Yeah, that’s what I wanted more than anything. It wouldn’t be so bad. I’d just play pretend, act like this woman was the imaginary dream girl I could never have, and it’d be over before I knew it.
I stepped out of the shower and dried off. When I opened the bathroom door, I heard the woman say, “Come here, sugar. We’ll forget about our problems together.”
* * *
My eyes shot open. I abruptly lunged upward in bed. Sunlight streamed in through my window, shining on the floor.
I’d slept the rest of the day away and hadn’t woken up until the next morning, but the dream felt like it’d taken seconds. I pressed a hand over my mouth and did my best not to throw up, but even so, tears rolled down my cheeks.
He’d wanted the simplest things in life. A bed, a roof over his head, ashower.
I couldn’t imagine the amount of lack he had, and how he’d managed to endure it for years on end. I’d experienced mere seconds, and it made me want to die.
I recalled how he’d devoured what had been placed in front of him. I’d refused food so many times, purposefully starved myself because I couldn’t force myself to stomach anything.
I vowed never to turn down a meal again.
Oberi crawled forward on the bed and nudged my knee with his wet nose.Ava?
“How could people be so heartless, Oberi? I wouldn’t treat my worst enemy that way.” I wiped my face.
Oberi blinked at me. I hated this world. I hated it and everyone in it. How he could have suffered so badly and no one did anything to help him, I could never understand.
“Pidge?” Charlie poked his head in. He’d felt something was wrong. He knew I’d experienced one of his memories.
I sniffed. “You just wanted to get warm. How could they be so cruel?”
Charlie came in and sat on the bed beside me, leaning against the wall. “Most people in the world aren’t like you.”
“I wish I had found you.” I wiped at my face. “I would’ve taken you home and fed you and never let you leave.”
Charlie gave a wry smile. “It would’ve been nice.”
“How did you manage to keep fighting? I would’ve died of misery.”
“I always had this sense in the back of my mind that I was fighting to get back to something,” he said. “I didn’t really know what it was, at the time, but now I do.”
A forlorn question popped into my mind. “Why’d you pick Detroit?”
“I wasn’t really thinking. It just seemed like the farthest I could get from California, and the easiest place to get away with committing crimes, because I knew that’s all I was good for.”
“Don’t say that. I don’t want you to think the way you did.” I reached out and brushed a lock of hair out of his eyes.
I frowned. “Your hair is getting so long. Why are you letting it grow out?”
“You told me not to let anyone cut my hair but you.”
My throat tightened up. His response was so innocent. “I’ll trim it later, I promise.”
Charlie cleared his throat. “I know I’ve been through some hard stuff, but what you had to go through was hard, too. None of it was easy for us.”
My throat tightened again at the mention of Monica. Would she have died, if Charlie was there to stop us from running away? Would John have hurt me if Charlie was there to protect me?
I knew what the answer was before I had to ask, and it gutted me. Charlie wouldn’t have gone hungry, grown up without love, if I was there. None of this had to happen, and yet it did, because we were forced apart.
“I feel like we were always supposed to be together, and the Elders robbed us of that when they sent you away,” I said. “We should’ve grown up together. We could’ve been friends.”
“At least we’re friends now, right?”
