I skip school on Tuesday with Jesse's permission, and he stays home with me, watching our favourite movies and the Warriors game and rotting on the couch all day. It's just what I need, staying in my pyjamas and not having to face Stacey and Percy and everyone asking me what happened to my face.

I do have to go on Wednesday, and I tell everyone that I went over the handle bars on my bike, and most people buy it, except Percy, of course, who drills me with questions all day. Even once we're sat for tutoring, he doesn't relent, and I start to grow quickly irritated.

"Look," I say as he halts our session for the fourth time to inquire about my cuts and bruises, "even if I didn't go over my handle bars, I don't have to tell you what really happened."

He stares at me. "So you admit that something happened."

I stare back, then shrug, leaning away from his textbook. "Fine. Yeah. Something happened."

He puts his pencil down, his brow furrowing. "Was it your mom? Is she back in town, or something?"

"No," I say, "and I'm not gonna sit here while you speculate. I don't understand any of the shit we're learning right now, so will you please do what you're getting paid for and teach me this unit?"

He sighs, but ultimately drops it, and the hour passes smoothly after that. I can tell he's trying to cheer me up, telling me about how he tripped on the guitarist's amp cord in band and toppled a row of music stands like dominos. It works, a little, and I appreciate his efforts. I appreciate that he knows not to ask me about it anymore.

The rest of the week drones by. I left my backpack in Les's store, so I've had to use Percy's textbook and notes all week. By Friday, we're walking to my house, and he starts shuffling his feet and acting like he's got some uncomfortable stomach pain. I roll my eyes.

"What is it, Walker?" I ask dryly, and he looks at me with an innocent expression.

"What's what?"

"You clearly want to say something, so just say it."

"It's nothing," he says, shaking his head. I roll my eyes again.

"Fine."

A minute goes by of us walking in silence before he suddenly speaks up again.

"Did Les do that to you?" he asks, and I stop abruptly so he smacks into my back. I turn, narrowing my eyes.

"What?"

"Your face," he speaks quickly, as if trying to get the words out before I inevitably slug him in the jaw. "I know you said I shouldn't speculate. But the last time you had your backpack was Monday, and you show up to school on Wednesday with no backpack and a bloody face."

He shrugs, his eyes casting down and his hands shoved nervously into his pockets. I sometimes forget how annoyingly observant he is, and how he wants to become a detective. I sigh, and start walking again.

"It was her friend," I mumble. "Les is supposed to be sober, but she's been drinking again, and I tried to put a stop to it on Monday, but it didn't go well. I got fired."

"She fired you?" Percy asks incredulously. "Did she do anything when her friend hit you?"

"No," I mumble bitterly. "But I hit her back, so that doesn't matter. I'm just pissed that she's being so stupid."

He hums. "You're worried."

I glance sharply at him, going to argue before realizing there's no point.

"Yeah, maybe," I say. In truth, I've been thinking about Les all week. Like my mother, I should probably be hating her. I shouldn't be worried about her, since she didn't give two shits when her friend smacked me to the ground, but I can't help it. 

I spend the weekend in a mental turmoil, thinking about how I need to get my backpack from the store soon. I don't want to show my face back there again, especially if that Mel chick is still loitering about, but I need to bite the bullet. I've got all my notes for all my classes in that bag, and lord knows I need them.

Monday I plan to return, but I procrastinate after school for hours until it's nine and I know I've got to go before it closes. I know I should tell Jesse, but I also know that if I do he'll want to come with me, and I need to do this by myself. Against my better judgement, I slip silently out of the house at quarter past nine and start the trek through the dark to Les's.

After half an hour of me turning back to the house and then back to Les's and then back to the house and then back to Les's, I finally turn onto her street, and I expect to see the flickering light of the 'open' sign, but am only met with dark windows, a piece of plywood stuck over the part of the glass door that I broke. I stop, and consider that Les has closed up early, and think that I'll just go home, when I get this sudden lurching feeling in my stomach, and my feet take me to the storefront.

It's dark inside, and I scan the area, seeing no sign of Les or anybody. I try to listen for laughter deep inside, thinking she might be back with Mel again, but my ears are only met with silence.

And then my eyes lift to the counter, and I see that the shelves above that hold all our hard liquor have been toppled. I imagine Les stumbling drunk into the store for another bottle and knocking it over, or maybe Mel got angry and did it, but then my eye catches something on the floor, sticking out from behind the counter.

It's the edge a boot, a run down, dirty old combat boot that I know is Les's. I tap my knuckles on the window.

"Les!" I call, but the boot doesn't move, and my lurching feeling intensifies. I try the door, but it's locked, so I stand back and kick at the plywood until it caves, leaving me free to crawl through the small space and into the store, suffering a few cuts from the jagged edges of the glass that I pay no attention to.

I rush over to the counter, and my heart drops into my stomach when I see Les, sprawled out on the ground, unconscious. She looks bad, her hair haywire around her face and her cheeks sunken and hollow. The sharp smell of alcohol reaches my nostrils, and my eyes scan the countless broken bottles of liquor that have fallen on and around Les's fallen body. Her face is bloodied, and her clothes are stained with dark spots of coffee liqueur.

I fall to my knees beside her, my hand flying to her nose to check if she's breathing. She's not. I press my fingers to her neck, feeling a pulse that pales in comparison to my pounding heart.

