Stabbing into the sorest part, the most insecure part of me.
I tuck my hair behind my ears and root in my bag for money as I approach the counter. Maybe nobody will ever want me. It’s not like boys are lining up to ask me out. I don’t have my brother Joel’s rock-star looks. I’m just the mousey little sister with the wide eyes and non-descript hair. Nor do I have his abilities. Hell, he’s got a sports scholarship running track and is doing great at college. I can’t even jog without someone running me over with a bike and spending months trying to walk straight again.
I take my donut and walk out into the cold, along the tables and benches they have for customers.
I need to get my life back. I need I find myself again. Blake is an ass, and I need him to leave me alone. So I’m ignoring his texts and calls, his taunts, and moving on.
Really moving on.
Across the street is a tattoo shop. Sometimes a tall, blond guy stands there, staring right at me. At least, in my direction. Sometimes I fantasize that it’s me he’s looking at, that he’s attracted to me. Even from across the street he looks handsome with his square jaw, the clean planes of his face and the wide set of his shoulders.
Yeah, Ev. Dream on. Why should he be looking at me of all women?
I glance up and freeze. He’s there, at his usual spot outside the tattoo shop, his back propped against the building, his hands shoved in his pockets. He’s dressed in faded jeans, black boots and a black jacket. His head is tipped back, his eyes closed, his short blond hair catching the faint sunlight.
With one last look at his long legs and broad chest, that bright halo of hair, I hurry away. God, what if he caught me looking?
Mortifying.
My leg twinges and I slow down. There’s a heaviness on the air. The fracture in my leg hurts, my knee above all. Although it’s almost healed, I’m a barometer, able to tell you when rain is coming. Who needs the weather forecast when I’m around?
I cross the avenue carefully. Not that I have a phobia of bikes now, but I sure as hell don’t want to get run over again. So okay, I may be a bit scared of them... with good reason.
As I reach the bus stop, I hear a distant shout behind me, but when I turn I don’t see anyone. Cars race by. Drivers honk and rev their engines. I must have imagined it.
Shrugging to myself, I board the bus and take a seat by the window. What do I want to do with my life? There's one thing I love doing: helping people. But I’m not supposed to care if the homeless people I see around me live or die. If they’re sick or hungry. That’s none of my business.
‘They don’t deserve your time or our parent’s hard-earned money,’ Joel tells me day in and day out. ‘They live in their own world. Lazy bums. Low-lives.’
He sounds so much like Blake it’s unbearable.
If I don’t go to college, if I keep my job at the sports store instead and rent a cheap apartment on the wrong side of the tracks, will I be a low-life in his eyes, too?
And hell, how can I jog—well, at this point, limp—through my neighborhood, in my shiny new jogging shoes and pants, wearing my new watch that does everything apart from making coffee, with my cell phone that can read my emails out loud in case I’m too bored to use my hands, in front of people who don’t have to eat?
So, yeah, I know we’re not millionaires, and I know I shouldn’t waste money on stupid stuff, and I’m aware that my parents worked hard to get where they are now and be able to afford two cars and all the nice things in life, but hey... Using my pocket money to buy food and sometimes medicine for people who need it isn’t big spending. Pocket money indeed... It’s not like I’m taking anything away from anyone.
Thing is, I used to have a purpose in my life before the accident. The hurt wasn’t just physical. I lost people. And it cost me. Joel rolls his eyes when I mention it, and Mom and Dad don’t get it.
I knew my people. Before the bike hit me and broke my leg, I did my rounds at least three times a week. Jogging was my excuse to check on everyone I knew was out there, taking shelter in store entrances and bus stops. I lost two older guys before the accident—Brent who was found dead one cool summer morning, and Jimmy, who was hooked on drugs and choked on his own vomit one night.
Then there was this young guy I ran across a few times. First, he’d been sitting with a few of my regulars outside Kohl’s department store in late summer. Then in the fall I found him curled up in a sleeping bag in a small alley off State Street. I recognized his torn blue jacket and his long ratty hair.
A few days later he was burning up with fever and coughing his lungs out. He could barely breathe. It looked like pneumonia. I called 9-1-1 and stayed to see that the ambulance arrived. His lips were blue, barely visible under his scraggly blond beard. As I held his too-thin hand and brushed stringy hair off his sunken face, I was scared they’d be too late.
I never found out what happened to him. I’d only stepped around the corner to check for the ambulance when the bike ran me over. It was a nasty fall. A compound fracture and a popped knee. I passed out from the pain. When I woke up, I was in hospital, and nobody knew anything about a sick young man.
That was seven months ago.
I’m afraid I lost him, too. That he died in that alley. In the end, I never even got his name, and now he’s most probably dead.
He was my responsibility. I found him and then I let him down. Nobody seems to know what happened to him. He’s gone.
I sigh, closing my eyes.
‘Cut the melodrama, Evie.’
That’s what Blake would have said. In fact, that’s what he always says. ‘That’s too deep, Evie. You’re overthinking this, Evie. Stop playing at being a hero. Leave people to their fate. What is it to you? What do you owe them?’
Screw you, Blake. It’s not about owing. It’s about giving. About righting an injustice. About caring, something you’ll never understand in your life.
Next day at work I’m rearranging the running shoes on their supports, after a family of five decided to examine them all and then conveniently forgot where they’d found each one, when I hear my name.
“Hey, Ev!” Cassie bounces in my direction, grinning widely. “Want to grab some coffee after work?”
“Sure.”
I like Cassie. With her doll face, blue eyes and long blond curls caught in a ponytail, she’s so cute I want to pinch her cheeks. She never fails to greet me and ask me how I am. Customers love her, and especially the kids. She’s a whirlwind of energy and joy.
“I know just the place,” she gushes, eyes bright. “They make the best coffee in town. You’ll see. And the cupcakes!”
Sounds good. But I don’t say yes immediately. I don’t want to go to another cafe. I realize with a jolt that I want to see that guy again, see if he’s there across the street today, too.