Red At Night. Katie McGarry

sometimes not laugh. No one’s tormented me since last year—the same time that Jonah shoved his hands in his pockets and kicked the ground when Cooper asked if I bought my jeans at a sale at Goodwill.

      I flipped Cooper off and told him that I heard his girlfriend was cheating on him. Which it turns out was true.

      Even though Jonah didn’t laugh, he’s as bad as everyone else. He never tells anyone to back off. The weird part is, for about five minutes today, I almost felt like I made a friend. “Do you think people can change?”

      “No.” Joss opens a box of wannabe Frosted Flakes. “That’s why I’m throwing my business around for the jerk downstairs. Your daddy is going to be around soon.”

      My head snaps up and my heart squeezes to the point of pain. “You heard from my dad?”

      Joss points a newly painted fingernail at me. She may not have money for a better apartment, but she does pay for manicures. Guys, she says, notice those things. “Nope. Don’t do it, Stella. Don’t go getting sentimental over the man. He abandoned you...again.”

      It’s the again that stings. My dad, he’s the only thing besides Joss I’ve got, and I’m not a moron about why Joss lets me stay. We both suffer from the same delusional issue: we love a man who doesn’t or can’t or is unable to love us the same way in return. Joss keeps me around because if I’m here, Dad will eventually roll into town and into her life.

      “So...” I take a deep breath then hedge, “Dad’s coming back?”

      “I hear hope,” says Joss. “Kill it and kill it now. Hope is a deadly snake with fangs of poison.”

      “How literary,” I reply.

      The evil glare she throws me shuts me up. “I mean what I said, but yes, your dad called me at the club last night and said he’s heading back.”

      I bite my bottom lip, not wanting to ask, and yet I do. “Did he ask about me?”

      One heartbeat goes by. Another. Each one is like a shard of glass ripping through my chest.

      “Yes,” she finally answers. “And he’s called a couple of times over the past few months to make sure I’m still giving you a place to crash, but this is the first time he said he’s returning. But it could mean nothing. He could have sobered up and forgotten he called.”

      A large rush of air escapes from my mouth. He’s been gone six months this time. Maybe the next time he won’t be away as long. Where he goes or what he does when he leaves, I’ll probably never know...or want to know. Sometimes he returns looking like he barely escaped the grim reaper. The last time, he detoxed from something so bad that he shook for two out of the three weeks he was home.

      The expression on Joss’s face mirrors my balled-up and twisted insides, so I kind of change the subject. “What’s my dad coming back have to do with the male crack whore downstairs?”

      “Here.” Joss drops into the spot beside me and offers me the box of cereal. “It’s only a month past expiration.”

      I take the box, but I’ve lost my appetite. She tosses a few flakes into her mouth and when she’s done crunching she looks at me. “If I don’t find another guy to hold my hand when your dad shows, he and I will end up in the exact same position as before and I don’t think that’s a good place to be.”

      Meaning they’ll fall completely tangled together in that twin bed and then she’ll end up in there alone crying her eyes out when he leaves again. Joss is in her late twenties and Dad’s in his mid-thirties, but together they add up to a mess.

      My throat constricts. “Do you want me to leave?”

      Because if I’m gone, he won’t stay here. He’ll find me...and a new girlfriend to con. But the scary part is, if Joss kicks me out, I’ll have run out of suitable ex-girlfriends. They’d probably let me crash if I showed, but I value my life and some of those places have the ingredients for the headlining story on the eleven o’clock news. My only hope for a stable home lies in Joss’s stubborn feelings for my deadbeat dad.

      Lines form on Joss’s forehead. “No. I want him to come back. Maybe this time he’ll stay.”

      He won’t. He never has, but I keep that to myself.

      Joss’s brown eyes stare straight into mine. “Don’t become me, Stella. Don’t you dare ever hope for more. There’s no such thing as living happily ever after or pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. The world is how it is and there always has to be bottom-feeders. People like you and me, we’re it, and the world might want us to believe we can have more, but the moment we try to break out of the water they’ll shove us down into the mud. It’s better to know the truth. It hurts less if you accept society’s crappy rules.”

      I start school tomorrow. Graduate in the spring. Joss may be older than me, but I’ve lived this type of life longer. Yet even with all the years of experience, deep down inside, I’ve hoped to become more. “Sounds a little pessimistic.”

      “No, not pessimistic. Realistic.”