Fortunately for me, he’d never treated me badly. I know now it was all a ruse. That he was patient with me only because he had a lot in store for me. At the time, though, I thought I was his soft spot.

“Anything for you,” he said with an unsettling wink.

He pushed back a few strands of my hair behind my ear, and I resisted cringing at the simple gesture. I hated when he touched me in any way. I felt slimy on the inside. Then he was up and on his way out to get fish and chips, using the money Aunt Cheryl had just earned getting screwed by multiple men. Weekends were always the busiest, and she’d recuperate Monday to Wednesday before opening up for business again.

When he was long gone, I was able to step inside and tiptoe past the bedroom where Cheryl was in a foetal position, nursing a cigarette with a trembling hand. It was always hard to witness her like this. I knew she hated it. She was so beautiful, too. I always thought she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. She had the softest mahogany hair, green sad eyes, large full lips and a body that was naturally slim. She was capable of stealing the shine wherever she went. It was no wonder all the women here wanted to cut her eyes out. Didn’t help their men were probably sneaking in here and getting a bit of the action. There was a reason I was loathed by everybody. I was the offspring of a dysfunctional family whose Aunt whored herself to all the men that weren’t getting laid enough at home. Pretty much the niece to a home wrecker, and suddenly Graeme’s attack wasn’t all that random.

“Leah, is that you?” she called out, her voice shaky and high.

I froze and stared longingly at my bedroom. With a sigh, I turned back around and slowly entered hers. She didn’t move her head to look at me, but her glazed eyes did. I stood in front of her, and her gaze moved up and down my body, no emotion on her face. She was probably high already.

“Why are you dressed like that?” she managed out.

I stared down at my clothes before looking back at her. “How do you mean?”

“You look like a whore. You look… like me.”

I blinked at her, and suddenly I felt awkward as hell standing here. My eyes skimmed the room briefly, taking in the dishevelled sheets and stained carpet. It stunk badly in here. Of alcohol, smoke and… sweat.

“Leah,” she continued, capturing my attention. “Why are you dressed like that?”

“I’m not dressed in anything different.”

“I don’t like it.”

“I’ll change.”

She coughed lightly. “Russell won’t let you.”

Well, what did she want me to do? I almost rolled my eyes at her. It wasn’t like I had a choice in the matter. I dressed in what I was given. She knew that.

She let out a shaky breath. “Don’t be like me, Leah. Y’promise?”

I nodded slowly. “Yeah.”

“Don’t… be like me.”

“Okay.”

Then she repeated it a third time, but the words died off and her eyes closed. She passed out, and I had to remove the lit cigarette from in-between her fingers and put it out on the ashtray on the night able.

I turned around and hurried out of there. Shut inside my room, I spent the rest of the day eating my fish and chips and reading out of my shelf of ninety-nine cent books I bought from the local used bookstore around the corner. I was smitten for raunchy romance, even if I was too young to fully grasp the concept of love. I’d have bought other genres, or books from acclaimed authors, if I wasn’t so strict with what I spent. But when you’re given a fifteen dollar a month allowance, making every dollar stretch as far as it can go is pretty important.

It was actually a small hobby of mine, counting coins and recording what I had, hoping to hit a hundred just for the sake of actually having a hundred dollars in my hands. Money had always been a beautiful thing to me, and I loved numbers.

In a world that had gone to shit, numbers made sense.

It was around midnight when I was finally dozing off, with the smutty novel spread open across my chest, that I heard a tapping sound coming from the window. For a couple minutes I stirred only slightly, thinking I was just half-dreaming the sound. But the more rapping there was, the more I stirred, until finally I opened my eyes in the darkness and slowly moved to the window. Pulling aside the bed sheet I used as a curtain, I looked out.

My bedroom faced the side of Carter’s trailer, and I saw nothing out of the ordinary. All the lights in his trailer were off. Confused by the noise, I rubbed my eyes thinking I’d just made it up in my head, but when I opened them again, I finally noticed the small gift bag on the windowsill.

Cautiously, I unlocked the window and pulled it up just enough to grab it.  Once in my hands, I hurriedly opened it and looked inside. There wasn’t any gift bag paper. In fact, the actual bag itself still had its fifty cent price tag on it, and I instantly knew this was done in the hands of a male. I knew who that male was straight away when I saw the contents.

I raced to the bed and tipped the bag upside down. Five bottles of nail polish fell out, and I grabbed at each of them hastily. Turning on the lamp next to my small bed, I stared at them individually. They were all different colours, but one of them stood out. I grabbed it and spun it under the light, smiling like a fool.

This was the exact one Graeme had thrown on the ground. Carter had returned for it, and he had replaced it for me. And in the process he’d bought me more. Nobody had ever done this. I’d never been treated to gifts in my life, not even from Uncle Russell on my birthday. That’s why I cherished the nail polish Cheryl had given me so much. I always felt like an intruder. An unwanted entity that survived without love. Like a wilting flower deprived of sun, I was wasting away alone most of my childhood.

Until this. Until Carter. Until he showed me a tender and giving piece of his soul I wanted to keep all to myself.

I never wanted someone more than I wanted him in that moment.

Carter

Dirty blonde hair.

Deep brown eyes.

Sun kissed skin.

Pink lips plump.

I should never have let her in.

That was the first strike against me.

Five

I watched him sing every single day by the creek. We sat under the shade during that summer. Me, with a notepad and pen in each hand, and him, with his guitar in both of his. I watched him create music from scratch, and I hastily scribbled away the lyrics he recited to me. Sometimes they worked, other times they didn’t. Sometimes he’d write an entire song and then crumple up the paper and throw it in the stream.