“Yoss,” I said his name firmly. His green eyes met mine. “I’m doing this because of who we are to each othernow.”
He sighed. “It’s been fifteen years, Imi. You don’t know anything about the person I’ve become. How can you say we’re anything to each other?”
I put my hand on his chest, ignoring the feel of his ribs beneath his skin. I pressed my palm over his heart. Thud. Thud. Thud.
“I know who you are inhere.I trusted the eighteen-year-old boy who made sure I was fed. Who protected me. Wholovedme. And I trust the man he became. Sure, people can change, but I see who you are.” I patted my hand on his chest before withdrawing it.
“Now prove me right.”
Fifteen Years Ago
Today was my birthday.
I was turning seventeen.
One year older.
I gazed up at the steel girders above me. Stretching in either direction, vibrating with the constant rush of traffic.
It was noisy. My eardrums thrummed with the constant drone.
Seventh Street Bridge was the place for the people that life had thrown away.
I was one of too many in this unspoken side of a broken down city.
When I had first found myself beneath the bridge all those months ago, everything had seemed dark and dirty and more than a little scary.
But now, brutal and raw, I found it soothing. The never-ending noise. The stench of fires that burned in the trashcans. The wasted eyes of the kids around me. The shadows that lingered and never went away.
Now it washome.
And that was the only place to spend your birthday.
The sun was bright. The air was cool. I felt the wind against my skin, my baggy sweatshirt and tattered coat doing little to keep out the air.
The rocks were hard and sharp under my palms as I leaned back on my hands, stretching my legs out in front of me, laughing at a lame joke Bug was attempting to tell.
Birthdays had never been a big deal for me. Often my mom forgot about them completely. I had grown out of the disappointment. I had come to expect little.
In some ways, this was better than any of my other birthdays before.
At least I was smiling.
“Shut up already,” Di groaned, throwing a crumpled soda can at Bug’s head. It bounced off his temple and fell to the ground without him even noticing. He continued with his badly recited joke as if nothing had happened.
“And the bartender said, ‘You can’t leave that lying there. Wait, that’s not right.” Bug frowned. “No, the bartender said, ‘You can’t leave that sitting—that’s not right either. Shit, I forget,” he grumbled. Shane rolled his eyes. Karla snickered and I only smiled.
“Just stop already,” Di said, though there was no malice in her voice. Bug never really made any sense.
“I’ve got another one! A really good one too—”
“No!” Shane, Karla, Di, and I all said at the same time. We shared a look and started laughing.
Bug sat down, kicking his foot in the dirt, his mouth in a pout. “Fine. Be that way.”
I nudged his shoe with mine. “Maybe later, Bug,” I told him, not wanting to hurt his feelings.
Bug instantly brightened. His moods were in constant flux. Happiness, sadness, anxiety, excitement, they flowed over him quickly, never staying in place long enough for us to figure out what was really going in his head.
