Chapter 2
The thrift store had two pairs of pants that fit Lilly and there was a sale on shoes, so Jack was able to get her two pairs of those too.
There was a pink backpack with stenciled flowers that had a small tear in the seam.
Jack promised her he could fix that once they got home.
Lilly said she had enough shirts to start the year, which was a relief because he was down to eleven dollars when they left the thrift store.
He’d have made it work, but was glad he didn’t have to.
When Lilly tried to get him to buy a new pair of shoes for himself too, Jack told her he’d grab some next week after he mowed some more lawns.
He wasn’t sure if it was a lie.
At the dollar store, they picked up some pencils, notebooks, and crayons, plus a tissue box her first grade teacher asked to be donated.
As much as Jack didn’t have the spare money to donate to the class, he also knew how cruel people could be.
He did not want Lilly to show up in hand-me-down clothes and nothing to donate to the classroom.
Grant Street Elementary School unfortunately was over a mile away from his high school, which meant he was always going to be late for his first period.
He didn’t care, though, and would accept the detentions for it.
He’d already forged their dad’s signature to enroll her in the early morning and after school programs to help keep her safe and occupied while he was at school himself.
Depending on what his last class of the day was, he might just skip it so he could get to her faster.
He also needed to make sure he grabbed enough cash from his stash to pay for her lunch meals for the month.
The paperwork mailed to their dad regarding Lilly’s schooling said that the elementary school lunches were seventy-five cents or a dollar to include a dessert per day.
As much as he wanted to offer her the option of having that dessert, he couldn’t.
Jack estimated Lilly’s lunches to be around fifteen dollars for the month, which he could swing and it saved him time from having to pack her a lunch.
When he explained this to her, she’d been disappointed about not having the treat the school offered, but said she understood.
Jack mentally vowed to get her ice cream or something special whenever he could as an alternative.
The lunches his high school offered went up this year. They were now a dollar-twenty-five, estimating his lunches to be around twenty-five a month if he did that. It would mean working more hours or picking up more odd jobs around town if he wanted lunch too.
But he didn’t need lunch. He would be fine.
The sun was starting to set. They needed to get back.
Jack wouldn’t care about riding back at night if it was just him, but he did not want Lilly on his handlebars in the dark.
He was regretting not bringing the newspaper wagon.
It didn’t matter if they weren’t going to fill the wagon; it would have been safer for her.
As it was, the backpack they’d found for her at the thrift store was currently packed with her new clothes and their school supplies. Jack had it slung over one shoulder because it was too small to fit over both and too heavy for Lilly to currently carry.
They were walking down the sidewalk to where Jack had parked his bike when they passed a group of girls around his age. Jack moved Lilly closer to him, keeping her between the stores and himself so she wasn’t near the road.
Port Townsend, Washington, was a small town on the Olympic Peninsula.
They were about two hours north of Seattle with big tourist traffic during the summer for fishing tours, surfing, and hiking trails.
Most of the summer visitors had departed after Labor Day earlier in the week, but there were some stragglers.
At a glance, Jack recognized one girl in the group.
Justina Henshaw was in his grade and a local.
They’d never spoken, at least not since their own elementary school experience.
Most of the kids in their school caught on pretty quickly that Jack did not come from money, nor did he have the best home situation.
In a small town like Port Townsend, it was well known who lived at Four Corners.
Kids were cruel. Rich kids were crueler.
Not to say that Jack even wanted to be friends with the rich and popular, but there were times when he envied the ease in which they lived. He wondered if any of them even knew where the thrift stores were in town.
He had his buddies at school but rarely saw them outside of school since his mom’s departure.
Actually, that wasn’t accurate—he’d been seeing them less and less outside of school since the first time his dad had hit his mom.
The other three girls in the group didn’t look familiar to him. He assumed them to be city girls based on their clothing. The afternoon was in the mid-sixties already and would only be dropping from here.
Shit. Maybe he shouldn’t be waiting to get Lilly a new winter coat, but he didn’t have enough on him now.
The dollar store had cleaned him out, leaving him with a pocket full of loose change.
Fucking Mr. Barlow. If he’d paid Jack like he’d promised, Jack would have had enough to not even debate the question.
He didn’t get paid for his paper route for another week.
Jack let out a resigned sigh. If he had to dig into his money stash to get Lilly’s lunch money for the month, he might as well grab an extra bit to get her a coat. Saving for her future wasn’t worth her being cold now.
Lilly was prattling on, but Jack wasn’t paying attention, lost in his thoughts.
Like she was trying to get out all her allotted her words for the day before they got home.
She was smart enough to know that their father did not want to see or hear her in his house.
It was habit for Jack to always stand between them whenever their dad was home.
They were passing by a used book store when Lilly stopped. That he noticed right away, always seeming to have a sixth sense of her location.
“Wow!” The exclamation was barely more than a whisper and filled with a palpable amount of awe. Lilly had her face pressed nearly to the glass display window.
In the display, Jack immediately noticed what she was looking at.
A box set of The Chronicles of Narnia. Lilly, though entering first grade, was an avid reader.
She absolutely loved books and would probably need glasses soon, based on how close she held them to her nose.
More than reading books, she loved listening to them.
Jack and she were frequent visitors at the library, where they picked up all sorts of books that Jack would then read to her at night.
She’d long ago moved on from the picture books most kids her age adored, like The Berenstain Bears and the Little Critter books.
The set of seven books in the display window had a ribbon around the bundle with a stuffed lion sitting on top. The entire set, including the lion, was listed for eight dollars.
Jack’s stomach sank. He only had a few pennies left, nowhere near eight dollars.
Fuck, he hated this. Hated to disappoint Lilly because he couldn’t afford to give her something that brought such a smile to her face.
It wasn’t even like she was asking for something extravagant or ridiculous.
It was books. Something every kid should have in abundance—but he couldn’t afford to give her.
More than frustration and the disappointment of his failure to provide, he was pissed.
Pissed at their parents. Neither Lilly nor Jack had asked to be born.
They hadn’t chosen their parents. If John Duncan was right, Lilly might even have a different father out there than him.
Not that that made her any less his sister, but maybe that man could provide to her what he was clearly failing to.
Jack had eight dollars at home. He could get the books for her.
But then what? Books now or a home later.
Two years, four months, twenty-two days was all they had to survive until Jack could get them out of this shit town and this shit life.
He had a thousand dollars saved up, but that had taken him fifteen years of birthday gifts, holiday gifts, and working odd jobs.
It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough.
Eventually, he’d be able to get a full-time job.
He’d probably have to drop out of high school to do it.
Not that he cared about his education. He wasn’t going places—but Lilly was.
She deserved everything she could get from this life. Even if it meant Jack didn’t.
Hating what he was about to say, Jack knelt down so he could be eye level with Lilly. At fifteen, he was more gangly than anything. Like his limbs were too long for his torso.
“Lillypad,” he started, but didn’t have to get very far.
As soon as he’d spoken, her shoulders had slumped in disappointment, her face crestfallen. She let out a long sigh. “It’s okay, Jackie. I know what you’re going to say.”
“I’m so sorry.” He hated how his voice cracked. His chest physically hurt with the weight of her disappointment. “Maybe for your birthday.”
She nodded, but all her enthusiasm from a minute ago had fled. Lilly turned her back to the display window without another look at the books. Like she was trying to block them out of her memory.
“We can stop by the library tomorrow,” Jack told her, trying to raise her excitement again. “Get you any book you want!”
Lilly shrugged. “Yeah, okay.”
Shit, he’d really been hoping the mention of going to the library would cheer her up. “You love the library. We’ll even get there early so we can get the good beanbag chairs.”