The sun sank into Southeast Florida in the balmy butt-crack of winter. I’d just turned fourteen and this was my eighth move—a VW van, a sailboat, and six houses. I glanced out the picture window of our cement block cracker box at R.J. and the neighbor kids riding...
Cold and grumpy, I walked faster down Murray Street. I gritted my teeth and headed for the Indian River and sunshine. Our tree dappled house, riddled with windows, made summer without air conditioning bearable, but in the winter it morphed into a mausoleum. I dug my...
In November Mom married my stepdad. In December we moved a hundred miles up the east coast from Miami. In January I transferred into Stuart Middle School in the middle of eighth grade. I thought I might be due a little peace—not the fight that broke out my first day...
