Bayward Street (4 page)

We climbed off the train at the next stop, and I checked around for security before we got to the exit gates. Braydon held onto Eazy, slipping them both through the rolling bar together. I climbed over after them, cringing as I bent at my waist to lift my legs over.

Heath looked like he wanted to reach out and help me, but I narrowed my eyes at him, and he kept his distance. The walk home was slow as the boys took turns basically carrying Eazy down the street. The handful of people that passed us stared, and not in the way that they were concerned about what had happened to him. But more like we were a group of kids out causing trouble and he’d gotten what he deserved.

It didn’t bother me, though. A while ago I would have tried to hide my face, ashamed of what people thought of me. But now, I just didn’t give a fuck. Judging others was a natural human instinct. Whether I was living on the street or working some great job, people would always look at me and assume what they wanted. What I’d learned was, it didn’t matter what they thought because they didn’t know me or know the truth about my life. And to be honest, that’s the way I preferred it.

The others followed as I led the way down Bayward Street, my body finally relaxing as I spotted the silhouettes of a couple of people standing around the fire barrel.

“This is home?” Heath questioned quietly. I looked up at him, the streetlights shadowing his face as he examined the small shanty town of tents.

“Christ,” Braydon cursed behind me as he spotted where we were heading. “You can’t be serious.”

“As serious as a beating in a subway station, bro,” Eazy laughed darkly.

When we reached the fence, I let out a loud whistle. I could see Kyle and Lee more clearly now. They both stood straighter, turning toward us. “We need help, boys.”

They dropped their stuff and jumped through the tents, sprinting over to us.

Lee’s eyes grew wide as he squeezed through the space in the wires and spotted Eazy. “Fucking hell, what happened?”

Kyle came through next, stretching his body to full height and eyeing the group of guys around us. Kyle was the most protective of everyone. He felt it his responsibility to keep us all safe and fed. I could see the anger fueling inside him.

“Fay, go inside,” he ordered sternly.

I stepped forward, noticing that Heath followed with me. “Kyle, it’s okay. They helped us. They know Eazy.” Lee maneuvered through us, and Braydon helped transfer Eazy over to him.

Braydon looked at him with concern. “Shouldn’t you go to the hospital, man?”

“We can’t…” I answered simply, “…they’d call child protective services and try to take him away.”

“Fable…” Kyle warned as he held the fence so Lee could help E through.

Braydon scrubbed at his hair, his eyes sweeping over our home where two others stood and watched the interaction from a distance. “Would that really be so bad?”

I heard footsteps and Andre, Coop, and Daisy swept past us, shooting through the fence and rushing over to where Lee was dragging E into a tent.

Layla squeezed through the boys to stand beside me. Braydon followed her, his eyes watching her constantly.

“Inside girls, now,” Kyle ordered.

Lay raised her eyebrow at his sharp tone before turning and pointing to Braydon. “You owe me a fucking guitar.”

He grinned at her. “No worries. You’ll get one.”

I passed her the guitar case, and she gave a quick wave before disappearing. Calling over her shoulder, “Soon, rich boy.”

Kyle grasped my elbow and pulled me to him. I cried out and snatched it away, taking deep breaths as pain shot through my body like a bolt of electricity. My eyes blurred with tears, and I felt a body suddenly in my space.

“Get out of the way…” Kyle growled, his voice darker than I’d ever heard, “...you don’t belong here. Go back to your own fucking world and leave my family alone.”

I finally gathered my wits, realizing that it was Heath standing in front of me, blocking my body from Kyle. Braydon had moved up next to him, their bodies creating a powerful wall that would be intimidating to anyone.

Reaching out and wrapping my hand around Heath’s arm, I pulled him to the side. I could feel the muscles in his arm tensing like he was ready to throw a punch at any second. It took all the strength I had left to move him, and even then his eyes stayed glued to Kyle. They sized each other up with their eyes, the atmosphere around them crackling like a sparkler in the darkness of the street.

