Addiction, she thought. A killing weakness.

Once through the doors, the smell was all fat, fried meat, salt and sugar. Gringo music, stupid with drums and crunching guitars, crackled out of speakers fixed high on the wall above the counter. Heads turned in her direction as she entered, a few of the men not bothering to look away, or even have the decency to be embarrassed, when she caught them staring at her lecherously. It was wrong. As a good Catholic, she marvelled at their lack of shame. A small part of her, the lost little girl she had once been, wanted to turn around and run away. But inside her mind, she found that little girl and quietly, methodically, shoved her into a small, dark box for the duration. There would be no time for weakness and sorrow on this trip. She had nothing to run to and nobody to protect her. She had to push through with this.

Sofia was not hungry, which was just as well. The food looked awful. Pre-made hamburgers bundled up in wax paper sat inside glass hot boxes, leaking grease through their wrapping. She was about to buy a bottle of water until she noticed an old aluminium tray near the cash register, piled high with glasses and a water jug. After pouring one for herself, she took a seat in the corner, where she could keep an eye on the other patrons. She knew she couldn’t stay here without ordering something, but was reluctant to spend what little money she had.

A waitress came over, an older woman who looked like everything from the chest up had slumped southwards in some terrible landslide of collapsing body mass a couple of years ago. She frowned at the youngster’s glass of water.

‘What can I get for you, darlin’?’

‘A plate of fries, thank you,’ said Sofia. ‘No cheese.’

They were the last thing she wanted, and her stomach turned at the thought of having to eat them. But fries were one of the cheapest things on the menu, and she could always string out the time by eating them one by one. It was the sort of thing the staff here would expect a teenager to do. The carbs would provide energy, too. Another lesson from those months on the trail: store energy whenever you can.

With her order placed, Sofia went back to surveying the room. It didn’t look too promising. The majority of the truckers were older men, enormously fat for the most part, probably as a result of sitting on their asses all day eating crap like this. There were a couple of younger drivers, but she didn’t like the look of them. The lines on their faces were drawn too long and too deeply. There was a crude ugliness of character that seemed to ooze out of their pores under the harsh, flat lights of the diner. Methamphetamine. The telltale signs were all there.