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And hter, and never cooked less than an arrandkids

Kayla had consideredin with her mom, but admitted she couldn’t because her step-dad was a complete pervert who made her feel uneasy He’d stolen her panties and taken thes She still had night off in the shoith her panties in his mouth

The Bronson house had been a ho up, and it looked like it would be so again, until her life was back on track

“Burrrppppoh, much better”

After tls of chili, two pieces of cornbread, a diet soda, and an ice cream sundae, Kayla was stuffed but happy to know Mrs Bronson could still cook up a storm

The dinner was a nice way to catch up on things They talked about the changes to the city, the people, and how things were so different even after only a few years

Exhausted froe, the bed felt like it was calling to her She finished up the last of it, slipped into her standard Disney princess paja there, heraround endlessly Everything was different now Everything had changed and nothing was ever going to be the same

Kayla curled up into the fetal position, bare, alone and scared Tears welled in her eyes and the loneliness crept up on her, threatening to overwhelm her

Reaching up, she grabbed a sainst her face as she snuggled her cheek into it Turning onto her back, she held the pillow up in the air with both hands It should be a face, she thought, a man’s face Soht

Bringing the pillow close she closed her eyes and kissed it

Feeling this alone wasn’t a good thing, and it troubled on her Even though Evan was a classic douche-bag, he had at least been there Not in a good way, because he treated her like shit and never even listened to her, but he had been around at the times when she really needed a shoulder to lean on God She tried to put a good face on it, but no matter how she looked at it, five years of her life had been wasted

She rolled over and slid the s she needed A hu between her

legs instead of a pillow or plastic battery-operated-boyfriend

IT TOOK A COUPLE OF weeks, but Kayla quickly settled into her job, and started feeling nor with her She even knew a few of thes don’t change much

One day, she sat at lunch and decided to pull up her high school’s social e It had different sections, and several of theraduation classes, ordered by year There were updates and “Rees full of details about where they all were now

Scrolling through, she did notice a lot of people had as or Reno area Itjobs that people wanted these days would be there, not here in town

She saw the nanized others who had been just acquaintances Real friends stick with you or you ht to herself Those are the ones you remember most

Pausing as she scrolled through photos, she blinked and stared Holy shit Maria still lives here She re up That girl was hotter than a jalapeño I wonder if she still is

They’d gotten drunk and pulled over by the cops Then there was the saran wrap over all the toilets in the girl’s bathroo—yeah, they were little troubleht thehbor’s pool with their boyfriends

That wasn’t such a great ti and naked down the street after her dad grabbed his shotgun and chased them off She’d learned all kinds of filthy words in Spanish that night

They had fallen out of touch when Kayla went to college and Maria had gotten pregnant,a family There had always been a Christuilty that she hadn’t kept track as much as she should But now that she was backit would be fun to meet up She still had Maria’s old number in her contacts list, but would it still work? It had been more than a few years since they’d talked She could text her, but if that nuned to someone else, that could make for a real mess No, she’d play it safe and si up

Picking up her phone, she entered the nuers

“Hola, chica”