after the food stamp debit cards were credited, Rusty's would be swamped with folks selling carts full of the sugary drinks. It was welfare fraud at its finest—take the five hundred or so dollars a family of four gets to eat for the month, buy pop down the highway at JoJo's gas station and sell it back to Rusty for fifty cents on the dollar, converting the government assistance into two hundred fifty dollars cold hard cash. Cash buys cigarettes, liquor, lottery tickets . . . meth—food stamps do not. And Rusty was happy to make the profit, never mind that it meant kids would go without dinner. In all fairness, though, if it weren’t Rusty buying the pop back, it would have been someone else. That's just the way it worked around here.

A couple hours later, the crowd had dwindled, and I was dusting a back shelf when the door chime sounded. I kept busy, glancing up when I saw someone in my peripheral vision opening the refrigerator door on the back wall. My eyes met Kyland Barrett's as he turned and I stood up from where I'd been squatting, facing the shelf. My eyes moved down to his hand as he stuffed a sandwich in the front of his jacket. His eyes widened, and he looked shocked for a brief second before his gaze darted behind me where I heard sudden footsteps. My head turned. Rusty was coming up the aisle, a scowl on his face as Kyland stood behind me, his hand and a large lump of sandwich still under the front of his jacket. If I moved, he'd be caught, red-handed. I made a split-second decision. I pretended to trip ungracefully, knocking several boxes of what surely must be stale Cheerios—the non-sugary cereal never sold—off the shelf and letting out a little scream. I don't know exactly why I did it—maybe the look of shocked fear on Kyland's face touched something inside me, maybe it was the understanding of hunger that existed between us. It certainly wasn't because I knew the quick action would completely alter the course of my entire life.

I stepped ungracefully on the boxes, smashing them and causing cereal to spill out onto the floor.

"What's the matter with you, you stupid girl?" Rusty demanded loudly, stooping to pick up a box at his feet as Kyland rushed by us both. "You're fired. I've had it with you." I heard the door chime and stood up quickly, making eye contact with Kyland again as he turned back, his eyes wide, his expression unreadable. He paused briefly, flinching slightly, and then the door swung shut behind him.

"I'm sorry, Rusty, it was just an accident. Please don't fire me." I needed this job. As much as I hated to beg for it, I had people relying on me.

"Gave you enough chances. There'll be a line down the street for this job tomorrow." He pointed at me, his eyes cold and mean. "Should have appreciated what you had and worked harder. Those pretty looks of yours won't get you anywhere in life if your head isn't screwed on straight."

I was well aware of that. Painfully aware. All you had to do was look at my mama for that fact to be established.

Blood whooshed in my ears. My neck felt hot. I took off my apron and dropped it on the floor as Rusty continued to mutter about the ungrateful, worthless help.

I stepped out of the store a few minutes later, the sun just setting over the mountains behind me—the sky awash in pinks and oranges. The air was cold and held the scent of fresh rain and sharp pine. I took a deep breath, wrapping my arms around myself, feeling lost and defeated. Losing my job was very, very bad news. Marlo was going to kill me. I groaned aloud. "What more?" I whispered to the universe. But the universe hadn't been responsible for my stupid choice. Only I could take credit for that.

Sometimes my life felt so small. And I had to wonder why those of us who were given small lives, still had to feel pain so big. It hardly seemed fair.

I put my hands in my pockets and started the walk to the base of our mountain, my school backpack slung over my shoulder. In the spring and summer, I'd read as I walked, the road familiar enough to me that I could concentrate on my book. Cars rarely drove this road and I always had plenty of advanced notice if one was coming. But when the fall came, it was too dim once I left Rusty's—not that that would be a problem anymore—and so I walked and busied my mind. And tonight was no different. In fact, I needed the distraction of my dreams. I needed the hope that life wouldn't always be so hard. I pictured myself winning the Tyton Coal Scholarship, the one I'd been working toward since I started high school. Every year, one of the top students was chosen to win the scholarship, which would send him or her to a four-year university, all expenses paid. If I won it, I'd finally be able to get out of Dennville, away from the poverty and the desperation, the welfare fraud, and the drug-pushing "pillbillies." I'd finally be able to provide for Mama and Marlo, move them away from here, get Mama the help she needed from a professional doctor, instead of the hollow-eyed one at the free clinic who I suspected was the center of the pillbilly business. I'd make a stop at Rusty's as I drove out of town, and I'd tell him to shove a stale box of Cheerios up his bony, flea-bitten ass.