{Cary}

A tap-tap-tap woke Cary, and he opened his eyes, blinking at Jon's worried face peering in through the window. "How come you slept out here?" Jon asked.

Cary climbed stiffly out of the car, stretching tall, reaching his hands to brush the sky. "Weird dreams."

"Nightmares again?"

"Kind of." Cary leaned into the warm cave of the car, gathering his drawing book. Just touching it bumped against his anger again, like finding a large piece of furniture in what had previously been an empty room. He folded the cover down over the pages he had worked on during the night, noticing the space inside him that was full of feelings now, just sitting there full-sized and real.

He touched Jon with a look, seeing his pinched expression and the way he darted his eyes away like he couldn't bear to look at him directly. Or have Cary look directly at him.

Cary knew where his anger belonged now, and that made it possible for the rest of his feelings to be in the right places inside him. He recognized hurt and sadness in the feelings attached to Jon—he wasn't angry at him anymore.

"What are those?" Jon asked hesitantly. "I notice you draw a lot—are you working on something?"

Cary tried to tidy up the uneven stack of pages stuffed between the covers of his drawing book. A bunch of shit from his childhood was in there—and Split-lip, and the pool of tears. He didn't know how to describe it. "You want to see it?"

Jon nodded.

Cary let his eyes rest on his friend's bowed head, wishing Split-lip could be as real for Jon as he was for him. He held out the book, and Jon touched him with a quick look, his eyes wide with surprise, taking it.

Jon trailed after him into the house, hugging the book against his chest. Cary stood in the tiny kitchen, feeling his stomach rumble. "Tru's not here," Jon said. "I checked when I was looking for you."

Cary started to open one cupboard after another. "Your appetite back yet?"

"Kind of," Jon said.

He gently shut the cupboards again, glancing out the window like Tru might hear them. There wasn't anything quick to eat, unless they wanted to open another can of chili. A ceramic bowl of eggs sat on the counter, their shells soft shades of pink and brown, and a cast iron pan gleamed black on the stove.

He lit the burner underneath it and started cracking the eggs. The yolks were a startling dark yellow color—nothing like the pale specimens Jon's mom brought back from the grocery store.

Tru came in as he was scrambling the eggs in the pan. Cary glanced sideways at her, catching her giving him a similar look as she shrugged out of a faded pair of coveralls. "Helped yourself, I see," she said.

"I can give you something for groceries," Cary said.

"Ain't much here I didn't grow myself or get from my own animals. Need to get into town for some bread, maybe."

Cary gave her a quick look. "You always live alone?" he tried.

She brushed the question aside. "Just about. Never met a person I liked as good as my own self. Ain't seen no one here in years, and now you two."

He lifted the pan and pushed eggs onto a plate. He leaned against the counter to eat standing up, the heat of the stove next to his hip, too hungry to wait another minute. "Can I have something to drink?" He put his hand over his mouth, speaking while it was still full.

She brought a pottery pitcher out of the fridge, pouring a tall glass of milk. Setting the glass on the counter between them, she crossed her arms, watching him sideways. He paused from shoveling the eggs in his mouth to wash his breakfast down with a long cold draft. Everything tasted so good today—he couldn't tell if it was the farm food or having his body full again.

"Your friend says there's a trial." She rubbed the swollen knuckles on her hand. "For your momma?"

Cary drew himself up, alarmed at the idea. "No." Liam needed at least one parent to look after him. "Conall."

"What charges are they getting to stick?"

He cleaned the last bite up from his plate, taking time to answer. "There's names for them I don't remember." There was a little heat in his belly, choosing his words. "Times he laid his belt on me 'til I blacked out. Times he locked me in the basement. Shit I got scars to prove."

He turned aside to put his dishes in the sink, feeling like he could have shoved the ceiling aside with his shoulders and stepped over the walls to climb out of the room. He put his palm against his stomach to remind himself how big he was supposed to be, and ran the water in short bursts over the dishes. The noise of the water rushing out and striking the china and the stainless steel anchored him in the room pretty good. He tapped his fingers against the edge of the sink. "You got a coffee pot I can use, ma'am? I found a can of grounds, but not a way to make them."

She was steadying herself with her hand spread on the counter between them as she looked at him. Her fingers were long like his mother's, but calloused and blunt with work. She turned aside and reached into the cupboard, bringing down an enamel pot with a bang and beginning to scoop coffee into it.

He went into the living room and found Jon curled on the couch, wrapped in a blanket covered in dog hairs. "Eggs are made," Cary said. He touched Jon's shoulder. "Jon."

His friend's eyes opened, muddy and grey in his pale face, and he unfolded and followed him into the kitchen.

Tru was heating the coffee pot on the stove top, the strong dark smell filling the room. There was sunlight edging through the window in the back door, spilling onto the worn tile and making motes in the air. Cary felt his face relax into a smile and he turned it on Tru. "I like your place. I see why you stayed. Wish we had visited when I was a kid."

