Prologue

I never had a problem with where I was from. When I was young, I didn't know the difference. My elementary school was in a low income and bad part town and I had a single Mom who was doing her best to keep my little brother and I fed and happy. I never held it against her. It was just he way it was.

  I didn't have many friends growing up. I only had one friend when I was in the eighth grade, Callie Brown, and she was staying in Williamsburg to go to High School. I knew the other kids thought I was weird, because from a very young age I had to stay home and take care of Asa, my brother who was two years younger than me. I was probably eight, him six, when it started. We weren't allowed to tell people we stayed home alone then, sometimes for entire days. So the kids I went to school with thought I was just a weird kid who never wanted to have play dates or go to birthday parties.  My Mom tried to work mostly when we were in school, but she had to get a second job, when the diner started cutting back her shifts. Truthfully, I raised Asa on my own. And I lost out on my childhood because of it.

  For high school, my mom decided to register me at a community high school in the East Village, across the bridge. The high schools in Williamsburg were either expensive or very sketchy. Starting high school was the first time I realized there was big difference in what I was used to and how other families existed.  I wasn't sure about leaving Williamsburg for high school. I wasn't sure about leaving Asa behind. But I didn't have a choice.

  Thankfully, meeting Alex Lee on the first day of ninth grade made up for most of that. He had just moved to the city with his family that summer. I thought I was practically invisible that day, in a new place, at a new school with all new faces, but Alex saw me. He plopped down beside me in homeroom and told me his name. And that's how we became friends.

  "I'm Alex, you can call me Lex," he said, this goofy smile on his face.

  He was half Asian and he was just so cute, in a fourteen year old boy sort of way. He had big brown eyes and his hair was too long, flopping over his forehead.

  "I'm Penelope," I said, awkwardly smiling back.

  "That's a big name," he said, surprised.

  "I guess," I shrugged.

  "Well, I'll call you Pen," he decided.

  I quickly realized there was no way to avoid it, though I wouldn't have wanted to. Alex was outgoing and funny and everyone liked him, for different reasons. Even though he was just as new to High School and to the Easy Village as I was, he was just so likeable and outgoing. We stuck together like magnets, sitting together in the classes we had together and eating lunch together, at his locker or in the cafeteria. It was so easy, so comfortable, becoming good friends with him over the next few months.

  We had a lot in common, but only the small stuff like the type of music we liked and that we were both born in January. But I wasn't good at anything, had no interest in sports or extra curriculars, and Lex was, well, he was good at everything he did. Also, his family was middle to higher class, he said; he had two working parents, his Dad being a realtor who made a lot of money. He had an older sister, who was  pretty much perfect. He told me all of this within the first week of us meeting.

  I took a lot longer to tell him anything about myself. For months, we only saw each other at school. I didn't tell him about my family or even that I lived in Brooklyn. I didn't want to risk my friendship with him. By the end of the school year, I had finally told him where I lived and that my Mom worked two jobs, and that I had a younger brother. He had invited me to a party that I couldn't go to, so I had to have a reason. The truth came out, that day as we sat on a park bench after school.

  "I don't care that you live in Brooklyn, Pen," Lex told me. "I'm offended that you actually thought I'd care."

  "I have to stay home with my brother all of the time," I said slowly, my heart racing. I'd been avoiding seeing him outside of school, all year. Once in a while I would agree to coffee at the café nearby, but I'd only stay half an hour and then I'd run to the train station to get home before Asa. Lex was popular and always seemed to have somewhere to be and people to be with, so it wasn't hard to tell him I had to get home.

  "I still don't care," Lex went on, smiling. "Except that I have to see you over the summer. It's a requirement."

  "I just... I don't know. My brother is twelve and he can't take care of himself... I have to be at home," I admitted, embarrassed.

  "Are you allowed to have friends at your house?" he asked.

  I looked away. "I never really have."

  He didn't miss a beat. "Well, that changes now."

  Alex spent a lot of time that summer at my house, although there were many times that he left after dinner and was heading out to a party or to meet other friends, and I had to stay home. He didn't care that my house was practically falling apart. Asa loved him, and my Mom was happy that I had a real friend. She didn't mind that Alex was over a lot, since now there were two of us taking care of Asa. Asa turned thirteen that summer and I dreamed about a time when he would be able to be alone, but my Mom shrugged this off, saying he was no where near ready. I thought it was funny how she had no problem leaving me alone with him when I was only eight.

  Sophomore year, I got a bit more freedom, though it was short lived. Once a week, I was able to go out with Alex and his other friends, usually a Saturday night, and I left Asa at home by himself for a few hours. It was usually just a get together at someone's house, or sitting in a restaurant talking and laughing. But it was something. It made me feel normal.

  But by that Christmas, Asa was getting into trouble at school. His friends were older than him and were a bad influence. And then I caught him smoking pot with a guy my age, one evening in January. It was just before I turned sixteen, not like that mattered. After that, I had to leave school immediately when the bell rang and make it to Asa's school to pick him up, as if he was a damn toddler. And the once a week night's out with Alex had to stop. And that was when the resentment started.

