Page 9 of Boys of Brayshaw High (Brayshaw High 1)

We don’t have room for problems. Especially not the kind involving pussy.

She’ll need to be put in check, and quick.Cops. Awesome.

Three of them, a K-9 unit even, line the curb nearest the female Bray house.

I can tell the others walking toward the house are on edge, and I get it.

Like them, my stomach muscles used to tighten at the sight of every black and white patrol car, but not anymore. After a while, it was almost a sense of reprieve, knowing they were likely there for my mom’s patrons if not her herself. Usually meant a solid forty-eight hours without dread, but never more than that.

More times than not, I thought about running off. Technically, I could have at any moment and dear mother never would have looked, but I don’t have an ID, let alone a license, and I need it to find work anywhere other than a strip club or dive bar. And with a mother who doesn’t hold on to shit, I have no birth certificate or social security card to even attempt to get my own.

But it’s whatever. One day, I’ll turn and never look back. Seems far, but it’ll be so worth it when it comes.

I shake off the pathetic poor me thoughts as I reach the porch, but before I can step up, Maybell rushes out the screen door right.

She holds it open for the male officer as he fights to get a girl, can’t remember her name, out the door. She kicks and flings herself around, forcing him to grip her upper arms as she has a fit.

Nira, the girl I walked here with that first day, steps up beside me.

“Not surprised. Knew she wouldn’t last,” she mutters.

“How long’s she been here?”

“Couple weeks, but she ditches school all the time and someone said they saw her stealing Maybell’s smokes. But she put hands on Victoria today, so she’s good as gone.”

“Victoria?”

“Do you even try to fit in here?”

I glare at her. “No. I don’t. Why would I?”

She shakes her head, both our gazes following the officer as he attempts to get the girl in the back seat. “Victoria’s my bunkmate. The bitchy blonde that walks around the house with a chip on her shoulder? Been here longer than any of us, supposedly.”

“Oh.”

She scoffs as she walks away. “At least pretend to be interested, Rae. We’re better your friends than your enemies.”

Friends. Right.

‘Cause befriending a handful of girls who have problems the rest of the world pretends don’t exist sounds like a good fucking time.

No. I can’t afford fake friends and I’m not shopping for real ones, should those exist.

The fact of the matter is, in the end, the only way to walk away ... is to make sure there’s nothing you’re reluctant to leave behind.

To feel is to follow.

And I’ll pave my path along no one’s steps but my own.

“Come on now, Rae. Time for chores.” Maybell waves me inside, but I glance at the girl in the back seat of the car, wondering what her story is, where she came from and what haunts her at night.

Then she flips me off so I do the same, rubbing my middle finger across my tongue with a smile and she grins back but turns away to try and hide it.

I laugh lightly and head inside.

Fucked up kids understand each other, it’s the ones who pretend all’s good who don’t mix.

I toss my sweater on the bed and head for the chore list, finding I’ve got trash today. I make my way through the house, collecting the garbage and head out the back to the small dump bin, finding one of the guys in front of the boys’ Bray house also headed straight for it.

“‘Sup, newbie.” He grins.

I look him up and down. Cute, but too skinny and not naturally. Clearly, the house isn’t drug testing, boy’s on one.

“Not a damn thing, on dump duty, same as you, it seems.”

He nods, looking back to the house where a guy with long hair, maybe early thirties and built like a lineman taps his wrist and nods his chin.

“That your version of Maybell?”

“Yup, that’s Keefer. He’s cool.”

“He know you’re dabbling?”

The guy’s eyes narrow on mine before he allows himself a look, finally meeting my gaze again. “Probably.” He shrugs. “I don’t steal, and I don’t cause trouble, so maybe he ignores it.”

Right then a tall, trim but fit guy comes into view. He hops off the porch and lights a cigarette, not caring that the man in charge is barking at him from behind.

He nods at the guy in front of me, not sparing me a glance, then walks off.

“Be seeing ya, newbie.”

As they walk away I decide that’s the guy – the one that didn’t care to look my way – the connection to anything I might need.