Don't Breathe a Word (20 page)

Chapter 41

After that, Asher didn't seek me out again. He would tell everyone he'd already cut the crazy runaway girl loose, and good riddance. Only Neeta and I knew the truth: I had nothing to be ashamed of.

She went to Capitol Hill with me, first to visit Santos and then to look into getting a tattoo.

“Of what?” she asked, after I showed her my scars and told her everything.

“A phoenix,” I said. I knew exactly where to put it.

Santos was still in the ICU, but they would be moving him soon. For now, he could have a few visitors.

“Heeey, 'Burbs!” he called to me in a hoarse voice, trying to smile through the bandages on his face and body. I had to hold back tears, seeing him like that. They said some damage would be permanent, and this was only the beginning. “May says it's your fault I'm here—so I guess this means I owe you a coffee, chica. The food here is the shit! They got Jell-O, lasagna . . . you wouldn't believe the chocolate cake they've been layin' on me. Frosting is, like, from paradise. Who's your friend?”

Neeta gave Santos a shy smile, and the parts of his face I could see blushed—blushed! I would never have believed it.

“This is my friend Neeta—she's . . . we've known each other since we were kids.”

A look of longing passed through Santos's eyes. Longing, and maybe forgiveness, too. “Friends are like family, you know?” he said softly. “You guys . . . you know, May and Creed . . .”

“I saw May the last time I came, when you were still in pretty bad shape. She okay?”

Santos tried to nod, then winced backward from the pain. “Yeah, she's gonna be all right. When I get outta here, we're gonna take care of each other.” He kept talking about the plans in a hopeful voice, but both of us knew better. When he got out, he'd go right back into the system, and from there right back onto the streets. Who knew what would happen to May.

“What about Creed?”

Neeta looked at me sharply.
You have changed, Joy,
she said when I told her everything.
You're not afraid anymore
. I knew I could trust her now.

Santos looked away and wouldn't meet my eyes. “Yeah, he hasn't been around much, not since . . .”

He didn't have to finish the sentence. I could finish it for him—
not since I'd disappeared
.

“He say anything about me?”

Santos shrugged, then moaned again with the effort of it. “Not really. But then he's probably already gone now.”

“Gone?”

Of course he would be. How could I expect him to say good-bye when I'd left him with no explanation? “But how could he just leave you?” I demanded.

“I guess he figured I was okay here. He said he had some things he had to do. So he went back to Oregon.”

Oregon. So it was finished.

Over the next couple of months, life shifted into the new normal. I went back to school an underground hero and started putting in university applications. I had a lot to say in my essays, after my experience on the streets.

I organized a coat drive at school, getting everyone to practically give the clothes off their backs to take three huge garbage bags to New Ho's. The guy with the glass eye, Ron, accepted the bags with a huge smile on his face and gave me a wandery look. That eye had street powers, I was sure of it. But if he recognized me, he never said anything.

My mom kept working as many hours as she could, and my dad started looking at other jobs. When we ran out of savings, we'd have to put the house up for sale, but at least we faced our fears head on.

Asher stayed the hell away from me. I kept the hair, a fusion of Triste and Joy, even though no one could do it the way May had. My dark roots grew in so fast that they were always more skunk than punk.

Santos was released from the hospital and disappeared. I hadn't been able to find anything out about May, and I didn't know what I could have done to help her. Still, I never stopped thinking about them.

Or Creed.

One afternoon, Mom answered a call on the house phone. “No, there's no one here by that . . . just a minute.”

To me she called, “Joy? There's someone on the phone. I think it might be for you.”

I hadn't had this feeling in months—of being exposed and vulnerable—but I felt it now.

“Who is it?”

A second later, “Someone named Joel.”

I thundered down the carpeted stairs in my socks. I didn't know anyone named Joel. “You don't think it's Asher . . .”

My mom shrugged. “I don't think so. It didn't sound like him. Someone with a nice voice.”

I swallowed to keep mine from shaking as I picked up the phone. “Hello?”

Silence.

“Hello?”

“Triste.”

The floor dropped out from beneath me. “Creed.”

“Hey.”

“Creed, I'm so sorry . . . please, I did it to save Santos, I didn't mean to leave you like that. . . .”

