After a suffocating hour of staring at numbers dancing around the pages in front of me, I'm finally free to walk in peace to work. I escape Percy and Stacey and breathe in gulps of fresh air as I make a beeline for Les's, feeling once again in need of a good vent to someone who will give little to no advice.

However, when I walk into the store, yet again, Les is nowhere to be found. I stop, and my heart plummets into my stomach when I hear laughing from the back. I drop my backpack behind the counter, then approaching the curtain that separates the back from the front. I stare at it for a moment before pushing through it.

There's Les, reclined in a rickety lawn chair with a bottle of brandy in her hand and a cigarette between her lips, holding a deck of cards and laughing through a puff of smoke. Across from her is another lady, who's got a dark mullet and tattoos all up her sleeveless arms. She too is smoking a cigarette, and a bottle of whiskey sits next to her pile of cards as she is seemingly in the middle of an enthralling story. She's got a nose and a lip piercing, and rings all along her fingers, which she uses to put out her cigarette on the table before tossing the butt on the ground. I immediately don't like her, and can read the scene before me like an experienced archaeologist studying art on a cave's walls.

I stand in the doorway, frozen in place as I have a sudden, unwanted flashback of my mother and Cherry in a similar position, playing poker and drinking until they were blind. In those cases, I'd usually hide in my room, or else join them and also drink until I couldn't walk, but now all I can do is stare, my voice snatched from my throat and my mouth hanging half open.

The stranger notices me first, and she stops mid sentence, eyeing me up and down and smirking as she grabs another cigarette and lights it.

"Who's the kid?"

Les looks up from her hand, her eyes glazed over as she notices me in the doorway. Her expression barely changes to recognition before she snickers and adjusts a few of her cards.

"That's Alex."

"Hey, Alex," says the lady. "I'm Mel. Les and I went to college together."

I stare at her, and she raises her eyebrows before laughing, taking a long drag of her cigarette.

"She doesn't talk much, huh?"

Les glances at me lazily, putting down her cards and leaning back in her seat.

"Usually she doesn't shut up."

They both laugh some more, and my anger returns to me in half a second, boiling over as I glare.

"Are you gonna do your job, or are you just gonna stay back here and drink yourself to death?" I ask coldly, and Mel's eyebrows fly to her hairline once again before she bursts into laughter.

"Oh, she's got spunk, huh?"

Les laughs as well, and I have the sudden urge to lunge forwards and throttle her, or smack her in the face, or anything that will snap her out of this.

"You—" Les laughs. "You know, kid, I think I'll stay here and — how did you put it? — drink myself to death."

They both burst into laughter again, and I consider fighting her further, but I know that it's pointless. I know that the more I push, the more she'll push back, and there's nothing I can do to help her if she won't let me try.

So I just turn on my heel and push through the curtain, and they both jeer after me, and I'm so angry that I almost storm out, but there's a customer at the register, so I check her out. And then I check a few more out, and after etching mean words into the countertop for an hour, my anger dwindles, and I just feel annoyed. I feel annoyed at Les for putting me through this, and annoyed at my mother for making me accustomed to it, and annoyed at myself for not being able to do anything to stop it.

Les and Mel don't leave the back, once shouting at me to bring them a bottle of vodka. I just ignore them.

"Just the gum?" I ask dully to a middle-aged man in a bright yellow jumpsuit.

"Yeah," he says, then nodding behind him. "You guys are out of Coke, by the way."

I glance over his shoulder at the cooler, then nod.

"Thanks."

He takes his change and leaves, and I look back at the cooler before circling around the counter and approaching it. It's nearly entirely empty, only a few root beers and a toppled can of Sprite inhabiting the shelves. I frown, heading back to the counter and reaching under to grab the binder that Les uses to order the drinks, only to find her last entry to have been weeks ago. I sigh, glancing at the curtain to the back once more. It billows threateningly in the breeze of the ceiling fan, and I consider just leaving it, and letting the store run out of everything in hopes that that might at least get Les to do her job. But then I hear their laughter again, and I get another surge of anger, and I march right through to the back.

". . . and the cops pulled up, and we were all stuck in the bathroom, coke everywhere — and I mean everywhere, Les — and this bitch is crying her eyes out, and my brother's throwing up blood in the sink, and . . ."

Mel trails off when she sees me, and their laughing slowly dies down as Les notices me as well.

"What do you want now?" she asks, and now her words are slightly slurred, and her hands drop her cards on the counter with a loud slap.

"We need to do a drinks order," I say, my face set into a hard look and my voice coming out tight through my clenched jaw.

