“It’s a free country. I can go wherever I want to go, whether you like it or not,” I
said, feeling something that had nothing to do with him brew inside me. “What gives you the
right to tell me what to do?”
His face darkened again. We glared at each other for what seemed like an hour; in reality, it
was more like five seconds—five really long seconds. A tension bubble seemed to have swallowed
us.
I sucked a breath through my teeth. “It’s getting late,” I said, taking a step backward. “I
better go.”
When I turned sideways to leave, his arm reached out to mine to stop me.
“Wait,” he half-shouted, “I forgot something.” He pulled his hand abruptly away. The warmth
in my arm still tingled while he dug a small box out of his pocket and shoved it over to me,
avoiding touching me again.
“To replace the one that I broke,” he explained.
I took it, almost dropping it in the process. I opened the clear plastic box and a rectangular
silver plate fell out. It had a circle in the middle and a square screen on the top. “Umm …”
I said awkwardly, “thanks.”
His eyes widened. “It plays music,” he said like I was mentally slow.
Of course I knew what it was—anyone with money to spare had one of these. Why would I need to
know how to use one if I knew I would never actually be able to afford one?
I squinted, turning the music thingy in my hands. His laugh caught me off guard. I gazed up.
He grabbed the piece of metal from my hand—more softly than I had expected—and held it up for
me to see. Pressing on the circle, the square screen lit up. He moved his finger along the
circle line and showed me where to click to find music lists.
“You didn’t have to do that. My Walkman was pretty worthless.”
“Yeah, it was,” he quickly agreed. “But this one is brand new and it actually fits in your
pocket.” He looked a little smug as he said this. “I even downloaded Bob Marley on there for
you.”
“How did you know I liked Bob Marley?” I asked, tilting my head.
He raised an eyebrow. “You gave me the broken tape, remember?” He brought his fist to his
chest to remind me that I had punched the tape into him.
“Oh … right,” was all I could say again, my cheeks afire.
He gave me back the music rectangle. “I can get you new running sneakers too, if you want.
Better than the ones you’re wearing.” He smiled, but then his eyes darted around us again.
I looked down at my feet. “What’s wrong with my sneakers?”
When I heard him mumble something, I glanced back up. His face had suddenly turned ashen and he
was backing away from me. He had turned back into the menacing boy I had encountered the day
before.
“I gotta go,” he said. Just like that, he turned around and left.
I stood in place confused for a second longer, took a few breaths. Then I proceeded to turn
around too.
“Emily,” I heard him call out. My heart jumped and I looked back to find that he had stopped
in his tracks a few yards away. “I meant what I said. Don’t come back here.”
“I meant what I said too,” was what I had wanted to counter with, but he had already
disappeared and I was too taken aback that he had remembered my name—nothing but quick breaths
came out of my mouth.
I stuffed his gift inside my pocket—it did fit in there nicely, I noticed a little resentfully
—and turned back on my heels.
I finished my run, more befuddled than ever … and with the realization that I still had no idea
what his name was. He was the strangest person I had met, so far.
When I got home, I made myself a peanut butter sandwich—the bread was stale, but at least it
filled one of the holes in my stomach. I took chokingly huge bites while I cleaned the broken
glass in the sink that I hadn’t had time to get to that morning. I found a pair of sweatpants
that hadn’t seen the light of day since ninth grade, and I threw a box of laundry detergent on
top of my dirty clothes, stuffed a roll of quarters in my pocket, lugged the overflowing basket
down the stairs, and headed out the door.
The laundromat was a good block-and-a-half down our street, so carrying the heavy load of
clothes was not an option. But my roommates and I had already devised a first-rate system. I
unlocked the padlock that kept our permanently borrowed grocery cart chained to the front porch;
the stolen cart kept getting stolen on us, so we had to keep it under lock. I heaved the basket
into the cart and rolled it down the street, fitting in with the rest of the neighborhood.