But now that we didn’t have that one very important element of connection, I hadn’t expected our friendship to continue.

Particularly not after everything that had gone down before I came here.

But I appreciated Dania’s visits. Though I’d never tell her that. We weren’t the sort to share our feelings.

I chewed on my bottom lip and looked around the cramped visiting room. Most of the other kids were being visited by family. Mothers and fathers. Brothers and sisters. The stupid bastards had no idea how lucky they were.

“I don’t know. I figured I find something,” I answered belligerently, not letting on to my complete lack of planning.

Dania snorted. “Are you planning to camp out in the park you dumb ass?” she scoffed and I found myself clenching my hands into fists. Her dismissal irritated me.

“I guess I’ll just dip into my trust fund early,” I sneered.

Dania rolled her eyes and popped her bubblegum noisily. “Yeah, well if that doesn’t pan out, you could always come and stay with me for a while,” she offered, smoothing her long, dark hair away from her face.

I blinked at her in surprise. Was she serious?

“I’m not going back to that place,” I replied tersely. There was no way in hell I’d ever step foot in Mr. and Mrs. Beretti’s house ever again. I’d rather chew off my own arm.

“Psh. I moved out of the pedo palace two months ago when I turned eighteen. My social worker helped me find a place in town. It’s only a one bedroom but at least I don’t have to lock the bathroom door when I take a fucking shower.” Dania popped her gum again. “You can crash on the couch until you find your own place.”

I opened my mouth but no words came out. The last thing I ever expected was for Dania to offer to help me in anyway. Dania Blevins was a selfish person. She used and abused others without thinking twice. Just before the fire at the Hendrick’s house I had been slowly and carefully separating myself from Dania and the rest of our group.

I had grown tired and disgusted with the way they treated others. I was sick of their fucked up head games and how quickly they’d turn on you if you didn’t agree with whatever they had to say.

It had become harder and harder to look the other way at the things they did.

But then the fire happened.

And I was sent to Spadardo’s.

Things that had started to seem so clear in the weeks before had become blurry and muddled and not as important.

Especially not when I was now full of a bitter anger that erased everything else.

I wouldn’t allow myself to think of him.

He had been the reason I was so willing to turn my back on the girl who sat across from me.

What an idiot I had been.

“Really?” I asked, refusing to show how relieved I felt at her offer.

Dania shrugged. “Sure. Why not? But just so you know, it won’t be a free fucking ride. You’ll have to help with rent and shit. And you can’t just sit on your ass and eat all of my Pringles. I’ll cut your damn fingers off if you go near my moisturizer. But yeah, for a while, I think it’ll be cool.”

For the first time I felt that maybe Dania was a real friend. The kind who would be there when your world fell apart.

That maybe under that bitchy exterior, she had come to care about me.

I couldn’t claim to feel that way towards her. My emotions were stunted and muted under the weight of resentment.

“Thanks, Dania,” I finally said.

Dania smiled. A real one. “That’s what friends are for.”

A horn honked from behind me, startling me. I almost flipped them off in my rearview mirror but thought better of it. No sense alerting the locals that bad ass Ellie was back.

I had, without realizing it, come to a complete stop at the intersection in the middle of town. I put my blinker on and turned down a familiar side street, slowly driving past JAC’s Quick Stop and thought briefly about stopping.

But I kept on driving, eyes trained forward.

Maybe it was completely selfish of me, but I had thought little of Dania, my former best friend, in the years I had been away.

Sure, every once in a while I wondered how she was doing. I wondered if she had ever been able to turn her life around. But I would never allow myself to think about her for too long.

My mind ran scared of any and all thoughts that would remind me of the despicable person I had been.

And I sure as hell never thought about the other people who had formed my shallow and miserable inner circle—Shane Nolan, Reggie Fisher, and Stu Wooten. I had never particularly liked any of them.

But getting the hell away from them and the shit storm I had lived had been the biggest motivation to leave.

I remembered that moment when I packed my car and drove out of town, unsure, lacking confidence; terrified I was making a huge mistake.

And for the first few months I had been convinced that I was right. But then slowly, I began to realize that maybe I could be something better. Something more.

It had been the most liberating feeling I could ever remember having.

Now here I was, back in my own personal hell. It was hard to associate this town with anything other than my misery. It was where my mother had left me. It was where I had been bounced from foster home to foster home, never finding a family.

It was here that I had made friends with a lonely boy and then I had hurt him in the worst way possible.

But it was also here that I found him again and then fell in love.

So maybe these streets, these houses, these shops, weren’t all bad.