Chapter 3-2
553 Words
Joshua pushed the sliding door then squinted. The foreclosed house was dark. He didn’t know how long the last owners lived there before the bank forced them to abandon it. Luckily for Joshua, it was a place to crash with a solid roof over his head. “Sullivan, are you here?”
Joshua walked to the kitchen and saw it empty. Paper plates, pizza boxes, beer cans piled up the garbage. Flies buzzed around. He walked to the bedroom and found his clothes strewn around, his shoes scattered, his pants pockets emptied. The house smelled musty, the windows locked. Luckily, the sleeping bag he had as a kid was still rolled up near a corner.
No sign of Sullivan.
He hung his head low, not sure how what to do next. Sullivan flitted in and out, depending on Sully’s relationship with his stepfather. It seemed that any choice Joshua made always turned out to be the wrong one but at least he didn’t have a stepfather like Sully. The way that Sully told it, the stepfather would yell at him, throw things at him or—as he suspected—hit him. He thought about the dirty mattress he took from the curb from another house that lay on the floor and considered crashing for the night. But this foreclosed house that they broke into several nights ago stood dark, empty. He knew it was a matter of time before someone—anyone—would come by. He couldn’t afford to get in trouble. He wanted to finish high school. He had probably less than ten bucks left from his part-time sub shop job. He couldn’t crash at Andy’s anymore. Maybe he could crash at Kathy’s. Or this other girl that seemed to like him.
They have no clue I like guys.
He wrung his hands, scanned the area then gathered his clothes. He rolled them, put them in a clean garbage bag he found nearby then walked through the sliding door again. He checked his pocket. He still had it: a Ziploc bag with his birth certificate folded, his updated shot record, and a faded photo of his mom and his biological.
Once again he was alone. No Sullivan, no friends. He just needed to last a few more weeks. Finish high school. He just turned eighteen a few months ago and got the state off his back. He was his own man. Homeless, but on his own.
He walked down the street, the trash bag over his shoulder, not sure of his destination. He knew the bus picked up at Orange Avenue so he headed down that way, playing in his mind the events of the last day. By the time he got to Orange two miles later, he stopped.
Parked in the Denny’s parking lot was Eli’s car.
Eli.
He seemed like a nice guy, some social worker wanna be. He looked like a college frat boy.
College.
That was something that Joshua could never even imagine. If he graduated from high school in a few weeks that would be a minor miracle. It was tough, trying to be one step ahead of the foster care system. One step ahead of the bullies at school. He barely made Cs in everything but math. As he stood there lost in thought, Eli walked out of the diner. And stopped. Joshua smiled, watched Eli walk towards his car and lean against it.
Finally, Eli waved him over.
- Writer
