"Lily Evans!"
Evans was her father's name. Her mother had loved him very much and knew, from the bottom of her heart, that he had not left. He had disappeared, and was harmed, and there could be nothing worse.
"Fuck." She dropped to her knees behind a waste bin, scraped the rubber of her shoe along the gravel of the alley.
"Lily Evans, come back here!"
The door slammed. Lily ran, because there was no other way out. There went another house. Her latest friend, nearer and dearer than anyone in the world, was thanks to her on crack cocaine. "Erythroxylum coca," she had told Susie Lynn. "Widely used in South America for the last ten thousand years –" That was a rough estimate "- for its medicinal properties. Go on, try some. You'll feel good."
Lily had no idea if Susie Lynn would feel any better. All she knew was that Susie Lynn was very upset at failing a pop quiz, and needed compensation for the intense grief she was experiencing. Lily never had and never would go near the stuff herself. Relief be damned, it cost money that she didn't have.
She opened another stolen bottle and sat back. Susie's mom had chased her halfway down the block before Lily jumped a fence and crossed a neighbour's yard. She was risking something, a lot or maybe not at all, camping so close to her previous home, but she was tired and it was raining. The gin slipped down her throat and warmed her to the tips of her fingers. A smile pulled at her lips. She snuggled deeper into her coat and fell into a half-sleep.