Total pages in book: 213
Estimated words: 201920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1010(@200wpm)___ 808(@250wpm)___ 673(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 201920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1010(@200wpm)___ 808(@250wpm)___ 673(@300wpm)
I looked the clerk in the eye and told him the kid was going to pay for what he’d done. I had a reputation and the clerk was happy enough to let me handle it, knowing he could tell his story about how I’d kicked the kid’s ass for trying to steal from his store.
Carter was a scrawny thing and still is, although he’s starting to fill out. I picked him up like he was nothing and he didn’t try to fight it.
The look of fear in his eyes wasn’t there, only a look of disappointment, even as I dragged him around back. I remember how I felt something I hadn’t in so long. Something like regret, maybe?
He wasn’t like the others, the ones looking for a fight.
Carter already had enough to fight for and to fight against, so to him I was just one more thing he had to endure. I could see the weary resignation in his eyes.
I didn’t kick his ass. Instead, I told him to go home. I made the decision to let him go because he wasn’t like the others. And also, because the idea of beating up on a lanky twelve-year-old made me sick to my stomach.
That was when I saw his anger and his fight. His passion.
“I’m not going home without it,” he told me with determination, even though his voice shook. His hands balled into fists, but he didn’t raise them.
“Get home, kid,” I told him, walking over to where I’d thrown him and towering over him.
He stared me in the eyes as he shook his head. “I’m not leaving without it.”
“For a fucking loaf of bread, you’re willing to get your ass beat?” The kid was stupid. I still tell him he’s stupid and it’s true half the time.
“I have to make sandwiches, my mom told me--” He started to say something else, but I cut him off.
“Well your mom can make it herself,” I spat back at him, with a pent-up rage he didn’t deserve. He was only a kid, and some of the kids didn’t know. My mother was a whore. A bitch. I don’t have a single nice thing to say about her. Even with her dead in the ground after spending the last minutes of her life with her favorite needle, I can’t bring myself to say one good thing about her. I never had a family aside from my grandmother, bless her soul. And I never would. It’s as simple as that. It was as deeply ingrained in me as whatever possessed Carter that night.
“She can’t!” he yelled at me. I took one step closer to him, and he stiffened. My spine was stiff, my shoulders straight and the aggression and threats evident just from my stare at him.
His bottom lip quivered as he took in a quick breath, but he didn’t give up. “I have to feed them tonight and we don’t have anything… but I can make sandwiches.” He gritted out the last words with tears in his eyes. “I just need bread.”
“And what are you going to put on the bread? You going to steal something else too?” I berated him, even though I believed him.
“There’s peanut butter already.”
“You can eat it with a spoon,” I said dismissively, turning my back to him and ready to get the hell away from him. Something about the way he looked and acted bothered me to my core. He wasn’t frightened, and he wasn’t angry. He was desperate.
“She said to make sandwiches for my brothers-”
I lost it again with the kid, thinking about my own mother and how she’d forced me to fend for myself. She never told me to make dinner, I just had to. No one else would. “And why didn’t she do it then? Huh? She can dish out orders, but-”
“She’s in the hospital. She told me on the phone to make sandwiches and I just need bread.” He stumbled over his words, but he never took his eyes from me. “I told him, the clerk,” he gestured to the shop, “we’d pay him, but I don’t have the money right now.” He visibly swallowed and continued, “My mom will pay him when she’s back. And it’s going to be real soon. She’ll be okay real soon.” He started rambling on and on and I could feel his sob story getting to me. I could feel myself getting played like I’d played everyone else as I grew up on the streets.
“So, you’re stealing bread to make sandwiches for your brothers?” I lowered my head to his. “Here’s a hint, kid. When you’re told to do something, you don’t have to follow it to a T.” I licked my lower lip, slipping my hands into my pockets and expecting him to give up and go home already. To leave the corner store alone and my reputation intact and go eat the fucking peanut butter out of the jar like a normal asshole would.