When I was in the second grade I lived with a couple who couldn’t have children. He was a pastor and she was teacher, and they made space in their home for a lost child who needed parents. I was the lucky child, and I truly mean that. It was the only home in which I was welcomed as a member of the family and not just another body passing through. I stayed there for almost two years, one of my longer foster stays, until he was transferred to a church across the country. I think they wanted to keep me. Maybe. But that’s not how foster care works.

The day I left them, he said, “You must be brave in life, Jessica. You must choose to do right, always.” Those same words haunt me to this day.

Because life isn’t lived in absolutes. At least for me. I want to do the right thing. I want to be good. But no matter who I do right by, Sean or Coy, I’ve already failed them both. I don’t know how to fix this.

Sleeping with Sean was the worst thing I’ve ever done to Coy—a total betrayal of our relationship. But when I remember the way Sean touched me . . . the way he kissed me . . . even the way our bodies fit together . . . everything about it felt right. More right than any time Coy and I slept together.

But with each passing second in Coy’s room—in his bed, no less—the guilt for cheating on him chips away at the goodness of those memories.

Be brave, Jessica. Do right.

I want to, but what does that even mean? Sean said he wants more. That he can protect me? But how is that possible? As if I can move down the hall, start sleeping in his bed, and what—we all live happily ever after? I don’t see how that works.

Sean wants to take care of me, but what about him? Because Coy wasn’t lying. He will kill Sean. I have no doubt.

That’s why I did what I did. That’s why I lied. That’s why I chose Coy. Sean can’t protect me from myself or from the guilt that taints every fiber of my being. I came into this world unwanted. I’ll probably leave it the same. But I will not be able to live with myself if something happens to him because of me. Even if it hurts.

Oh, God, does it hurt.

I can’t take it anymore. I don’t want to think. I’m tired in my soul, which is the worst kind of tired, and I need to escape for a few hours. A familiar darkness settles in my mind, the despair that suggests it’d be better for everyone if I simply went away. Inside the bathroom, I riffle through the cabinets until I find an open box of head cold medicine. There’re three emerald gel caps and I pop them out before downing them with a glass of water.

It’s been years since I allowed myself to remember my past. The time before Coy is something I block out for self-preservation, but lying here under the covers in a pitch black room, it all comes back. The families I stayed with. The group homes. The last one was the worst. It’s what changed everything. If I could go back, would I make a different choice? It’s what I wrestle with most. Another secret that haunts me. And after that, trading my body for enough money to get by crushed what was left of my soul. My eyelids flutter shut as the medicine kicks in, and the drowsy, heavy feeling pulls my body under until I’m lost in a blissful peace of nothingness.

* * *

“Welcome to the worst place you’ll ever live.” The short girl with a mean smile laughed across the room. I hated this new foster home already.

“Tasha! Give the new girl a break.” The girl with bright red lips and dark painted eyes threw a pillow at Tasha. A possible ally, but I’ve been in enough places to know I can’t trust anyone, and wolves always came cloaked in sheep’s wool.

“What? Just being real. I hope you like sucking dick, because that’s a requirement.”

The woman who operated this group home told me to come back and get settled. There were two rooms for the girls, and she asked me to take the empty bed in the room on the left. To“make myself at home.” I didn’t ask why it was empty or who slept here before. But on the edge of the mattress with my garbage bag filled with my only possessions, I prayed I didn’t really have to exchange sexual favors for room and board.

My case worker left a few minutes ago, and even I could read the apprehension in her eyes. She was worried. There are eight of us here, all unwanted teenagers. Outcasts and social delinquents. I expected some would assert their dominance, so I learned my place. What they didn’t already understand was I wasn’t an attention seeker. I hated being the center of attention. I was the wallflower. I faded into the background and stayed out the of way. It was the way I survived.

“See. You’re scaring her already.” The blonde girl next to Tasha tipped her head and stared.

“I’m not scared.” That wasn’t exactly the truth. Even though I’ve been in foster care my entire life, I was always nervous in a new home and school.

“Mr. Spiers. He works long, hard days, and when he comes home to his wife, who’s knocked out from her evening cocktail of anti-depressants and boxed wine, he likes to release the stress of the day.” The blonde stuck one hand under her chin and chewed the white of her fingernails.

“Oh.” I bit the flesh of my lower lip so hard it might’ve actually bled.

Tasha rolled her eyes and hauled her backpack off the ground. “Yeah, so again, I hope you like sucking cock.”

The blonde girl stared over at me with sad eyes. “Even if you don’t, you better get used to it.”

I’d done it before. A few times with boys my age, but I didn’t like it. The thought of being forced, and by an older man no less, made me blanch.

Tasha spread books across her bed and focused on her homework while the blonde girl pulled out nail polish. She covered up the evidence of her nail biting with each stroke of bright blue. Everyone ignored my arrival except for the girl next to me. Thick black eyeliner circled her eyes, and the red painted lips made her appear much older than any high schooler I’d known. Her stare was more intimidating than kind, but she tipped her chin in a silent greeting that gave me hope she wasn’t all bad.

“I’m Jess.” I gave a little wave.

