“Um … hi … Chrissy,” I say, sounding like a complete moron. What the hell is wrong with me?

Placing my backpack on the floor, I sit there facing the cracked cement wall, trying to calm myself before I puke all over the stained floor. “Hey, Dex.” She picks her head up so she can look at my face. I muster up a smile, which seems to make her own smile widen. “Are you feeling okay?” she asks, and then her hand touches my forehead and all those damn explosions go off in my stomach again.

I inch away at her contact, and she drops her hand, a frown replacing her smile. “You don’t feel warm, but you’re kind of sweating.” She rubs her palm across her pants, causing my eyes to fixate on her bare knee peeping out from the tear on her jeans. For the first time, I itch curiosity about what it would be like to touch her.

“I don’t know.” I wipe my forehead, and sure enough, my palm is now coated with wetness. “Do you want to go over to the diner?” I ask her, changing the topic to get away from the sudden uncomfortableness in the room.

She bites the inside of her cheek and casts a glance at the locked door that we aren’t allowed to enter through. “It’s okay, I asked my dad,” I assure her and rise to my feet, shrugging my backpack over my shoulders.

We hurry out of the grocery store as the attendant eyes us warily because, for the first time in four years, we’re without our dads. Crossing the street, we finally enter the small diner with vinyl seats and metal rimmed tables. I grab a booth in the back corner by the bathrooms. She slides in across from me and doesn’t pick up her menu.

“Do you know what you want?” I ask her, flipping through the menu myself.

“Um …” She stops and then inhales a hefty breath. “Dex, I don’t have any money.”

“No need, I’m paying. The winnings from two weeks ago,” I explain and continue to study the burgers, milkshakes, and sandwiches the diner offers, like this isn’t anything unusual for us.

Her fingers wrap along the top of my menu, and she pushes it down. “I won’t let you,” she informs me and the determination of Chrissy’s eyes shows her need to never want people to feel sorry for her.

“Yes, you will.” She leans back, crossing her arms, and stares out the window.

When the friendly middle-aged waitress wanders over in her frilly apron, she smiles and giggles before asking us what we want. I order two hamburgers with fries and milkshakes. Realizing I’m ordering for her regardless, Chrissy finally chimes in. “Not chocolate, strawberry, please.” The woman notes the change on her pad with a smile.

I follow the waitress’s walk back behind the counter with my eyes, watching her whisper to another waitress, who glances our way with a small amused smirk. They probably think we’re on some kind of date.

“Thank you, Dex.” Chrissy’s voice interrupts my thoughts and I turn her way. Again, Fourth of July booms in my stomach.

“You’re welcome,” I mumble, and we sit there in silence again, watching the cars pass by the diner, probably on their way to somewhere that has nothing to do with the hidden life that Chrissy and I have experienced.

We eat our lunch with barely any conversation between the two of us. For some reason, watching her eat brings a happiness to me that I can’t explain. At first she was slow, taking a fry, dipping it into ketchup, and then wiping her hands on the napkin, but once she witnessed my very caveman scarfing-down mechanics of eating, she changed her course to match mine.

Sitting on the crappy, ripped, vinyl-covered benches, we watch what everyone believes is the grocery store across the street. Some men leave with their heads down and hands in their empty pockets, a sure sign that they lost. Others have wide and huge smiles showing they won.

Eventually, we leave with the realization that our dads will be finished soon. We exit the restaurant and stand on the cracked-up sidewalk in the most rundown part of town. It’s a surprise everything isn’t boarded up by now. Her hand is on my forearm before I can react and then her lips are on my cheek even faster. “Thanks again,” she softly says before stepping back, leaving me in my own personal space.

This time it’s not my stomach that’s exploding to life.

14 years old

“MIKE IS COMING with me,” I tell my friend, Heidi, who is currently packing for a trip to Cedar Point with her family. I’ll never understand why she befriended me earlier this year when we both were thrown into high school. She’s middle class; I’m poor. She’s pretty enough to be a model, and I’m girl-next-door-tomboy. The list could go on and on to our differences, but it’s nice having an escape when she invites me over to her house.

My dad moved us for many reasons, one being an eviction notice from the one-bedroom place we’d called home for years. Lucky, though, I now have my own room, well, a curtained off section. But more privacy than the bed in the corner of the family room in our last place. Not that I have to worry too much, since my dad is rarely home. You know that goes along with actually being a parent.

Since I’ve grown older, I rarely go with him to the Saturday games, and if I do, it’s with the chance that maybe Dex will be waiting there in one of our chairs. But usually a heaviness would take over my body if they were empty when I arrived because he doesn’t go much either. He has obligations like most kids our age. Sports and friends keep him busy in his big house on the opposite side of the world from me.

Tonight his dad is throwing a party. Some celebration of a big windfall Mr. Prescott was blessed to win. I say blessed, because that’s what gambling is—luck or a blessing from the heavens above. Half of me wonders if it was Dex’s pick that gave him the windfall, but I’d never ask.

Now I stand in my bathroom, applying the mascara I’ve only been using for a few months and I try to see if my butt looks big in the yellow sundress Heidi loaned me. Twisting and turning, I struggle to gather an accurate assessment in the mirror. Just as I’m about to put my lip gloss on, a knock at the door interrupts me.

Peering out the peephole, my stomach clenches and a warmth spreads up and down my body. Mike stands on the other side, suave and confident like always. He’s from this side of the tracks, so there’s no feeling ashamed when he sees my apartment while picking me up. He’s two years older and drives, which is another plus for Mike. The only stipulation his mom puts on him is that he drives and picks up his siblings from school. Ever since he sauntered over to me down at the park while I was babysitting the kids next door, he’s been my own personal chauffeur.

I open the door. His hands are tucked in his pockets, and he rolls back on his heels, that typical panty-dropping smirk across his face. His dark hair is gelled into some form of a messy look that fits him even more, while his tight grey t-shirt clings to his strong arms. “Hey, you ready?” he asks, pulling me into a hug. He’s a little handsy, but we haven’t gone further than second base. I’m pretty sure that’s because of me, not him, though.

“Yep,” I respond and flick off the lights before we exit out the door. Securing the locks, Mike links his hands with mine, and we venture out of the apartment complex. The car beeps, signaling he’s unlocked it , and instead of coming to my side first, he walks to his own and slides in. Leaving me to open my door. Gentleman he is not.

The blaring music pours out the windows of his black Nissan Altima. You’d think he was Eminem in some expensive Bentley the way he slouches back with one hand hung over the steering wheel as his head bops to the beat of the rap music. Not to say that my insides aren’t tingling, because Mike is the epitome of the hot, bad boy every girl dreams about and every dad fears. Every dad, but mine. He might have met Mike once, and Dad just nodded his head at him in the doorway.