Rules of a Rebel and a Shy Girl - Jessica Sorensen Page 0,5

slip on a hoodie over my work uniform, trying to cover up one of the many bad decisions I made tonight: not changing out of my outfit before I left work. In my defense, I was in a rush to get home and check on my mom who hasn’t texted me in over six hours. And that would be yet another bad decision: leaving my mom home alone after she spent the entire night sobbing and drinking away her broken heart, searching for the pieces in the bottom of a bottle.

I really should’ve called in sick.

But then how would you pay rent?

I send my mom another text, but she doesn’t reply. Shoving down my anxiety over something possibly being really wrong this time, I climb out of the car to check out the damage. The cool November air nips at my bare legs and stings my cheeks as I go to the trunk and grab the flashlight I put in there after the last time my car broke down. Then I walk around to the front of my car and pop the hood open.

Smoke plumes into my face as the engine hisses, which probably means it overheated, something that’s been happening on and off for a month now. I need to take it to a shop to get fixed, but my mom hasn’t been able to hold a steady job since boyfriend number forty-five dumped her for someone half her age. And with me starting college, our financial situation has gone from crappy to desperately nonexistent, which leads me to my third bad decision: my new job.

I pull the jacket securely around me as I glance up and down the dark, desolate highway that stretches between Ridgefield and Fairs Hollow. Fairs Hollow is where I attend college and work, but I’ve been staying at home in Ridgefield because I can’t afford to pay my mom’s rent and mine. Plus, I really need to keep an eye on my mom after her boyfriend just dumped her. That may not sound that bad, but my mom doesn’t handle breakups very well. No, scratch that. My mom doesn’t handle breakups at all. She buries her pain in alcohol until the next guy comes along. Then she either gets high with him or gets high off the relationship, and for as long as that lasts, she’s happy. But when they break up, she sinks into a pit of despair. This has been going on for years, and I’ve spent many nights making sure she doesn’t die in her sleep after days of binge drinking and drugs, something she was doing before I left for work earlier.

Uneasiness crushes my chest, and I retrieve my phone from the pocket of my shorts to send her yet another message. Then I get back into the car and send Luna, Wynter, and Ari, three of my best friends, a pleading text that I’m stuck out on the highway and need help.

While I wait for them to respond, I lock the doors and flip on my emergency lights, crossing my fingers no one stops. That might sound crazy, but the last time my car broke down, a guy stopped and offered me twenty bucks if I sucked him off in the backseat. He was forty-something with a godawful comb-over, and he was sporting a shiny wedding ring. So, not only was he a complete creeper, but a cheating bastard, just like a lot of the guys my mom dates.

When I told him just that, he looked as if he wanted to slap me. Thank God Wynter showed up, or who knows what would’ve happened?

I shiver at the thought, nausea winding in the pit of my stomach. The ill feeling expands as my mind wanders to my job and how many creepers I’ve met there over the last couple of months. It’s my own damn fault. I chose to work at the shithole when I knew the shitty rep the place has. I chose to put myself in that situation in order to pay mine and my mom’s bills and still afford to attend school, which will hopefully help me get ahead in life instead of continuously being behind like I’ve been for my entire childhood.

I chose, I chose, I chose my luck.

I lower my head to the steering wheel. “God, what I wouldn’t give to have just one single moment when it doesn’t feel like an elephant is sitting on my chest. Is that too much to ask? To