Chapter 3

The train door squeaked open, and Dad yanked me down the metal steps by my arm.

He squinted against the bright city lights, grabbing any random passerby to bark questions about the location of Mom's university.

Most people just covered their noses with a look of pure disgust and dodged us. Dad swore under his breath, stumbling along through the streets until we finally pieced together enough directions to reach the right part of the city.

By the time we were standing right in front of the grand, sprawling campus, night had completely fallen and the heavy iron gates were locked tight.

Dad spat a thick, gross wad of phlegm right onto the sidewalk.

"Stupid place," he growled, "Why's everything gotta have so many damn rules?"

A security guard stepped out of the booth, waving his arm to shoo us off.

Dad forced a pathetic smile and tried to shuffle closer to hand him a cigarette, but the guard's cold, harsh glare forced him right back.

It was totally clear we weren't getting inside.

Dad reached into his pocket and fingered the wad of crumpled, dirty cash, the tiny bit of money he got from selling our old pickup truck just to afford the train tickets.

He wasn't about to spend a single penny on a hotel room. In the end, we made a makeshift bed under an overpass just a few blocks from campus.

Above our heads, the endless roar of rush-hour traffic rattled the concrete.

Expensive cars zoomed past us, their headlights blurring together into a flowing river of white and gold.

I huddled in the corner of the dark overpass, lying on top of a few dirty newspapers I had scavenged.

The icy night wind snaked straight down my collar, making my body shudder.

A few yards away, a father and son were walking by.

The young boy wore a clean basketball jersey and hugged a shiny ball to his chest.

He was riding high on his dad's shoulders, laughing like the sun itself.

"Dad, I want that soda!"

"Sure thing, buddy. Let's get it."

"Dad, you gotta take me back to the court this weekend, okay?"

"Whatever you want, kiddo. Anywhere you wanna go."

The young father gently held onto his son's legs, his face beaming with absolute pride.

I stared at them, frozen in place.

So that was what fathers and sons were like out here beyond the hills.

Boys were actually allowed to be treated like human beings instead of livestock, allowed to skip chores, and ride on their dads' shoulders without getting hit.

My mom must have dreamed of raising me in a world like this, right?

She was a brilliant scholar in New York. She should have had a gentle, refined husband and a bright, happy kid.

She never should have been locked in a basement, forced to give birth to a mistake like me.

"What the hell are you staring at? Pull your eyes back in your head!"

Dad's bark shattered my thoughts.

He caught the desperate envy burning in my eyes, a quick flash of pure rage crossing his face.

He hesitated for a second, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled cigarette.

After lighting it up, he tossed the crushed pack straight at my lap.

"Go on, smoke," he muttered, "Don't you ever say I never gave you nothing. A real man smokes these."

I didn't touch the pack.

The harsh smell choked the air, making his nasty body odor ten times worse.

Dad took a deep drag off the cheap filter, his face twisting into something grotesque behind the cloud of grey smoke.

"You listen to me, Scrappy," he said.

"The only reason we're sleeping under an overpass, freezing our asses off, is because of that shameless bitch you call a mother!

"If she wasn't so damn selfish, running away the first chance she got, would we be living like literal stray dogs right now?

"If she had just stayed in the holler like a good wife and pumped out seven or eight kids for me, I would've treated her real nice.

"Or hell, if she had just brought me out here to live the good life with her, our family would be rolling in cash by now!"

Dad grew angrier with every word, acting like every single failure in his miserable life was Mom's fault.

I kept my head down, nodding along obediently like a well-trained dog.

"You're right, Dad. It's all Mom's fault."

Inside, my stomach turned with deep disgust.

Every single man back in that holler lived by leeching the life out of women.

The neighbor's shiny new roof was paid for by marrying his eldest daughter off. Another guy got his new truck by pimping out his wife to the local bachelors.

They acted like bloodthirsty parasites, draining women dry, then stomping on their broken bones and calling them worthless trash.

My mom was a university professor. She belonged at a podium, shining under the spotlight.

She never belonged to a piece of garbage like my dad, forced to breed in the dirt and suffer endless, inhuman torture!

Right then, the sharp click of high heels tapping on the concrete cut through the air.

Even through the deafening hum of passing traffic, my heart suddenly hammered against my ribs.

I looked up automatically.

My eyes cut through the hazy yellow glow of the streetlights, landing directly on the sidewalk across the avenue.

Even though she was fifty feet away, even though I could only see her profile, I knew instantly.

It was Mom.

She was carrying a stack of files, walking side-by-side with a man in a tailored suit.

The streetlight hit her face, and in that single moment, she looked so elegant, so completely out of my realm, that I felt a sharp pang of shame just looking at her.

It was like she felt the weight of my gaze.

Mom suddenly stopped in her tracks, turned her head, and looked straight toward our dark spot under the overpass.

Our eyes met.