With no one else in the store, I left my post behind the cash register and rushed out. LeCharles had swung his case of beer over the handlebars and was already kicking his leg over.
“LeCharles!”
He stopped and looked at me. I didn’t think I was going to say anything profound that would make him happy, and I wasn’t even sure I wanted to do anything more than make sure he was okay. But I had to say something.
“Whatever you’re about to do, please don’t do anything stupid, okay?” I said. “Don’t make the mistake I did and nearly ruin your life. Don’t be that person. Just... go home.”
LeCharles stared at me for a long, long time before a very small smile formed on his face.
“I am,” he said with a heavy voice. “No one else will have me right now.”
He feels so alone. I know the feeling all too well.
“I’m sorry, LeCharles,” I said. “I get off at nine if you want some company.”
It didn’t need to be said that I wasn’t saying that in any sexual or romantic sense. I was only speaking as a compassionate human being, one who needed to make clear that I cared for another human being’s state of mind. LeCharles nodded.
But he didn’t say anything else, and seconds later, he was backing up his bike, pushing it out of the parking lot, and heading home. Or, at least, what I hoped was home.
“Really hope you’re not going to do anything stupid,” I said. “I don’t want... ”
... to lose you because you did something fatal.I didn’t think the man was that close to suicide, but I’d never seen him look like this. At the very least, he needed attention.
For now, though, I just had a couple more hours of overseeing the store and keeping an eye on it to make sure nothing happened. I went back inside, sat on the stool, and wondered how I would kill time. It was nice to be earning money that would give me a cushion, but there had to be a more productive way to spend my time here. Maybe I could bring study guides. Maybe I could think about my career path. Maybe...
The door opened. I glanced up.
And my heart sunk.
“Holy shit, Rick, would you look at this.”
The two assholes who wanted to rape me at Brewskis.
Now I really wished that LeCharles had stuck around. Aside from some security cameras, there wasn’t any form of defense here, and in any case, I didn’t exactly have a lot of faith that cameras would stop these two Fallen Saints.
“Goddamn, Parker, it’s the bitch that got rescued by her boyfriend,” he said with her snicker. “Her boyfriend, who we’re going to fucking kill.”
Parker and Rick shared a bullying laugh, high-fiving each other. I crossed my arms, trying to hide my fear. I was determined to at least fight back more than I had at Brewskis. I didn’t have much of a choice, really, considering that there was no way I could rely on LeCharles to return. It was that or just let whatever they wanted to do happen.
“Can I help you?” I said in the fakest polite tone I could manage.
“Oh, can you?” Rick said. “You could help us by letting us inside... you.”
He and Parker laughed again like two teenage boys who had just dared each other to say something awful.
“That is not going to happen,” I said. “If you want alcohol from here, we are happy to provide that to you. Otherwise, I would ask you to leave.”
“And if we don’t?” Parker said, leaning forward on the table. “Please, tell us, bitch, what’ll happen?”
“I’ll have the cops called.”
It was an instinctive reply borne out of my time in the medical field, both for humans and for animals. In this town and with these guys, though, it didn’t really work.
In fact, not only did it not work, it seemed to provoke them further because their laughter only increased in their taunts.
“The police!” Rick said, slapping the table. “Hey, Parker, cuff me! Oh, wait, that’s her job!”
“Oh, shit, like those pigs can do anything,” Parker said. “And she’s the one that would get cuffed, not us! You crazy!”
