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"Hey, Max. Happy birthday," he said.

"This is for me?" I asked, turning the book over in my hands.

It was a big black hardback with swirling gold decorating the cover and spine, and across the front, a twisty, fancy-looking font read Dracula .

Ricky nodded. "My mom took me to the bookstore, and I thought it looked cool. It's about vampires, I think."

I was familiar with the story, but had never read it. I pulled off my backpack to tuck the book inside with so much care that you'd think it was the most precious thing I'd ever touched.

Actually, come to think of it, it probably was.

"Thanks," I said, my voice so tight and full of wonder that I thought I might cry.

A friend had never given me a birthday present before. I'd never had a birthday party. The most my birthday had ever been acknowledged was with a little cake from the grocery store and sometimes my choice of dinner—if Mom remembered—and I definitely didn't celebrate with classmates.

Honestly, I was surprised that Ricky even knew when my birthday was at all.

"Yeah, no problem. Hey, you wanna come over sometime? I just got my cousin's old Super Nintendo."

Super Nintendo . I had never played a video game before.

Dad didn't like them. He thought they were a bad influence, a distraction from whatever was important.

Mom just thought they were a waste of money.

But I knew about them, and they looked like fun.

I quickly ran through the ways I could sneak over to Ricky's house to check it out.

"Um, yeah," I said, nodding. "That'd be cool. Um … when do you want me to come over?"

Ricky shrugged and hoisted his backpack straps higher onto his shoulders. "I mean, whenever you want. What about today?"

My brain quickly computed, dropping the pieces into place.

I was heading to the library after school, as usual.

I was going to finish reading the last book in The Chronicles of Narnia.

But if I went to Ricky's house instead of the library, then my father wouldn't know.

He'd have no clue as long as I was back home at the same time as I always was.

It could work. It had to work.

"Yeah," I said, licking my lips as my palms began to sweat. "Today would be good."

So, with Dracula nestled in my backpack, I walked with Ricky to his house after school. I didn't think I stopped smiling the whole way there. We joked around, laughed, and ran down the sidewalk so fast that I tripped and bumped into a woman walking her dog.

"Watch where you're going!" she yelled at me, scowling.

"Sorry!" I shouted, running after Ricky and cackling when I caught up to him.

Oh my gosh, I had never felt so full of life .

I had never felt so much like a kid . And when that thought popped into my head as we turned to race up the path to his front door, an ache pressed against my chest so hard and deep, and I didn't know what it meant.

Why did it hurt so much when I was so happy?

Ricky led the way up the gravel pathway to what I figured to be his front door.

As he fitted his key into the lock, I took a second to take in the sight of the small house.

It wasn’t as big as mine, and it wasn’t as nice.

The paint was peeling off the siding, and the screen in the door I helped to hold open had a hole in it.

But there were flowers in the yard and in planters hanging from the porch and in pots at the end of every step.

There were at least a dozen little gnomes in bright red hats, a stone turtle, a family of plastic geese, and several pink flamingos—all scattered throughout the yard.

Beside the front steps was a dirty old bench with a watering can, worn gloves, and a bucket of gardening tools, along with two bikes—Ricky’s and his mom’s, I guessed.

It was unorderly and chaotic—something Dad would hate—but it felt alive , like a real family lived here, and that made me happy … and very, very jealous.

Ricky threw the door open and called, "Mom! I'm home! "

"Hey, kiddo! You hungry?"

Ricky looked over his shoulder and raised his brows, like he was asking me a question. I looked back at him, unsure of what to say, until he asked, "Are you hungry?"

"Oh."

I blew out a breath and ran through another equation in my head.

I hadn't eaten since lunch, and I hadn't brought much in my brown paper bag. I was hungry, so the thought of eating something now sounded great. But if I did eat, I was unlikely to eat all of my dinner later. Dad would yell at me for wasting food and make me skip breakfast and take whatever it was I hadn’t eaten for lunch the next day as punishment.

But , on the other hand, if I forced myself to eat all of it, I'd go to bed feeling sick.

But … maybe if I just ate a little bit of something now …

"Yeah, I, um … I'm kinda hungry."

With a grin, Ricky told me to follow him, and we walked into a kitchen, where a round lady sat at the table, reading a magazine. Her cheeks were rosy, and her eyes were bright and happy the moment she saw Ricky.

