CHAPTER 28 — Hunger and Reflections
Carolyn
By the time I saw the first row of suburban houses, I was no longer walking like a person with direction, I was drifting.
The forest had thinned hours ago, trees giving way to scrub until I got to the open road. My boots had long since lost whatever dignity they started with as thick mud clung to the soles. My calves burned and my throat felt like I had swallowed dust and regret.
And I was starving, not the kind of hunger that makes your stomach grumble politely. The kind that claws at your stomach and makes your vision blur at the edges. My temper was literally sitting on a knife’s edge.
When I finally stumbled onto a small paved road lined with abandoned electric poles and metal mailboxes. Children’s bicycles abandoned on sidewalks, the sm
