*Keep breathing lovelies, we got the boy out. I'll tell you a little more about this shelter at the end of the chapter...*

{Cary}

A staff person in shorts and a hot pink t-shirt looked up from his magazine when Cary came, blinking, through the doors. The guy smiled, but his eyes were uninterested. "Hi, are you looking for a place to stay?"

Cary nodded.

"Come on back. I'll give you a run-down of the shelter rules and do the paperwork on you."

Cary followed him into the main office, a big open space, with phones and computers and a window looking into the rec area. He wanted a smoke; he had to do an intake interview before he could go out back and light up.

The staff guy took his name and age and vital stats and explained the long list of shelter rules. Cary tuned out. He'd been here before; it was pretty straightforward—keep curfew, respect the staff, do chores when it was your turn. The youth shelter was temporary housing, which meant after thirty days he needed to find someplace else to stay. Most kids didn'tmake it past day ten. After living on your own, even if it was just sleeping under a bridge, the shelter rules and structured routine quickly became an impossible price to pay for three okay meals and a bed.

After Cary's own house, the shelter was easy.

When the guy finished talking, Cary said, "Is there a nurse or something?" He brushed his hand over the bruise on his cheek. "I think those kids broke my ribs. I'd really like a Tylenol."

The even way he spoke seemed to throw the guy off. He looked closely at Cary for the first time. "Um—no. There's no nurse. I'll ask my director about a Tylenol. Sorry, how did you break your ribs?"

"The fight with some kids from school. You wrote it down in your notes there." Cary pointed at the notepad between them. "When you call my mom she'll tell you all about it."

The staff guy nodded. "Right. I'll send someone with the Tylenol, if my director says that's okay."

"Thanks." Cary got up. "I'll be in the smoke pit." He headed through the office doors to the concrete yard at the back of the building where residents were permitted to smoke.

///

There were a couple kids already in the back, clustered together and goofing off while they passed a cigarette around. There was a girl Cary knew from the north doors, laughing loudly with her mouth wide open while two or three guys looked on hungrily. Cary kept his distance.

There was a storage shed making shade on the other side of the yard. Cary put his back against it and gingerly lowered himself to the ground. He didn't care about the kids or the phone call to his mother that was probably happening in the office. He lit his cigarette and turned his attention inside himself, checking the damages to try to figure out how long he needed to recover.

His hands remembered how hot Liam had been as he'd screamed and twisted underneath him. Cary stuffed his fists into his armpits. He knew exactly where Liam had bruises: every place Cary's fingers had touched him, holding him so tight. The stone lid scraped back a crack and there was a hole in him dark to the bottom. He heard his mother saying, I wasn't afraid before, and what she meant slipped up out of that crack, clear as if she had said it out loud: You scare me like he does.

He sat still watching the shadows lengthen in the yard, noticing the shape of the light and the dark as if he were planning to make them into a drawing. It worked; after a few minutes he was blank again. There was nothing inside him except the things his body told him: he was hurting and he was looking at light and shadow—one didn't matter more than the other.

His phone rang. He took it out and looked at the screen. Jon. His stomach twisted. They were supposed to meet this afternoon to work on their essays. He picked up. "Yeah."

"Where are you?" Jon sounded completely freaked out. "I went to your house and your mom said you didn't live there anymore—What the hell is going on?"

Cary looked at the brick wall of the shelter, trying to find it in him to make up a story that would calm Jon down. He scraped bottom: he didn't have anything left for Jon just now. "I'm at the youth shelter on Strathcona. "

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah." He covered his eyes. The jagged edge of his rib slid in and out on his breath. "I'll be okay in a couple of days."

There was a beat of silence. He could hear talking in the background on Jon's end. "Who's with you?" he asked sharply.

"No one," Jon said. "I'm on the bus. My dad dropped me at your house and then you weren't there. Cary. Are you going to tell me what happened or just leave me with the pile of lies your mom told me about how you hurt your brother? Because I know that's crap."

It made him feel something that Jon didn't believe her. It was a tiny spark of warmth. "My father came back early. He was—like he gets, and I fucked up."

"I'm coming there. I'm changing busses."

"You can't; the shelter doesn't take visitors."

"Then meet me at Gazebo."

Cary started to get to his feet. He made an involuntary noise of pain; his whole left side had stiffened up and he would be lucky to make it to the dining room for supper. "I can't. I can't walk that far."

He had never heard Jon sound so close to scary. "Tell me. Exactly. What he did to you."

Cary wrapped his free arm around himself, pressing the palm of his hand against the bruises on his ribs. The counter had sheltered his right side, but the left side of his body had the shit kicked out of it. "I think my ribs are broken," he said evenly. "He hit me with the kitchen stool to try to—crack me open and get Liam. I had him under me. That's how I hurt him—holding him too tight."

Jon sucked in his breath. "You have to let me tell my dad."

He went rigid. "No."

"Cary, please."

"No! What the fuck good would that do if your dad even believed you?"

"You can't leave Liam there with him!"

Cary laughed sharply and then had to hang onto the corner of the shed while black pressed all around the edges. When he could breathe he said, "You don't get it, Jon. I'm the problem. If I just keep out of Liam's life he'll be better. They're good now. It's over."

"Then what about you? What are you supposed to do?"

"I'll be fine." The phone fed the words back to him, faint and echo-y.

"Cary—" Jon's voice broke.

"Jon, if you tell I will lie my fucking face off, and you will look really stupid."

He heard Jon take a breath. "Okay." He sounded soft, like he was crying. "I won't. Please call me if you need help, okay?"

"Sure." Cary closed his eyes. He'd done it; Jon was shut up. He couldn't do anything about how his friend sounded so sad. Jon just needed to get tough. "I gotta go for supper."

