I'm walking back from my 'meeting' with Mr. Brown when I, quite literally, run into Ethan.

"Oh my, God!" I say quickly. "I'm so sorry... I didn't mean to, I swear. Are you okay?"

"Kid, cool it, I didn't even fall down. You're good," he tells me in a slow drawl. I find myself getting annoyed at the use of the word "kid". Every fuckin' person calls me that!

"I'm not a kid!"

"How old are you?" he asks, sounding amused.

"..Sixteen," I mumble.

"You seem like a pretty smart person. Tell me, how old do you have to be to be an adult?"

"... Eighteen," I answer even more quietly.

"So, you're a..." he trails off with a smirk and quirked eyebrow, waiting for me to finish his sentence.

"Teenager," I say firmly, feeling like I won. He laughs at me.

"Whatever you say, kid."

"You're an ass," I tell him.

"I know."

He walks with me for a bit without talking, before saying, "You're Spencer, right? Evan's kid?"

"Yeah... kinda. I mean, a little bit." I reluctantly admit. Somehow, the way he says it makes it sound like a bad thing.

"Speaking of assholes, he's the lord of them."

"What?" I ask, not following him.

"Evan. Your. . . Boyfriend or whatever the fuck he is, is the lord of assholes."

I feel my face heat up in anger. I mean, who the hell does this guy think he is? He can't just go around insulting people like that!

"Look," I tell him, letting my anger seep into my voice, "You don't know me and you don't know Evan, so fuck off. I don't want to hear it. So, either shut up, or go the hell away."

"Hey, Spencer, I didn't mean it that way-"

"You didn't mean it what way? I'm pretty sure there's only one way to take that!" I yell.

"Kid-" he cuts off when I glare at the nickname. "Sorry, Spencer, he's using you."

"He's not!" I all but scream.

"I'm hardly in a position to tell someone how to live their life-"

"Damn right you're not!"

"But," he continues, ignoring my input, "you really need to get away from him. He's bad news. So, tell me this, when did you start sleeping with him?"

"Around the same time I started whoring," I tell him coldly. "And even then, he didn't fuck me until another year after that."

I feel a bit smug when I glance at Ethan and see his somewhat shocked expression, "That means you started this when you were at least fourteen or fifteen... that's just, well, way too fucking young. I was sixteen and still one of the youngest working the streets."

I felt less smug at that. In fact, I just felt embarrassed and dirty. I'd been even younger than what he was disgusted about.

"Well, fifteen isn't really all that much younger than sixteen..." I say in an attempt to make him a bit less shocked.

"I guess so... So, you were fifteen, though. Right? Cause I could have sworn you were out here when I started two years ago."

"Um, I wasn't fifteen but..."

"So how old were you?" he asks with a suspicious tone in his voice.

"Twelve," I mumble quietly.

"What?!"

"Twelve, alright? I was fuckin' twelve, poor, and too pretty for my own damn good, though I don't see how it's any of your business."

Ethan looks at me with pity filled eyes that I hate more than all the disgust in the world. I flip him off start walking faster to get home, leaving him in the dust.

I get home to find my mother, unsurprisingly, already asleep. I check the cabinets and refrigerator for food. They're almost empty and I figure Mom can eat for another day or two more before I have to go shopping. I can go without for a few days. It's not that big of a deal.

I lock up, though it won't do much good being that a small girl could kick our door and it would fall over, then head to bed after stripping out of my work clothes.

My bed always feels so large when I sleep alone. Evan stays at my house almost everyday, but I was in such a rush today to get home and away from Ethan, that I didn't even see him.

I drift to sleep after a while, and when I finally wake up it's past noon and my mom is awake. Nothing out of the ordinary. My stomach growls at me, but rent is due soon and I can't afford to run out of food just yet. I can last another day or so.

I tell my mom I'm going out for awhile and leave the apartment. I wander the streets for a bit trying to take a new route to the corner where I usually stand, trying to stall having to see Ethan just yet, even though that's ridiculous. I'm going to see him sooner or later, rather or not I walk around for awhile.

"Spencer!" I hear a bellowing voice yell from behind me. I turn and see Evan walking towards me. I stop moving and look at him as calmly as I can, wondering how he even managed to figure out where I was, being that I was standing in the middle of a dirty old alley between two brick buildings.

"Yes, Ev?" I reply, feeling oddly nervous. I shouldn't. I don't have anything to be nervous about with him. He loves me and I love him and as long as I don't fuck anything up, I'll be fine. I don't think I've fucked anything up recently, but I never actually know. He always catches my mistakes for me.

"What the hell?" he yells. He's really close to being near me now.

"What?" I ask, genuinely confused. Now he's right in front of me. For the first time, I realize how close I actually am to the back of the alley. He lifts his arms up and places them next to my head, down near my shoulder and leans in until I'm thoroughly trapped.

"E-Evan?" I stutter. I hate being closed in and he's really starting to scare me.

"Don't pretend you don't understand," he growls.

"Evan, I a-assure you, I don't-"

"Don't lie to me!" he yells with enough volume to have me flinching back into the brick wall behind me and squeezing my eyes shut. "I know what you did last, you little whore! I know you were all friendly with that Ethan guy."

"What? You think-" I start to say, shocked by his deductions, but then realize that I really shouldn't be surprised. "I just ran into him after my trick and he kept talking to me and eventually I just ran off. That was it. I love you, Evan. Not some other guy." I make my voice as soothing as possible, trying to disarm him.

"Why was he talking to you, Spencer? Why was he bugging you in the first place?" Evan asks, looking just a little less agitated.

"I ran into him-"

"Ran into him? As in, 'saw him in the street' or a literal 'plowed him down with your skinny little body' ran into?"

"Um... well the, uh, second one," I answer thinking about lying, but knowing that he won't believe me if I tell him that. He'll know that I was lying to him, he always does.

His hand rears back away from the wall and smashes back, right next to my ear. I flinch and turn my cheek into the wall, feeling the rough bricks scratch against me.

"You fucking whore," he says lowly, terrifying me. To my horror, I feel tears running town my cheeks.

"I-It was an accident," I tell him frantically. "You know how clumsy I am-"

"Of course it was," he says coldly, "you and your cute little body didn't just decide to plow down another man. Tell me, Spencer, how did his body feel against yours?"

"It wasn't like that-"

"It wasn't? I don't believe you. That's the oldest damn move in the book, Spencer. Running into a guy you like," he says. I'm outright sobbing by now.

"I-I'm sorry," I hiccup, "I-I didn't kn-know-"

"Shh, baby," Evan soothes suddenly, exponentially calmer. He runs one of his hands down the side of my face, leaving the other next to my head. "I know. I know. You're still just a kid, babe, and you didn't know any better, but that's why I'm here. Someone's gotta teach you right from wrong."

I wipe my eyes with my palm, and nod before throwing myself into his arms for a hug. I clutch desperately at his shirt and sob into his chest. His arms come off the wall and encircle me, holding me against him.

"There, there, sweetie," he says gently, "it's okay. But, you know, I'm still going to have to punish you for this, right?"

I nod into his shirt.

"I love you," he tells me.

"I love you, too," I mumble.