Thin Luck

Chapter 2

I talked in a whisper. "No. I didn't escape. I snitched to get my sentence reduced. I have to testify against my cellmate." I pulled my shirt away from my wet skin.

"Snitched, huh?" His face scrunched up, "What the hell is that smell?"

"These boots. I think I stepped in dog shit."

"Ugh, why are you here?"

"I need to find Nick. He was supposed to pick me up from prison this afternoon, but the house is empty."

"That doesn't answer my question, Destiny." He used the name mom had given me. A stripper's name I'd stopped using by the time I was ten.

"Don't call me that, Justice." I returned the favor. He'd waited to change his name legally at eighteen, and only changed it once, to Justin.

"Sorry, just slipped. Somehow I always thought that name your mother gave you would come back to haunt you."

"She's your mother too."

"Yeah, I know that. I've seen her in the last few weeks, have you? No. That's right you've been living off the taxpayers in your cushy prison. Watching television, eating three square meals. While I've been taking care of mom."

"I'm sorry."

"I doubt it."

"I-"

He interrupted me. "Don't make excuses. I don't want to hear them. Don't you think Dad gave us excuses enough?" I flinched as if he'd slapped me across the face. The pain might have hurt more than if he had slapped me. The fights in our family always ran down clear lines with Dad and me on one side, Justin and Mom on the other. There were never clear victors until Dad left one night and never came back. I was the shunned one in the family after that. Mom blamed me for Dad leaving. She thought I knew something. Maybe I did. My reaction would have been the same either way. I wasn't going to tell her anything. I was the third wheel in Justin and Mom's lives after Dad left. I was a drag on their scarce resources.

"I'm going to ask you again," he said. "Why are you here?"

"I don't have anywhere to go."

His face softened. He looked behind him. "You can't stay here. Susan would freak out. She thinks you're a bad influence on the kids."

I'd only met them once, but I'd been drunk. I'm sure I said something awful, but I didn't remember what. Like father, like daughter.

"Look, I'm freezing," I displayed my soaking wet self. "Can I just borrow some money and a change of clothes?"

"Yeah, go into the closet down the hall. There's a box of clothes labeled 'Goodwill.' Get something out of there. You're dressed like a stripper."

I flinched again. His words hit his intended mark. He was right; I was dressed like a stripper.

"Don't track those dog shit boots across my floor."

I took the boots off. I tiptoed through the hallway, so I didn't leave a trail of blood on the floor from the open wound on my heel.

The box in the closet had an assortment of mostly his wife's clothes. I pulled some of the clothes from the box: dresses with stains, summer shorts and nearly new pants that must have been too small. I found a pair of lacy underwear and dry heaved. Who donates underwear? Who would buy them? I stripped and then put all my wet clothes, including the thong underwear, back in the Goodwill box. I tried on a pair of black cotton dress pants with a perfect-albeit uncomfortably commando-fit. I pulled out a black blouse, low cut in the front and thankfully not translucent. What this outfit needed was a bangle to fit right in with the trendy bartenders, but I didn't have time to accessorize. None of Susan's shoes fit; her feet were meant for elves. There was a box of candy ready for Halloween on the ledge above.