I was in heaven.
I was also only fifteen.
During that time, I rarely thought about my mom. So I hadn’t realized I hadn’t been to Adam’s place in over three months, until the day my mother showed up at school looking for me.
The instant I saw the mean glint in her eye, I knew I’d have to lie about my whereabouts; she’d go after Taylar and Travis just as she’d gone after Rick. And luckily, a few times when my friends had been out of town, I’d stayed at a homeless shelter for runaway teens, so they had me on record.
So, on one hand, I was happy that the principal chewed my mom’s ass for waiting so long to find out where I’d been. On the other hand, the obvious disconnect between me and my mom meant we were assigned a social worker. My schoolwork wasn’t an issue. Neither was truancy. Since we qualified as low income, I got two free meals a day at school, so I didn’t miss a day, because it was the only time I ate. I also didn’t skip class, because the last thing I wanted was the school calling my mother and asking where I was.
The social worker warned us she’d make surprise checks, leaving me no choice but to be where my mom was—at least during the school week. I hated every second of being trapped in the cramped tin shoe box known as Adam’s trailer.
But the worst part of living there was the creepy way Adam watched me. If I knew my mother wasn’t there, I wouldn’t go inside by myself. As soon as six o’clock Friday night rolled around, I lit out. Back to working in whatever bar Travis’s band had scored a gig in. Back to crashing with Taylar and Travis.
That went on for the rest of the school year. When summer vacation rolled around, my social worker was reassigned and I was freed. Taylar and I found part-time jobs in the janitorial department at a nursing home. Since we worked only Monday through Thursday, we could still travel with the band on the weekends.
On the night of my sixteenth birthday I crossed three milestones. Travis popped my cherry. I got a tattoo. And I smoked pot for the first time.
It was the best summer of my life.
A talent management company had taken notice of Travis’s band and had booked them on a six-month cross-country tour. Taylar’s boyfriend was the band’s drummer; she decided to drop out of school to travel with the band. They asked me to come along, but I had it in my head I needed to finish high school. Since Travis and Taylar weren’t re-upping the lease on their apartment, I had only one place to go: back to the crappy reality I’d tried to avoid.
So it was no surprise that when I showed up at Adam’s trailer two days prior to the start of my junior year, my mother was livid. Not because I’d been gone for three months, but because I’d come back.
Adam, the asshole, had actually acted decent for a change. I wouldn’t say I’d misjudged him, but I wasn’t afraid to be alone around him.
Mistake number one.
I’d been back only three weeks when Adam made a move on me. I told him when my mother found out she’d leave his sorry ass for good, and he attacked me. I got away with a split lip and bruises on my arms from where he’d tried to hold me down. I’d kneed him in the balls. When he howled in pain and released me, I ran out of the trailer. I hopped a bus to where my mom worked.
But the transit system was slower than Adam’s car and he’d gotten there first. He told her I came on to him—and it hadn’t been the first time. He claimed to be tired of me always taunting him about having a young piece of ass like mine instead of an old wrinkled one like hers. Of me trying to hurt my mother by using him to make her jealous. So when I kissed him, he grabbed me by the upper arms to push me away, and in a desperate move I grabbed his balls.
I watched my mother sweep her hand down Adam’s arm in a show of support as she glared at me. Then she launched into a verbal attack so vicious I lost the ability to breathe. I’d never been so mortified as I was in that moment hearing what my mother really thought of me—in front of a bar full of people. Her parting shot was she’d beat the hell out of me if I didn’t get out of her sight for good.
I didn’t cry. I didn’t react at all besides getting out of the bar. I figured I was safe for a few hours—likely they’d be celebrating about what a stand-up guy Adam was for spurning the advances of a horny sixteen-year-old girl—so I took a bus back to the trailer. I packed the few things I owned, called Taylar and hit the ATM for some traveling money. Then I hopped a Greyhound bound for Kansas City and joined the band. I stayed with Travis for only two years and spent the next seven years . . . wandering.
The neighbor’s dog started barking, pulling me out of the memories I tried so hard to keep buried.