“Triste. It's okay. I called because . . . can you meet me?”

My mom stood by, watching my face go from terrified to broken to hopeful to maybe even ecstatic.

“Yes,” I said quickly, then, “No. I mean, wait a second.” I put the phone to my stomach. “Mom, can I use the car? Please?”

My mom nodded, giving me a cautious look.

“Yes,” I said into the phone. “Yes. Where are you? Where do you want to meet?”

“How about Molly Moon's on Capitol Hill?” It was the site of our first date, where he'd bought me an ice cream cone.

“You're here?” I practically shouted. “You're in Seattle? But I thought . . .”

Creed laughed. “Can you just meet me there?”

A half hour and twenty miles per hour over the speed limit later, I walked around the corner toward Molly Moon's. I kept smoothing my clothes—jeans and a sweater with a coat thrown over the top, my white hair standing out every which way, boots clicking on the wet pavement and sounding exactly like May's had so long ago.

What would he think of me now, cleaned up and minty fresh and wearing enough clothes to keep us warm for an entire year on the streets?

I pushed my way into the shop and hit a cloud of warmth and sugary aroma. I glanced around the room, looking for the Creed I remembered—freckled, suntanned skin, stormy blue eyes, a shock of jagged dark hair.

He wasn't here. And I guess I should have expected it.

Then a boy looked up from the bench—hair combed neatly back, wearing a heavy coat, clean jeans, and a thick dark sweater.

My eyes rested on him, this boy I barely recognized—not until he smiled, stood up, and walked toward me. Wrapped his arms around me, my entire body, and lifted me off of the ground in front of the whole room, in this private world we shared together.

“I missed you,” he murmured into my hair, brushing his lips against my ear, my cheek, my mouth. He tasted like cream and Creed, the taste I'd missed more than peanut butter and jelly, sour gummies, and anything else I could imagine.

“I thought you were gone forever,” I said between kisses, not caring that people around us were staring and smiling. “I was afraid I'd never see you again, that you were gone to Portland and never coming back.”

“Portland? Why Portland?”

“Well, Santos said Oregon, and that's where all the Seattle musicians are going, right? So I thought . . . after I left that night, I was afraid . . .”

Creed laughed, his teeth so white and perfect except for one tiny chip. Awfully perfect, for a boy who had lived on the streets. He kissed me one more time, then reached for two cups of ice cream waiting for us on the table—one salted caramel, one bubble gum. “Come with me.”

The air was crisp and cold outside, but brilliant with blue sky and clouds in the way only a January sky in Seattle could be. We walked arm in arm down Broadway, not quite normals and not quite Ave Rats—we straddled the two worlds, belonging to neither.

Belonging only to each other.

“I did go to Oregon,” Creed—Joel—said, “but not to Portland. I went home to Astoria.”

A ball of guilt welled itself up inside me as I remembered the angry words I'd spoken before the Halloween party, words I'd never had a chance to take back.

“Creed—Joel?” The name felt strange in my mouth, and I wasn't sure I would ever get used to it. “I didn't have a chance to tell you . . . I'm so sorry. I never should have said what I did about protecting your mom. I had no right—”

We stopped near a group of kids sitting along the building, smoking and calling out for spare change. They couldn't even see us now.

“But you
were
right. That's why I went back.”

I took a bite of the ice cream so I wouldn't have to speak.

“But you're not going to believe this—when I got there, my dad was gone. I guess when I left, my mom realized I couldn't protect her forever, and maybe she needed to start protecting herself. So she filed for divorce and a restraining order, and she's moving to Seattle. I'm going back to school—here.”

I gasped. Here in Seattle? The wonder of it nearly blew me away. He would be close to me, close to Santos and May . . .

“What about May? I haven't seen her in months, not after she stopped camping out in the hospital waiting room. Have you seen her?”

A mischievous smile played across his lips. “Whatever you said to her must have made an impression—she said, and I quote, ‘That fucking 'Burbs seems to think the only way I can save myself is by cutting hair. So I'm proving she's full of shit.'”

I looked at him, amazed. “So where is she now?”