She bent her cropped head and turned aside. "I been happy on my own. Peace is hard enough to come by."

Cary piled eggs on a plate for Jon, stealing a look at the woman next to him, running his eyes quick over the weathered skin of her hands, arms and neck. All the things she wasn't saying made him think to check for scars.

Tru sloshed coffee into a chipped mug. "You take something in it?"

"Milk and sugar, please," he said quietly.

She thumped a stoneware crock onto the counter between them, and poured herself a cup, glaring at the back of Jon's head. "Ain't you both in school? You can't be old enough to be done yet."

He buried his face in the steam. "Jon's still recovering," he said. "I'm staying with him 'til he's well enough to go back. I ain't that smart. I don't think it matters if I go back or not."

She snorted. "Ain't that smart. I remember you, child."

He took a gulp of coffee, taken aback by her recollection of a child he didn't recognize at all. "Well, he must've knocked it outta me since then," he said dryly. "School ain't going to miss me, and that's mutual."

For a second, Tru looked furious, like she might light into him right there with her sharp tongue. Instead she said, "What's he got? Your friend. What's he been sick with?"

He hesitated, looking at Jon's bowed shoulders and his fingers picking crumbs off the table and dropping them onto a plate.

"Opioids," Jon answered her, quiet and flat. "Drugs I was using for broken ribs and got addicted. I quit last week, and I'm still working on getting better."

Her gaze swung from the back of Jon's head to Cary's face. He couldn't tell from her expression if she'd had any experience with this before. She just looked furious. "If you're planning on staying longer I suppose I hafta call your mother and tell her you're here."

Cary wrapped his fingers around his mug for warmth. "You don't. She's not—my parent anymore." Tru looked sharply at him, and Cary hunched his shoulders. "She signed the papers to say she's done with me. You can call if you want, but she don't got no say on me."

"And his parents?"

Jon lifted his head, looking warily at them from the table.

"They don't have a say in me neither," Cary said.

"They want you back?" Tru addressed Jon directly, and Cary saw Jon's face collapse with the blunt force of her question.

"No ma'am," he said in a low voice. "I don't think they do." Cary looked sharply at him.

Tru's jaw was set, and her eyes were intent on Cary under her thick eyebrows. "You don't ask for much, do you sweetheart?"

Cary bit the inside of his mouth, holding her look, trying to plead with whatever scrap of kindness she had left. He could sleep in the car or go back to the shelter, but Jon needed a place to stay for at least a couple of days that was stable. And isolated.

Jon pushed his chair back, the scrape loud in the silence. "If it's me—I'll go. If it's easier just to have Cary." His eyes touched Cary's face a moment, his mouth twisted like an apology.

"You go—I go," Cary said.

"This was my stupid idea," Jon said. "To come along and fuck things up for you." He ducked his head. "Just tell me what you decide when you're done your talk." He shuffled out of the kitchen.

Tru frowned after him, then turned her frown on Cary. His ears heated as he held her eyes, clenching the mug like he could hide behind it. Pete had made it look so easy, opening his home and welcoming him in with way too few questions asked.

"I couldn't sleep for thinking what to do with you." Her face and voice were hard, like Jon's presence had kept her from being as blunt as she wanted to be. "Your parents been dead to me for years now. I don't want them around here, coming back to fetch you, or calling me to find where you are. I want to be left alone."

Cary's fingers were cold against the warmth of the mug and his eyebrows drew down, matching her look. "They're not coming back for me," he said roughly. "I'm on my own."

She made a sharp noise in her teeth. "Look at you—you're his spitting image. I said I'd get used to you, but seeing you standing there with that glare of his and those big fists for swinging makes my skin crawl."

He just caught himself from making a sharp reply of his own, swallowing the bitterness of her anger instead. His eyes stung and he swore softly, knuckling his eye. "Aunt Tru. I'm not him." He was leaking now, and this was too important to shut down and leave. "I'm sorry." He shoved his fists under his arms and lifted his face to hers. "I am. For the harm my parents done to you. I got enough of it wrote on my own skin." He arched his back, wishing he could get a full breath in. "If you can just give us a week, 'til I talk at the trial, an' I make sure my baby brother don't have to grow up like that. We don't need nothing from you except a place that's safe and away. I'll do whatever needs doing around here. Please."

She studied his face, like she was absorbing every detail. "I never seen him cry," she said slowly. "Did you?"

He put his hand over his mouth, blinking while he held her eyes, and feeling tears, damp and warm, running into the corner of his jaw. He shook his head once.

She turned her face to the window, the lines and wrinkles momentarily erased in the light. "Take the week, then," she said finally. She bent her head and sighed so deeply it seemed to come from the ground under her feet. "You can have room and board 'til the trial."

He was stunned speechless. She glared at him, her eyes too bright in the folds of her skin. "Don't give me a reason to regret this, sweetheart. Get on outta here 'til I call you for chores."

*How do you feel about Tru now? She's pretty crusty but she definitely grew on me!*