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The light in the alley flickered, illuminating an alarming amount of gum stuck to the side of the trash bins, and what appeared to be a used condom stuck to Shane’s right shoe.

He scowled and wiggled his foot (acutely aware of the small hole forming in his converse over his big left toe) but it hung limply off the bottom of his sneaker, mocking him like everything else in his life.

Stepping on it with his left foot, he tried to move forward and repressed a gag; it must have been inside out because it stuck to his other shoe as well.

It was unusually cold for a Tuesday in early October, and he was tucked between two dumpsters to break the icy wind tearing across the wheat field adjacent to the plaza he was standing in, ripping at his face like claws. He buried his hands farther into the front pocket of his hoodie. They were red and raw from the walk, and the only thing on his body that didn’t presently feel at risk of frostbite were his ears, courtesy of his loose grey wool beanie pulled low over his brow.

He frantically searched the ground for a piece of cardboard or a loose flyer to pull off the condom, the acid in his stomach churning.

God, when is the last time I ate?

That was why he was standing in the back of a shitty, rundown plaza at 4am in the freezing cold. A skinny, awkward kid named Dustin worked in the small plaza bakery on Tuesdays and Thursdays before school. When Dustin’s boss didn’t show up in the mornings (which was all of them, considering how frequently that guy liked to drink at the pool hall down the street) Dustin would bake extra loaves for Shane and hand them out the back door.

That past spring, before the mid-parking-lot snowbanks leftover from the plows had fully melted, Shane noticed a rusted out Intrepid with a flat tire parked in the plaza lot for several days while ambling back and forth between Fairy Lake Park and the new subdivision being built beside the Walmart, construction dormant for Easter. It had been raining for three days straight, and Cody’s mom – good Catholic that she was – had kicked him out for the long weekend because “family was coming”. The damp had seeped into his bones, his jaw stiff from seventy-two hours of teeth-chattering cold or possibly just from not speaking to another human being for too long. He waited until dark and jimmied the lock on the Intrepid, collapsing onto the seat, desperate for even an hour of something dry to lie down on that wasn’t sawdust-covered plywood or shrubbery drowning in geese shit.

He’d woken up to the weak, milky light of a not-quite-spring dawn and some kind of commotion outside. The rain had frozen over the windows into a thin sheet of pure ice overnight and he couldn’t see anything. Fear pricked the back of his neck, thinking someone had called the cops, so he cracked open the door and peeked outside.

A group of three boys, all shockingly blonde, were towering over a short kid with glasses and a noticeably awful haircut, clearly hassling him. One of the boys had a baby face but the beefy body of a damned biker; he raised his ham-like fist and punched the kid in the face, sending him careening backwards against the brick wall. The Pork Rind laughed, blood spurting from Bad Haircut’s nose, while the slimmer boy whose face Shane couldn’t see entered the building. The other two remained outside, one glaring at the plaza entrance and the other leering down at the crumpled kid who was dribbling blood into both hands, eyes streaming tears but clearly trying not to whimper.

Shane sighed, and pushed the door open all the way, swinging his legs out of the car. The boys stared at him blankly while he stretched, his shoulders cracking from the cramped seat.

“Fuck off,” Pork Rind spat with a sneer. His voice was preternaturally high, like he’d been kicked in the balls too many times.

“You okay, kid?” Shane asked. The watery-eyed boy glanced nervously between him and Pork Rind, saying nothing.

“He’s fine,” Pork Rind said. “Get lost.”

Shane sauntered towards them, brow furrowed. They must have been close to his age, a little older maybe, eighteen or nineteen… The boy on the ground couldn’t have been older than twelve. Just a kid.

“Hey,” he said softly, trying to catch Bad Haircut’s eye, “why don’t we just head back inside?”

“I won’t say it again, fuck off man.”

