Girl Meets Evil

Chapter Three

I laced my fingers through my hair and pulled as hard as I could, screaming into the bent enclosure of my arms over my face. I was somewhere away from the hospital, having agreed to return in three days with the full amount. Then I ran until my legs collapsed under me and I scraped my whole left side against the rough pavement. With barely enough energy to move, I crawled from the road to a nearby alley, sat in the mud and the muck and screamed. I couldn't tell if it was out loud or if the sound ripped through me with the force of my emotion. 

I screamed again, biting down on my lip hard enough to draw blood, hoping to use the pain to focus my thoughts. After a few seconds the sound of the street, of cars passing and people quickly moving to the other side, filtered through my pain. I pried my hands from my hair and leaned against the brick exterior of the alley. I needed to think. I still owed nearly the same amount to a loan shark, did they share client information so I couldn't borrow from someone else?

I sighed and then gagged as the putrid smell of rotting food and unwashed bodies filled my nose. I looked down the alley, away from the road, and saw several piles of trash and bundles of people who slept amongst the filth. I pushed myself to my feet and stumbled toward the noise of the traffic, trying to get my bearings.

Work ... I needed to work tonight. I didn't want to go to the bar and suffer through hours of smiling at strangers in the hope they would like my body enough to give me the money I needed to live. But what choice did I have? Even more now, I needed to do something other than think about what tomorrow would bring.

I fled in the opposite direction from the hospital, making the trek back to my apartment twice as long. I was already late for my shift at the bar, I had to be there by 2 in the afternoon to help handle the lunch and dinner rush. I didn't even know what time it was, except somehow the sun was still miraculously out.

I both ran and walked to my apartment across town, I didn't even have enough money for the bus ride. I walked when my anger overwhelmed me and ran when the sorrow and panic became too much. I lived in the rundown part of town, every street corner held some form of illegal activity, from selling drugs to selling bodies. It all brought a deep sense of sadness and a foul taste to my mouth. I absolutely hated it, but it was the only place I could afford.

I grimaced at the young girl who always stood at the end of my street, her body on display as she tried to entice a male client. She looked as worn and dead inside as I felt and for the first moment I stopped to truly consider her. 

She was pretty but had too much makeup on her young face, and too little clothes covering her body. I judged her the first moment I left my apartment and deemed her unworthy. Now it was the first time crossing my mind that maybe she didn't chose this existence any more than I was forced into mine. I smiled kindly at her as I passed but she only sneered, her eyes assessing me head to toe much as the mean receptionist had.

I sighed and kept walking, the frantic need to get to my job making my movements jerky. I paused as my eyes took in the scene in front of me but my braid refused to comprehend. In the small alleyway outside of my apartment, usually filled with bags of trash and discarded pieces of furniture, was filled now with random objects: clothing, books, dishes and the like. Someone's life blowing in the wind and left for the denizens of the street to pick through.

Another sinking feeling fell from the back of my throat into the pit of my stomach and out through my feet. I recognized those items. Frantically, tears gathering in my eyes at the continued bad luck, I ran toward my apartment. Calling it an apartment was generous, it was barely someone's unused garage that they built a kitchenette and bathroom in. There were several of the alleyway's beggars digging through the stuff, putting items into the bags or metal carts they called their own.