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  “And who is this? You’re too young for boyfriends, Rain. You know what I’ve told you—”

  “Dad! He’s just a friend!”

  Zach stands up in one quick motion and offers his hand. “Zach Rostov, sir. I’m just a friend of your daughter’s. She was sick, like she said, and I walked her home. Nothing else, I promise.”

  My father eyes him, wobbling a little as he shrugs and goes to the sink for a glass of water. “Zach…hmm…well, better not be any funny business,” he mumbles as he walks past us again, back towards the bedroom.

  By tomorrow, I know he will have forgotten all about this, but I will have to live with the memory of this embarrassment for the rest of my life.

  Zach stares at me, a little aghast. “That’s your dad?” His voice is carefully even, no judgement in it, but I feel humiliated anyway.

  “Yeah,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest and looking away.

  “He’s just been down since he lost his job, that’s all.” I don’t mention that he lost it because he was drinking too much, or that it’s been three years since he lost said job, and the gigs he gets to try and contribute are few and far between. But I don’t think I have to. I think Zach has picked up on all of it already.

  “Look, you should go,” I tell him. “My sister will be home soon, and her questions will be a lot harder than my dad’s.”

  “Got it,” Zach says, setting down his glass with an easy smile. “Thanks for the lemonade, Rain. I’ll see you at school tomorrow.” He gives me a grin that makes my heart stutter before heading out the door.

  I sink down at the kitchen table, my own glass still clutched in my hand. It seems too good to be true that after everything today, he still wants to be my friend.

  But it’s impossible to keep from hoping that it’s true.

  Rain

  Present day

  What the hell is that sound?

  I peel my eyes open. There’s a booming sound screaming in my ear and echoing through our tiny apartment. It’s too early for this shit.

  Mallory’s dark mop of curls pops up in my doorway. “Who is that?” she says through a yawn.

  I groan before I force my feet to the floor. The banging hasn’t stopped; the knocks are just becoming louder and angrier. I hurry and step into my slippers that are waiting for me by my bedroom door and head down our small hallway and to the front door, with Mallory following closely behind me.

  We live in Chicago, and I’m not about to open the door before I’m positive about who is behind it. I motion for Mallory to pick up the bat that we keep next to the door. She does and stands at attention slightly behind me.

  I stand on my tiptoes and look through the peephole. It doesn’t give me a clear view, but it looks like our landlord. Why is he knocking like he’s the police here to take one of us to jail?

  I slowly pull open the door, making sure to keep the chain latched, and peek out the slight gap in the doorway to see that it’s Jack, wearing a scowl on his round face. He’s always a little crass, but right now he looks completely furious.

  “One sec Jack,” I say as I remove the chain from the door, and less than a second later, he’s stormed past me into our living room, almost knocking me against the wall.

  “What is going on!” Mallory asks, as confused as I am by his rudeness.

  “Give me my rent money. Now.”

  I raise my eyebrows him. “Uhm. What are you talking about?”

  He narrows his eyes at us then lets out a gruff humorless laugh. “My rent! This month’s, last month’s and the one before. Now.”

  I glance over my shoulder at Mallory, who looks just as confused as I am. Our other roommate, Dena, was the one who was in charge of paying rent. We give her the money, and she gives it to him. My temples are starting to throb.

  “Dena hasn’t paid you?” I ask, feeling my heart about to spasm.

  “Of course, she has, I’m just here for fun. No one has given me anything, and I’m not waiting anymore.” His arms are crossed tightly against his chest, his foot tapping along to some furious melody in his head.

  “Are you kidding me? We’ve paid Dena rent every single month. Are you saying that she’s been stealing our money?”

  Jack just gives us an irritable shrug. “I don’t know what she’s doing with your money, and I really don’t care. All I know is that if I don’t have my money by the end of the day, all three of you are getting evicted.”

  “Jack, please. We didn’t know she wasn’t paying you!” Mallory cries, and I fight the headache that’s gripping my thoughts.