"How was school, kiddo?" she asked as he dumped his backpack on the table.

Dad would beat me for putting my backpack anywhere but in my room.

"Stupid," he grumbled before glancing at me. "Right, Max?"

His mom noticed me then, and her smile widened. "Oh, I didn't realize you’d brought a friend home! I'm sorry. What is your name, honey?"

"Um, Max Tailor, ma'am. "

Her brows lifted with surprise. "Oh, hon, call me Janice."

I shifted uncomfortably on the spot. Dad had told me I wasn't allowed to call adults by their first names. He said it was disrespectful toward my elders and a sin in the eyes of God. Ricky's mom must've noticed my discomfort because she tipped her head and dropped her smile.

" Or Mrs. Tomson works. That would be okay too."

I smiled, sighing with relief. "Okay, Mrs. Tomson."

She watched me for a few seconds, and that made me uncomfortable too.

Not that she was watching me, but I could tell she was thinking , and I was filled with the need to hide or run away or something.

What was she thinking about? What did she see?

Did she have X-ray vision, like in some of the sci-fi books I had read?

Could she see the bruises on my back and down my thighs?

But then, before I had the chance to squirm on the spot and find an excuse to leave, the smile returned to her face, and she asked if I liked grilled cheese.

I fibbed and said I did when, really, I had never eaten a grilled cheese sandwich in my life that I could recall.

She stood from the table, and as she walked to the fridge, she told Ricky we could play Super Nintendo while she cooked and that she'd bring the food to us.

"Cool. Thanks, Mom!" And he pulled me along back through the kitchen and living room.

"Don't forget you have homework, kiddo!"

"Okay!" he yelled as we began climbing the stairs.

Dad would've yelled at me for yelling in the house.

He would've yelled at me for eating in my room.

He would've yelled at me for doing anything but what was important after school.

And then he would've taken the belt to my back and butt and thighs until his chest worked for breath and his perfectly styled hair fell across his forehead.

"Your mom lets you eat in your room?" I asked, stunned, as we walked down the upstairs hallway.

"Huh?" he asked distractedly as we turned into the most awesome bedroom I had ever seen. "Oh, yeah, she doesn't care."

"That's really cool," I muttered.

He pointed at the bed. "You can sit there. I'll get the game set up."

Ricky had a TV in his room. He had not one, but two gaming consoles—both hand-me-downs from his cousin, he said. He had a VCR and video tapes and a couple of posters of girls in bathing suits. It wasn't spotless; there were a couple of dirty socks on the floor, and his bed wasn't perfectly made.

I hated him for a moment, and then I didn't want to ever leave.

He handed me a controller as he sat beside me on the bed. Then the TV lit up with a game called Super Mario World.

Mrs. Tomson brought us paper plates loaded with sandwiches and potato chips, and it was one of the best things I'd ever eaten.

Far better than the dry chicken, bland pasta, and burned roast Mom half-heartedly made while in some sort of weird trance.

No, these sandwiches were melty and greasy, and I could've eaten a thousand of them if I had the chance.

When she asked if I'd like another, I didn't stop myself from nodding eagerly .

I had no idea how long we played Super Mario World.

We were having fun—more fun than I thought I’d had in my whole life.

I couldn’t remember ever hanging out with a friend.

I couldn’t remember ever really playing , apart from when I had been in baseball.

At fourteen years old, I was experiencing an awakening, a realization that I had missed out, and that was when I finally put a name to that crushing sensation in my chest.

I was sad.

I was sad for myself. For the childhood my parents had forced me to have when there were kids like Ricky, who had video games and grilled cheese sandwiches and a mom who came into his room and asked if she could play through a level.

I was in the process of questioning everything when I turned and noticed the time on Ricky’s alarm clock.

I nearly jumped out of my skin. “I have to go,” I uttered with a gasp.

Ricky dropped his controller into his lap, startled. “What? Why?”

Mrs. Tomson was on her way down the hall with a full laundry basket on her hip when she poked her head into the room. “Do you want to stay for dinner, Max?”

Dinner. Oh my gosh. I’m going to miss dinner.

Dad is going to kill me.

Smoky came to mind, and I wanted to cry.

“N-no, um … it’s okay. I-I have to get home.”

