Chapter One
Millie
I stare at the eviction notice taped crookedly to the door, one corner peeling where the glue has given up.
FINAL NOTICE.
The words don’t seem to make any sense. For a long moment, I just stand in the dim hallway, my key still clutched in my hand, backpack heavy on my shoulder…staring. Like if I don’t move, this won’t be real. Like maybe the paper will disappear if I stay as still as possible.
But it doesn’t.
I shove the door open and step inside.
The apartment smells wrong. Not the usual stale mix of old food and cigarettes…something sharper. Cleaner. Temporary.
I find my mother in the bedroom, shoving clothes into a duffel bag. She doesn’t look surprised to see me. That’s the first clue this isn’t new.
“What’s that?” I ask, my voice sounding too thin in my own ears. “Why is there an eviction notice on the door?”
She doesn’t stop packing. Just shrugs one shoulder and keeps folding like this is any other afternoon.
“We’re getting kicked out.”
My chest tightens. “What do you mean, we’re getting kicked out?”
She sighs like I’m the problem here, like I’m the inconvenience. “Rent’s overdue. Again.”
“Again?” I take a step farther into the room. “I’ve given you money every month. You told me you paid the rent.”
She zips the bag with an air of finality. “Well, clearly I didn’t.”
I stare at her, waiting for the punchline. For the part where she admits this is a mistake. That there’s more time. There’s always supposed to be more time.
“How long?” I ask.
She avoids my eyes. That tells me everything.
“How long have you known?” I press.
“There were a few notices.”
“A few?” My voice cracks despite my effort to keep it steady. “You hid them from me?”
She finally looks at me, irritation flashing across her face. “I didn’t hide them. I just didn’t see the point in worrying you.”
A laugh slips out of me, sharp and ugly. “By letting us get evicted?”
She grabs the duffel and moves past me toward the door. “I’m going to stay with Matheo.”
I scoff under my breath. “The same guy who beats the shit out of you at the slightest provocation?”
She flinches visibly and stops walking but doesn’t look at me. “He says he loves me.”
I almost laugh at that, except there’s nothing funny about the situation. “He’s an abusive drug dealer, Mom.”
“Well, I’m moving in with him,” she says and continues toward the door.
“So, what about me?” I ask in a small voice, even though I really just want to scream.
She pauses, one hand on the strap. Turns just enough to glance back at me. “You’re an adult now, Millie. You’ll figure it out.”
The words hit me square in the chest. Like a bullet.
“Figure it out,” I murmur with a humorless laugh.
Really? Isn’t that what I’ve always done?
I’ve been on my own for as long as I remember.
I make my own lunches, do my own laundry, learn which moods meant I should stay quiet and which meant I should stay gone. My mother was never cruel. Just absent. Like I was something she forgot she’d set down until it was inconvenient.
My dad left long ago, before I was old enough to remember him. She never talks about him, and I stopped asking years ago. There’s no one else. No grandparents. No aunts. No safety net I don’t make myself.
School wasn’t much better. Kids notice things…how your clothes don’t fit right, how your mom shows up late, too loud and smelling wrong. I learned early it was easier to be invisible. To keep my head down. To expect nothing.
After graduation, nothing really changed.
I sell jewelry at craft fairs and parks, stringing beads and wire into things people say are pretty.
I have a few regulars. A small online following.
I make some money but not nearly enough.
I’ve had a few jobs, but they didn’t last. Somehow, my mom always finds a way to ruin them.
That’s why the backpack is still on my shoulder now.
Why it always is. Everything I care about fits inside it because experience has taught me anything left behind won’t be there when I come back.
I’d endure all of it because…well, she’s my mother. The only family I have. But it’s just now dawning on me that I am alone in that fantasy. She really doesn’t give a damn about me.
“W-what if I don’t figure it out?”
I see a brief flash of emotion in her pale brown eyes—ones that used to be vibrant. She used to be beautiful…at some point in my memory. But now, she’s just a strung-out middle-aged woman with thinning hair and sagging skin.
“Goodbye, Millie.”
And then she’s gone.
