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everything harder .
    I don’t say anything as she leads me out the door. The rain has stopped, leaving the night balmyand misty, with raindrops stuck to the tree leaves like hanging diamonds. They glisten in the moonlight.
    The tidy walk between the front door and the nineteen foot trailer is lined with colorful succulents and cacti that must look gor ge ous in the daylight. Everything is shades of grey right now, though.
    Everything . Especially my feelings for Mark.
    Elaine pulls a key out of her pocket and opensthe padlock that secures the trailer’s front door. “Brian installed this today,” she explains. “There’s no easier way to make sure you’re safe.”
    “You want me to padlock myself in?” I ask, my voice going up high.
    She laughs. “I thought it was crazy, too, but Brian insisted you need to feel as safe as possible. You can crack the door a little, attach the padlock, and then you have enough roomto fit the key from the inside to unlock it. You’re a y oung girl out here, all alone.”
    “I’m twe n ty- two . Not a young girl.” Not quite a woman, though , I th ink .
    As she opens the door, she turns to me with a wistful expression. “You’ll always be a sweet little girl to me, Carrie.”
    I can’t. I can’t let myself feel what she wants me to know. The idea that so much love could be waiting for me, theunconditional parent al love that everyone wants so badly, makes me ache.
    I used to have that.
    Mark took it away.

Chapter Six
    I take a step up and enter the dark trailer, fumbling for the light s witch. When I called Brian a few weeks ago to ask about renting from him, he mentioned the trailer. Clean, dry, with full septic and water and electric. “I can’t let you live in there for free, but if you can manage three hundred dollars to cover utilities, it’s yours for the school year,” he’d said. That was enoughtime to get established. To save up for first, last, and security on an apartment.
    “You use it to go hunting, though!” I’d argued. “I can’t take it from you.”
    “We don’t go on hunting trips like that anymore, Carrie,” he’d said sadly. I hadn’t asked why. Somethi n g in his voice told me not to.
    “And,” he’d added, answering my unspoken question, “we were about to sell it.”
    Oh. I knew that whendad was arrested the feds took the entire bar and tried to claim it was all run with drug money. Brian had suffered.
    Living in his trailer made me feel a little better. I’d argued him up. “ Four hundred a month, and if the utilities get too high, you tell me,” I had declared. My voice had wavered, but I wasn’t going to back down.
    I’ m not a charity case. My new job pa ys well enough for me to pay four hundred a month and w ill help me to kill off my student loans and dad’s funeral expenses if I c an hold on for two years.
    I managed in Oklahoma City all alone, seeing Dad when I could, picking up extra shifts at the bank where I worked , living in a crowded house to cut expenses. All those lawyer fees...
    Including mine. Once the district attorney sank his teeth into the case, he opened itup to investigate everyone. I had turned eighteen a few months before and was in my second year at Yates. My first year I had doubled up, doing a year of high school and a year of college at the same time. The special program that admitted me paid for everything but books.
    Dad had beamed with pride when I got in. His heart had nearly burst when I received a full scholarship to finish up.
    Buthere’s the thing: when the DA comes after you on drug charges and you’re eighteen and in college, you freak out. No dad to help because he was behind bars. No mom because she was dead.
    Brian was investigated, too, so he and Elaine had their own mess to manage.
    The arrest happened two days before the deadline for getting student loans, so guess how I paid that eight-thousand dollar lawyer retainerfee?
    Yep. And with nothing left for tuition, I had to drop out. I