Chapter 5

Emily stared at the words in her GED textbook and her head started pounding within moments. Squinting, she forced herself to concentrate, sounding out the words, only to realize that it had taken her over fifteen minutes to go through one page.

How was she going to get her GED at this rate when she could scarcely read the study materials?

Humiliation made her cheeks scarlet. This was why she studied at home, and this was the one instance where she was glad Josh wasn’t here to see her struggle.

Oh God, I’m so selfish to think that! My little brother is in a detention center and I’m happy he’s not here.

She rubbed her eyes, like it would somehow make the letters behave. It wasn’t the longer words that tripped her up—sometimes it was the shorter ones, the ones that could be any number of words, like won or now. She hated homophones in particular: there, their, and they’re were her mortal enemies. And when she was especially tired or anxious, her dyslexia seemed to get worse.

She blew out a breath. She’d wanted to get her GED for a number of years, but she’d had neither the time nor the ability to do it. As a child, she’d managed to get through school by being charming and pretty, and only one teacher had ever approached her mother about her possibly having a learning disability. She’d gotten some help in the fourth grade, but then her mother had had to move the family because they couldn’t afford their apartment. This placed Emily and Josh in a new but poorer school district.

Emily’s mother had done her best, and she didn’t resent her mother for the fact that she could only read at a fourth-grade level. Besides, no one cared if a beautiful girl was smart. Emily’s mouth twisted at the thought, but she was practical enough to acknowledge its truth.

Shortly after she’d dropped out of high school, a talent agent had spotted Emily at the local mall and had booked her for modeling gigs. It had been like some kind of fairy tale.

Emily had thought it would be her big break: she could make enough money to care for her ailing mother and her younger brother. But the darker side of the industry had eventually pushed Emily out of it. Now here she was, working as a waitress, trying to get her GED, and worrying herself to death over her teenage brother.

She glanced at her phone’s clock. She had an hour before she would go see Josh in the detention center. He’d told her that she didn’t have to visit him, but she was all he had. His so-called friends had deserted him the second they’d learned he’d been arrested.

Emily flipped to the math section of her study book. Math had always been easier for her than reading. She’d almost thought about becoming a math teacher when she’d been a kid, until life had beaten that dream out of her.

The thought of reading—and books, and school—inevitably made her think of Phin. She remembered all of the books in his office, the degrees in frames on the wall. What would he say if he saw her now, poring over a GED textbook? A man who’d passed the bar at only twenty-three? After some Internet sleuthing, Emily had discovered that Phin was not only well educated, but a prodigy of sorts. He’d even graduated from high school at sixteen, while Emily had dropped out at that age.

Time passed quickly as Emily did some algebra equations. She took her book with her to study on the bus ride to the detention center, about a thirty-minute ride. A man sat down next to her, and when he saw what she was doing, he said in a tone that was supposed to be encouraging, “I got my GED last year, but what’s a pretty thing like you worrying about that for? If I were as pretty as you, none of that shit would matter.”

He laughed as Emily ignored him. God, she was tired of people assuming that because she was pretty, she was also stupid. Sometimes it was hard not to believe them.

After Emily had gone through security at the detention center, she arrived at the waiting room, where a few other families were spending time with their kids. Josh sat at a table in the corner, his long legs outstretched, his arms crossed across his chest. He’d started growing a beard, and it only made Emily sad to see it. More and more, he no longer looked and acted like her little brother.

“How are you?” she asked as she leaned down and hugged him. He barely returned the gesture; her heart pinched.

“How do you think? Everything is shit,” he said, his lip curling.

Emily sat down across from him, taking a deep breath. Torn between fear and frustration, she struggled to figure out how to talk to her brother. Should she reprimand him? Beg him to behave? Ignore him entirely? What did you do with a teenage boy who was too angry to listen to reason?

“You’re lucky you aren’t in prison. At least here you have some freedom,” she said.

“I can’t even take a shit without asking permission. How is that freedom?”

“I’d feel sorry for you if you hadn’t broken the law,” she snapped.

His mouth settled into a stubborn line. “I didn’t do anything,” he muttered. “Not like Reggie. This is all bullshit.”

“Do you think if you say that enough times, the judge will suddenly agree with you?” Emily shook her head. “Josh, we can’t help you if you refuse to help yourself. Phin is doing everything he can—”

“Who the hell is Phin?”

She blushed a little. “Your lawyer. Mr. Younger.”

Josh sneered. “That guy? He looks like a total pansy. And everybody knows lawyers like him don’t care about people like us.”

Emily felt that headache from earlier start to return. “That doesn’t mean he isn’t working hard for you. The least you can do is be grateful.”

