“She didn’t need to.” Reeti’s eyes were wide with worry. “You know, you could stay with me. At least for a few nights, until you find something else.”
“Oh, I couldn’t,” I protested automatically.
“Of course you can. My parents bought a flat in Ballsbridge. Super safe area. It’s a little far to walk, but there’s a bus. And you’d have your own bedroom.”
I stared at her, speechless with gratitude.My own room?At my cool new friend’s place. I wanted to say yes. But I didn’t want to strain our fledgling friendship, or maybe I didn’t quite trust it yet. I didn’t have much experience making friends, but moving in together after onenight was never a good idea, right? Living with someone destroyed the magic in a relationship. That’s what Gray said.
Besides, I wasn’t like my mother, always taking advantage. I was putting the days in which I slept on the couches of friends-of-friends behind me.A fresh start.
“Thank you,” I said, finding my voice. “I... Well, that’s so nice of you. But I’ll be fine. I should at least look at this place.”
According to the map on my phone, the rental unit was fifteen minutes’ walk beyond the newsagents, behind the Custom House, not far from the river.
After leaving Reeti, I turned right on New Wapping, past a large construction site. Daylight filtered through the gray clouds and narrow streets. It could have been picturesque, with the cobblestone walks and the Georgian buildings split into flats. Except for the wheeled bins overflowing with trash. And the graffiti message painted ten feet high on a long brick wall at the top of the street:guards stay out. rats stay out.
A woman pushed a baby buggy past a couple of old men chatting in front of an iron grate. A delivery rider buzzed by on a stripped-down motorbike. A group of teenage boys hung out on the corner. I crossed the street to avoid them.
The buzzer was broken for Number 2D. The rental guy—squat and tattooed, with bad teeth—met me in the foyer. I followed him up the stairs to a single room with a slanted ceiling. There was a dingy comforter over the sagging mattress, and a metal desk jammed under the window. I was used to making do, to finding the best in bad accommodations. But the shared bath down the hall was filthy, the lock on the bathroom door didn’t work, and the rent was barely within my budget.
“I’ll have to think it about it,” I told the rental guy.
He grinned, exposing a missing incisor. “Better think fast. Prime place like this won’t be around long.”
When I came out, the older men were gone. The boys were still on the corner, nudging, talking. Somebody whistled. I tucked my head down and kept walking.
“Looking for something?” one of them called.
I shook my head. Increased my pace.
“I got a thing she can look at.”
More whistles as they crossed the road toward me. My stomach sank.Boys. Just boys, I told myself, younger than Toni. I rounded my shoulders, closing my body in on itself, as if I could make myself invisible.
They fell in behind me. “Give us a smile, then.”
“Where you from?”
No one else was on the street. My heart quickened, along with my footsteps.Do not engage. Do not escalate. Down an entire block.
“What’s your hurry?”
“Thinks she’s too good for us.”
“Speak for yourself, faggot.”
Another half block, past parked cars and trash bins. Past the empty construction lot. (Another headline for Reeti’s mother:Missing Girl’s Body Found in Building Site.) They were beside me now. In front of me. I hugged my sweater around me like protective armor and turned the corner, praying to see traffic. Pedestrians.
A boy with ears sticking out like a monkey’s cut me off. “Fancy a lift?”
“You’ve got no car, mate.”
“Oooh, ride me, then.”
A burst of laughter. I averted my face, stepping off the curb to get around them, and almost stumbled.
“Watch yourself!” A hand grabbed my arm.
Another grabbed my butt. I jerked my elbow free. “Let go.”
