Chapter 1
Then he shoved me.
The first push knocked my shoulder into the door. The second sent the door open. The third pushed me out.
I fell hard.
Gravel tore my palm. My abdomen twisted. Pain broke loose inside me, bright and animal, and I heard myself make a sound I did not recognize.
Derek leaned across the passenger seat and threw the twenty dollars.
“There. Bus money. Medicine money. Funeral money. Pick whichever one you need.”
Then he drove away.
I lay there in the rain with his money in the mud.
I do not know how long I stayed down.
Time became strange. Fever does that. Pain does too. It turns minutes into rooms you cannot leave.
A semi passed once, close enough that the wind pushed rain into my face. I tried to wave, but my arm barely lifted. My phone was in my purse, which was still on the floor of Derek’s Tahoe because he had shoved me out too fast for me to grab it.
I had nothing.
May you like
No phone.
No coat.
