His lifestyle.
It seemed everyone in the damn hospital knew the unsavory facts of Yoss’s life. And that seriously pissed me off.
I took a deep breath and calmed myself down.
“I’m going to check on him before heading down to my office for a bit,” I told the nurse, who only nodded before turning back to the computer.
I quietly entered the room and made my way over to the curtain, pulling it back as gently as I was able to. I peeked around the corner and was both relieved and disappointed that he was asleep.
He had been so hateful earlier, I hadn’t necessarily wanted a repeat, but I was also almost desperate to see his green eyes again. I had missed how he used to look at me.
Like I was everything.
He was sick. And badly hurt. And a shadow of the man I used to know.
What had happened to change him so much?
I wanted to touch him.
He had always hated physical contact. Which was understandable given the things he had gone through. But he had let me in.
Yoss moaned in his sleep, his brow furrowing, his hands grasping for something only he could see.
“Imi,” he half-sobbed, his eyes still closed.
I sucked in a breath, my eyes blurring, my heart racing.
“Imi,” Yoss moaned again. “Imi.”
Over and over again he whispered my name as he slept.
I couldn’t tell if my name was his prayer.
Or his nightmare.
Fifteen Years Ago
Two weeks had passed since I had run away and Yoss had found me. And he hadn’t left my side for a moment.
We woke up beside each other every morning. At first it had been awkward. At sixteen, I had never shared a bed with a boy. But things were different now.
Milestones came with increasing frequency. Time simultaneously sped up and slowed down. Some things felt like they were happening so fast. Others felt like they were taking entirely too long.
Feelings were heightened. I lived my life in a constant state of paranoia and hyper vigilance. I swung through manic states of excitement and anguish. There were times I couldn’t tell if I was coming or going.
But Yoss was always there.
Fourteen days. That’s how long it took to decide he was what I wanted. The only thing I needed.
I had dated guys before. I had kissed. I had groped. I had once let a guy put his hands down my pants. I had lusted. I had desired.
But I had never felt this out of control thing that now resided in the center of my chest.
Sure, part of it was because Yossarian Frazier was beautiful. When he smiled, my heart galloped at full speed and when he touched me I tingled everywhere.
The attraction I felt for him was intense. Overwhelming. But it was more than that.
It was something else. Something deeper. Something I had never known or felt.
I couldn’t be positive he felt the same way. Sometimes I thought he did. I would catch him looking at me when he thought I wasn’t paying attention. He would roll onto his side after the sun had set and I felt his eyes on me, heavy and protective.
But he never pushed for anything from me. His touches were casual. Warm but not necessarily romantic.
Even though I was runaway with no real place to call home, I still obsessed about normal teenage girl things.
And whether the object of my affection felt the same way was pretty high on the list of things to fixate about.
When I wasn’t thinking about Yoss and whether he liked me as I liked him, I was doing whatever I could to endure in a world that at times felt like it would drown me. Yoss, however, seemed comfortable navigating the scary waters of life on the streets. Because of him, I was safe.
I was surviving.
We spent our days under the bridge or down at The Pavilion, which was a fancy name for a falling down barn by the river and was a popular swimming spot for the local kids. We found food in dumpsters; we scavenged for change in phone booths. I watched Yoss, Shane, and Di skateboard on makeshift ramps at the abandoned car lot outside The Pit.
At night, Yoss made sure I was warm and dry and as comfortable as possible in his tiny hideaway. He let me read his books and listen to CDs on his old stereo that he had found at the landfill. I’d fall asleep to the sound of him humming song after song in the dark.
He kept me fed.
He found me an old pair of jeans to replace the less than practical short shorts I had left the house in.
He took me to the local library where I used the bathroom to wash up as best as I could with stolen toothpaste and toothbrush Yoss had swiped from a drug store.
He brought me deodorant and brightly colored socks. “So your feet don’t get cold,” he had explained when I had asked what I needed with red and yellow striped socks.
We learned a hundred tiny, insignificant details about each other. We discovered that we shared a mutual love for old 50s and 60s family films. Freaky Friday—the Jodi Foster version of course—and Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang being particular favorites. We both had dreams of living at the beach, neither of us having ever been to the ocean.