Word Count: 260
She woke up in another strange room, in a strange bed with a stranger. She was only sixteen. This wasn’t going so great after all.
She took the cash off the dresser she’d insisted he pay up front. Dressed quickly and left without looking to see if he’d gotten up. She didn’t care. There was no need to kiss him good morning or even goodbye.
The two girls met at the diner at the corner of Seventh and Fern. Shared coffee and forced giggles and dollar bills. They shared backgrounds as well: broken homes with abusive fathers and mouse mothers and brothers who snuck into their beds at night.
A year on the street is a decade. A night is a warm place to bed down. Friends are a network and strangers are everyone else. Neither is trusted, except for that one bond you can make with someone whom you trust to cover your back.
This bond was broken a week later when her friend was the next one found in the alley. They said her eyes were wide open, catching the last of the stars fading to morning. Word was her throat like the rest had been cut. It took till mid-morning to find her when a stranger called the police.
She went back to Ohio broken and broke and not because someone had found her. As far as she knew, no one had looked. She went back to Ohio all on her own. The father, the brothers, the mealy-mouthed mother were really all that she had.
