“See you around. Don’t get into any more trouble,” Erin said, shoving me toward the doors.
I threw her a wave before heading out, zipping my coat up tight under my chin when the brisk, afternoon air hit my face the second the double doors slid open on their tracks. While it hadn’t snowed yet, the weather was looking particularly grim. Had been for the last two days. I’d spent the majority of that time staying inside, tucked under a fleece blanket I’d been dragging around the house with me whenever I moved from room to room.
Being only a few streets over from my house, I felt silly calling Amelia to come get me when I was more than capable of walking the twenty minutes it would take to get me back there. Her loading Ainsley into the car was more than enough reason not to bug my poor sister into dragging her three year old out of the house mid-snack break.
Dead leaves dragged across the empty parking lot, skipping along the weathered asphalt, when another short breeze picked up as I crossed over to the sidewalk. Both of my hands were shoved down deep into my jacket pockets, my shoulders jacked up toward my ears to shield the lower half of my face with my flipped up collar.
Only a few stragglers accompanied me on my way back, all of them as equally bundled up and hurrying along the sidewalk while traffic dragged on lazily next to us.
Since going home, I’d toggled between the couch and my bed, both of which I’d grown tired of by day three. Bed rest wasn’t a particular adjective I was familiar with, and even less so taken with enthusiasm when I had a rambunctious three year old at home who barely went down long enough for naps.
Normally, her infectious energy was fun to keep up with. Kept both Amelia and I on our toes quite often. Having one caretaker down, though, was beginning to wear on my poor sister’s patience, as well as make me feel completely useless whenever I caught her struggling to juggle Ainsley, keeping up with the house and her job.
My sister was a tough-as-nails woman. A pregnancy at sixteen had hardly slowed her down and seemed to be a simple blip in the radar once I’d smuggled her out of our parents home and into my shitty little studio apartment seven blocks from where we grew up. The break away from the toxicity had allowed my sister to grow, to flourish, and graduate with a GED and plans for an actual future, despite being a new single mom.
While the world was a challenging thing to face that young with a baby, she’d done a damn good job of it so far, and hadn’t once let anything stand in her way of providing a good life for her daughter like she’d promised her that first night in the hospital after Ainsley was born.
Me helping along the way was the community I wished I had when I’d left home right at seventeen and never looked back. Some days, I looked at it as my penance for being forced to leave my sister behind to bear the brunt of our stepfather’s alcoholic rages and our mother turning to look the other way.
Amelia would tell me over and over again how she never saw it that way, but I did. The guilt ate at me every single day,regardless of how happy I saw her and Ainsley. Getting kicked out with nothing but the shirt on my back and the singles stuffed into my pockets was nothing compared to remembering my sister’s face, red and puffy from how hard she was screaming and crying, while she begged our stepfather to change his mind.
Watching her get dragged back into the apartment by her hair while our mother held her head in her hands was what drove me into taking odd jobs and saving up enough to get an apartment big enough for my sister to come live with me the second I could afford us both.
While neither of us had expected her to run from that horrible place with an extra heart beating inside of her body, that hadn’t stopped us from making the most of our situation.
Three years later, we were doing pretty good for ourselves.
Well, aside from the whole almost dying thing.
My stomach gave a twinge at the memory, hard enough to nearly double me over. The weather changing wasn’t doing me any favors, nor was overdoing it by walking home after being out of bed for the past six hours. Having my stitches pulled this morning was more than enough to get me out of my interview with IAB, yet I’d welcomed the excuse to be out of bed and back out in the world even for a short time.
Now, six hours later, my body was more than happy to remind me how early into recovery I still was.
Sighing, I dragged my feet into the corner store a block from my house.
I doubted I’d have the energy to get up later to help with dinner, so something easy to throw in the oven and give Amelia a break for the night from trying to cook something—or rather, make it edible—was the least I could do.
By the time I reached the freezer section, my energy was flagging. Hard.
Despite my incisions having healed over nicely, leaving only the remnants of two pink scars that were completely and perfectly straight, internally, the wounds still felt open, fresh. Like only the top layer had been taken care of and the rest was still raw and torn inside of me.
Not the case, obviously, considering how much Dr. Jacee had oogled over his colleague’s impeccable work on both the scans and from his gentle prodding at the area. Silas would’ve never sent me home if I was still that far along on the mend, no matter how mad at me he was over almost coming on to him in the middle of his examination.
He didn’t strike me as the type to do that. Not when it was quite obvious how prideful he was of his work.
With a groan, I leaned against the closet freezer door to give myself a break. My breath ghosted over the glass, fogging the bags of frozen veggies from view within seconds. Now, I was really beginning to regret not telling Amelia to come pick me up.
How the fuck was I supposed to get home?
Were cabs a thing in Ellington Heights?
This place was small enough to only have two grocery stores and a handful of other businesses. The rest was residential.
My forehead knocked against the glass.
Fuck me.
Edgewood was a little more robust in terms of amenities but even that would take time to get over here. And who knew if they had cabs waiting or were already in the middle of rides.
