Winners Don't Have Bad Days (Watty 2020 Winner, Romance)

3. #TakeCare, October 2017

The relentless prairie sun heated Daya's hair just short of the ignition point. Yesterday's snow was not just gone, in this arid climate it evaporated from memory. The lawn bristled like a shoe brush with dried grass.

She wished that the despair she had felt last night evaporated with the snow. Gone, with no consequences.

The demons that crouched in the corners of her room, pointed and whispered failure to one another, drove her out of bed too many times to do nothing. I should charge you rent, she snapped at them, see how you like it.

At the lowest, loneliest point, when she went to the window, and remembered that she could not even see the sky out of her basement, she cried and hugged the pillow. Nobody knew that she had hit a bad spot, except for Mike, and it was good to talk to someone about it. She could find him in the library... 

And if she would do that, why was she so obtuse about his offer? It was 2017, and they would bail each-other out, instead of running for help to their respective parents.

Plus, her trainer's instinct told her that without someone to push him, Mike would pity himself too much to exercise his foot properly. He'd limp for months, maybe even forever.

She would have taken a shower, but she was afraid to wake up her landlady... she was alone, sleepless and with nothing to lose.

And that's why she had texted Mike.  

Doing something, even this stupid thing, calmed her down. It meant she was still kicking. She stretched out on her bed, tossed the pillow to the floor and fell asleep.

But for the beep of the response message, she would have believed the texting a fever dream. 

Thank you, I appreciate your willingness to help me out, Mike replied. He added his address and that he would stay home from work.

There was no way she could tell him, hey, I changed my mind, after he made it sound like it was he who needed her help. Gracious, Mike was gracious, and that sealed the deal. She couldn't unmake what last night's fears wrought. Only to make the best of it.

***

She locked the door and inserted the keys into the waiting hand with peeling nail-polish. "Here you go. I'll be renting a room from my coworker."

The landlady squinted at the sun and muttered, "You take care, girl." She stuffed the keys in the back pocket of her worn jeans, her resigned shrug belying the worries about finding another renter. But there was sincerity in that take care too. 

That's why Daya chose Calgary when she fled Ontario, that dry-eyed attitude for those who could move on.  As long as you live, there is after. As long as you live, you conquer oneself.

And here she was, kicked to the curb next to her two beaten duffel bags, a bedazzled roller suitcase for the skates that nobody wanted and a loaner car. Conquering.

Once the landlady disappeared inside the house, Daya threw the duffels in the trunk, opened the passenger side door, grabbed the suitcase... Ah! Her throat tightened again. What if she tossed it into the window where the landlady hid behind the worn blinds? What if she left it on the curb for a little girl to find and grow up to be a champion, an urban fairy tale? What if... if... if...

She put the skates in the trunk with the duffels. They were things. They cost money. They were things.

Done.

Next.

Her sister would still be at her office in Toronto, so Daya took a deep breath in and dialed. "Hi, Shanti!" she said to the voice mail in an upbeat tone that was a trademark of her new profession. "Guess what, I'm moving,  and here is my new—"