Page 73 - My FlipBook

T R A I L O F C R U M B S

Two drink dispensers stood side by side—one churning
a peach-colored drink, and the other a deep purple. She
stopped to watch the burbling purple juice, instantly
nauseated. She swallowed against the saliva pooling at the
back of her throat. Ash stopped beside her.
“What? You’re thirsty?”
Greta shook her head and started walking again, still
dogged by that sick feeling. And not just queasy—something

else was mixed in there. Embarrassment tinged with…some-
thing. Like everyone around her could see she was less. Dirty.
It was true she had embarrassed herself. It wasn’t until she and
Ash headed toward the mall exit that Greta could put a name
to it. Near the entrance of a store selling chocolate, a mother
tugged at the arm of a boy throwing a tantrum. She pulled a
chocolate bar from his hand and dropped it back on the shelf

while he whined and stomped his feet. People stared as they
passed by. “You should be ashamed of yourself,” the mother
hissed, her cheeks red as she dragged the boy from the store.
You should be ashamed of yourself. Yes. Greta turned the
phrase over in her mind, as though the words had been
spoken just for her. She knew the feeling from before. Patty
always had a way of making her feel small, like nothing. But
it came more often now. Greta thought of how she’d shrunk
from the couple making out on the bus. She’d even made

Ash walk the long way to the mall exit, to avoid the posters
hanging in the lingerie-store window.
She was quiet on the bus to the grocery store, where she
trailed after Ash. They hit a sale on sixty-nine-cent canned

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