His aunt had sent them. She sent him what she could—and what she assumed his father wouldn’t steal. Her gifts were never cash, which Lance suspected she knew would wind up in his father’s pocket. Apparently, she didn’t realize that a brand-new pair of Nikes was just as irresistible to Paul Taylor.

“Waste of money, that fancy shit,” says his father, standing up to rummage in the fridge. “Sending that stuff—does she think you’re ashamed of who you are? Nothing wrong with those boots we got from Bill’s kids.”

Bill is someone who goes to the bar almost as much as Lance’s dad, and he has triplets. They’re two years older than Lance, but they were bigger kids even when they were Lance’s age, so all of their old things fit him funny. Bill sends everything they outgrow home with Lance’s dad in black trash bags.

“They’re kinda getting worn,” Lance can’t help muttering, even though he knows it’s useless to argue. But he’s so angry—at his father for taking the shoes and at himself for not hiding them better. Or at least, he should have been careful to check that they were still under the floorboards before that morning. Now, he doesn’t even have time to try to tape the boots together.

So, worn-out boots with split soles, it is. He slips into them and flees the house as his dad delivers his parting shot in a low growl.

“We’ll talk later about what else I found.”

Lance had forgotten that if his father found the shoes, he also found the little odds and ends that always made their way into Lance’s pockets. Things that were bright or strange and that he thought no one would see him reach for—it was almost impossible for him to resist. Shiny beads; buttons; lost earrings; and once, in a moment that was one of the most thrilling in Lance’s memory but that also made him burn with shame, a page of glossy stickers from the display by the drugstore checkout.

Eager to reach the bus and the escape of a day at school, Lance runs harder. He hopes the shadow of worrying what his dad will do when Lance gets home won’t follow him all day.

The bus doesn’t come down driveways, not even the ones as long as theirs, so every school day, Lance has to make a quarter-mile trek to meet it at the road. He doesn’t mind. The steps put his dad and the too-small house behind him and let him be someone else for a while. Someone who doesn’t have to be as careful; someone who doesn’t have to hide.

The bus is already waiting for him, but the driver, Mr. Dale, sees him coming and doesn’t pull away. He’s an older man with a bald head beneath a flat-billed mesh ballcap, and his smile is always kind.

“Hey, sport,” he says cheerfully as Lance climbs up the big steps into the bus. As soon as Lance clears the accordion door, Mr. Dale pulls the lever so it whooshes closed.