His

His Read Free Page A

Book: His Read Free
Author: Brenda Rothert
Tags: HIS
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he knows I’m adamant about it.
    Bethy stands back up, squares her shoulders and gives us a weak smile. Her eyes are red-rimmed, and her collarbone has become more prominent. A knot of tension forms in my stomach.
    “She can give ’em a fake name,” Bean mumbles.
    “No,” I say sharply. “I have another plan.”
    His brows shoot up in question. The doubt in his expression forces my gaze to Bethy, who is still smiling at me. Unlike Bean, she trusts that I’ve got this situation covered. I can’t take either thing—his doubt or her certainty. My chest is tight with the pressure of it.
    “Give me an hour,” I say to Bean. “You guys meet me back here then.”
    He gives me a slight nod and turns to my sister. “You okay to walk over to the subway entrance? We can warm up in there.”
    “Sure.” She coughs again and then takes the arm he’s holding out to support her.
    Bean is pissed at me, and I can’t even blame him. Bethy is suffering out here. Not only is she sick, cold, and hungry, she’s missed the last four-and-a-half years of school. She’ll be eighteen in two years, and I’ll be twenty-three. I was sixteen when we came here, and I just recently turned twenty-one. But what options will either of us have without even a high school diploma?
    The tightness in my chest is getting painful. It’s too much, worrying about this right now. I have to focus on getting Bethy better. And with nothing but the clothes on my back and forty-four cents in my backpack pocket, I have no idea how to do that.
    A pain shoots through my stomach, distinctive from the one in my chest. It’s a hunger pang. Hunger is such a constant I don’t think about it much anymore, but sometimes my body forces me to.
    People are walking around me as I stand motionless on the sidewalk. I’m used to the contemptuous glares and dismissive head shakes. It’s obvious I’m homeless. I smell and I’m wearing rags. But still, I want to scream at these people that I’m still a person. I used to be like them—concerned about whether I’d be able to find a shirt to match a new skirt or completely absorbed in a text conversation about nothing at all.
    There’s a small niche carved out of a tall building, and I head for it, needing to escape the crowd. I just lean against the wall for a minute, taking a few deep breaths. Then I let my back slide down the brick wall, its surface scratching my skin through the thin fabric of my coat. When I’m sitting on the ground, I pull my legs up to my chest and wrap my arms around them, resting my chin atop my knees. For just a minute, I can sit here and admit to myself that things are bad. Worse than they’ve been since we got here. Since I’m alone and there’s no one to be strong for, I can give in to the drowning helplessness.
    A woman tosses a half-eaten sandwich into a metal trash can near the curb, and I cringe. Why? Why the hell do some people have enough to mindlessly toss food in the trash while others physically ache from hunger?
    I’m haunted by the food I threw away when I was younger. If our cook put peppers in the spaghetti sauce, I’d refused to eat it. If she accidentally put mayo on my sandwich, it went straight into the trash can in the school cafeteria.
    What I wouldn’t give for some of Lydia’s spaghetti with peppers in the sauce right now. I’d eat until my stomach was about to burst and force Bethy to do the same. There’s an insecurity to this life that makes me hold on tightly to what little I do have. And all I have is my sister. That’s why her cough scares me so much.
    I press my forehead to my knees, willing myself to keep calm. There’s always a way. Sometimes I have to do things I never imagined doing, but we’re still standing, so it’s worth it.
    I’ll have to steal. The streets have taught me to be stealthy, and I can lift a wallet without being noticed as long as I have time to wait for the right mark.
    Time isn’t on my side today, though. I have

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