“I heard. Amo.” She narrowed her gaze. “There’s a container under the bed. We don’t have drawers.”

“Thanks.” I nodded, crouched on the floor, and pulled out a clear plastic tub that was cracked. I reached for my bag and sorted my few clothes and personal items into the container.

“Don’t thank me. They aren’t wrong. This place is the worst.”

I looked up to meet Amo’s calculating stare. “But you stay?”

She shrugged. “Only till I turn eighteen. Once I’m not the state’s, I’m blowing this joint and hitching a ride to Denver.”

“When’s that?”

“Another month. You want to come too?” She quirked her eyebrow with what was seemingly an honest invitation.

Even though we’d just met, I was tempted to take her up on the offer. “I’m only sixteen. I have two more years.”

She scoffed and grated her jaw. “Sad how we count down our last days of childhood like a prison sentence.”

I’d never thought of it like that, but it was true. “Isn’t it, though?”

“You’re not so bad, Jess. Here.” She popped off her bed and pulled out a tube of lipstick. Before I had a chance to turn her away, she painted my lips the same bright red as hers. “There.” She nodded with approval.

I lifted my fingers to my lips, the substance stickier than I imagined. I hadn’t worn lipstick before. Makeup was a luxury not afforded to girls without money or someone to buy it for them.

“Don’t.” She grabbed my arm and pulled my hand back down to my side. “You’ll mess it up.” Before she went back to her bed she whispered in my ear. “He doesn’t like lipstick. Leaves marks.” Stepping back, she popped her lips with a smack and winked.

“Thank you.” I mouthed the words more than said them.

Maybe this place wouldn’t be so bad after all. Like Amo said, I was counting down my sentence and only had two years left. After sixteen years in foster care, that wasn’t so long.

But I was wrong. Two years felt longer than an eternity in this place.

After my first week, Mr. Spiers worked me into his rotation, lipstick and all. It was embarrassing. It was humiliating. And afterward, I pretended it never happened. I continued to play pretend for the next few weeks, but I was breaking on the inside. I couldn’t live like this. I was used to fading into the background, but for the first time in my life, I was losing faith in who I was. Becoming a person even I didn’t recognize. The girls here were nice enough, and Amo took it upon herself to protect me as best she could. I wasn’t sure why, but I didn’t question it. As we drew closer to her eighteenth birthday, I worried how I would fare without her.

It was the second Tuesday in November when Mrs. Spiers woke up, stumbled out of bed, and came upon her husband of forty-seven years receiving head from Tasha. Livid and blaming all of us, she started regularly locking us inside our rooms before her after-dinner cocktail.

“This is fucking bullshit. She can’t do this to us anymore and get away with it.” Tasha paced the length of our room. I personally didn’t understand why she was so upset. At least with us in here, Mr. Spiers would be kept away.

“Hey, Jess,” Amo whispered, and waved me over to sit on her bed. “It’s happening. Tonight’s the last night we spend in this hellhole.”

I widened my eyes with surprise and a little fear. She was only ten days away from turning eighteen. “You’re running away?”

“We. We are running away. My friend in Denver will set us up there.”

We. I’d never been part of a ‘we,’ and the word alone settled my fears. I’d do whatever Amo wanted. “You trust her?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, or I wouldn’t have made the plan. Don’t tell me you’d rather stay here.”

I bit at my lip and considered my options. I wanted to leave. Truly. But I knew it wasn’t that simple. At least here I could finish my education. I was fed and clothed. “Maybe I should.”

“No. You don’t get what I’m saying. You. Can’t. Stay. Not here. Make sure you take the long way home from school tomorrow, yeah?” Her eyes were hard to read but in them I saw a glimpse of something dangerous.

“What are you planning to do?” I whispered.

“Don’t worry about it.” She waved me off. “A little trust, Jess. I’ve got this.”

The next day, I took the long way home from school while the others walked ahead. I stopped in the corner drug store and browsed treats I couldn’t afford, tempted to take one and shove it inside my backpack. But I didn’t. I couldn’t risk getting busted for shoplifting with Amo waiting. That, and my pack was already stuffed with most of my clothes.

I dragged my feet with apprehension, not sure what Amo had planned. But as I got closer to the house, I spotted the thick plume of smoke rising over the neighborhood.

Oh, no!

Before my feet cooperated, Amo appeared from an alleyway. She walked toward me with a satisfied smile that stretched the width of her face. The familiar red lipstick was gone and it made her appear almost normal.

“Turn around. Let’s go,” she snapped and grabbed my hand.

My feet pushed forward, but I couldn’t help looking over my shoulder. “Amo, what did you do? Oh, God. Are they still inside?”

“I hope so.” She smiled wide and gripped my hand tighter.

“We’ve got to get them out. We need to call the fire department. Oh, God!” I tried to yank out of her hold. I needed to get to a phone. There weren’t any sirens. It was as if the world went by, not taking notice while a house went up in flames.

“Stop it,” she hissed and jerked my body back. She narrowed her gaze in a way that dared me to defy her. “You aren’t going to save those sick fucks. The ones who treat us like interchangeable property so she can afford her vices and he can have his. They deserve to die.”

“But what about the others?”

