When Never Comes

by Barbara Davis

back to private school—the kind run by nuns—if she didn’t get her grades up by her next report card. It’s hard not to feel sorry for her. After five moves in three years, Christy-Lynn knows what it’s like to be the new girl, the one everyone stares at and whispers about. The outsider. But over the years, she’s gotten used to it, even gotten good at it if there’s such a thing. Which is why it feels weird to be bringing home a classmate to help her with her term paper. It’s not like she doesn’t have the time—her own paper has been finished for a week—or that she minds really. Words are her thing. She likes the way they feel, the way they taste. It’s just . . . weird. New weird. Awkward weird. They’re cutting across the parking lot now, past a dumpster overflowing with beer cans and dirty diapers, and cars that haven’t moved in months. Christy-Lynn wonders if there’s any food in the apartment. She doubts it. There’s rarely money for cookies or chips these days. Please, God, let there at least be some real Coke; not the generic stuff her mother brings home when cash is low and there are still five days till payday. Linda Neely might be unfortunate-looking with her freckles and her big teeth, but her Fossil watch and trendy Dr. Martens are clearly not from Goodwill. They’re climbing the steps now, three slabs of broken concrete with weeds growing out of the cracks. From the apartment above, Reba McEntire’s “Fancy” bleeds through the broken screen, along with the high-pitched wa...