Finally away from the group, I forced Heath to face me. “Go home,” I told him softly. “Thank you for helping us. I don’t know what would have happened if you guys hadn’t been there. But this is not your place, you need to leave.”

“You should be seeing a doctor.” I knew he was angry, but he did well hiding it behind the stone mask.

“I’ll be fine,” I assured him. “Just take your boys and go home. Kyle will not back down, and if this continues to escalate, someone’s gonna end up calling the cops. And we cannot have the cops here.”

I stared at him for a long moment, searching for some kind of understanding in his eyes, even as the shadows covered them.

“Bray, let’s go.” Braydon looked over at us in confusion, but when his eyes met his brother’s he nodded and began to herd his friends away.

Heath reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. Flipping it open, he slipped out a card and held it out to me.

I laughed softly. “What? You already have cards prepared to give to girls?” I plucked it from his fingers, surprised when I saw it wasn’t his name on the card.

“It’s my mom’s. The number on there is my home phone number. Ring it, and ask for me if you need anything.” He reached out, wrapping his fingers around the back of my neck and giving a gentle squeeze. It felt good, I wanted to close my eyes and enjoy the moment, but a second later he was gone, jogging after his boys.

An arm wound around my waist as I watched them leave. “Come on, Fay. I’ll take a look at your arm.” I nodded and walked with him back over to the tents where everyone was gathered and whispering quietly.

“We made $140,” Layla informed me, her mouth hanging open in awe.

“What?” I gasped, unable to stop the smile that grew on my face.

Kyle hugged me, his face mirroring mine. “Holy shit.”

A soft, “Woo hoo,” came from Eazy, followed by a painful groan and we all laughed.

“We made about thirty.” Daisy smiled, dumping the change from Andre’s baseball cap into Layla’s guitar case with the rest.

Kyle kissed my temple, finally releasing me and ducking into Eazy’s tent. I dropped onto the log next to Layla, sighing with relief that even though the night had brought more trouble and pain than we’d wanted, this money would help us to eat for another week, maybe even more.

“I can’t believe we made that much.”

Layla’s eyes looked around at the others as they mingled and chatted with each other. “Someone dropped in a hundred dollar note,” she whispered quietly, staring at me with her eyebrows raised.

“What?” I gasped, peering over the edge of the case. She was right, most of the money was in coins or dollar notes. But there was a hundred dollar bill laying on the top. “You wanna take a guess at how that got in there?” I asked, rolling my eyes.

“Braydon,” we both said at the same time. He was the only one near the case when it was open as he helped Lay gather the remnants of her guitar.

My pride told me to somehow find a way to give it back to him. Not wanting to accept that much money when I knew it was just out of pity. But I guess it was no different than any other person on the street handing us money. It was all out of pity, and like the street kids we were, we played on that shit.

Heath and Braydon felt sorry for us and our situation, they looked at us like we were in need of some hero to come save us, that we were weak and helpless. But that wasn’t the case at all.

We’d all found ourselves in a situation where we were forced to find a strength within. Whether it be finally telling your family you were gay, standing up for yourself, fighting your addiction, or running from parents who got off on using you as their own human sacrifice. That moment of fortitude had been the catalyst for where we were today. We may have discovered it in all different ways, but we’d never forget how it felt to finally take back that control of our lives.

People were eaten alive out here every day because they’re scared, too scared to upset someone or too embarrassed to ask for help.

I’d been that kid, letting my father break me down for years, always cowering in fear and never standing up or telling someone that something was wrong. And when you’re that broken and in a dangerous situation, there’s only one place that train leads–to death.

Stabbing my father was the catalyst that forced me onto the backstreets of Los Angeles. Because of it, the course of my life had been changed. Maybe not in the way I would have hoped for, but regrets had never entered my mind even for a second. I no longer let people step on me. Instead, I held my head high and believed that I was worth something more.

Because I’d seen what I could do now and who I could be.

I looked around our little home, seeing all my friends smiling because we all knew that tomorrow we could relax a little. And I knew I had to swallow my pride because they were more important to me than that.

I didn’t need Heath and his friends to look down on me, thinking that we had it so bad. Because what we had here, I’d choose over what I had before, any day.

