Overdrive Read Free

you thinking?”
    Solid question.
    It’s also rhetorical because Vanessa has that look on her face, the what-the-hell-am-I-going-to-do-with-you expression that makes the Grand Canyon look small compared to the crevices spider-webbing across my heart.
    I could blame a lot of things. Claim I panicked. Make her believe Kevin made me do it. But the excuses are just a smokescreen for the inexcusable truth: I wasn’t thinking.
    Rookie move.
    â€œYou won’t be charged with theft—God only knows why—but you’ve broken more than one law . . . tonight.”
    Her hesitation on the last word doesn’t go unnoticed.
    Vanessa flips open a manila folder and the pages of my sister’s and my clichéd history spring to life. Four years of memories swipe back and forth like windshield wiper blades.
    I was ten—Emma’s age—when we moved to Vegas, twelve when Dad bet our lives away on the slots, and not even a teen when Mom threw him out on his cheating ass. Go, Mom! Too bad she couldn’t hack the single life. She spiraled out of control faster than a Nevada dust devil. Classic Vegas.
    Vanessa’s been our caseworker for almost four years, ever since Mom lost custody after choosing her bong—or latest boy toy—over our basic needs. Again.
    I’m over it.
    But Emma. My insides twist at the memory of her face streaked with giant tears, her tiny fingers wrapped around her Princess Barbie with the strength of a socket wrench. Terrified and confused. Six years old and abandoned by a mother she was better off without. But how do you tell that to a kid?
    I zero in on the picture of her paper-clipped to the corner of the file. The lump in my esophagus swells to the size of a softball. I rub under my eyes with the back of my hand and avoid Vanessa’s gaze. She’s seen me at my worst. This is different. We both know it.
    Her voice softens. “If you provide some information about your boyfriend . . .”
    â€œEx-boyfriend,” I say, my voice thick. “I’m not a rat.”
    Vanessa nods and I’m glad she doesn’t push. I’ve run out of reasons for my misguided loyalty to Kevin.
    â€œAnd then there’s the matter of the Millers.”
    My stomach plummets so fast I jolt forward. “They don’t want to foster me anymore.”
    Not like it’s A-plus living anyway—Mr. Miller drinks too much and his wife’s too dumb to see her husband’s a cheat. The roof leaks, the trailer reeks of old people and stale beer, and Mrs. Miller couldn’t bake a decent chocolate chip cookie if Pillsbury force-fed her step-by-step instructions. But it was a house, and more than that, Ems and I were together. At the thought of being separated from her—
    Fuck that.
    â€œI’m afraid it’s more complicated,” Vanessa says, cheeks pink. Her frustration transforms into something sympathetic and raw.
    Discomfort.
    The tension in the room thickens.
    â€œEmma’s out too,” I say, filling in the gaps.
    Vanessa takes my hands in hers. They’re cold, like she’s got antifreeze pumping through her veins. My whole body goes numb. “They warned us, Julia. They’re not wired for this.”
    I snicker at her choice of words. “Why’d you have to go and tell them, anyway?”
    Anger fuels the question, but the emotion bubbling beneath the surface is something stronger, something foreign.
    Desperation.
    My gaze flits to the hole in the wall and I imagine my knuckles making contact. I never should have taken this boost, never should have trusted Kevin. I let my guard down— for what? —and now everything’s fucked.
    â€œI know it looks bleak,” Vanessa says. “But there are some options.”
    At this, she actually brightens, and a faint glimmer of light shines through the thick fog of my dismay. Vanessa is a kind, practical woman with the patience of a saint. But