Well, how did I meet Danny, you ask? It was in a small town outside of Seattle.

Julie and I had just ended up in this small kind of neighborhood just east of Seattle, after a week and a half of hiding out, stealing, and sleeping outside. She was barely ten years old, then, and I was only nine.

We usually slept in people’s unused sheds, or under their front porch, if we were sure we’d get out of there before they went out for the day. We’d hang out in the park and act like we were normal kids, although we avoided others like the plague. All we needed was each other, anyway. Until we met Danny, that is.

Danny was eleven, then, and he was your average paperboy in a small town. Every morning at six, he’d ride this too-small red bike around town and deliver newspapers.

He’d caught on to our living situation pretty quickly- he’s always been observant- and when he saw us in the streets while he delivered papers, he started to bring us leftover bits of his breakfast: halves of bagels and toast, bits of fruit, stuff like that.

He and I became friends right away. He’d ask what happened to my parents and I told him they’d died. He’d loan me dollars to buy candy at the corner store, and pretend it wasn’t a big deal when I never paid him back.

A week later, while Julie and I were washing out faces and whatnot in a dingey public bathroom, she said solemnly, “Macey, we gotta get going south. We’re gonna go to Oregon, remember, and then go all the way to California. We have to leave.”

When I told her I didn’t wanna go, she told me that she didn’t want me to come, anyway. She was pretty hotheaded, did I mention that?

“Well, fuck you, then.” I crossed my arms, pouting as any nine-year-old would. Julie stalked out of the bathroom with a muttered, “I never fucking liked you, dumb little brat. Bye!”

My first real childhood friend- besides my three cousins, who by then I could hardly remember- had left. I never heard from her again and, as far as I know, she never made it to California.