I loved these kids. We were young, a little crazy sometimes, but we all knew that we would have each other’s back in an instant, no matter what the circumstances or repercussions. It was the reason I saved the food Mr. Song gave me and shared it with them, the reason that Layla busked for money but didn’t keep it all for herself.

We all came together to help each other because, without each other, the world out here was a very scary place.

I leaped off the edge of the concrete skate bowl, feeling a rush of adrenaline fill my body as I waiting for my blades to connect with the smooth surface under me. The wind blew past my face, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

Rollerblading was something I loved. It was almost like an addiction. I loved feeling the breeze whip on my skin, even on the calmest of days. The freedom it gave me to swerve and twist and make patterns with my body. I hit the incline on the other side of the bowl, and it threw me up into the air. I bent my knees and landed with a gentle thud on the flat surface outside.

My blades allowed me to fly. It may only be for a moment—a couple of seconds—but for those few seconds I was free. Nothing else mattered but making sure I landed on my feet. And I did, every single time.

My parents had bought me my first pair of blades when I was fourteen. To others, it may have seemed generous, but the only reason they’d bought them was because the school I attended was so far away and I was forced to walk there and home every single day.

It was the first time anyone had ever noticed that something might be wrong at home. My mother was a stay at home parent, and my father worked on the same side of town as the school almost every single day. Yet they refused to drop me off or pick me up, even in the rain.

They also refused to pay for me to catch the city bus, and the school buses didn’t come out as far as us.

When one of my teachers noticed that I was coming to school tired and with blisters from my shoes, she began to question things. I walked for one hour and thirty minutes every single day to school and the same on the way home.

It was exhausting.

When my teacher picked me up on the street one Friday and drove me home, I knew it would cause trouble. But deep down, I hoped that maybe that was what I needed to get someone to finally see that things just weren’t right.

Unfortunately, my father, always the charmer, convinced my teacher it was all because my bike had broken recently, and they were saving up to buy me a pair of rollerblades. He told her they wanted to teach me independence, and that since I didn’t play any sports that they still believed exercise was important.

The teacher had left, seemingly satisfied with the explanation, and I’d been locked in my room for the weekend. My dad bought me food but told me it was up to me whether or not I ate it. He said that it may or may not contain some kind of poison.

It was one of his games.

Would I starve because I was afraid of the poison, even though the food could be perfectly fine? At that point in my life, I was done playing my father’s mind games, and I ate every single bit of food on the plate. Hoping the whole time that he’d actually filled it with poison and that it was enough to possibly kill me.

It didn’t.

But come Monday, I had a shiny new pair of rollerblades.

The skate park was full of kids of all ages, trying new tricks and attempting the impossible. It was one place it the city where we could go and feel like we were normal. We blended in with the other teens, no one looked at us like we were different or scum. We were just kids, enjoying ourselves and hanging out with our friends, just like them. We chatted with other teens, discussing techniques and testing our boundaries.

And during that time, it felt like nothing else mattered. We weren’t worried about where our next meal was going to come from, or whether someone was going to snatch us off the sidewalk. The only concern we had, was pulling the best trick and landing on our feet.

Anything else could wait.

“Fable! Do a flip,” Cody, a kid that we met here quite often yelled at me from the park bench. Kyle and Andre sat next to him laughing.

I skated toward them, rolling my eyes. “Yeah, then they can put on my gravestone,
‘Fable–Smashed her face into the concrete being a fucking twat.’
”

He shrugged, grinning at me. “I’ve seen it done before, plenty of times.”

“I’m a recreational skater, this ain’t the fucking
X Games
.”

“What’s that? All I heard was… I’m a chicken,” he smart mouthed, standing up and placing his skateboard on the ground. Cody was tall kid, but he was also incredibly thin. He had blond hair that hung around his face, scraggly and long. He was constantly pushing it away from his eyes.

I raised my eyebrows. “Say it again, Cody. I dare you.”