"Les," I say, slapping her cheeks gently. "Shit. Les!"

I open her mouth, blowing some air into her lungs before looking around for the phone. I grab it, and have emergency services dialled before I stop. I know I should get her help, but if the cops show up and see the state of things, and the state of Les, she could lose her liquor license, or her store entirely.

I blow some more air into her lungs before patting her down and finding her car keys. I can hear the blood rushing through my ears, through my head until all logical and reasonable thought has left me completely. I need to get her to a hospital.

I grab her arms and use all of my strength to pull her up, then placing my arms under her armpits and dragging her towards the door.

"Come on, Les, wake up," I mumble hopelessly, but she doesn't stir, and I unlock the door before dragging her onto the street and towards her car.

When I was ten, for the month that my mom was in the mental hospital, Chris was doing everything in his power to distract me from her absence. First he tried movie marathons; Indiana Jones, Alien, Star Wars. I would feel guilty every time I watched for more than ten minutes, and made trips back and forth to the phone in case I somehow missed a call from my mom or someone from the hospital. Then Chris tried taking me out places; he took me to the park, to get ice cream, to throw rocks through the windows of abandoned buildings. This worked slightly better, but still my mind was hooked on my mom, even with the pain from the iron she pressed into me still searing my skin with every minor movement. I talked about her non-stop, wondering about how she was doing, feeling badly that I couldn't have helped her because I couldn't get up off the floor. I blamed myself. I always blamed myself. Everything she put me through, everything I suffered, and I still blamed myself for it all.

I was close to spiralling, a week before my mom was due home, and Chris took one last shot at taking my mind off of it. He asked me if I wanted to drive his car, and he'd teach me how to do it. He thought the excitement and difficulty of learning such a grown up thing would help to distract me. And it did. I loved it. I drove circles around parking lots, and stalled a million times, but he finally got me smiling after two long months. I was almost getting the hang of it when my mom got discharged, but I never did it again, and a month after that Chris died in the very same vehicle. I blamed myself for that, somehow, too.

So now, as I buckle Les into her seat and shove the key into the ignition, I wrack my brain for the basic lessons that Chris gave me. I stare at the stick shift, trying to remember where every gear is and which ones I need for which parts of the road, but it all jumbles together, and I need to get going before Les loses all oxygen.

I give her one last puff of air before shifting into first and pulling onto the road.

After stalling four times, and swearing at the top of my lungs with panicky tears pricking my vision, I manage to shift into third, and I speed through the streets, blowing stops signs because I know if I slow down it might take me some time to get going again. Time that Les may not have.

I swerve around cars, pushing myself up in my seat to see over the steering wheel and pointing my toe in order to push the pedal to the floor. The sounds of horns honking and tires screeching to avoid me are muffled to my ears, which remain pricked for signs of life from the woman next to me.

"Just hold on, Les," I mutter over and over, trying to remember the route to the nearest hospital with the unfinished map of this city that has been slowly forming in my head for these past few months.

I hear distant sirens, and I wonder absentmindedly if they're for me. I don't care. I only care about one thing right now, and that's getting Les to the hospital before she dies right here next to me.

I try not to let my thoughts wander to Mel, and wonder where the hell she went when her friend or girlfriend or whatever Les is to her fell drunkenly into our liquor shelves and didn't get up again. Did she try to help? Was she too drunk to even know what was happening? Maybe she was passed out in the back room. Maybe she's dead in a ditch somewhere. Or maybe she took Les's unconscious state as an opportunity to shove as many bottles into her bag before fleeing the scene of the crime.

Les stirs next to me, and my head snaps towards her, shoving my finger under her nose just to feel one small breath that fades into nothing and never returns again.

"Stay with me, Les," I say desperately, and I think I might be lost now. I try to read the street signs, but I'm going too fast, and my vision is blurred with the tears brimming my eyes.

Just when I think I'm screwed, and my poor navigation skills are gonna be what kills Les, I hear the wail of sirens nearby. Great, I think to myself, now the cops are gonna pull me over and I'm gonna have to explain to them why a thirteen-year-old is behind the wheel and why this lady is dead next to me.

But it's not the cops. The sirens don't come from behind me, but in front. An ambulance speeds through the intersection, its lights flashing and its horns blaring at all the cars around it, which part like the Red Sea in its wake. Before having a second thought, I crank my wheel to the left as I enter the intersection, and my back tires skid across the pavement, the burning smell of the clutch singeing my nostrils as I swerve into position behind the emergency vehicle.

I follow the ambulance for two more minutes before it pulls suddenly to the right, into the ER lot of the hospital and somehow managing to park neatly in front of the doors. I, on the other hand, can't reach the clutch in time, and I hit my brakes a second too late, going crashing into a post so hard that I smash my head against the wheel and both airbags pop open.

My ears are ringing; my skull is throbbing; and blood pours into my eyes; but I waste no time, unbuckling my belt as paramedics spill into the lot, rushing over to the scene.

I open my door, going to stand before a sense of nauseating dizziness all but blinds me and I fall to the concrete. I touch my hand to my hairline, where I can feel the stickiness of blood oozing from a cut. I try to stand, but I can't, and someone catches me before I go falling to the ground again. I can only see the outline of a woman's face, but I point to the car as my vision fades completely to black.

"Help her."