"'Kay," Jon said. "Bye."

Cary hung up. He wrapped his arms around himself, holding still. The other kids were going inside; the dining room was open. He needed to go with them and eat something to stay strong enough to sit and stand and act like everyone else. He needed to pull it together, to shove the stone lid over the basement full of rooms with shit inside and go on. He was too tired to move.

There was a boy coming across the pavement toward him, his crown of blond hair shining in the sun. Cary frowned. He recognized this kid from somewhere, but not from school.

"Taylor said to find you with these." The boy's high, sweet voice took Cary back to the church steps, the last time he ran away. It was the kid who'd been with Mike, the one who said crazy shit about seeing what was going on with people.

The boy's round face lit up in a smile. "Care, I didn't know it was you." He crouched, holding out a couple of Tylenols and a plastic cup of water. Cary took them, watching the boy sideways.

"You work here?" Cary asked.

"No, I just stay here a lot." The boy's friendly face didn't cloud over; this was just a fact of life. "The dining room is open. Leftover church potluck: turkey and mashed potatoes. It looks pretty good."

Cary started to push himself to his feet. The boy stuck out his hand and hauled him up. His eyes touched the bruise on Cary's face, then politely slid away.

"What's your name anyways?" Cary asked.

"Leonard. Most of the kids call me Down Low. You can too if you want. I don't mind."

Cary took another look at his child-like face and open expression. Downs—that explained a bit. But Cary didn't plan to call him anything. He was hoping entire days would go by where he didn't have to say anything to anyone.

Leonard held the door open for Cary; that was a little annoying. The boy followed him to supper and sat next to him at the empty table, smiling around the room like there was something lovely about the scratched table tops and concrete walls.

Cary kept an eye on the other two tables of kids. The dining room was only half-full and, with the exception of one thick-chested older boy, he was pretty sure he could take any of the others in a fight—at least, if his left side wasn't so fucked up. Head down, mouth shut until he was healed. Probably after that, too.

He looked at his half-eaten turkey, pink and rubbery in a pool of gravy. He swallowed, sick again. His body would mend, blindly repair itself and keep on: heart beating, lungs breathing, brain making his eyes blink and his legs and arms move. But Cary didn't know what for. Tomorrow and every day after that unfolded blank and white, empty as death. In fact, he was pretty sure being dead would hurt less.

He put his knife and fork down, finished. His mouth was dry and tacky. He drank his cup of powdered Tang juice to the dregs.

"Are the dorms open?" he asked without looking at Leonard. He didn't want to go to the effort of getting up until he was sure he knew where he was going.

"Yeah, and I have my own room. Do you want to stay with me? I'll make sure it's okay with the staff."

Cary shot a look at the guys at the other table. The bigger guy was teasing the girl with the teeth, snapping her bra strap on her shoulder. She caught it back, glaring at him. Good chance if he didn't bunk with Leonard, he'd be with one of them.

"Sure," Cary said.

The boy's dorm was one floor: six rooms with four or five bunks each. Leonard's room was closest to the bathrooms. His bed was neatly made up, with the blanket tucked in at the foot and the corners folded like a present. Cary set his backpack at the foot of the lower bunk across from it, then dropped onto the bed, exhausted.

He got out of his jacket and stretched out on the bare, plastic mattress. He slung an arm over his face, intending to shut his eyes for just a second. He was asleep before Leonard came back with the sheets.

///

He woke up with a sharp intake of breath, looking up at the bunk hanging low over his face and then at the dim room around him. Where was he?

Leonard looked up from where he sat propped in the corner of his bed, reading by the light of a flashlight. Cary rolled over to sit up, still disoriented. His rib punched him in the side and he caught the bunk above him to keep from tipping out of bed onto his face while the wave of pain slammed into him.

"You okay, Care?" Leonard asked softly.

"In a sec," Cary said through his teeth.

"Do you want me to get more Tylenol?"

The wave receded, rippling on the edge of Cary's awareness, ready for him should he move too quickly again. He kept his breaths shallow and careful. "Sure," he said.

Leonard swung his feet out of his bed. He was wearing big furry slippers, so worn and dirty they were more grey than white. "I'll be right back." His worried face flashed in the dimness and he was gone.

Leonard had made up the bunk next to his for Cary. The blankets were tucked in at the feet, exactly like his own. Cary painstakingly moved his backpack to the foot of that bed. He was going through its contents when Leonard returned.

Cary took the cup and the white pills, touching Leonard's eyes with his own for just a second. "Thanks."

The boy sat across from him, watching Cary drink with a worried expression. He had his feet lined up exactly side-by-side, the twin flop-eared doggies panting up at them in the dark. "Did someone do that to you? You're pretty..." he moved his hand to Cary, the bruises showing on his bare arms. "You're pretty banged up, Care."

"It's Cary," he said. He set the empty cup on the desk beside the bunks. He didn't think anything would turn Leonard's worried look aside except some kind of truth. "I don't like to talk about it, okay Down Low?"

Leonard curled his shoulders in. He went to his bed and slid under the blankets. "Okay," he whispered.

Cary re-packed his backpack. His mother had swept everything from his desk into the bag: his drawing book and the homework he'd been working on. She'd also put money in his wallet. He fingered the bills, then touched the edge of the razors tucked into the card pockets. She'd been in a hurry to not notice them. He buried the wallet at the bottom of his bag. He was a little too glad to see it.

*So this is the Youth Emergency Shelter on Whyte Ave, in Edmonton AB, Canada. I worked there one amazing summer in my early twenties. The kids I created for this story are fictional, but this is my memory of a very real youth shelter, doing very real nitty-gritty work with kids in my city.*