Chapter 16
REED
Scottsbluff, Nebraska
Age Ten
Reed stole the answers to the test on a Thursday.
He’d seen Mr. Matthews stash it in his desk on several occasions, plopped squarely in the center of the top drawer after he finished grading tests.
Then, once lunch hit, Mr. Matthews would cap his red pen and take a stroll around the park behind the playground.
So one day, after watching Mr. Matthews whistle past on his way outside, Reed slipped from the cafeteria, snuck into Mr. Matthews’ room, and swiped the magazine-sized book.
He slid it up his shirt and left. That evening, Reed copied the answers to every science test into a spiral-bound journal.
He returned the key the next morning before Mr. Matthews arrived.
Reed didn’t need the answers. He needed money.
He needed a pair of Air Jordans.
He’d first spotted them on Mikey Penbrook, a sixth grader, who wore the shoes to the neighborhood bus stop. Snow white with red trim and an outline of Michael Jordan in midflight stitched on both sides. Reed had to have them. There was simply no other choice.
But it wasn’t the shoes Reed wanted so much as it was Mikey’s confidence when he started wearing them.
He seemed so confident and collected. So fun and cool.
The girls noticed it, too. With his wiry mop of thick black hair and a pair of oversized glasses that swallowed his face, Mikey had never been all that popular.
But that changed when he started wearing the sneakers.
Girls talked to him now. They chased him around the playground. Mikey the nerd was now Mikey the cool.
Reed asked his dad for a pair of Jordans that night. When Reed told him the price, his father nearly spit out a mouthful of his beer. “One hundred and twenty dollars? Have you lost your goddamn mind? We don’t have that kind of money.”
Reed knew they didn’t. They’d never had that kind of money.
All Reed knew of fashion was what came from the Goodwill on Henderson Street.
His wardrobe consisted of hand-me-down jeans from strangers that never fit him right and T-shirts that smelled like other kids.
He hated that scent, hated the shirts with their peanut-butter stains and frayed collars.
The clothes made him look poor and needy.
Which is exactly what he was—one of the free-lunch kids with scuffed shoes and holes in his socks.
So when Reed’s best friend, T.J. Reynolds, complained about their science exam—“I’d pay anything not to have to study for another stupid test”—the idea hit. Reed could steal the answers and sell them for five dollars a pop. Then he’d buy the shoes. Simple as that.
And it worked. Reed told T.J., who told Dillon Archer, who told Garret Thomas, who told Shane Velázquez, who told god knew who else.
Yeah, it was dangerous, Mr. Matthews could find out.
But Reed didn’t care. Kids were palming him fives at a record pace.
He’d have the Jordans in no time. But when Reed was called to see Principal Sparks, he’d only managed to collect sixty-five bucks. Not nearly enough.
Principal Sparks sat behind his desk, looking like a mountain with his arms crossed when Reed entered his office.
The man was a monster. Seeing him sitting there like that, looking at Reed like he was considering swallowing him whole, made Reed quake.
But that wasn’t what scared Reed the most. What really made him want to turn and burst through the door wasn’t Principal Sparks at all. It was the man sitting next to him.
“Sit down, Reed,” his dad said.
Reed never felt smaller than at that moment, and never more scared. He sat with his cheeks flaming.
“Why do you suppose you’re here, Mr. Aldridge?” Principal Sparks asked.
Reed knew exactly why he was here. But he didn’t answer. He only shrugged and played it off like he had no clue. Maybe if he ignored this, it would go away.
It didn’t work. His dad gave his shoulder a painful squeeze. Go on. Speak.
“The science test?” he said.
“Yes,” Principal Sparks replied. “The science test. And what, exactly, about the science test got you sent down here?”
Reed squirmed in his seat.
Ten minutes later, Reed left Principal Sparks’ office with a three-day suspension.
His dad didn’t say anything as they walked outside, never looked at Reed once.
When they reached their car—an old Buick sedan with an engine that burped—Reed’s father shoved him in so hard, his head nearly slapped the dash. Then they drove in silence.
Reed kept his eyes on the road. He didn’t dare look at his dad.
He didn’t need to. He knew what the man was thinking.
He’d have to take time off from work to watch Reed or pay someone to do it.
And he’d make sure Reed knew just how inconvenient that was with a few swings of his belt.
So, Reed sat there, sweating in the unconditioned air until his father pulled into a parking lot.
“Who did you tell about the answers?” his dad asked, turning his way.
“Only a couple of kids,” Reed lied.
His father’s eyes hardened to steel-gray orbs. “Did you tell any girls?”