I stand there for a long minute, staring at the door she didn’t bother closing, the apartment suddenly too quiet, too empty. The eviction notice is still taped to the door, fluttering slightly in the stale air like it’s mocking me.
I don’t sit down. There’s nothing here that’s mine anyway. I shoulder my backpack, take one last look around the room I’ve lived in for years, and walk out.
The streets of Los Angeles feel different when you don’t have anywhere to go. The cold has teeth this time of year—a deep-winter chill most people forget that LA gets after dark.
It’s late—much later than I realized. I’d spent most days finding reasons not to be home, wandering parks or setting up my little jewelry display wherever foot traffic looked promising. Now, I’d be lucky to find a shelter still taking people in.
A tiny, weary-eyed woman answers the door at the first shelter. She doesn’t even let me speak before dashing my hopes.
“Intake hours are over. Try again tomorrow.”
Her voice was as bland as her expression.
I walk for miles to another shelter, my feet aching, my jacket doing almost nothing to keep the cold out. They’re full. The woman at the desk acts better than the last, but all she can give me is a practiced apologetic look, one that she’s probably given to a hundred other people tonight.
I try my luck at churches next. Three of them. All dark. All locked.
The neighborhood shifts as I keep walking.
The streetlights grow farther apart. Storefronts are closed now.
The street is mostly quiet, but I swear I can feel eyes on me.
Every dark corner lurks with danger—just waiting for the right opportunity to pounce on me.
My skin prickles, every nerve screaming at me to move faster.
I pull my jacket tighter and keep my head down, my chest knotting with an all too familiar desperation.
Just when I’m about to resign myself to the fate of spending the night on the streets, I see a sign that says: WILDER HOUSE.
The sign is small and understated, nothing flashy or welcoming, but the word house makes my chest loosen with relief. I hurry toward it, hope flaring bright and reckless in my chest.
Up close, the illusion shatters.
It’s not a shelter. It’s an apartment building—five stories of plain brick rising up into the night, windows dark or softly lit behind curtains. No bars. No peeling paint. Nothing fancy, but it looks…cared for. Like someone pays attention to it.
The door is locked.
I stop short, my heart sinking to my stomach. I can’t just stand here. It feels like there are eyes around every corner…watching me.
I step back into the shadows beside the building, pressing myself against the cool brick, trying to think. My hands shake as I adjust the strap of my backpack. My breath fogs in front of me.
Suddenly, I hear footsteps. I freeze, staring intently into the darkness. A man approaches the entrance, keys in hand. He doesn’t see me—or doesn’t give a damn. He punches in a code on the keypad. The door unlocks with a soft click, and he slips inside.
The door starts to close, and before I can think better of it, I lunge forward and grab it, my heart pounding as I slide through the narrow opening just before it shuts. The lock clicks again behind me, sealing me in.
I stand still for a second, stunned by my own recklessness.
The lobby is small. Clean. Quiet. A staircase looms on one side, mailboxes lining the wall, warm light glowing overhead. Whoever came in before me is already gone, footsteps fading upward.
I don’t follow. Instead, I notice a short hallway at the back of the lobby and creep toward it. I spot three doors. The first opens into what looks like a laundry room. I step inside, scanning for a place to hide, but there’s nothing. It’s too open. Too exposed.
The second door is locked, but the third is slightly ajar. I ease it open and peer inside. It’s a storage closet with shelves stacked with towels and cleaning supplies. A few broken-down boxes lie on the floor.
Relief washes over me so fast my knees almost buckle.
It’s late. Maintenance must be done for the day. If I’m careful—if I leave early—I can make it work.
I slip inside and gently close the door behind me.
The closet smells like detergent and dust, but it’s better than sleeping in an alley…
or worse. It’s not comfortable, but warm enough.
I settle onto the cardboard, leaning back against a stack of folded towels, and tug my backpack into my lap like a lifeline.
I pull my knees to my chest and wrap my arms around them. It’s only then—safe-ish, hidden, finally still—that the tears come.
They slide down my cheeks silently at first, then faster, my shoulders shaking as I press my face into my jacket, my cry echoing pathetically in the dark, quiet room.