Aria watched her walk back to the van. She was intimidated by Ciarra. But she was also envious of the way Ciarra seemed to tame the world around her. That was not something Aria felt able to do.
Taylor, Luke and Aria walked a long distance until they reached a church that Luke had promised contained a food pantry. Aria had expected to find a soiled storeroom with various canned goods, which she would then have to try to figure out how to open. But to her surprise, the line that they found themselves in led up to a plastic table where a woman was handing out sandwiches wrapped in plastic wrap. Luke and Taylor each accepted one. She paid no attention to them. But when Aria reached the end of the line to take the sandwich being held out to her, the woman said, “There you go, darlin’,” with an almost southern drawl that owed more to cultural upbringing than it did to geographical location.
This unexpected bit of intimacy confused Aria. It both comforted her and contradicted her sense of reality. Aria had come to expect cruelty or at least self-centered altruism from people. This sense of genuine kindness was like a shock to the system and she couldn’t quite decide whether she liked it or not. Given the strange nature of the interaction, Aria read the lettering on the woman’s name tag. Her name was Imani. On that cold June morning, Imani was simply someone who had been unexpectedly kind; Aria could not know then that she had met a friend.
That day Taylor and Aria followed Luke endlessly to different parts of the city. Aria was beginning to feel the same way Taylor did: that they had hit the jackpot by meeting him. After visiting shelters and locating a mission that allowed a 15-minute shower for each of them, by the time they were headed back to the car lot, Aria felt better than she had in a long time. She had found a sleeping bag in a donation pile at one of the shelters. She was holding it under her arm like a treasure. And, except for her clothes, which hadn’t been laundered for weeks, for the first time in weeks she felt clean.
When they got back to the car lot, the sun was almost setting. A few of Luke’s “roommates” eyed them suspiciously as Luke led them around the lot, looking for a place for them to set up camp. Seeing as neither of them had a tent, the obvious option was to see if one of the broken-down cars could serve as a temporary shelter. They settled on an abandoned white Land Cruiser because it had the most room, all of its doors were still mounted and its windows were intact. The metal on its front end was still crinkled from the accident it had never recovered from. And it was missing both of its front wheels. Still, later that night, when Luke said goodnight and left them to their own devices, climbing onto the gray fabric of its interior felt like luxury.
Aria got into her sleeping bag and lay flat across the back seat. Taylor reclined the front passenger seat as far as it would go over her legs. “I like it here,” he said, watching the other inhabitants of the abandoned car lot go about their business before turning in for the night, and Aria agreed with him. “Luke told me some places I could find a job tomorrow. I think I’m gonna try and get a bus ticket or somethin’ and maybe go see if I can get into that acting program.” She realized that meant she would be alone for the day but Taylor quickly added, “You can come with me if you want to, I just don’t know how much fun it’s gonna be.”
They were both aware that since she was still under 18, she had to lie lower than any of the rest of them, and Aria guessed he didn’t like the risk that her being underage posed to him. It would be safer for her to stay there. “That’s OK,” she reassured him. “I can stay here tomorrow. Maybe Luke can show me around some more.”
She wasn’t really excited to spend more time with Luke, especially one-on-one, but the idea of not walking anywhere for a day was enticing. She wanted Taylor to go chase his dreams, no matter how unrealistic they were. Watching his zeal for the future, which once had been so irritating to her, now felt like watching a flower grow among the weeds. His fervor for life was a scarce form of beauty that life on the streets tried to strip from him every day. And Aria wanted him to keep it. She wished that she could have some of it herself.
She patted Taylor’s arm before she fell asleep, to soothe away his worry about whether she felt hurt by his intention to leave her behind the next day. She remembered the terrible posters with empowerment quotes at the group home. One of them said, “You can learn something from everyone you meet.” She smiled to herself because regardless of how obnoxious it was, she was finding it to be true. Taylor had taught her something. He was teaching her how to cut her losses without cutting loose her hope.
The last thought that went through her head that night before falling asleep with her blankie was, “You never know, something could get worse. And you never know, something could get better.”
CHAPTER 13
Past the anemic pallor of discarded surgical gloves, the cigarette boxes and the beer cans torn and crushed, a shallow stream cleaved the woodland by the car lot. Luke led
