His hair was so straight and blond. Craig couldn't help staring at it, how it gleamed in the sun. He couldn't help feeling hungry. Feeling his guilt recur over Joey, even though it had been months ago that he had hit him like that. But the guilt would creep back, and he'd feel hot and cold and sick. He'd feel like his father.

Craig was cold despite the sun, it was cold. His guitar was heavy slung over his shoulder by the thick strap. Last night he'd slept on a piece of cardboard, huddled up in his jacket. He woke up once and caught Skinny staring at him. He hoped he didn't get any ideas because he knew he was too tired and weak to fight him off.

The blond kid was wrapped in a blanket, rocking back and forth. His hair kept catching Craig's eye. But he didn't dare speak to him. Lately he didn't dare speak to anybody. He remembered the fight Joey and Caitlin had over him the night he left. Caitlin probably hated him now, like Joey and Angela did. Like Ashley did. He'd fucked things up again.

He was hungry. His stomach felt hollow. It felt like it was trying to devour itself. He knew where the soup kitchen was and he headed that way, but Skinny saw him and looked at him sharp. Skinny grabbed his arm and yanked him back, away. Craig stumbled and felt the mixing of anger and fear he felt when people touched him like that.

"No," Skinny growled, "we don't go there,"

Whatever. Okay. It was Skinny's twisted pride. Craig no longer had any pride. This year had wiped it all away. He had hurt each and every person he loved and now he was here, cold, on the streets. He remembered when he had wanted to run away to B.C., and that had been like a fever dream. What sort of a solution was that? But he'd gone to B.C. with his mother and Joey when Angela was just a baby and he'd been so happy then. He just wanted to feel that way again. Sean's narrowed eyes and disbelieving expression and then what he said, "You can't do that. You'll end up on the streets,"

Pulled along by Skinny and he was too tired and hungry to protest. Let him pull him. They sat against the building on the overturned trash cans or wooden crates or whatever they could find. And now the sky was all gray and spitting rain and his hair was curling like crazy. For awhile there he'd been keeping it sort of straight with gel and the hair dryer, and Joey would smirk at him and he'd tell Joey he was just jealous because he didn't have any hair to do anything with. And Joey would laugh and he'd feel almost like things were okay again.

So they played, Craig on guitar and Skinny on his makeshift drums and he was following Skinny's skewed tempo and making it sound better, he was making them the little bit of money they were getting. But people rushing to work in the city everyday, they were pretty immune to street players and street beggars. Walked by, didn't glance at them. It was okay because it felt good to play the guitar, it was the only thing he had left.

Dim light of late afternoon coming in through the clouds, and Skinny stopped drumming. Looked at Craig through his squinted eyes, grimy face, beard stubble that was red and brown. Craig rubbed his own cheek with his palm and felt the stubble on his cheek.

"I'm tired," Skinny stated, and picked up his drum sticks, headed over to the alley where they had slept last night. He also had collected the money, not offering Craig any, not yet. So Craig watched him go to the alley, felt that this person was his friend. Felt in his pocket for some money. He'd taken all his money when he took off, which wasn't very much. But it was enough to buy some hamburgers for him and Skinny.

He felt self-conscious in the fast food place, felt how his wild curly hair and beard stubble made him look, his clothes getting grimy from the streets, the dust from the roads. Without his meds he was starting to feel his thoughts go faster, starting to feel that slipping he had felt before. But it was tempered by his guilt over Joey and Caitlin and Angela, his anger and feeling betrayed by Ashley, so that was curbing the grandiose tendency of his thoughts. They were just racing.

The girl behind the counter looked at him half scared and half condescendingly and Craig looked down, ordered the food without looking at her. Paid and left. Walked along, the clouds breaking up now, the gold light filtering through, the warm bag of food in his hand. At the alley the blond kid was sleeping and Craig wanted to just touch that silky looking hair that was two shades of blond at once, yellow and almost white, shiny like metal.

Skinny was sitting up and narrowed his eyes at the food, snapped about not going to soup kitchens. Craig felt young suddenly, being yelled at, reprimanded.

"No, uh, I know. I bought this," he tried to explain, and Skinny grabbed his burger from his hand, smiled, and began to eat it like he hadn't eaten in days. Maybe he hadn't. Skinny was true to his word about the soup kitchens and wouldn't go there.

"They don't control us," he was saying around bites, "we don't need them. Social workers," he laughed harshly.

"No rules, my friend. You won't get any of that shit here,"

Craig's thoughts were going fast and he thought of all the rules he'd had with his father, with Albert. Thought about what would happen if he didn't follow those rules. Thought about Joey and all of his rules, and how Joey would yell at him and ground him if he didn't follow them. And even Ashley, she had fucking rules. Weird rules he couldn't figure out, and he never knew what the consequences would be for not following them.

"Yeah, I know," Craig said, "I have this step-father-"

"Gives you a bunch of rules, huh?" Skinny said all fast, the sauce on the burger dripping down his chin and he wiped it with his hand, and Craig thought maybe Skinny was reading his mind.

It was kind of hard to talk to Skinny and Craig didn't really know why. Maybe he was mentally ill, too. Maybe people found it that hard to talk to him, and this worried Craig. He'd seen the looks, seen how Spinner was looking at him at the school when he tried to explain what had gone wrong with Ashley. It had been clear to him. Seen how Joey had looked at him in the boiler room, confused and sad.

"What about your real father?" Skinny said suddenly, surprising Craig. He swallowed hard and looked away.

"Uh, he died,"

He didn't want a barrage of questions about Albert, didn't want to go into the whole thing. Being off his meds, feeling unbalanced, he wasn't sure what he'd end up saying. But Skinny didn't pursue it, just started talking about his parents. It was a disjointed stream, and Craig tried to follow along. He got out of it that his father had been an alcoholic and his mother took him and his brother and left and then he got into drugs in ninth grade or so and then, well…it started to twist around and back again. But he nodded, because he was sure it was straight in Skinny's mind like the shit he said to people was straight in his.

The blond kid was waking up, stretching, his perfect straight hair falling back from his forehead. Craig couldn't help staring at this kid, wondering about him. How old he was, what he was doing here in this alley of runaways and homeless kids.

He thought about the times he'd ran away. Three times. The first one was because of his father beating him and he'd gone to Sean. But he'd been so much more okay then. Hurt from his father physically and emotionally and suicidal, but his thoughts had been clearer. He'd been more in the world. Now everything was racing like those runny looking lights through wet car windows, skidding on the turns. That was off his meds. If he was on them everything was dulled, slowed down, underwater. The next time had been when Joey asked for rent and he'd misinterpreted it, had thought Joey was sort of saying he didn't belong there. And now this time, and this time was for real.