“Well, they finally finished that New Ho's apartment building over behind the community college. We talked to Ron, and she got in as one of the first tenants—earning money by doing hair, and probably bitching about it the entire time. Ron is helping with the paperwork to get Santos emancipated and out of the system. He'll be seventeen in a few months, so he's got a pretty good chance, as long as he stays out of trouble.”

We walked along, avoiding puddles and panhandlers, though Creed stopped to dole out some change. The sun peeked out from behind a cloud, transforming the whole street into a sparkling alternate world—one with darkest shadows, but also with glimmers of brightest hope.

“Oh! That's not even the best part. You're not going to believe the best part.”

“What?”

“Two words:
Recording. Contract
.”

“From the Halloween party? Oh my gosh, from the Halloween party? They heard you? What happened? I mean, you were amazing that night, but . . .”

My heart suddenly lurched. Wouldn't he want to know why I'd run away in the first place? And I would have to tell him—every lie, and every truth. I would have to tell him about the scars, even though now I knew the truth about them myself.

I hoped . . . I
knew
he would understand.

“Creed, I'm sorry I left you—Santos . . . I had my cell phone all that time and didn't tell you . . . there's so much I need to tell you . . . so much I've held back . . . ”

He stopped me with a kiss. “I'm not going anywhere—except right now, we're going somewhere. Together.”

We turned a corner toward the old brick church and the new apartment building over the parking lot.

“To see May? She's there now?”

Creed nodded. “We can go, but only if you promise to tell me one thing.”

“What's that?”

He swept me up in his arms and held me in his gaze, just like the moment I first saw him—only a block or so from where we were now. We'd experienced a lifetime since then, and we still had a whole one in front of us.

“What?” I laughed. “What do you want to know?”

Creed set my feet back down on the ground.

“I want to know your real name.”

I grinned, kissing him crazily and feeling the wild, expansive future in every breath.

“It's Joy. Right now, it's pure Joy.”

Afterword

“There comes a point when a runaway decides it's safer to live on the streets than to live at home.”

That's what the board president at the real New Horizons told me about homeless teens as I was researching this novel. From that moment on, Joy's story irrevocably changed.

I wish the experiences of May, Santos, Creed, and Joy could never happen—but they can and do every day.

Over 1.6 million youth run away each year in the United States, a great many as a result of emotional or physical abuse. Within seventy-two hours, countless teens on the street have been assaulted. Drugs become a way of coping, and many find themselves exchanging sex for food, shelter, and clothing. As of the writing of this novel, Seattle has one of the highest teen homeless populations in the country, with millions more around the world.

What can you do to help?

Begin in your neighborhood, as Joy does. Look for opportunities to give toiletries and essentials, or volunteer in a teen shelter. If you have a friend in trouble, you may be more important than you know. Encourage your friend to find help. True friendship shines through adversity, and there is hope on the other side.

Find ways to contribute at www.hollycupala.com/hope.

Acknowledgments

My deepest gratitude to the many people who helped bring this novel into being:

To Catherine Onder, Sarah Dotts Barley, Tara Weikum, the amazing team at HarperCollins, and my friend and agent Edward Necarsulmer, for their warm support and tremendous contribution to Joy's journey and mine.

To my faithful writer friends for their ideas and insight: Martha Brockenbrough, Janet Lee Carey, Molly Blaisdell, Jolie Stekly, Peggy King Anderson, Katherine Grace Bond, Judy Bodmer, and Dawn Knight; and to readergirlz, for inspiring me with their generous hearts and inviting me to be part of it all.

To librarians, booksellers, bloggers, and YA lovers who have showered me with support and enthusiasm. I am profoundly grateful for you.

To Jack Brace, who asked us to give backpacks and socks and gave me the flint for this story; to Veronica Bandin for helping me give Santos a voice; to Bo Gilliland for revealing secrets of the Seattle underground music scene; to Gena Garcia for showing me what it's like not to breathe; to Josephine at the bead store for providing invaluable intel on life in Capitol Hill; and to Pam Longston and New Horizons, for bringing truth to Joy's experience and for working so tirelessly to shelter homeless teens.

To Mom, Dad, Ginger, and John for believing in me since day one and being my wonderful family, and to my dear friends who are just like family.

Most of all to Shiraz, Lyra, and the One who brought us together, with love.