Worth the Effort: Ella's Story

Worth the Effort: Ella's Story Chapter 1

     His homelessness doesn't scare me anymore. Well, not as much, at least.
     It has been about two weeks, or so, of finding him in the alley behind my work. The more mornings that pass without incident, the more I trust he won't come at me with a knife. Maybe I don't really expect him to become violent, but my initial fear of him has decreased to a strange mix of caution and paranoia. It springs up inside me every morning the shadows move. My watchfulness is hanging around longer than I'm happy to admit. He's a human being, not a starved mountain lion.
     The first time I saw him, I'd bopped around the corner into the alley, all ignorance and innocence. It was 4:00 A.M. and still dark as pitch outside. The only light behind the tall downtown buildings was the single dim bulb over the door to the café I work in. In the two years I've worked at Read Between the Beans, I've never felt vulnerable. Because of school, I request the opening shift. It allows me to get four hours of work in before most people even think to start their day. Not once have I looked over my shoulder, or spooked at a noise, or realized how utterly alone I am.
     Until that one morning.
     As I slid the key into the lock movement, just beyond the splay of light cast by the grimy fixture above my head, caught my attention. The unexpected presence made me jerk my hand back. The key fell to the ground and bounced away. Fear of knowing I wasn't alone in the alley, realizing what an easy target I made, and always had, froze my mind. I didn't know if I should look for the intruder or find the key. Run away or try to get inside the restaurant.
     "You dropped something," he croaked. More shifting in the shadows.
     My heart accelerated to a terrifying pace as my unwanted visitor stepped into the light—rumpled, dirty clothing, shaggy hair, head down, concentrating on the ground. As he approached, I still couldn't move. I don't know if it was some misplaced politeness—that I didn't want to cause him embarrassment by showing my petrifying fear of him—or if I was afraid my fleeing would kick start a predator instinct, inciting him to give chase. I'm still bothered by the fact that I couldn't make myself run away.
     He bent, picked up my key, stepped forward, and handed it to me.
     Our eyes met as I took it from him, and I gasped. He was young, maybe my age. Were there really homeless seventeen-year-olds? I gulped.
     I remember feeling so bad about the gasp and the gulp.
     He shuffled back to his spot near the dumpster.
     "Thanks," I said.
     With a shaking hand, I slid the key into the lock again and let myself into the restaurant. I relocked the deadbolt as quietly as possible, hoping he wouldn't hear it re-engage and figure it was because of him. Though, actually it wasn't. I locked myself in every morning during my half hour prep time. Hank didn't get to work until 4:30. Even he locked the back door after he came in.
     That morning, I was the one to unlock the back door and take out the trash. I tried to act normal, like the thought of running into the boy again hadn't even crossed my mind, but my insides quaked as I pushed through the back door.
     The kid wasn't there anymore. I let out the breath I'd been holding and chucked the bags of trash into the dumpster. My relief turned to guilt. Walking through the door, my muscles had been as tight as a racer waiting for the starter pistol to fire. Or a gazelle being stalked by a lion.
     I'm a coward.