Jamie Riley 

The shouting wasn’t what made Jamie leave. That part came every few nights, like clockwork, muffled words slurred through alcohol and resentment, rising in volume until they spilled out of the cracked walls and filled the whole apartment like smoke.

It was the sound that came after. The sharp, wet slap of skin against skin. Then the thud. Then silence.

That silence was the worst part.

His mother didn’t scream anymore. She used to, back when Jamie was younger. When there was still some fire in her. When she still believed someone might come running. Now, she just took it, quiet and heavy. The same way old punching bags just sag from the hook, waiting for the next hit.

Jamie sat at the edge of his mattress, in the room he shared with no one now, since Chris was gone. His shoes were already on, but he untied one just to do it again, fingers working slow over the frayed laces. A habit. Something to focus on. Something to fill the space while his father’s voice kept tearing through the thin walls.

His room was small, box-shaped, and always a little too warm in summer, too cold in winter. Chris’s side still looked like he might come back; posters curling off the walls, a busted speaker in the corner, and a shoe box under the bed full of lighters and notes Jamie never touched. On the desk sat a worn photograph of two brown haired boys, Chris with blue eyes and Jamie with green. 

The floor was scuffed but clean, the single window patched neatly with tape where the glass had cracked. Compared to the rotting balconies and boarded-up doors down the block, their apartment looked almost careful. Like someone was still trying, even if everything else had already given up.

After grabbing the pocket knife Chris had given him last year when Jamie turned twelve, he opened his bedroom door quietly. He didn’t want the floor to creak. In the living room, he caught a glimpse of his dad, shirtless and red-faced, looming over his mother like a storm cloud about to break again. Her head was turned away. 

Jamie didn’t stop, but just walked past with careful steps until he reached the front door. He closed it slowly behind him. 

The building stairwell was dim. A teenage couple smoked at the bottom landing. Jamie didn’t look at them. He didn’t want to be looked at, either. 

The street was breathing heat even though the sun had been down for hours. Somewhere in the distance, sirens howled, raising and falling like a dying animal. Laughter echoed from a cracked-open window above. This neighborhood carried its own tension, stretched thin like it could snap at any moment. 

Jamie started to walk. Hands in his pockets, head down, shoulders hunched just enough to disappear into the shape of the street. He wasn’t scared. Fear didn’t do you any good around here. You learned the rhythms instead. He knew which buildings were fronts for things that didn’t get spoken about, and which ones had curtains that never moved and eyes always watching. He knew which doors you didn’t knock on, which sidewalks you crossed the street to avoid, and which cracked porches had pitbulls trained to kill instead of bark.

He’d grown up here and learned to read danger the way other kids learned to read street signs. Every busted-out window and graffiti-tagged wall was familiar. The burnt-out car at the end of the block was practically a landmark.

Jamie didn’t feel sad, or angry. Not even tired. His body moved on autopilot while his mind stayed quiet, shut off like lights before bed. There was no room for feelings. It was just another night. Another few hours to kill before his apartment went still, and he could go home and sleep.

He thought about Chris.

His brother had left the same way once, after another night like this one. Only Chris hadn’t come back. He was in the first year of a life sentence now, locked away for killing two people in a fit of rage. Jamie didn’t know all the details. 

They were never close. Chris had always been more of a presence than a person. Heavy footsteps, slammed doors, long silences. But Jamie missed him sometimes, in a strange, distant kind of way. 

Sometimes he wondered, if their dad ever got locked up, would he end up in the same place? Would they pass each other without speaking? Two men from the same house, carrying the same anger in different directions. 

Jamie turned the corner by the liquor store with the busted neon sign that hadn't lit up in years. The storefront stank of old beer and piss, and a man was slumped on the steps, mouth agape, a half-empty bottle still balanced in his grip like it was the only thing keeping him grounded. Flies buzzed around his head. 

Up ahead, sitting on the edge of the curb near a vacant lot, was Anthony.

He was easy to spot, even in the half-dark. Skinny as a stick, clothes too big for his frame and streaked with dirt like he’d crawled through the day. His hoodie hung off one shoulder, the front pocket torn, and his jeans looked like they’d been dragged behind a car. He held a cigarette in one hand and smoked like someone who’d been doing it forever. His fingers trembled a little, but he looked calm. A bit too calm for a ten-year-old out this late.

His dark hair stuck out from beneath a crooked beanie, messy in a way that wasn’t on purpose. His eyes were wide, round, and strange. Hazel, almost golden under the orange wash of the streetlamp. They gave him this weird mix of wild and tired, like he hadn’t slept in days but still might bolt if you got too close.

Jamie slowed down. It had been a while since he’d seen Anthony around school. Weeks, maybe. He remembered hearing something about Anthony skipping again, maybe even getting kicked out. Not that it was surprising. The kid was trouble from the start, always getting into fights with kids twice his size and walking away with bloody knuckles and a grin.

They weren’t in the same class, Anthony was younger by three years, but they lived on the same block, ran in the same circles. Sort of. They had mutual friends. The kind who set shit ablaze just for fun. The kind who stole knives from the corner shop and dared each other to use them. Jamie hung around those boys, sure, but he wasn't like them. He didn’t skip school like they did. He never said it out loud, but he actually liked it. Not the rules, not the teachers, but the work. He was good at it. Numbers made sense and books stayed quiet. 

Jamie kept that part hidden. Admitting it would’ve meant trouble. If his friends found out he liked school, they’d beat him up just to save the effort of beating up someone else.