Pork Rind was glaring at him, but Shane just stared right back, his face neutral, body relaxed, weight rolling slowly into the balls of his feet, knees slightly bent. Pork Rind’s glower faded a little as he looked him up and down, probably taking note of Shane’s casual stance. He looked questioningly at his friend – brother, maybe? – for a brief second, and back to Shane, sizing him up.

Shane waited patiently, unmoving, and could practically hear the gears turning in Pork Rind’s head, wondering why Shane was dripping with a complete and utter lack of fucks to give about the guy double his body mass with fists the size of Shane’s head, clearly capable of caving in his skull.

Shane focused on his breathing, kept it even and steady.

Pork Rind took a tiny step back.

Maybe he’s not as dumb as I thought.

The door to their right swung open, and the lean boy – definitely the leader by the way the other two fell back – stepped out with two fistfuls of cash and a steaming cinnamon roll between his teeth. He took in the scene with an almost bored expression.

“Don’t see how you fit into my morning,” he said.

“Who doesn’t want to wake up to this,” Shane shrugged, gesturing to himself.

The kid on the ground stifled a snicker.

The Leader’s eyes narrowed and he stood up a little taller, but a car pulled in and they all watched it warily. The driver seemed to pay them no attention, just pulling in to turn around and back out onto the road, but the brothers spooked and The Leader muttered under his breath that it was time for them to go.

“See you next week, Dusty,” he sneered, and they scurried away.

Shane watched them leave before extending a hand to the kid, who wiped his bloody palm on his jeans before accepting it and scrambling up.

“You good?”

The kid nodded, and Shane circled back to the car for his backpack, locking the door and shutting it behind him. His back ached, and he needed to piss, but he didn’t want to embarrass the boy by hanging around to witness his post-bully humiliation, so he started to walk across the plaza towards the sidewalk.

“Wait,” the kid called out in a reedy voice. Shane stopped but didn’t turn to look at him. “Do you… want something to eat?”

Shane’s stomach contracted. He’d been rationing a box of Ritz crackers from Cody’s cupboard for two days.

“Yeah, man,” he said. “But are you going to get in trouble? Don’t you have a manager or something?”

The kid shrugged. “He’s not a morning person.”

Shane circled back towards him, following him into the dusty bakery where the boy slid a fresh tray of cinnamon rolls in his direction – one missing – and gestured for Shane to help himself.

He didn’t pause to say thanks – just launched at it and stuffed his face, not even bothering to stifle his moan. If he was being honest, it could have been dog biscuits and he wouldn’t have cared.

“Um, I don’t have coffee or anything. But like, I have hot water?”

“Thanks,” Shane said around the mouthful of food. He was eyeing the tray, wanting to take more, but didn’t want the kid to get in any more trouble than he already was.

The boy disappeared into a back room and returned holding a dixie cup of hot water. Shane wrapped his hands around it and bent his face over the steam, breathing it in. Then the kid reached for his backpack, and on reflex Shane’s arm shot out, catching him on the wrist.

“Don’t,” he said, voice dripping with menace that he hadn’t bothered to dredge up for the blonde terrorists.

The kid swallowed and stepped back, holding out his hand, which had a fresh-looking loaf of bread in it wrapped in saran.

Shane eyed him coolly, but the kid just placed it on the counter near his bag and then stepped away, still looking at the floor.

Up close, he appeared even scrawnier than he had in the parking lot. He had deep pitted spots sprawling across his cheeks, scars from chicken pox maybe, and beneath the awful haircut his head was an odd shape, almost like someone had hit him with a baseball bat in the womb and he’d come out with a slightly cylindrical indent over his left eyebrow.

“You got a name?” he asked.

“Dustin,” the kid mumbled.

“I’m Shane.” He inched closer to the pastries and hunger won out over concern as he helped himself to another cinnamon roll.

“Yeah,” Dustin said, still staring at the floor. It came out like thanks.

Shane cleared his throat, took the loaf of bread and stuffed it into his pack, and then rubbed the back of his head, his hat staticky against his short dark hair.

“Well… I’ll see ya…”

As he reached for the door the kid made an odd squeak and Shane paused again.

