tell me that, as soon as she got her new lungs, we were going to move to LA and she would be a star and I would be her agent.”
Jackson could feel Day’s dread. He spoke each word like it was being pulled from him, like a splinter buried deep. Nothing could convince Jackson that Day had killed this girl, a girl he described as radiant, but he’d let Day pull the splinters out. It was the only way for him to heal.
“My grandma started doing heavy drugs when I turned thirteen. That’s when things got real bad. She didn’t care about whether I ate or whether we had power or water. She only cared about heroine and then the meth. When she started hinting about selling me to get her drugs, when she started making jokes about how I might be more useful than she first thought, Sarah threatened to tell her parents.”
Good. Somebody should’ve told an actual adult, somebody who could’ve saved Day from that woman. But obviously nobody had or Day wouldn’t be lying in Jackson’s arms bearing his soul to him.
“But before Sarah could tell, she became really sick to the point where she couldn’t leave the hospital anymore. That became our new playground. There were toys and video games there. Puzzles, coloring books, even a dog that would come once a week. The hospital became my escape. I stayed there for hours every single day. I think the staff felt sorry for me. They would bring me meal trays when they brought hers. They would bring us cookies and ginger ale. When I showered in her room, they pretended not to notice. It felt like a vacation to me, even with my best friend hooked up to so many machines. There were always cupcakes and even superheroes showing up to entertain. And then one day, she got the call. She was getting her transplant.
“She thought that would make her free, but getting the transplant meant she had to take a ton of drugs to keep her body from rejecting her new lungs, and they made her feel really sick, so she wouldn’t eat and when she did eat, she’d vomit for hours. She was wasting away, and we all thought she’d die before she ever got to enjoy her new lungs.
“But then she got better. By the time we were fourteen, it was almost like she was a different person. By then, I was sleeping in the treehouse in her backyard to avoid my grandma’s house. I didn’t want to turn tricks so she could pay for her meth. And then she died. Just like that. They found her behind the tire store… OD’d.” Day said it with no feeling. No joy or sorrow, no anything. Just the facts.
“Jesus,” Jackson whispered. Day’s grandmother had overdosed behind a tire store and that’s not even the part that had broken him.
“I told Sarah I was leaving. I wouldn’t let them put me in foster care. Everybody knew what went down in those places. I told her I was running away to LA, and that she could meet me there when she graduated. I imagined by then, I would have a place to live and a real job. I was so fucking stupid,” he said, so disgusted with himself. “I packed my bag and the food Sarah stole for me, and I hopped on a bus and took it all the way to LA. That’s where Carl found me. At the bus station. That’s where they all go to hunt for their fresh meat. Stupid kids like me who don’t know any better.
“He said I was pretty. Prettier than any girl he’d ever met. He said I was so pretty that I was sure to be somebody’s new meal within a week, but he could help. Carl owned this disgusting pay by the hour motel, riddled with every infestation imaginable. It was all junkies and pimps and girls and boys working to feed their drug habits. There was one room Carl kept for himself. He didn’t live there or anything, he just said he couldn’t rent it out. I never thought to ask why. So, he let me stay there. All I had to do was blow him whenever he wanted.”
Rage poured over Jackson like warm water, his nostrils flaring. What kind of piece of shit scumbag forced a fourteen-year-old to trade oral sex for a roof over his head?
“Ow,” Day muttered.
Jackson realized he was gripping Day tighter,