“No,” Reed lied again. He’d told Amy Richardson because she gave him Hot Tamales sometimes, and Reed was pretty sure she’d told Laura Freeling and Tara Smith. They smiled at him more after that. They gave him candy, too.
“The truth, Reed.”
“A few,” he mumbled, hanging his head.
“Even one is too many,” his dad replied.
Reed frowned. “I know. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told anyone.”
“Not anyone. I’m talking about the girls. You shouldn’t have told them.” The corner of his father’s mouth twitched downward on girls, and for a second, Reed was certain he was about to reach over the console and smack him. “Who is Ashley Parker?”
Ashley Parker was the prettiest girl in school. And the most popular. She hadn’t even asked for the answers, but Reed had shared them with her anyway. She didn’t seem impressed though, had simply shrugged her shoulders and skipped off.
Reed rubbed his jeans. “She’s a friend.”
“A friend, huh? She’s the one who sold you out. Women will betray you, Reed. You can’t trust them.”
Reed wasn’t sure how his dad knew this or why they were sitting here in the half-empty mall parking lot instead of going home. But as long as his dad wasn’t yelling at him, it was fine by Reed.
“You remember what your mother did to us, right?”
Reed nodded. He still thought about that day, still wondered most nights how his mom had been able to walk right past him without giving him a hug or saying goodbye.
He hated her for that. So much. But he also missed her sometimes.
Not that he should. She was long gone, and Reed knew she’d never come back.
After she’d left, he’d waited at the window every night for months, watching for her car.
He wanted to run outside and leap into her arms and tell her how much he’d missed her, even if she didn’t say it back.
Which she wouldn’t. Reed had long ago realized you don’t walk away from something you love.
The only thing you walk away from is trash.
And that’s exactly what Reed was to his mom. Trash.
His dad gazed at him. “I think it’s time we have us a man to man, Reed. I think you’re ready for that. How about you?”
Reed straightened in his seat, paying attention now. They’d never had a man to man before. This sounded serious. “Okay.”
“Your mother didn’t just leave us,” his dad said. “She stole from us. She took everything we had.”
Reed rubbed the back of his head. He thought he knew a lot about his mother, but he didn’t know this. “How?”
His father’s face crumpled, and he suddenly looked much older than his forty-four years.
“That bitch stole all of our savings. She cleaned out our accounts. Didn’t leave us with a single fucking dollar.
You’d think she’d at least have left me with enough cash to take care of you, but she didn’t.
She took it all for herself. Why do you think we had to move? ”
Reed pressed his thumb into the center of his palm and thought about it.
He’d loved their old house. His dad had built him a treehouse in the back yard where he’d played for hours.
He’d loved the woods behind it, too, and splashing with his friends in the stream that curled through the trees like a snake.
Riding bikes in the cul-de-sac was a daily ritual.
He knew everyone in the neighborhood; they played football and tag and drank Cokes in the park.
One of the worst days of Reed’s life was when his father told him they had to leave.
He’d pitched a fit until his father tossed him in his room and told him he had to stay in there until he got it together.
We’re moving. Get used to it.
After that, home became a thing of the past. They had no home.
Not really. They chased work wherever his dad could find it.
Home became a cheap collection of motel rooms and apartments that smelled of mold and dust and old, stale air.
These rundown places stuffed full of rundown people.
Everyone so jammed together Reed could hear every fight and moan through the cracked plaster walls.
Reed hated those places. He hated the people there, too.
And he’d hated his father for dragging him along.
But Reed never realized until now—until this very second—that all of it was his mother’s fault.
His father was telling the truth. He looked like he was about to cry. “Reed, if there’s one thing I can teach you in life, it’s this. You can never, ever, trust a woman. You might think you can. And you’ll want to. Girls are pretty. I get it. But you can’t. Do you understand why?”
Reed had heard this kind of thing from his father before, but the words had mostly drifted in one ear and out the other. Not this time. After hearing this about his mother, he did understand—he did, and he wouldn’t forget it. He’d never trust a girl or a woman again. He nodded.
“Listen,” his dad said, giving Reed’s shoulder an attaboy squeeze, “I’m proud of you. What you did today was clever. It was industrious. Bold. You’re an entrepreneur if I’ve ever seen one.”
“What’s that?” Reed asked, surprised. After the meeting with Principal Sparks, he’d expected to get grounded. Not this.
“An entrepreneur is someone who sees an opportunity and goes for it, exactly like you just did. C’mon,” He said, opening his door.
“Where are we going?” Reed asked.
Reed’s dad gave him a sly wink and smiled. “We’re at the mall, aren’t we? Let’s go get you those shoes.”