Free Promises I Made by Michelle Zink

guarantees.”
    Parker and me in jail—Detective Castillo could call it a “juvenile correctional facility,” but everyone knew that was just another word for jail—was not what I’d had in mind when I’d come back to LA. We’d have records for life, records that would make it hard to get jobs or credit, things we would need if we were going to live straight.
    â€œI can’t risk it,” I finally said.
    â€œGrace . . . I’m worried about you. A young girl on her own isn’t a good thing in this world.”
    I looked at my phone. I’d been on the line for almost three minutes. “I’ve been alone a long time,” I said, preparing to disconnect the call. “I just didn’t know it.”

Eleven
    The next afternoon, I was back on the bus to Playa Hermosa. I’d spent the night before counting my money and rehashing the conversation with Detective Castillo, which led me to the same inevitable conclusion: I was at a dead end.
    I had no idea how to use the little information I had to help Parker, but I couldn’t keep blowing a hundred and twenty dollars a day on a hotel. I toyed briefly with the idea of taking to the streets, sleeping outside. It was warm enough. But then I realized how easy it would be for the cops to pick me up—or for something even worse to happen to me—while I was asleep on a park bench. The thought of approaching Selena, of facing her after what I’d done, made me feel like screaming inside, but I was out of options. As much as I hated to admit it, I needed help.
    The sun had broken through the marine layer when I gotoff at the Town Center and began walking up the winding hills toward Selena’s house. The air was moister and heavier than usual, and I was grateful for the canopy of trees that offered me shade every few feet.
    I had turned the corner onto Selena’s street and was heading for my hiding place under the arbor when I spotted a peacock standing in the middle of the road. It was so still it could have been fake. A moment later, it blinked, its eyes never leaving my face.
    I slowed down, totally exposed, the cover of the arbor forgotten as I stared at the bird. I’d forgotten how magnificent they were up close. Pictures never really did them justice. On paper they were just two-dimensional objects that hardly seemed real. But in real life their plumage was enormous, the green and blue tail feathers vibrant and iridescent, standing a good two feet above their regal heads or dragging four feet or more behind them. Their eyes were deep brown, wise and knowing, and they never seemed in a hurry to get anywhere, even when the cars on the peninsula honked and people screamed out their windows at them to move.
    â€œHello,” I said softly. I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was the same bird that had wandered Camino Jardin in front of the house we’d rented while working the Fairchild con. It didn’t make sense—Camino Jardin was at least a mile farther up the peninsula—but I felt a strange kind of kinship with the animal, set loose in a foreign land and forced to make its way around people who didn’t want it there,because it had nowhere else to go.
    The sound of my voice seemed to waken it from its reverie, and it started to move, strolling calmly across the street and disappearing around the corner like it knew exactly where it was going.
    I stared after it, feeling something tug at the hollow place in my chest. Then a car backed out of one of the driveways, and I hurried forward, head down, making my way to the arbor that had shielded me on my last failed trip to see Selena.
    I glanced down at my phone, trying to look busy as the car continued down the road. When it was out of sight, I tucked myself back into the arbor and took stock of the situation on Selena’s street.
    The house I was standing in front of looked as empty as it had the first time I’d been there.