  “I don’t care. I don’t want to hear any excuses!” he shouts back.

  “Okay, we get it. You’re out of three months’ rent. We’re so sorry, but we really had no idea. I know you want to get paid, and we’ll do that, but we can’t today,” I say, trying to reason with him, but his expression just becomes harder.

  “Do I look like I’m running a charity here? I was skeptical about renting to you girls, but you all gave me your word you’d pay—and pay on time,” he reminds us.

  “And we will, we just need more than a day, Jack,” I plead with him. He looks between me and

  Mallory, who seems to be on the verge of a panic attack.

  “You have five days. That’s it, or all of your pretty asses will be out on the street,” he says, and

  just like that, he’s gone, leaving me and Mallory in dumbfounded silence. I look over at Mallory, who looks as confused as I am. Without saying a word, I storm straight down the hall to Dena’s room and, not unsurprisingly, when I open the door, not only is she nowhere in sight, but it looks like most of her things are gone.

  Fuck!

  I walk back into the living room where Mallory is still standing in shock, her phone in hand.

  “I just tried to call her. I think she’s blocked me,” Mallory mutters quietly. I rush to my room and grab my phone already knowing that if Mallory’s blocked, I’m most likely blocked too, but I try hoping against hope she answers.

  She doesn’t.

  “That bitch!” Mallory screeches, her eyes watering. “We’re going to be homeless,” she says, her voice starting to quiver.

  I shake my head. “We aren’t going to be homeless, we just have to figure this out and come up with a plan.”

  She looks at me with an expression full of skepticism. I can all but see her about to run back home to her parents.

  “You don’t think you could ask…”

  “I can’t ask my parents! I’ve asked them for way too much. They told me they aren’t giving me anything else before Christmas, and they already wanted me to stay on campus. If they find out this happened, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

  I fight my instinct to argue. I don’t know what it’s like to have parents with enough money to bail you out after making a stupid financial decision. My family struggles to pay their own bills, let alone help with mine.

  “Let’s just keep trying to call Dena. Maybe this is a misunderstanding,” Mallory tries to reason. I roll my eyes this time, but at this point, I don’t have a better idea. So, we call and call and call. Fifty phone calls and countless messages later, we both know that she was wrong, not that she expected to be right. This wasn’t a misunderstanding. Dena’s taken our money and is probably gone for good. Which means we’re left with this shitshow.

  I bite back my tears. Mallory’s shed enough for both of us. My life wasn’t supposed to be like this, it was supposed to be better. Last year my ex-best friend Marcus got a full ride to Columbia College in Chicago for graphic design. It was our dream to escape dreary Indiana and make it big in the city. It didn’t matter if we had to work four jobs and only eat ramen the whole year, we’d escape. We both did as best we could in school. It’s never been my thing, but I hoped my high B average and extracurriculars would be enough to at least get a partial scholarship. Unfortunately, it wasn’t, and I was put on the waitlist. I had decided then to put my dreams on the back burner. I would just stay a
t home and make as much money as possible while I waited until my name was called.

  Being on the waiting list sucked, but it at least gave me hope that they thought my ideas were special. I knew in my heart that, given a chance, I could make it. That I would make enough money to take care of my family so they would never have to struggle for money again. Now it just will take a little longer than I thought.

  When I told Marcus my new plan, he had immediately said that he wouldn’t let me get stuck behind.

  “No, Rain,” he had said, furiously shaking his head. “I’m not going to leave you here. You’re going to come to Chicago with me.”

  “But how, Marcus? I can’t afford to live in Chicago on my own,” I told him, still trying to be hopeful despite my disappointment.

  He shrugged. “We can get an apartment together.”

  I raised my eyebrows at him. “What about your free dorm room?”

  “I just won’t use it. I don’t mind paying rent if that means that you’ll be able to come to Chicago with me. I’m not leaving you here,” he insisted.