“Grateful? Are you fucking kidding me?” Josh’s voice rose, and a security guard stepped toward them. Emily shook her head. The guard stopped, although she knew very well that if Josh yelled again, this meeting was over.

Emily hissed, “Keep your voice down. Do you want me to leave? Because I will. I don’t have to be here. But I’d like to remind you that I’m all you’ve got. None of your friends have come to see you, have they?”

Josh didn’t reply.

“That’s what I thought. And I know you. I know you’re scared out of your mind.”

“I’m not scared.” But he didn’t look at her as he said it.

She softened her voice. “You know what I was thinking about today? When Mom was still alive. Remember when she’d save up her money and take us to get ice cream at that place on the corner?”

Josh shrugged. “So what?”

“I think you were about five at the time. You always got Rocky Road on a sugar cone.” Emily smiled at the memory. “I got butter pecan, and Mom got mint chocolate. It was a really hot day—I remember that. Hotter than it usually gets. Your ice cream started melting way too fast, and as we were walking out of the store, most of your ice cream fell off your cone onto the ground. You started bawling.”

“Why are you talking about this?”

“I’m getting there. Well, Mom being Mom, she wasn’t about to spend money on ice cream that melted seconds after we’d gotten it. She marched back into that shop and after some negotiation with the clerk, she got you another ice cream cone. I never knew how she paid for it. Maybe the guy just took pity on you. But that was Mom. She wouldn’t let us down no matter what.

“When Mom died, I told myself I’d take care of you like she took care of us. I knew I could never replace her. I’ve tried my hardest, though. I hope you know that, except now I can’t help but think I’ve failed you.”

Josh sighed. “Now you’re being stupid.”

She smiled a little at that. “Maybe. But if you think I’m going to let you get lost in the system on my watch, you’re wrong. You’ll always be my baby brother who cried when his ice cream fell on the ground. I love you, Josh. Even when I want to strangle you.”

Josh still wouldn’t look at her, but Emily knew her brother well enough to see the lines softening in his face as he took in her words. Maybe she imagined it, but she could almost see her little brother underneath that mask of anger and defensiveness.

“How have you been spending your time?” she asked into the silence. “I’ve been studying for my GED. I hope you can finish up high school after this. You don’t want to get behind.”

Josh shrugged for the thousandth time. “Does it matter? I wasn’t going to go to college anyway.”

“You can’t get a job anywhere without a high school diploma.” Her mouth twisted. “Believe me, I know.”

“You’ve done fine.”

“Do you think waitressing until my feet are covered in blisters and scrabbling for tips is ‘doing fine’? I want better for you than that. You should want better than that.”

Josh finally looked at her. “What about you? You don’t want better?”

“I do. That’s why I want to get my GED.”

“And how many times have you tried to get it? Three times?” The softness in his face disappeared within moments. “How many times until you finally give up?”

Emily stared at him in astonishment before anger took its place.

“If you’re just going to be insulting, I have no reason to stay. I don’t know what happened to my baby brother, but whoever he’s become? I don’t like him. At all. He’s mean and he’s hateful.”

She stood up, her voice still low but hard. “If you keep this up, you’ll end up in prison for real. Is that what you want? Because if you’re convicted of a felony, you won’t be able to get a job. You won’t be able to vote, or get a loan, or do anything with that conviction hanging over you.”

“Shit, Emily—”

“No, listen to me for once. Stop being so selfish. Think about what this is doing to me. Yes, me. I’ve worked my fingers to the bone to provide for you because I love you, but if you’re just going to toss your life away for something this stupid, I don’t want any part of it. Do you hear me? I don’t have to visit you. I don’t have to work with your attorney. I don’t have to write letters to the judge about what a good kid you used to be—I don’t have to do anything. I could let you get lost in the system and nobody would blame me.”

Josh stared at her, as if he didn’t know who she was anymore. Good, she thought. Maybe he’ll finally listen to me.

But then that hardness returned to his expression, and he just shrugged. Shrugged! “Do what you want,” he muttered. “I can take care of myself.”

“Then I hope you have a lovely time in prison,” she said scathingly.

When she got on the bus to return home, she stared at the floor, completely dazed. She almost missed her stop because her mind couldn’t compute what had just happened. She wanted to go back and tell Josh—what? She was sorry? She wasn’t sorry, because she’d spoken truthfully. But that didn’t make it hurt any less.

Emily tossed her bag onto the counter when she arrived home, her GED textbook slipping out as if to mock her. In that moment, she felt the futility of everything she was trying to do when the universe seemed so against her. She’d never wanted a lot—just to be secure, to be loved. To take care of her brother. Was that too much to ask?

She took out the GED textbook, staring at the words that floated and danced on the cover. Rage filled her. In a fit of anger, she threw the book at the wall. She wished the wall were Josh’s head, if only to knock some bit of sense into him.