But he had left me. And it had been for the best.
At least that’s what I had spent a long time trying to convince myself. Even if in my heart it felt like a lie.
I pressed my palms against my legs, forcing the tremors to stop. Deep breaths. Calm and cool. Remembering him elicited strong physical reactions.
Every single time.
“Let’s find out a little more about you,” I said under my breath, turning my attention back to the unidentified man in front of me.
I leaned in closer, trying to find any discernable feature that would help in identifying him. A birthmark. A scar.
A tattoo.
The color red caught my eye. On the side of his neck. Just below the hairline.
My heart tripped over itself in my chest. I felt sick. So sick.
Don’t be silly, Imogen. A thousand people must have red tattoos on the side of their neck. I’m sure it’s nothing unique. Nothing special.
So why was I close to freaking out?
I glanced behind me to make sure that I was still alone before I carefully pulled the hospital gown aside, exposing slightly jaundiced skin. When I saw the crude drawing on his neck I had to grip the side of the bed for support.
“It can’t be,” I whispered.
I touched the red tattoo on his neck and smiled.
Wild green eyes. He sucked me under and he held me there. He kissed me harder, branding me his. “You’re my happy life, Imi.”
I was cold. I was hungry. I hadn’t changed my clothes in months and I couldn’t remember the last time I had slept all the way through the night, but that didn’t matter.
“I love you, Yossarian Frazier.” He smiled.
Yossarian. My Yoss.
My happy life.
“Yoss.” His name was razorblades on my tongue. In my mouth.
He didn’t answer. His eyes remained closed.
I hadn’t recognized him underneath the bandages. Beneath the bruises.
Yet the red man on his neck gave him away.
“Yoss,” I sobbed.
My Yoss…
He had been my happy life. Even when things were ugly.
Later he became my broken heart.
Fifteen Years Ago
He found me when the sky was bleeding.
It was a warm, summer night in the middle of June. School had been out for a week.
And I was angry.
So, so angry.
I had run away for the third time that month. But I didn’t plan to go back. Not this time. I didn’t really think that my mother would even care. She was probably too busy with her new boyfriend to notice that I was gone.
My problems seemed huge. Insurmountable. The only way out was to escape.
In my immature mind, a life on the streets was better than a life perpetually ignored.
How stupid I was.
But at sixteen I was bull-headed. Stubborn. It was one of my more problematic personality traits.
There was no way I’d go home with my tail tucked between my legs only to be lectured for my impulsivity and then promptly forgotten again.
I’d make a new life for myself. One that didn’t involve my selfish mother and her latest boy toy.
The city of Lupton, Virginia transformed at this time of day. At the end. Shadows became longer and the atmosphere crackled with energy that put me on edge.
I was angry.
But I was also scared.
I had been underneath the bridge a few times with my much wilder friend Amanda. She knew a few of the fringe kids that hung out with the shadies, scoring drugs—and other things.
Amanda was the kind of wild that was tolerated by her lovingly indulgent and permissive parents. She liked to play the part of crazy and out of control that was easily palatable when you had a comfortable bed to go home to at night.
She rebelled…just enough. She was bad…only slightly. And I had always been happy to tag along on her more rough and tumble adventures.
A few months ago she had briefly hung out with an older guy named Dez. With a buzz cut and tattoos on his arms, he was perfect in the I’m-trying-so-hard-to-be-hardcore kind of way.
I had no idea how she met him, only that he sold drugs to the street kids who made the rusty iron and broken rocks their home.
“My father would hate him,” Amanda cooed one night as she dragged me with her to meet up with him.
And she was right. Dez—no last name— was in his mid-twenties with terrifyingly dead eyes and a smile that would make children run away. He treated Amanda forcefully and it was obvious no one really liked him.
“You’ll get eaten alive down here, sweet cheeks.” Dez had leered at me. I had straightened my shoulders and pretended that he was wrong. I then smoked the joint he offered, drank from the dirty glass bottle that was passed around the group of dejected, thrown away people, and made myself belong for the night.
But Dez had been right.
I didn’t have what it takes to make it out here.
With the sky for a roof and grass for my bed. Watching my back with a paranoia that made me twitchy.
But being out here was better than going home. I was convinced of it. And there was no way I could back down now that my decision had been made. Admitting I had been wrong seemed the worst possible thing.
Pride was a dangerous thing.