Anthony wasn’t like that. Anthony didn’t care what people thought. His family had come from somewhere else. Puerto Rico, maybe. Three years ago, the kid hadn’t even known enough English to ask for a pencil. Now he spoke fast, sharp, full of slang and bad words. Most kids still had trouble understanding him, but Jamie never did.

There was something about the way Anthony talked, moved, looked around like the world was already falling apart, and he was just waiting to see how fast it crumbled.

Jamie watched him from across the street for a second, then crossed over. He didn’t call out. Just walked until he was close enough for Anthony to notice.

And when their eyes met, Jamie saw the damage right away. Anthony’s lip was split and puffy, the skin darkening at the edges, and one of his eyes was blooming purple beneath the socket. He didn’t try to hide it. Didn’t flinch or look away, but just took another drag from his cigarette.

Jamie didn’t ask what happened. He didn’t need to.

He’d figured out a long time ago that Anthony’s home was a lot like his own. Just louder, maybe even meaner. There were more people crammed into that rotting apartment: two brothers, one older, one younger. The older one, Marco, had a reputation. Mean, fast with his fists, the kind of kid even grown men gave space to on the street. The little one, Jamie had never seen. Some said he never went outside. Jamie didn’t even know his name.

Anthony didn’t have a drunk for a father, not like Jamie. But that didn’t mean things were better. Jamie had seen men come and go from their place at all hours. Sleazy types with twitchy eyes and belt buckles that never seemed to stay done. None of them stuck around. Some looked at Anthony like they were sizing him up. 

Their apartment was worse than his, and that was saying something. Jamie had been over a few times. The place reeked of sour laundry and old takeout, like the walls had soaked up years of neglect. Stained carpets, a stack of unwashed dishes crusted over in the kitchen sink. He remembered once stepping over a smashed beer bottle on the floor and realizing no one had cleaned it up for days.

Anthony’s mom was... strange. Sometimes she acted like a real mother, smiled and even made them grilled cheese once. Then there were days she was a different person altogether. Screaming over nothing, throwing plates at the walls. Once, she pulled a knife on them when they wouldn’t leave fast enough, waving it around with her mouth foaming like a rabid animal. 

And sometimes, she just disappeared. Vanished for days, maybe even weeks. Jamie could always tell, because Anthony would show up to school wearing the same clothes for days, hair greasy and stomach growling. 

Standing there now, looking at Anthony’s bruised face, Jamie felt something bitter crawl up his throat. Not pity, just that quiet, heavy understanding that only kids like them ever shared. Kids who didn’t go home to rest, just to wait for the next bad thing to happen.

Jamie sat down beside him on the curb, the concrete still warm. Anthony didn’t say anything at first but just reached into the pocket of his oversized hoodie and pulled out a crumpled pack of cheap cigarettes. He offered it wordlessly, his small fingers stained at the tips. 

Jamie took one. The lighter he was handed was scratched and half-melted on one side. Jamie flicked it a few times before the flame caught. He lit the cigarette, took a slow drag, and let the smoke sit in his chest for a second before exhaling through his nose.

They sat in silence, watching a stray cat nose through a pile of garbage across the street. Somewhere far off, a baby cried. A window slammed. The city never really slept, it just shifted shapes.

Anthony tapped ash off the end of his cigarette with the casual air of someone much older, legs pulled up like he was trying to disappear into his hoodie.

Then, like he hadn’t been thinking about it the whole time, he turned and said, “You know what we do?” His voice was too light for the dark under his eyes.

Jamie shook his head.

Anthony grinned. Not the kind of grin that came from happiness, but the sly, twitchy kind that never quite reached his gaze. He leaned in a little closer, lowering his voice even though there was no one around to hear.

“The church... Cypress Grove, you know it?” he said. “They leave the money box. Big wood one, no lock. Just a little hole. I saw them empty it once. Lots of bills inside. Maybe two hundred. Easy.” 

Jamie took another drag, watching the ember burn down to the paper. 

Cypress Grove Church.

He knew it. A small, weathered building that looked like it had been forgotten by time. The stained-glass windows were faded and chipped, their colors dulled by decades of rain and dust. The wooden cross out front leaned slightly to the left, splintered and warped by sun and age. The priest, an old man with a limp and kind eyes, often handed out sandwiches to the addicts camped on the front steps.  

Anthony nudged him with his elbow. “We break in, we take it. Half for you, half for me. Like… commission, yeah?”

“Since when do you know what commission means?”

Anthony’s grin widened. “I watch Scarface last week. Twice.”

Jamie didn’t say yes. He didn’t say no either. He just stared ahead, the weight of the night pressing in around them, thick and suffocating like a heavy coat. 

Stealing from a church. That was low, even for this neighborhood where desperation took strange shapes. But then again, it wasn’t like God had done either of them any favors. If anything, they would just be taking what the world had failed to give them.

After a long silence, Jamie answered. “You know we’ll get caught.”

“Only if we're dumb.”

Jamie looked at him, at the fading bruise beneath one eye, the busted lip, the cigarette too big for his mouth. A boy with the posture of someone already tired of life.

“Fine,” Jamie muttered, standing up and grinding the cigarette under his heel. The glow sizzled out, leaving the air thick with the smell of burnt tobacco. “But I want sixty.”

Anthony scrambled up after him. “You get fifty or you get punch in the face. Your choice.” 

Jamie rolled his eyes but didn’t argue. Honestly, he was glad for the distraction. Even if it meant stealing from a church. Even if the choice of target made him feel a little dirty.