I ran out of Ricky’s room and past his mom as I called, “Thank you for the grilled cheese, Mrs. Tomson! I’ll see you tomorrow, Ricky! ”

I ran down the stairs as I hoisted my backpack onto my shoulders. I ran out the door, ran down the gravel path to the sidewalk, and kept running for six blocks until the houses got bigger and nicer. Then, with my lungs aching and sweat dripping down my back, I reached my house.

My father’s car was already in the driveway.

I stared at the door, and my hands began to shake. I couldn’t hear any yelling from where I stood, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t angry. It didn’t mean he wasn’t planning on how to kill me. It didn’t mean he wasn’t taking his anger out on my little sisters.

I pulled in a big breath and pushed out my fear.

I’d have to go in there sooner or later.

It wasn’t like I could run away. Gosh, I wished I could just run away, but I was only fourteen.

I didn’t have any money. Dad had money. He had lots of money, but I couldn’t get any of it.

Where would I even go anyway when the only other place I knew now was Ricky’s?

I took careful steps up the stone walkway to the porch. The front door flew open, and there was my father.

“Maxwell.”

I looked him in the eye. “Hello, sir.”

“Get inside.”

He stepped back, allowing me passage. But as I walked past him, he grabbed my arm and held tight as he closed the door.

His grip intensified, and I knew it would leave a bruise.

But I didn’t say anything, didn’t wince.

I just stood still and waited for him to close and lock the door, already prepared for whatever punishment he wanted to give me .

Then he whirled around and boxed me in the ear so hard that my skull snapped against my neck. I gasped at the sudden impact. I lifted my hand to hold it to my ear, blinking against the loud ringing echoing through my head.

“Where the hell have you been?!” he roared past the noise in my head.

“I-I … I was at the—"

He hit my other ear with a flat palm. “Don’t you tell me you were at the library, you worthless, lying sack of shit. The library closed an hour ago! Now, tell me the truth!”

I couldn’t help it; a tear worked its way out of my eye. “It’s my birthday,” I whispered as if it mattered. And it did . It mattered to me . It was my birthday, and I had played a video game and eaten a grilled cheese sandwich and had fun with a friend.

“Oh, it’s your birthday ?” Dad mocked me in a whiny tone before smacking the back of my head.

“Dad, stop,” I begged, holding my hands up to protect myself.

“Stop? You want me to stop? Then tell me the fucking truth, Maxwell! Where the hell have you been?”

I pulled in a breath as the ringing slowly subsided. I turned to face him and the cold, uncaring look on his face and said, “I was at the library. I stayed until they closed and took the long way home. I got lost.”

He held my gaze, waiting for me to falter, to buckle under the weight of my lies. But I stared right back, unblinking, until he twisted his lips into a sneer.

“Go to bed. ”

Against my will, my face fell. “But …”

Dad cocked his head, a dare in his eyes. “But what ?”

My mother cared about me exactly one day out of the year: my birthday—if she remembered, and she had remembered this year.

She made dinner. She bought a cake. She gave me a card, usually with a little money inside.

I didn’t want to go to bed. I didn’t want to miss my birthday.

Gosh, even Dad was usually kind enough on my birthday to not act like …

well, like this, but I’d just had to be late. I’d had to be selfish.

I dropped my gaze to look at the carpet.

It never did look the same after Smoky shit all over it.

With the appearances my dad liked to keep, I was surprised he hadn’t replaced it yet.

But maybe it was because of me. Maybe it was kept as a reminder of how badly I had once screwed up. That Smoky had died because of me .

“But I still have homework,” I said, my voice low and unmoved. I hardly sounded like myself, void of all emotion.

Dad grunted and brushed past me. “Should’ve thought about that while you were at the library .”

***

I was glad for those two grilled cheese sandwiches as I hunkered under the covers of my bed. Otherwise, I would’ve been starving as I turned the pages of Dracula and delved deep into the walls of a cold, dark Transylvanian castle.

It was risky to read at home for leisure—and even riskier after I was ordered to go to bed.

If Dad knew I was still awake, I could only imagine what he’d do or say to me—or worse, my new book.

But it was my birthday, and if it couldn’t end with a decent dinner and cake, then it was going to end with my head between the pages and nowhere near my reality, which I’d suddenly realized was far worse than I’d ever known before.