“Thanks, Sara.”
I expect her to leave, but she takes a step towards me.
“How are you, Emily?” she asks.
I flinch. Not because of her proximity, but because she really believes my name is Emily. The more I get to know her, the more it feels like a betrayal to keep certain things from her.
“Fine,” I reply vaguely. Details are what get you every time. Better to stay distant, abstract.
“I’m worried about you.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Why?”
She sighs. “Because you’re over-worked and very pregnant,” she says. “If you need money, I have some saved up.”
My eyes fill with tears of gratitude. It’s been a hard three months. Maybe harder than I even realize.
“Thank you. I really appreciate the offer,” I say. “But you’re saving up for college. I can’t take that in good conscience.”
“You can pay me back when you’re able to,” she says. “I know you’re good for it.”
I’ve been closeted from the world for so long, distrust ingrained into me from such a young age, that sometimes it still shocked me that there are such genuinely kind and generous people out there.
People like Sara.
“I can’t, Sara,” I say. “I love you for offering, but I’m good.”
The stash of money I’d taken with me from Aracelia’s has dwindled fast. No matter how sparing I am, it doesn’t seem to make much of a difference. This job helps slow the flow somewhat, but even then, my tattered envelope filled with bills has been getting thinner and thinner.
I never realized how expensive the simple act of living could be.
After leaving Aracelia’s house in the nameless village near Picacho del Diablo, I’d ditched the car on the side of the road and taken a bus into this grimy Mexican border town outside of Tijuana.
It checked all my boxes: anonymous, transient, and out of the way.
Perfect.
Not exactly paradise. But it’s the best place I could find to have my baby. It had taken me a day to find a cheap place to stay, a one-room apartment that cost me first and last months’ rate plus a hefty security deposit and an uncomfortable brusque conversation with the chain-smoking landlord to secure.
It isn’t anything to write home about. The bed is pushed to one side of the wall next to the kitchen and the shower is separated from the rest of the space by a plastic curtain.
To make matters worse, the toilet is located outside my apartment and I share it with the tenants in the two apartments down from mine.
But for the price—and more importantly, for not having to divulge a single piece of personal information—I’ve been willing to put up with all that.
It took me a little longer to find a job. No one was willing to hire a pregnant girl. Ruby at the diner was the only one who took a chance on me.
Even with my job, though, I’ve been just scraping by, hanging on to the last couple of hundred dollar bills from Artem’s stash.
How much longer can I live like this, I wonder?
“Emily?”
“Yes?” I say, looking up at Sara’s big blue eyes.
“I know there’s something you’re not telling me,” she murmurs, much to my surprise. “I know there’s something you’re running from. But I just want you to know: you can trust me.”
My heart thrums chaotically for a moment.