Richard

Meadow Lakes.I want to laugh. There’s no meadows or lakes, and there’s certainly no lake on a meadow. It’s a sixty-year-old trailer park full of dumps propped up on cinder blocks.

Did she actually grow up here?

I’m starting to think Bart didn’t have it so bad, after all. I look around, taking in the ancient silver Airstreams mixed in with some double-wides from the 80s, broken blinds barely visible behind muddy windows, and termite-rotted exteriors, green with mildew and exposed insulation. This whole fucking place is a fire hazard waiting to happen. I don’t want her here. She doesn’t have to stay at my house, but just…not here.

Maya sits in the seat next to me, slowly running her palms across each other and staring down blankly, lost in thought. I can’t shake the feeling that she’s trying to put off looking out the window as long as…