"What about your parents?" Ricky whispered to her as they stumbled toward her house.

"It's okay. It's just my mom, she's probably not even home,"

After that last beating he'd be damned if he'd go back home. Maybe his mom worried and maybe not. It didn't matter anymore.

Everything looked a little blurry around the edges, the only thing that was clear was Maryann. She was sharp, stark relief.

She took his hand and led him into the dark house and they fell on the couch, laughing.

"Where's your mom?" he said.

"I don't know. Out," There was something forbidding in her tone so he let it go, thought again of his own mother worrying about him. Well, he thought angrily, she shouldn't worry. He was safer anywhere else than home.

He kissed Maryann, pushed her back into the couch, liked how soft her kisses were, how smooth her hair was beneath his fingers.

He wanted to get married, leave his stupid house and have a happy life.

x………………x……………….x……………………….x

They were asleep on the couch when dawn cracked the sky, gold lines here and there through the gray sky, and her mother came home.

Ricky felt fear crash into his body, a shot of adrenaline. He looked at her mother with wide eyes. But she walked right by and into the kitchen, the stench of whiskey and cigarette smoke clinging to her long coat and her hair.

He heard her clanging and banging around the kitchen, getting coffee or maybe a glass of water to go with the headache.

Maryann slept, her breathing smooth and even. She was beautiful, Ricky thought. She was always tan, like a Gypsy or an Indian, and he wished he could kiss her again.

"Hey," Her mother had re entered the room and leveled him with a stare. He squirmed uncomfortably under her gaze.

"Listen," she said, sounding bored, sounding like her mind was on a million other things rather than him.

"You've got to go,"

Maryann didn't stir and Ricky shrugged, got up, found his shoes, and slipped out the door.

He wasn't going to go home. Never again. It was a vow. That beating had been the last.

It was quiet, the city still asleep. The sky was gold. He liked to be up at this time, awake and alone. He could think when it was like this, when people weren't at him, parents and teachers pulling on him, never giving him peace.

Past the diner where the old men drank their coffee and smoked, past the railroad tracks, past all the streets with small wooden houses and scrub grass, he was aimless, no where to go.

Maybe he'd quit school, get a job, knock Maryann up so she'd have to marry him, get out of his shitty life, escape, escape.

"Hey, kid, spare a quarter?" It was a bum, the man's age disguised by his tattered clothes and dirty face, rotting teeth.

"Naw, I ain't got any money," Ricky said, and the man glared at him.

"Fucking liar," and with that the bum spat on the ground, narrowly missing the top of Ricky's sneaker.

"Look, man, why would I lie? Why should I give you money anyways?" He glared back, gritted his teeth, eyes narrowed. He spread his feet apart in a fighting stance. If this guy pissed him off anymore he'd punch him, he swore he would.