  I had thought about not listening to him. I loved Marcus, and he was my closest friend—well, aside from the boy I’ve tried to erase from my thoughts and pluck from my past—but that’s another story. Since he promised to get an apartment with me, all summer we both worked and saved up money. I thought it could work. He had been my biggest cheerleader about a career in writing since my first writers' group…yeah, at first I thought it was because he had a crush on me, but after I told him we didn’t have feelings for each other our sophomore year, we’d been strictly friends, and he had no reason to lie. I thought we were really in it together, but a week before we were going to move, I got a phone call from Marcus.

  “Hey, I feel like we haven’t talked in forever. We’ve both been working our butts off,” I answered through a laugh.

  “Yeah. Rain, I’ve been thinking, and after talking to my parents, I hate to do this but…I really am going to need to focus on school my first year there, and I don’t think it’s a good idea I get an apartment,” he said easily, as if he didn’t just turn my world upside down.

  I could immediately feel my heart drop. “What?” It was quiet and weak, but all I could muster.

  “I just feel like school is going to be hard and I may not be able to handle it if I’m working. You understand, right?”

  Unfortunately, I did understand. I understood that at the end of the day, it was always about Marcus. I was an idiot for ever believing the promises.

  “Of course, you’re right. You have to do what’s best for you.” He was still talking, trying to give me some humdrum excuse as I hung up the phone.

  I cried for the rest of the day. I felt as if I was watching my dreams go down the drain. I shouldn’t have ever gotten my hopes up in the first place. My mom warned me about pinning my hopes on Marcus and told me to stay home and save up until I could afford to go, but based on what I would have made waitressing or working at a clothing store in Indiana, it would have been years before I could afford to move here and go to school. My dad always said a man doesn’t have much, but as long as he has his pride, he’s still a man. It’s the one thing he drilled into me and my sister, even though we weren’t the boys he thought we would one day be. It’s the one thing that stuck with me that he taught me even though his pride didn’t stop him from drinking all of our future away.

  That’s how I had ended up living with Dena and Mallory. I moved to Chicago on the day that I had planned—my eighteenth birthday, to be exact. I had used most of my money to rent a motel room for a week. I went out during my first day in the city looking for jobs. The best opportunity I found was a waitressing job at Funbags. I got hired on my looks and body alone, which I hated, but I was desperate.

  By the end of the week, I was desperately looking for somewhere to live. I couldn’t afford to keep paying the hotel rate, and it was a crappy area for me to live in by myself. I had stumbled across Mallory, ranting to Dena about their other roommate who had disappeared. I hadn’t talked to either one of them at that point, but I didn’t care. I saw my opportunity and I didn’t hesitate to take it.

  I walked up to them and pulled every ounce of courage I had to ask them if they needed a roommate.

  They both turned to look at me at the same time, wearing completely different expressions on their faces. Dena looked irritated and bitchy like always. Mallory had looked hopeful. She automatically nodded. “She can’t be worse than Ally.”

  And now Dena’s taken our money and left us in the worst possible situation we could be in.

  “We’ll just work as much as we can,” I say, trying to sound hopeful. Mallory looks at me skeptically.

  “We’d have to work triple shifts, if we can even get them,” Mallory whines.

  “We’ll bribe, beg, do whatever we have to do to get them, and we’ll take every dollar we make and give it to Jack,” I say, trying to sound optimistic. Mallory’s still frowning. We both know most of the customers at Funbags are cheap jerkoffs who basically want you to sit in their lap to get a decent tip.

  “It’s just until we make the money, Mal. Otherwise, we’ll be sleeping at the bus stop across the street,” I tell her as gently as I can.

  “Okay,” she says, and I give her hand a reassuring squeeze, even though I have no clue how we’re going to make all of this money in such a short amount of time.

  Chapter 2

  Zach

  Five years earlier

  Nothing about today has happened how I thought it would.