I started to slide forward, advancing on him. But he was ready for me, placing one foot on his board and pushing off with the other. He flapped his arms like a bird and said, “Cluck, cluck, cluck, chicken!”

Kyle and Andre were almost in hysterics by this point.

I gave them the finger before taking off after Cody, but it only fueled their deep laughter. I chased him around the park, him taunting me and me replying with threats of violence. The best part was, I was faster. We made it around the whole park before he skidded to a halt behind the park bench, where the boys still sat watching in amusement.

“They ain’t gonna save you, Cody.” I smirked.

He brushed his hair back from his face and grinned as he held his hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay, I take it back. You’re not a chicken.”

Kyle pushed off the bench and wound his arm around my waist. “Naw, she’s more like a pussy cat, all cute until she shows her claws.” He pulled me against him, my blades rolling to where he wanted me without resistance.

I huffed, protesting weakly, “I’m more like a tiger or a lion.”

Kyle chuckled, his breath tickling my neck. “Sure, babe.”

Kyle had always been touchy with me, and I’d never objected to it, finding comfort in his arms. We’d had a few, I guess you could call moments. Times when we needed to keep warm, and the best way to do it was with another body next to you. But it hadn’t progressed to anything more than touching or kissing.

Everyone knew we were close. He watched out for everyone, seeing the others as brothers and sisters. But with me he was different, maybe a little overprotective.

“Hey, do you guys wanna come to a party tonight?” Cody’s question surprised me.

“What?” I asked as though I hadn’t heard him.

He rolled his eyes. “A party… do you want to come?” he asked again, talking slowly like I was stupid.

“Where?” Kyle asked when it became evident that my brain couldn’t comprehend what was going on. We were never invited to go anywhere. Cody and a couple of the kids at the skate park were the only other people or teens that we really communicated with on a weekly basis.

He’d never asked, but I knew he knew we didn’t exactly have stable homes. He just didn’t care. We shared a passion so he considered us friends.

“Downtown, in the Parkens Hotel. My brother’s friends bought out a whole floor for a birthday.”

I felt Kyle shake his head. “They’d never let us in there, man.”

“My name’s on the door. Meet me outside at nine and you can come in with me.”

“Cody, let’s go!”

Cody gave us a quick wave, tucking his board under his arm and running over to the parking lot where his friend stood beside a car waiting for him.

“A party?” Andre beamed at us. “Dude, a party on a whole floor of a fucking hotel.”

Kyle squeezed my waist before using his hands to turn my body to face him. “You wanna go?”

Parkens Hotel was a bit of a trek from Bayward Street, maybe a thirty to forty-five-minute walk across town. We’d walked past it before though, and I knew for a fact it was prim and proper. Cody said he could get us in, but was the partying going to be worth the effort to get there?

“Maybe…”

“Maybe?” he repeated.

I shrugged, but inside I almost felt excited. “It would be kinda cool. To be able to go to a party and be…” I couldn’t find the words.

“Regular fucking teenagers, who don’t have to scrounge dumpsters for their next meal?” Andre offered darkly.

“Andre,” Kyle snapped.

“No…” pushing out of his arms, I swirled around on my blades, “…he’s right. Just one night where we get to pretend that our lives don’t revolve around hiding from predators, or walking the streets looking for money or someone to rob. People won’t know who we are or where we come from, and they won’t stare at us like we are a waste of air.”

Kyle watched me with a sympathetic look. “One day, babe, this will all be a memory.” He talked to me softly, it was calming.

Kyle told us over and over, our time on the streets was not permanent. We all had to start at the bottom of the staircase in order to get to the top. For us, there was no elevator or escalator, no free ride. It was all about taking one step at a time until you got to the top.

“So, you wanna go to the party?” Kyle asked, eyeing me carefully.

I looked over at Andre, his eyes lighting up.

A party with other kids could be just what we needed to feel good again. The streets weighed heavily on everyone. We tried not to show it, to act strong because we had to, but when it came down to it, we all knew that we were just part of a statistic.

And those statistics didn’t look good for any of us.

I pushed my shoulders back and lifted my chin. “Yeah, let’s go.”