"All right," Les says, leaning back. "Then do it."

"I don't know how," I say, and she throws up a lazy hand as if telling me to get out.

"The number's in the book." She leans forwards and picks up her cards again, but I don't move.

"Can't you do it?"

She looks at me. "Why?"

"Oh, I dunno," I say sarcastically, "maybe because this is your damn store?"

She lets out a breathy laugh and Mel lets out a low whistle, grinning at her own cards. Les shrugs, leaning back once more.

"'m busy."

I huff, and roll my eyes. I know that as long as this Mel character is here, Les isn't gonna give me the time of day. It's obvious she's trying to impress her, or something.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?" I ask sharply, and Les laughs again.

"Isn't that what you're doin'?"

"I mean alone," I say, giving Mel a pointed look. She narrows her eyes at me, and I see a slight shift in her easygoing attitude, a dark glint in her eyes that I knew was there the whole time. Still, she laughs, shaking her head and standing up.

"Come on," she says, approaching me slowly with her bottle in hand. "Anything you wanna say to Les you can say to me."

She leans over me, reaching to the sink and grabbing a pack of cigarettes before lighting one right in my face and winking. I glare at her openly, then look to Les.

"Fine." I step around Mel to give her my full attention. "I think you should stop drinking."

Mel lets out a loud laugh and turns to face me, leaning on the sink with her cigarette hanging from her lips.

"Who invited the twelve-year-old, again?"

Les grins, shaking her head. "Relax, kid, I goddit under control."

"Really?" I say, my voice loud. "Because this doesn't look like control to me — you've got a middle-schooler running your store!"

"You're perfectly capable," Les says, raising a lazy hand to gesture to the front, "besides, you needa start doin' the orders anyway."

I stare at her, real, thick anger coursing through my veins. Mel is still laughing next to me, and looking at her taunting face is my last straw. I reach forwards and grab her bottle right from her hand, heading for the sink.

"Hey!" she snaps, and her smile has dropped in an instant. "Give that back you little shit!"

But I'm already dumping it out, and I turn to face her with a straight face as I do so. A dark look crosses her features, and the air around her changes as she smiles a smile that no longer looks nice on her face.

"I'm gonna give you two seconds to get the hell out of here before I take matters into my own hands," she says, her voice low and a snarling smile curling her lip.

I stare at her, my face still unfazed, before heading to the table and grabbing her bottle of whiskey. She lunges forwards, putting her hand on the bottle to keep it on the table, her rings clinking against the glass. Her smoky breath hits my face, and her eyes flash with danger, her jaw clenching as I stare at her.

"Let go of the bottle, kid," she says lowly, threateningly. I glance at Les, who watches the scene in a drunk stupor, and I consider my odds. They aren't good, but I've beaten worse.

I bring my heel down on the top of Mel's cheap sneakers, and she shouts out, letting go of the bottle and jerking away for a moment. I turn for the sink, but I'm not fast enough as she recovers.

"That's it!" she growls, grabbing my arm roughly and spinning me around. She tugs at the bottle, and I tug back. "Let go!"

I wrench it away, and she lets go, and I think maybe she's given up, but then I realize she only wanted to free a hand in order to send it across my face as hard as she possibly can.

The bottle goes flying, smashing against the edge of the sink as I stumble against the far wall, seeing stars and losing balance. I catch myself on a cart we use to move inventory around, and bring a hand up to my face, which is bleeding bad. I feel the imprint of Mel's rings on my cheekbone and lip, and my jaw clicks as I rub it.

Mel starts to laugh again, and my rage comes faster than it ever has. I look to Les, whose mouth is open as she stares at me, and then to Mel, who's doubled over in a fit of glee, and I start to see red as blood seeps into my eyes.

I run at Mel before she can straighten up, and tackle her to the ground, punching her in the face as she screams and tries to kick me off.

"Woah!"

"Get off of me!"

"Alex!"

I'm pulled off of her after two hits, and I continue to try and kick her fallen body as she rolls over with a bloody nose.

"Shit!"

"Let go of me!" I shout at Les, but she carries me out of the back room and pushes me through the curtain.

"Get out!" she shouts, and I stagger back a few steps, looking at her in shock.

"What?"

"You heard me! Get the hell out!"

I stare at her.

"Me get out?" I ask incredulously. "What about that raging coke-head you're harbouring in there? The one that smacked a kid across the face? What about her, huh!?"

"It's your fault for sticking your nose where it doesn't belong!" Les shouts. "You're not my friend, you know that? You're just some stupid, messed up kid that I pulled off the street! I tried giving you a job to keep you out of trouble, to give you a shot instead of going to the police, and this is how you repay me?!"