“You want to come back on Thursday?” he breathed, so low Shane could barely hear him. The kid was circling his toe in some flour on the ground, creating a little spiral pattern.

“I’m fine,” Shane said, stomach protesting loudly. “But… thanks.”

Dustin nodded, and then disappeared into the back room again.

Shane didn’t even make it all the way around the back of the building before ripping open the saran wrap and tearing into the loaf.

He had later returned to Cody’s to discover that one of Cody’s cousins had stayed behind after Easter. The shitty, lumpy pullout in the dank basement was now occupied.

“Sorry, man,” Cody said with a sniff, powder rimming his cracked nostrils.

Shane slept two more nights at Fairy Lake before finding himself standing back outside the bakery at 4:00am on Thursday morning. He was in desperate need of a shower, and clean clothes, but more than anything else, food. At 4:01am, the back door opened and Dustin stood there holding two loaves of bread.

Dustin didn’t react to Shane’s presence. No raised eyebrows, no blink, no greeting. It was like Shane was a piece of outdoor furniture that had been bolted to the ground, and Dustin was so used to seeing him that he wasn’t worth a second look. Dustin thrust out his hands without making eye contact, and before Shane could say a word, the door had swung shut in his face.

For a while, Shane had worried about Dustin’s boss showing up, although he figured if he didn’t notice the kid being beaten and robbed it was unlikely the guy would notice a few missing loaves of bread. Shane’s heart sank with disappointment the week he’d showed up to a car in the parking lot right in front of the shop – but two loaves had been wrapped in saran and tucked into a grocery bag beside the dumpster. He almost wouldn’t have noticed if it weren’t for the smell of the cinnamon roll, loose, perched on top. Shane could have kissed Dustin; he’d fallen asleep in the park with the last of his loaf on his chest and the fucking geese had stolen it. He hadn’t eaten in a day and a half.

For six months, Shane had shown up at the bakery. And for six months, Dustin hadn’t once poked his head out that door empty handed. The kid was more reliable for food than the damn soup kitchen, who wouldn’t feed him unless he prayed , and tried to force him to stay at their shelter with the weirdos who liked to jerk off at the foot of his bed while he was trying to sleep.

But that morning the clock ticked on, and Dustin didn’t open the door.

By the time 5:00 rolled around, Shane trudged to the front to knock on the shop door. The lights were off, and it was clear nobody was inside. His stomach grumbled angrily as he sighed with disappointment – maybe the kid was sick, or something.

He wracked his brain for options, not realizing how dependent he’d gotten on that bread to get him through the week. Sometimes the diner down the road would let him do dishes in exchange for a peameal sandwich, if he cooked it himself. But only when Shel was working, and Shel never worked Tuesdays.

Sometimes Vince’s put a big basket of bruised produce with clearance stickers on their back loading dock instead of right into the dumpster, but you had to get there before dawn or it was all snapped up and it was at least a thirty minute walk. He always hated that, anyway – he found it hard to swallow food with a pink clearance sticker on it, knowing that people with money in their pocket refused to buy an apple because of a little bruise, or a banana because of a little brown.

Must be fucking nice.

He sighed and sat down on the curb, warring with himself for the eighty millionth time if he should just pull a little B&E and load up his pack.

Cody had been good for chips, or crackers, for a while over the summer, feeling guilty that Shane couldn’t stay. But he disappeared a lot, and his mom rarely opened the door for Shane. Said Cody’s cousin was pregnant and they had enough mouths to feed. She let him shower sometimes, though.

And so that’s where Shane found himself, at 5:17am on an unseasonably cold Tuesday morning in October. Ass frozen to the curb, head in hands, trying to will himself to get up before the ladies that worked at the payday advance place showed up. He was so distracted by his rumbling stomach that he didn’t hear the quiet footsteps approaching behind him.

“Hands on your head,” said a voice.

His heart exploded out of his chest, and his throat closed up.

Pure. Panic.

Fuck.