Chastity and Graham had taken her daddy’s guns to a pawn shop in Mid-City and sold them all for eight hundred bucks. They were worth a hell of a lot more, but eight hundred bucks’ cash was a lot for no questions asked. After a stop at Graham’s buddy’s apartment for a few purchases and for Graham to shoot up, they finally headed back to his house, taking a few bumps of coke off the dashboard of his Land Cruiser to get them up and running for the night. She was feeling pretty damn good, seeing and hearing damn near everything in the city, until TJ Byrd met them at the door, pissed as hell about Graham’s friends hanging out in his damn house.

She didn’t have time for this. After everything she’d done for this ungrateful little redneck. Her daddy always warned her to only hang out with people that made her a better person. He even gave her a daily devotional with shit like that listed each day. Your perspective in life will determine your destination. Life is not waiting for the storm to pass but about you dancing in the rain. The struggle you’re in today is developing the strength you need tomorrow. Daddy always had nuggets of that horseshit on him, passing them out like chocolate drops to her and her brother or his salesmen who couldn’t close the goddamn deal.

She lay across Graham’s bed, forearm across her eyes, Graham passed out next to her, the bed feeling like it was spinning ’round and ’round like a game of chance. Just when she felt like things might get better, that she might get to her feet and walk outside to see the floats, a new wave of nausea would hit and keep her in the bed. God this stuff was so fucking good, and so fucking awful at the same time. Funny how a person walks into rehab as an alcoholic and skips out as a goddamn junkie.

Chastity could hear TJ yelling at Graham’s friends in the next room, telling them to get out, leave them the hell alone and not come back. This girl who’d never been in a real house, born and raised in a tin roof trailer, acting like she had a little piece of real estate on Audubon Park. What a goddamn joke. Next thing she’d know, TJ would be taking off her hot pants for Graham, whispering in his ear about all the things she and Ladarius McCade used to do down in Tibbehah County, real country-ass barnyard tricks.

And now the phone. It may not have been TJ’s fault she dropped it. But the cops would think she was the one who shot that one-eyed trucker. She wanted some fun and thrills on the road, not to end up in jail.