"Yeah, and this job is getting a lot harder to do now that you sit on your ass all day and drown yourself in whiskey!" I shout. "I'm not gonna sit here and watch you do this to yourself!"

"Then leave!" Les shouts, pointing to the door.

"Leave?" I ask, again dumbfounded with her logic.

"Yeah!" She steps forwards. "You're fired!

I stare at her, my face reddening until the blood on it is almost camouflage. I want to cry, but I push away the tears.

"Fine! Fire me, see if I care! I never wanted to work in this shit hole in the first place!" I turn around and march towards the door. "Good luck running this store without me!"

I slam the door behind me, and it shatters, the bottom window dissolving into pieces of glass that scatter on the sidewalk. I stop for a moment, looking at the damage I did before deciding that I don't care and turning on my heel again.

Tears fly from my face, and I kick over trash can after trash can as I march along the dark streets. It's nearly nine, and only a few cars pass me in my fit of rage, none of them stopping to wonder what a beaten up kid is doing destroying their neighbourhood.

I slam the front door when I walk in, and it's just my luck that Joey and Danny are sitting on the couch watching a basketball game.

"Woah—!"

"No slamming the door—"

Their voices cut off as they see my face, and I tug off my shoe in anger, throwing it in the corner and not even looking at the two men as they stare in shock at me and stand up.

"What's all the noise?" Jesse walks in from the kitchen as I straighten up, my hair hanging in a curtain across my face. "Alex? What are you doing home so early?"

"I got fired," I mumble, going at my second shoe before throwing it with my other.

"Woah woah woah!" Jesse is across the room in a minute, and he grabs my arm as I head for the staircase. I try to turn away from him, but he crouches down and pushes my hair from my face.

I stare at the floor for a moment before glancing at him with tears in my eyes, and his face is ashen as he examines my cheek. Then, his eyes darken, and he switches his gaze to mine.

"Did Les do this to you?" he asks, and my anger is back again, sucking my tears away.

"No." I push him away from me and head for the stairs. "It was someone else."

"Alex. Alex, wait," he says, rushing forwards and pulling me from the stairs. "I've gotta call this in. You have to tell me who did this to you."

"It was just some junkie," I say, wrenching my arm from him. "But it's fine, I hit her back."

I escape up the stairs then, and Jesse doesn't follow, and I know he knows I need to cool down before he can get any answers from me. Forty minutes later, after I've stopped seething and am just glaring at my wall in weak fury, I hear a knock on my door.

"Alex."

"Yeah," I say with a sigh, and Jesse peeks his head in, the sliver of light from outside shining on my bed. I sit up, and he ducks inside, sitting on my bed in front of me.

"There's really nothing you can do," I say right away as he opens his mouth, and he looks at me for a moment before sighing.

"Okay," he says. "But what I can do is help you patch that up. Some of those cuts look deep."

"She was wearing rings," I say, and let him pull me to my feet. He looks white as a sheet again, and leads me to the bathroom.

"You got her good, though?"

I nod. "Split lip and a bloody nose."

"Broken?"

"Nah, wasn't lucky enough."

Jesse sits me on the toilet lid and cleans my wounds, and I try not to think anymore about the events that transpired, or the anger still simmering low inside my belly. He puts a bandage by my eyebrow and on my cheekbone, and some ointment on my lip, then touching the tender skin around my eye and sighing.

"I don't think you'll have too bad of a bruise," he says, sitting in front of me with Danny's emergency first-aid kit splayed across the floor. "And luckily you won't need stitches, but I'm gonna get you an ice pack and some pills for the pain."

"No pills," I say as he stands, and he looks at me.

"Doesn't it hurt?" he asks, and I nod. He stares at me for a moment before looking like he understands, and nods back, leaving the room.

I lean against the back of the toilet, entirely exhausted from an emotionally, mentally, and physically draining day. I feel the ice cold sting of betrayal as I recall Les's words; I'm not sure if I ever really thought we were friends, but I never thought she'd let someone hurt me like that and then tell me it's my own fault. It's so much like how my mom used to be that I berate myself for somehow getting caught in it again. Am I cursed to play the same role everywhere I go? Losing the people I care about to alcoholism? Getting beat up when I try to help them? I feel abandoned all over again, and the slightly healed wound from my mother is torn open, just as ugly and gory as it was when I first got here. I thought living here would mean that I'd never have to suffer again, but suffering seems to follow me around like a lost puppy, biting at my ankles and pushing me further and further to a limit I'm not sure I'm far from reaching.