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days in a row and I’m too tall for any of his things to fit me. I brace myself before opening the car door with a sigh.
    Brett, to my relief, gets out with me. At least I know Mom won’t yell in front of him. I think. I hope. I let us in the front door and she appears in the living room, drying her hands on a dish towel and staring holes into the back of my head as I inch down the hall toward my room.
    Brett says, “Hey, Ms. Howard!” and Mom grants him the ghost of a smile.
    In my room, I grab a spare gym bag from the closet and begin shoving whatever I can fit inside. Clothes, hairbrush, toothbrush. Anything I think I’ll need in the next week or two, because I don’t plan on having to slink back into my own house like a fugitive every other day. Brett watches from the doorway. When I go to step past him, he puts a hand to my chest and raises his eyebrows.
    “You should talk to your mom.”
    “And say what?”
    “I don’t know. Just talk to her. Maybe she panicked or something and she’s calmed down now.”
    I wasn’t getting that vibe from her. Sighing, I push the bag into Brett’s arms and go off to find Mom in the kitchen where she’s assembling something to bake. She bakes when she’s anxious or stressed. I came home once after she’d gone in for a job interview to find three pies, a peach cobbler, and two dozen cookies. At least she’s good at it.
    “Mom?” I stop in the adjoined dining room, keeping the kitchen table between us.
    Her back is to me and I see the stiffening of her shoulders. She slides a hand back through her messy curls before turning to face me. “What?”
    I’m having a hard time even looking at her face. She slapped me the last time I saw her. My mother has never, ever believed in that sort of thing; she never spanked me growing up, never even laid a hand on me aggressively. “I d-didn’t do it, you know. I promise I didn’t.”
    Mom leans back against the counter and rolls her eyes to the ceiling.
    “Why won’t you b-believe me?”
    “I don’t know what to believe right now, Victor,” Mom says tiredly.
    “Okay.” This is not the answer I wanted. My emotions are warring for dominance: confusion versus anger versus hurt. “I’m gonna s-stay with Brett until you figure it out.”
    Mom doesn’t argue. No protests, no questions, no nothing. As usual. She only nods once and turns away, back to her baking, letting out a suffering sigh. I’m not a violent person, but I have the strongest urge to flip a chair just to disrupt the stagnant tension in the room. As frustrating as Mom can be, she’s never acted like this before, and I’m at a loss for what to say, what to do. Normally, I would know how to appease her annoyance or her anger. This time…
    All I can think is this: if my own mother doesn’t believe me, what hope do I have that the police—and Callie—will?

Chapter Four
    When I turned sixteen, my desperation to get out of the house and do something on my own led me to Rick’s Convenience Store and gas station two blocks from home, where I asked for a job and got one. To this day I don’t know why I was hired on. Me, who can hardly get out a sentence to strangers without stuttering…
    But Rick’s Convenience Store—which isn’t even owned by any Rick, but rather by a guy named Amjad—has been my place of employment for more than a year now. Amjad moved to the States after his wife passed away, and he didn’t have enough to pay someone full time, so…here I am. Minimum wage and all the slushies I can drink. Too bad I don’t even like slushies, but Brett has taken advantage of the offer.
    It’s a much longer trip from Brett’s place to work, but in the year I’ve been here, I’ve called in only twice. Both times when I was extremely sick and Brett insisted. Amjad is kind in all the ways most bosses wouldn’t usually be, and I’ve never wanted to let him down.
    He takes one look at my face when I come into work at the end of the week, and