  I didn’t expect to wind up being the white knight to a girl I’d never seen or met before. But something drew me to her, and I couldn’t let her just get fed to the wolves. Because kids at my school can be total fucking jerks—not to say that I haven’t been one or won’t be again. But when I saw her and the stain on her pants, I didn’t want her to be the next target. It’s not the first time I’ve stopped a jerk from bullying a kid or did something nice for someone younger, but it’s the first time I’ve cut school and walked someone home I didn’t know. I just wanted to make sure she was okay, and being at school after what happened to her didn’t seem appealing.

  So, I walked her home, and what I found there caught me entirely off guard. When she said her mother was a teacher, I knew she wasn’t rich, but once I saw her house, I could tell that her family was as cash-strapped as mine. And if I had to place bets, I’d say a lot of it has to do with her father.

  I could tell Rain was protective of him, which makes sense. He’s her dad, after all. But it’s also pretty clear that he’s an alcoholic. And that Rain’s mom is trying to take care of a family of at least four—Rain mentioned a sister—on a high school teacher’s salary is next to impossible.

  I have no idea why I was drawn to her, or why I want to be her friend, someone she can count on. It’s not like she’s the only person, or girl, to ever be lonely or friendless. But there’s something about her, a gritty kind of toughness under her frail exterior, that I like. I think that, like me, she’s a fighter. A survivor.

  I want a friend like that. Not just someone who likes to play video games or someone I talk to because I’ve known them for as long as I can remember.

  As I trudge home, the late afternoon sun sinking behind me, I think about her because it’s better than thinking about what lies ahead of me at my own house. When I saw her eating alone, I knew it wouldn’t be for long because she’s pretty, even though the clothes and bad haircut cover it up. She has these gorgeous light brown eyes and blonde hair that makes her stand out. She’s small for her age, shorter than most of the other girls in her grade. Maybe that’s why it makes me want to look out for her. To be honest, I felt easier around her than my friends.

  I don’t trust most people. I’m only fifteen, but I feel older, though I guess most fifteen-year-olds don’t have to grow up like the ones in our town. We don’t have big sweet sixteen parties to look forward to like on TV. Most of us are lucky if one parent is
home when we finish school, and odds are, that one parent probably isn’t waiting for you with a sandwich and a smile.

  The guys I hang out with call ourselves brothers instead of friends, but I wouldn’t trust them with the important stuff—things that really matter about me, life, my family. Everyone has their own to deal with anyway.

  I walk up the steps to our small, beaten-down ranch house, and hear the crash of glass inside, my father shouting, and my mother’s high-pitched shrieking voice. This. This is why I can’t bring friends over. Why I can’t sit in the den with the guys and watch TV. Why I can’t even think about bringing home a girl that I have a crush on.

  I don’t want to go inside, but what choice do I have? The shouts are coming from the kitchen, and

  I wonder if I can sneak past and make it to my bedroom unnoticed, but my father catches sight of me.

  “Ah, Zachary, you’re home.”

  He still has a trace of a Russian accent—my parents are first-generation immigrants. “What’s up, Dad?” I ask flatly, looking away from my mother’s tear-streaked face. She’s wearing an apron covered in flour, her greying hair tied atop her head in a bun. I’ve seen pictures of my mother when she was young—she was once incredibly beautiful. A ballerina, back in Moscow, before she met and married my father and he brought them here. But years of strain and crying, my father’s temper tantrums and abuse, having a child and trying to keep us going on my father’s meager living when he won’t let her work, have destroyed her looks. She’s hunched in on herself now, heavy, her face lined, her hair a mousy grey-brown. My father’s face is red, his wide nose flaring. Big, loud, and angry is how I’ve always seen my dad. His temper used to terrify me when I was a kid, but now it’s the norm.

  I see shards of broken glass on the floor, and my mother shrinks back as he turns on me. For a moment I think I’m next, but he just stares at me. “Cabbage and brisket for dinner,” he says casually. “Third time this week, Mama is making cabbage and brisket for dinner. Does that sound good to you, Son?”