Love, Scars, & Shooting Stars

Chapter One

Tossing the garbage bag of her meager belongings into the backseat, Julie Callahan slid behind the wheel of her rundown compact sedan, under the careful scrutiny of the young sheriff's deputy whose duty it was to escort her from the premises. She closed herself inside and fastened her seatbelt across the cold, empty hollow in her chest.

How did it come to this? she wondered miserably. Where did I go wrong?

It was a question she had asked herself many times, abandoned to the company of her own thoughts during the endless nights when sleep refused to come. And though she knew the answer—she could easily name the month, day, and year of the reckless transgression for which the Universe was so justly punishing her—Julie sometimes traced the chain of her misfortune back even further, past the rebelliousness of her teens, beyond her ill-fated childhood years... all the way back to her own accidental, booze-fueled conception nearly thirty-two years before.

A sharp knock on the window startled her, and Julie turned to find the uniformed officer standing just outside the door of her car. He motioned for her to roll down the window, and she reluctantly complied.

"You're sure you didn't forget anything?" he asked. "Because once you leave the premises today, any return on your part will be considered a direct violation of the court order."

Julie nodded, more than familiar with the terms of her eviction. In the distance beyond the deputy stood her now-former landlord, Dickie Betts, with his plump, greasy lips twisted into a self-satisfied smirk. Nearly as wide as he was tall, Dickie was beyond revolting, but in a fleeting moment of indecision, she wondered if it was too late to reconsider his 'alternative rent' plan, as several other women in the trailer park had done in order to save themselves from this very plight.

How bad could it really be? she wondered as she considered his sweaty, hairy corpulence.

"Ma'am?" the deputy prodded, breaking into her thoughts.

"I understand," she said, knowing that there had to be a better solution to her problems than Dickie Betts. "I won't be coming back."

With a quick glance over his shoulder, the young officer shifted his position and dropped his voice, effectively excluding the other man from the interaction. "Do you have someplace to go?"

"Um... yeah, of course," Julie assured him with a forced smile. "I have a... friend, she lives a few towns over. We're going to stay with her for a while."

The deputy looked doubtful, but opted not to push the issue. He shook his head and sighed before reaching for the wallet in his back pocket.

"Ma'am—" he started, peeling several bills from the fold.

Julie's gaze flickered across the cash as her mind quickly measured the weight of her need versus that of her pride. As always, pride came out on top.

"Don't," Julie cut him off, more abrupt than she had intended. She softened her tone and offered him a weak smile. "Thank you, but...I can't. I mean, it's not necessary. We'll be fine."

Realizing his mistake, the deputy reluctantly deferred to her dignity and tucked the wallet back into his pocket. He turned and started toward his own vehicle, then turned back to face her.

"I'll pray for you," he said.

Ha! Julie's first impulse was to tell him not to bother, that God had stopped watching out for her a looong time ago, but the pained look in his eyes kept her from doing so. He was seeking penance, some way to assuage the guilt he felt at tossing a woman and her child out onto the street, and while Julie wouldn't take his money, she could at least grant him that.

"Thank you," she smiled dimly. "I appreciate that."

As the deputy climbed into his own car and shared a brief exchange with her ex-landlord, Julie fixed her gaze out the windshield at the ominous sky, bruised a deep purplish-blue by the thunderstorm that had been looming all morning. A single fat drop of rain splattered against the glass, followed moments later by a second and then a third drop. The shimmery beads hovered briefly before snaking down over the glass like tiny rivers, emulating the tears that Julie could feel but was forced to contain. The sound of a car horn jolted her from her trance, and the headlights of the sheriff's car flicked off and then on again out in the street, signaling that it was time to go. Without looking back at the dilapidated single-wide that had been her home for the past three years, Julie flipped on her wipers and began the long, slow Drive of Shame that she had watched so many others take before her.  Each time, she'd told herself that that would never, ever be her...and yet, here she was.

"Blue sky up ahead," Julie said, motioning out the windshield as she turned left out of the trailer park, onto the state-paved road that would lead them out of town. "That's got to be a good sign, right?"

Getting no reply, she glanced over to the passenger seat where Finn sat hunched against the door, his eyes fixed hard out the side window as their run-down little neighborhood flew past. Fortunately school had let out for summer break the week before, so truancy wouldn't be an issue for another couple of months, and surely they'd be settled in somewhere before then. Julie reached over to tousle the boy's shaggy dark hair but he ducked beyond her reach, a pointed reminder that a mother's touch is repellent to a twelve-year-old boy. Julie placed both hands back on the wheel and pretended not to feel the sting of his rejection.

"I think this will be a good thing," she ventured optimistically, as much for her own benefit as for his. "It'll be like...an adventure."

Finn turned his head, and Julie flashed him what she hoped was a convincing smile, but her efforts were returned with an eye roll and a look of bitter disdain. Cranking the radio dial to release an angry flood of rock music from the crackly speakers, Finn twisted his body toward the door and concealed himself within the folds of his tattered grey hoodie.

Julie sighed and turned her eyes back to the road ahead, having no idea where it would lead once they reached the edge of town. With no home, no job, and exactly thirty-seven dollars to her name, she had officially reached rock-bottom.

Right,she thought dismally. Some adventure.