Her scowl warped with a hardness I’d never seen her wear before. “Sometimes to get what you want in life there are casualties.” Her heartlessness was terrifying. Right then and there I realized I better make myself useful, better follow in line, because if not, she had no problem sacrificing a life for hers. “Now, let’s go.”

She bought the tickets and we boarded a Greyhound set for Denver. I didn’t speak the entire ride. Couldn’t. My mind filled with horrors of people burning alive. People I knew. When we arrived in Denver, Amo used the last of her cash to buy us burgers from McDonald’s. She begged an employee to let us use the phone until they gave in. We waited all day for her friend Joy to pick us up, but she never came. That night, we slept huddled together behind a dumpster. The cold was immobilizing. I imagined we might freeze to death, but the next day the morning came and so did Joy.

Amo was ecstatic, but I sensed immediately that Joy didn’t want me around. We walked four blocks and she invited us inside her one room apartment. “It’s small, but it’s mine. You can stay here until you get your own.” She glared at me while Amo poked around. Yep, she didn’t like me.

Amo turned back to Joy. “You are the best.” They stared at each other, engaging in some sort of silent conversation I couldn’t understand. “She won’t be a problem.”

Joy’s gaze slid over to me. “She’ll have to work, too.”

Amo shook her head but I didn’t understand why. “I’ll pay her way.”

“I’ll work.” My voice was stronger than I felt. I didn’t know what we would be doing, but I suspected it wasn’t legal. How could it be, with all of us runaways?

“Good.” Joy smiled as Amo’s lips turned down with disappointment. “You both start tonight. Get a shower. Dress young. They like it better that way.” She held my gaze until the reality hit.

I thought we’d escaped. I thought we left for something better, but we didn’t. We only traded one life of prostitution for another.

* * *

“Jess! Jess, are you okay?” Deb’s voice pulls me from the heavy fog of sleep. Bang, bang, bang. “Jess, can you open the door for me?”

“Coming!” I croak out and peel the sheets from my skin. They stick with the sheen of sweat, and my heart races so fast I can barely catch my breath. I walk to the door and fix my hair so it falls forward over my face. I don’t even turn on the light before I unlock and open the door. I don’t want her to see the yellow faded bruising still left from Coy’s wrath.

“Jess.” Deb’s concern etches with the lines of her frown.

“I’m sorry, I was out of it.” I don’t even know what time it is, but by the darkness in the hallway, I must have slept all day.

“Jess, you feeling okay?”

“Not really.” I consider confiding in Deb, or maybe she already knows, but can’t quite push the words past my lips.

“Do you need anything? I can bring you up some crackers. Soup? Water?” It’s actually a relief she assumes I’m sick, so I go with it.

“No, I’m okay for now. Just need to sleep it off.”

“Okay, then. You sure? I came up to ask if you wanted to help with dinner. I’m sorry, I didn’t know you weren’t feeling well. You need anything, anything at all, come get me, or call my cell.”

“I will.” But that’s a lie.

“Feel better.”

I nod, shut the door, and stumble back to the bed where I wrap myself in blankets. My mind is still drowsy with sleep and ghosts of my past. Deb’s offer to bring something to help me feel better stings my heart. I wish she could help, but the sickness that eats at me is all my fault. They’re things I can’t take back. She can’t help with that, but as I drift back to sleep I wish she could.

* * *

The door bangs open against the wall and jolts me from sleep. The lights in the bedroom flick on but I slam my eyelids shut against the brightness before I can see who it is.

“So, he just takes off a week before we’re supposed to leave for this tour—” Coy’s footsteps fall heavy with his words, “—and that’s perfectly acceptable?”

“He’ll be back.” Austin. “He’s too responsible to leave us in the lurch.” There’s a long pause and his voice lowers. “She okay?” I assume he’s referring to me, but I don’t move other than to force my breath into steady exhalations.

“She’s sleeping. She’s fine.” The dresser drawer slides open and bangs shut. “He’s done this before, then?”

“Hell, no. Sean’s never missed a practice.” Austin laughs but there’s little humor to his words.

He’s gone because of me! I want to scream the truth. I blame myself enough for what’s gone wrong these past few weeks, but the guilt of cheating on Coy with Sean, and hurting Sean by staying with Coy, is all too much. Now I’m the reason he’s disappeared for a few days.

“He better not screw up the tour. I’ve been working my whole life for this.” Coy must be in the bathroom; his voice is muted. I’m snuggled into the blankets and pillows, but I wonder what Austin’s doing here.

“Yeah, well, we have too.” Austin scoffs. “Dude, we going or what? The ladies don’t give a shit how pretty you look if we’re not there. Shit. Sorry, bro.”

“It’s fine. She’s out of it. Let’s go.” The room blankets in darkness with Coy’s words, and the door bangs shut. I should be troubled by his plans but instead, relief floods my gut knowing he won’t be coming back for a few hours. I should be pissed. He’s going out to meet other women. As his girlfriend that should hurt, but I can’t find it in me to care. Instead I’m more upset that Sean left. I don’t want to face the truth of my current situation. This is no way to live. I can’t hide under these covers forever, but for now that’s what I intend to do.