“I don’t know why you brought me here,” I said, shaking my head.

“Because you need a change of pace.”

Nate and I walked from the parking lot toward the Ferris wheel. “My pace is fine.”

Nate stepped in front of me. “Yeah, if you’re a sloth. Seriously, man, you need to get out more often. I’ll give you credit for working at Ana’s house. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“I have a lot in me you don’t know about.” I’d known Nate for the first eight years of my life. Then everything changed. Hospital. Foster care. Prison. It was all a fucking disaster.

“I’d love to listen to you if you ever want to talk about it. What happened when you left Fury?” He stuck his hands in his pockets and walked beside me.

I was a human time capsule, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to be opened, but I knew that bottling up the rage and anger and guilt weren’t helping me either.

I turned right and walked into the beer tent. I slapped a twenty on the counter and bought my friend a beer. Working at Ana’s had put me in a better financial situation, and I owed Nate a drink or two. He was the reason I hadn’t starved the past few months.

We took our red cups to an open picnic table and took a seat.

“There’s too much to tell, but I’ll give you the shortened version.” I sipped at the suds that floated on top. They were hollow bubbles that reminded me of my life. I hadn’t really lived since I was eight. I’d been on some kind of survival mode. One that got me through a day at a time, but never really allowed me to experience anything besides sorrow, regret, and rage.

“I’ll take any version. You’re my best friend, and I want to know what happened to you.”

I set the beer on the splintered wooden table. A lump formed in my throat, and I swallowed it down. I was familiar with that lump. It threatened to choke me every time I thought about the early days after my parents died.

“After the hospital, I went to a temporary family. Olga and Cecil Gates cared for us until the system placed us. Once we were taken from them, we were transported to Denver.” I closed my eyes and remembered the ride. Silas, Decker, and I were in the back seat, together for the last time. Decker was in the car seat, and I watched him gurgle and coo contentedly. He was still a happy baby, having no idea how much his life had changed. He was an orphan, but he didn’t know it because someone was still feeding him and changing his diapers. “We went into a group home. Well, Silas and I did, but Decker was put with a separate family. Turns out our group home didn’t take children under the age of five. That’s the last day I saw him.”

“Shit, man, I had no idea. I thought you were all together at first. I mean … I know he was taken away because you’ve been searching for him forever.”

I nodded, reliving the pain of finding out that Decker had been adopted. “We didn’t have any relatives willing to take us on. Mom was an only child, and Dad was the black sheep of his family. In their eyes, we were tainted by him.”

“Assholes.” Nate sipped his beer and looked over the edge. I knew he wasn’t satisfied with the little I’d told him, but it was more than I’d ever divulged. Living with the memories was like tearing out stitches with my fingers. It was bloody and painful. “How many places did you and Silas end up?”

I mentally counted the families in my head. “Five. I had an anger problem that most couldn’t deal with. I took my frustration out on drywall and doors and windows.” I thought about Ana’s front door and shook my head. Obviously I hadn’t changed my mode of expressing anger.

“At least they kept the two of you together.” He pushed my beer toward me, and I took a long gulp. The bubbles burned as they traveled down to my stomach.

“They tried to split us up at first, but Silas ran away from two homes trying to find me. The social worker gave up because chasing my brother took too much time and she was lazy.” I drew circles in the condensation on the cup. “The day he walked into the Mitchells’ house was the best and worst day of my life. We’d been in the system for years by then, and Troy Mitchell was a mean bastard. He never touched me because I was meaner than he was, but when Silas showed up, he knew he’d be my weak spot.”

Nate looked sideways. This was where it all got uncomfortable because this was where my life took a straight dive into misery. Troy Mitchell’s house made hell look like heaven, and he made Satan look like a saint.

“You’d think they wouldn’t allow someone so mean to foster kids.”

