“You have all of,” he waved his hand in my face, “that. You’re not wifey material for someone like me.”
Someone like him. A dickhead. That’s what he was.
So I ran. Or, more accurately, I crawled out of my skin and drove three hours south into the big city where everything was loud and bright and so busy it drowned out the hum of my grief. That had been our plan from the beginning—to move to the big city when we graduated and find ourselves a new life. Together.
But now, while I’m looking for myself, I end up losing more and more. The city is lonely, and I feel very small here. I don’t have friends. I don’t even have enemies to make my life a little more exciting. Here I’m just no one.
I have a job at a diner with sticky floors and endless coffee refills. It’s the same job I’d been doing for years for Grandma at her diner, but it’s different here. No one here knows me, no one really talks. Everyone has their own lives, and I have mine.
The big city isn’t what I thought it would be.
I painted my tiny studio in the brightest yellow I could find. I even cut my bangs—a terrible idea, I couldn’t pull them off. But it felt like something people do when they’re trying to start over.
And then it happens. I’ve been in Boston for over a year at this point andthoughtI was finally getting accustomed to a big city.
It’s a Tuesday night, and I stay late after my shift because my coworker has a sore back and asked me to cover the last table. I don’t mind. The streets are safer after midnight, paradoxically, because there are fewer people to wreak havoc. Or so I thought.
I leave the diner at 12:32 a.m. My sneakers squeak against the wet pavement as I cut down the alley like I always do. It shaves five minutes off my walk, and after a fourteen-hour shift, even that small number of minutes matters.
The alley is well lit. Usually empty. Usually safe.
Tonight it’s not.
At first, it’s just voices. Low and tense. Male voices. In this lonely alley. The first voices I’ve heard in this alley besides mine late at night.
I slow down. My heart taps against my ribs, and my instincts screamTurn around, but exhaustion and pride are louder. I tell myself I’ve walked this alley a hundred times, and I don’t want to be that girl who runs from shadows.
So I keep going.
That’s when I see him.
A man, maybe in his late twenties, broad and furious, slamming another guy against the wall. The smaller man gasps, barely managing to get a word out before a fist cracks across his jaw. And then another. Then the attacker grabs the man and begins smacking his head against the wall.
The sound is sharp—unwavering—and it splits the night like thunder every time his head connects with the concrete.
I freeze.
I’m telling myself to move, but my body doesn’t listen. It just stands there, witnessing a violent attack of one human beating on another.
Another slam sounds particularly loud, and I cry out, dropping my bag.
The attacker’s face whips toward me, and I see a ghost. Literally. The man’s wearing a ghost mask over his face, and all I can see are his eyes. Wild, like something unhinged has taken root behind them. He drops the man he’s been pressing into the wall and steps toward me, just one step, and it’s enough to send a jolt of ice down my spine.
“Get the fuck out of here,” he barks.
But I can’t move. I’m rooted to the concrete like a statue carved out of fear. My mind is trying to catch up, trying to compute what’s happening, trying to screamRUN, but my body won’t listen.
The attacked man is trying to get on his feet, and my eyes dart toward him. The attacker who’s almost near me, rushes back to the man and starts his maniacal assault again.
The victim crumples without making a noise.
The bigger man looks down at him, panting, like he’s coming down from something. Rage, maybe. Drugs. Trauma. Who knows.
Is that what happened to my dad? Was the man attacking him reliving some sort of trauma?
My throat makes a gurgling sound. Then another.
The man turns to me and tilts his head as if he’s surprised I’m still here.