  Asa didn't seem to care that I was the only one there for him, for a very long time. He didn't care that I had given up so much for him, and was still doing so. I was missing out on a lot of regular high school stuff. He only cared that I was stopping him from seeing his drug dealing friends. But I knew I had to do it, even though he hated me for it. I had to keep him safe, because there was no one else to do it. By that point, our Mom was not doing well. She was still working two jobs, but even when she wasn't working, she was hardly at home. It was like she had checked out entirely. I tried to tell her that Asa needed more attention, more structure, but she shrugged this off, telling me his he was fine.

  That spring, everything got a lot worse. The first time Asa ran away, he was gone for three days. My Mom acted like a zombie, all the time, when she was at home. She had to go from one job to the next and I was the one who had to deal with the outbursts and the hate coming from my brother. He was confused and angry and told me every day that he hated me. When he came home from being away for those three days, he was beat up. He had black eyes and a swollen lip, and he wouldn't talk to me.

  The summer before he started high school, he ran away again. This time we didn't see him for a week. The police brought him home, threatening to take him to juvie if he got in trouble again. Alex stuck around through all of this crap, but I also pushed him away a bit. I didn't want him to know how bad it really was at my house. My Mom was drinking a lot more, the small amount of time she was home, she was drunk. The second half of that school year - sophomore year - I didn't see anyone outside of school. It was very isolating. But it was what I had to do.

  I gave up the rest of that summer, as a sixteen year old, to spend with Asa, hoping I could finally get through to him. I was sure he just needed some attention, some love. Alex spent a lot time with us, too, though he had other friends and girls that wanted to see him. He kept calling. He didn't give up on me.

  "I'm so lucky I have you," I told Lex one August evening, sitting next to him on the back deck of my house.

  Asa was in the house playing loud, angry music. I had been trying for weeks to get through to him, to talk to him at all, and he made it very difficult. He would either swear at me or slam a door in my face, sometimes both.

  Alex looked at me, grinning. "I feel the same about you."

  "Why?" I asked him, shaking my head.

  "Because you are my Pen," he said, then laughed.

  "I just don't get why you want to be here, that's all. I mean, I have to be here, so my brother doesn't get sent to jail."

  "If you're here, I'm here," Lex smiled, though we both knew that wasn't always true.

  I didn't feel anything romantic towards Lex, and I was sure he didn't feel that way about me, either. He was just my first real best friend, so I knew not to ruin that with lovey feelings. I knew he dated other girls, went to parties. I saw pictures of him kissing girls on Facebook, sometimes, though my Mom's laptop only worked some of the time and I didn't have a phone. My social media presence was non existent.

~

In Junior year, my life changed completely.

  Asa started ninth grade, and being in the same school as him once again made it both easier and harder on myself. He was known within weeks as the "bad" kid from Williamsburg. He was always in trouble, picking fights, in detention or the principal's office. Some days I'd wished my Mom had just let him go to high school in Brooklyn. But we both knew what that would have meant for him.

  My guidance councilor, Mr. Jensen, scheduled a meeting with both Asa and I, in October, to talk. I was a good student, got good grades, had never been in trouble. Asa was the exact opposite. But Asa sat there beside me in that meeting, refusing to open his mouth. He embarrassed me, he angered me, and he disappointed me. I wanted to smack him on his head and tell him to smarten up. But it didn't matter what I said to him, he didn't seem to care.

  Just after Christmas that year, he was caught at school with both weed and cocaine in his locker. He was expelled, then sent to a juvenile detention center. He was gone, just like that. He was someone else's problem. That's how my Mom felt, anyway. It was like she was relieved he had been taken away. But not me. I missed him. I felt sorry for him. I visited him as often as I was allowed. I didn't feel relief that he was gone. I felt grief, emptiness. I knew I had tried hard to prevent it, but maybe not hard enough.

  My little brother turned fifteen in Juvie, and when I saw him the following weekend, he had a black eye. I gasped upon seeing him. He cried, breaking down, telling me how sorry he was, for everything. Finally, he had hit rock bottom. It was just a bit too late.

  "Asa, you just have to turn it around. You have time to make this better, okay?" I told him, my hands shaking.

  "Why didn't you give up on me?" he asked, through tears.

  "You're my brother," I said, squeezing his hand. "I love you."

  He had had a hearing to determine if he was going to be released to our mom, but she didn't show up. I wasn't eighteen, so I couldn't attend the hearing. He was stuck there, and I couldn't do anything about it - except try to change my Mom's mind.

  Now I was seventeen and still didn't have a phone, but I had more freedom than I'd ever had before. I felt like a new person, even though my brother had been torn out of my life. I wanted to get him out of there, but since I finally felt like my own person, I decided to try to take advantage of it.

  The first thing I did was get a job.