The End

Kristina quickly grows lonely. Trey is almost never in Reno and she just wants someone to love, and for someone to love her. Brad is also lonely, so they begin making love every night so as to fill in the lonely dark spaces. One night, Brad's kids' mom, Angela returns home, and Kristina is left hanging. She has nowhere to live, no legitimate job, and no hope. When Trey finally returns home, they get an apartment together. They try living with Hunter for a while, as Trey wants to be part of a "real" family. Things do not work out with Hunter, though, in the end, and they bring him back to Kristina's mom. Pretty soon, Trey and Kristina have little to no money. They decide to steal Kristina's mom's check book and cash it in her name. They are desperate. She almost gets caught. When this still doesn't provide enough money, they ask the Mexican mafia for a very big amount of meth, and swear to sell it and pay them back. When this plan fails, they must flee the country, as there is no way you can mess with "La Eme". They decide to flee to California. With nowhere to sleep, they crash in their car. A policeman catches them, asks to search the car, and finds a huge amount of crystal meth. When sent to jail, they are separated. Kristina finds out that she is pregnant. She wonders what she will do. At the end, she contemplates her life, and her future, in her prison cell. "Hopefully, most hopefully of all, by the time I get out of here, the monster will be nothing more than a distant memory. An unforgettable nightmare" (679). Kristina's final thoughts are "Yeah, yeah. I realize that's an awful lot of hoping. But hey, I've always been an optimist...don't ask me why" (680).