“This is a good opportunity, Oliver,” Tyler said, as if he could read my troubled thoughts. “I know it’s not gonna be easy, and if I could take your place on that stage and perform, I would. But the best I can do is be backstage with you, cheering you on with Kelly—who, by the way, is getting you some breakfast as we speak. So, go shower and wash the seed of Chucky off your body.”

I headed to the en suite shower, which had three showerheads—rich people problems—and did as Tyler told me. I wanted to argue more about why the performance that night didn’t matter, because I honestly didn’t see the point. I was part of a duo, and ever since Alex had passed away, it was apparent to me that Alex & Oliver was over and out.

Like the many articles had stated, who would want Oliver without Alex?

As I stood in the shower, I hoped it would wash away my buzzing headache, but it didn’t. I thought it would wash away my loud thoughts, too, but it didn’t. I wasn’t lucky that way. I hadn’t found a way to quiet my mind without alcohol in a long time.

When I got out of the shower, I didn’t look in the mirror. Most of the mirrors in my house were covered with sheets. I hadn’t looked in mirrors in such a long time, because in every single one, Alex was staring back my way.

2

EMERY

What’s for breakfast?

I scrounged through the cabinets in search of something—anything—to make for Reese. We used our last eggs and sausage links for dinner last night, and we wiped the side of the peanut butter jar nicely with a spatula to have an after-dinner snack while we read books from the library.

Think, think, think, Emery.

I pulled out a loaf of bread along with an almost emptied jar of jelly and set it down on the countertop.

We had one piece of bread left in the loaf along with the two end pieces, though Reese refused to eat the end pieces, no matter how much jelly I’d slap against them.

“That’s not real bread, Mom,” she’d argue again and again. “Those are the butt ends. That’s what the birds by the lake eat.”

Though she had a point, she didn’t have much of a choice that morning. I had only $12.45 in my bank account, and payday wasn’t until tomorrow. Half that money would go toward rent, while I’d use the other half for budget-friendly meals. We didn’t have much wiggle room in our lives at the moment, since I’d lost my one job at the hotel as a line cook.

Ever since then, I’d been working nights at a sporadically busy hole-in-the-wall bar called Seven. Needless to say, the job hadn’t been pulling in the money much, and I was still waiting to hear back from the unemployment office about income from losing my job.

I took out a knife and shaved off as much of the “butt end” as I could to make it look like a normal piece of bread. Then, I covered it with grape jelly.

“Reese, breakfast!” I called out.

She hurried out of her room and came rushing to the kitchen table. As she slid into her chair, she wrinkled up her nose and grumbled. “This is the end piece, Mom!” she sassed, completely unimpressed by my gourmet meal.

“Sorry, kiddo.” I walked over and messed up her wavy charcoal hair. “Things are a bit tight this week.”

“Things are always tight,” she groaned, taking a bite before tossing the rest of the sandwich down on the plate. “Hey, Mama?”

“Yeah, sweetie?”

“Are we poor?”

The question echoed in my ears and hit me in the gut. “What? No, of course not,” I answered, a bit shocked by her words. “Why would you even say that?”

“Well, Mia Thomas from camp said that only poor people shop at Goodwill, and that’s where we get all of our clothes from. Plus, Randy always gets McDonald’s for breakfast, and you never let me get McDonald’s breakfast. Plus, plus, plus,” she exclaimed excitedly, as if she was getting ready to list the biggest bit of proof to showcase our poverty level, “you gave me the butt ends!”

I smiled her way, but my heart began to shatter. It was something my heart had done over and over again for the past five years, ever since Reese came into this world. It shattered because every day I felt as if I was failing her. As if I wasn’t enough, and I wasn’t giving her the life she truly deserved. Being a single parent was the hardest thing I’d ever had to do in my life, yet I didn’t really have a choice in the matter. The father was definitely never going to be in the picture, so I’d learned to handle everything on my own.