I rolled my eyes. Sure, there were some really great foster families out there—people who thought more about the kids than the money they got for housing and feeding them—but the Mitchells weren’t that family. In the system’s eyes, they were great. They housed the maximum number of kids and received the maximum compensation. It afforded them a big house and fancy cars. The money never went to the kids. They marked off the criteria of housing, clothing, and feeding us, but they didn’t care for us. They only cared about that next check.

“To the unsuspecting social worker, they were the poster children for being the perfect foster parents. None of their kids got into trouble. No one ran away. When interviews were done with the kids, they all bubbled about how great Troy and Amy were. They were afraid to tell the truth.”

“What about you?”

I considered his question for a moment. “I didn’t say anything after the first time.” I pulled up the sleeve of my shirt and showed him the burn marks on the underside of my arm where the sensitive skin was puckered in red circles. A perfect row of five. Troy liked the number five. Five burns. Five punches. Five kicks. Five days without food. Five hours in the snow without a coat. Fucker.

“I thought those came from prison or maybe injuries from the garage after the …” His head fell forward. This was hard for him to hear and harder for me to say, but something had happened over the past few weeks. I’d opened up. I’d shared my things and my life with others, and I felt better somehow—lighter and less stressed. Stronger. I hoped by the end of this I’d feel empty in a good way. Empty of the pain I held inside. Empty of my self-loathing. Empty of guilt.

“Nope, it was all him.” We sat in silence for a minute. People walked around us laughing and goofing around. I couldn’t remember a time when I felt free enough to be like that. I wanted to have fun. It was time to finish the story and move forward. “We’d been with the Mitchells for years, and Silas took a lot of punishment for being my brother. The Mitchells explained his black eyes and bruises by saying he was an active child.”

I shook my head, remembering that last day. “I’d come home with a less-than-straight-A report card. Troy was pissed because somehow my B in algebra reflected on him. He sent me to my room, which was fine, but he locked me in and I heard my brother screaming.” I shuddered at the memory. “I got out of there by breaking through the door. It’s amazing what a chair can do when mixed with rage.”

I took a big gulp of my beer and crushed the empty cup under my palm. “I raced toward the screaming and found Troy in his room with my brother. He was beaten and bloody. Silas’s eyes were vacant, and I knew he’d been abused in the worst way. Everything went black for me. I know I beat Troy. I know he fought back, and the last thing I remember was pushing him out of the second-story window and watching him fall to his death.” In the end, Troy had won that fight because I’d gone to prison for six years for second-degree murder.

“You got a shit deal.”

“Actually, I got off pretty good with six years. After he was dead, the rest of the kids came forward with the truth. They told tales of beatings and abuse that would make most adults shudder. The home was shut down and the kids farmed out to other places. Silas was sent to a family who was good to him. They were military, which is why he joined the Army. He still stays in touch with them.”

I rose from the table and looked down at Nate, whose face was almost white. We’d never talked about the details of anything. Not the garage, not my life after, and not prison, but somehow it was right to let it out tonight. Empty the emotional coffers to allow room for fun. “Enough shit for one night. I’m ready to have a good time. Now tell me again why we’re here.”

“We’re here for the pussy. Carnivals are the best place to find chicks, dude. It’s the bumper cars. It shakes them up just right. Leaves them dying for a little touch.”

“You’re an idiot,” I told him. “I can’t believe I listen to you.”

But he wasn’t listening to me anymore. “Oh, cheese fries!” Nate practically ran to the vendor. I rolled my eyes at how easily he was distracted—or was he looking for a quick exit from the darkness?—but I liked cheese fries too, so I followed him.

From there, we moved to the booth where a person was supposed to throw a ring around a bottle to win a stuffed animal. I’d never tried to do it, but I was sure the bottlenecks were too big for the rings. How else would they make money? I watched person after person put their money on the counter and fail.

“You call this fun?”

“At least we’ve got cheese fries,” Nate held up a plate full.

“Give me that.” I pulled them away from Nate, and they went flying through the air and right onto the blouse of a woman passing by … a woman who happened to be Ana.