Page 35 of Stay Dangerous

The house was in a trust, whatever that meant. But I knew I didn’t have to worry about that, either.

It was just these bills.

I grabbed them, grabbed the cash from the coffee table, and ran to my room, locking the door behind me.

In thirty minutes, I’d calculated how long we could survive with this, and put money away for groceries.

Give or take a year and a half.

We’d both have to get jobs.

Auty could have swept for Frankie in her shop, I reasoned. The strip mall had a dance studio she kept asking her about. More money from the main stack was added to the grocery stack.

There was no reason Auty couldn’t dance, since I was in charge. With me in charge, she could do whatever she wanted.

This boy who liked me at school, his family owned a liquor store around the corner. I made plans to cozy up to him and ask him to hook me up with an after school job. He had been crying about being on the flag football team, but there was no one to cover his shifts.

It was something.

We could do this.

I glanced at my phone; quarter to seven. My panic had simmered as I reached beneath my bed and pulled out some whiskey.

One big swig and my panic washed down my throat with the burn of the alcohol.

We could do this.

We could live without them.

Now, I just had to figure out if and how to tell Auty.

“She’d tell Pops… or tell Turkey, who’d tell Pops… I can’t risk it. Nope. Can’t risk it.” I took another gulp, stood from the floor, and got a shoebox from my closet for the money, bills, and plans.

Slipping out of my room, I tried to go into my parents’ room but the door was locked.

“Typical,” I spat, just as the front door opened.

I walked out of the hallway and stood face to face with Auty.

She looked around. “Where are they?”

“Gone,” I said, going to sit on the couch. “Come sit. We need to talk.”

She watched me sit, only moving once I shifted so that I was facing her.

“What’s going on?” she asked, fear rising in her voice.

“I talked to Mom and Dad,” I began, trying to sort through how I was gonna pull this off with her. Fortunately, Auty was so consumed in her own teenybopper world with Turkey, that she didn’t question much, especially if I could play on them being callous and neglectful.

More than they already were.

“They’re having money troubles. Both of them got new jobs, so they’re gonna be gone a lot, and we have to start working, too.”

Auty’s face screwed up. “Jobs? Mommy has never worked.”

“That’s how bad it is; they’re both working day and night, starting tonight. I guess they got called in, so they told me to relay the message,” I shrugged, trying to come off super casual.

“How are we supposed to work? Is that even legal?”