Page 73 of On Dry Land

With that thought, and reminding myself that I was lucky enough to have a warm meal this morning, I push up off the wall, cradling my aching hand against my stomach as I start to walk. There was an old-fashioned pay phone a couple of streets back. Grace and I don’t talk often, and when we do, it’s more of a quick update. She’s my only solid tether to a stable life, though, and needs to know there isn’t a way to contact me right now.

Nestling the receiver on the pay phone between my shoulder and ear, I put in my quarters and dial her number. My memory, which has always been good and only gotten sharper while living on the street, is something I consider my best asset in times like this. I only have to read through a phone number three times to memorize it. Same with addresses, maps, and landmarks. Grace’s number is far from the only one I’ve got committed to memory, and it’s one of those others I’m thinking of as I listen to it ring.

“Hello?” she answers skeptically. When I first left, she and I made a pact to always answer unknown callers. She knows it’s probably a solicitor, but also knows there’s a small chance it’s me.

“Hey, Grace.” She gasps, the sound somehow managing to come across as happy and surprised.

“Spence! Oh my gosh, how are you? I didn’t recognize the number. Did you get a new phone? Where are you? What’s going on? Tell me everything!”

If my face weren’t bruised and swollen, I might smile. Grace is the type of friend I can go months without speaking to, but the moment I do, we snap right back into place, edges aligned. Together for life, she’d said about us once, and I’ve never had reason to doubt it.

“I’m on a pay phone, so I don’t have long to talk. My phone actually got—it broke,” I correct swiftly. She doesn’t need to know I was robbed. There’s nothing she can do about it, and it’ll only scare her. “I just wanted to call quick and let you know not to use that number until I can get something new.”

“Oh, no.” She sighs. “I’m sorry. Where are you, anyway? Liza and I have been so busy, I haven’t been able to catch up on your videos.”

“Northeast. I, uh, spent a little time in Siren’s Point. It’s a cute little fishing village. You’d love it.”

“I’ve never heard of it. Maybe tonight, Liza and I can watch a couple episodes of Day in the Life of Spence,” she jokes, purposely changing the title of my channel. I give a halfhearted chuckle. Day in the life of me sounds depressing as hell right now. The automated voice in the receiver lets me know I’ve got less than a minute left of time.

“My quarters are running out, Grace. Just wanted to let you know not to worry. I’ll call you soon for a longer catch-up, okay?”

“Do you need money? I get quarterly bonuses at work now. I can deposit a few hundred into your account.”

“No, really, I’m fine. Please don’t.” I squeeze my good hand on the receiver. Sometimes she’ll do it anyway, no matter if I told her no or not. “Love you.”

“I love you, too, Spence. Thanks for calling. Can you start walking this way soon? It’s time for an in-person visit.”

Replacing the receiver in the cradle, I pinch my lips together. Somehow, I feel worse. More tired, more sore, and more than ready to give up. I want to go home. Not the one I left, but the one I found.

It’s not Grace’s apartment I think of, smelling of warm bread and coconut candles, walls covered in an eclectic array of art found at antique and charity shops, blooming with color. It’s Dryden’s cottage. It’s a dark green corduroy love seat and Egyptian cotton sheets, lobster and unlimited hot water, the smell of pine trees and ocean and chlorine, and the kiss of water against my skin. Home is a single room and a bed I don’t sleep in alone. It’s Dryden.

I stare at the pay phone. I had to use all my quarters to reach Grace, the call more expensive having been a non-local area code. It wouldn’t take much work to break another dollar, though. To buy a bottle of water at a convenience store and ask for my change in quarters. I could call him. I think, even if I didn’t like the words he was saying, just hearing his voice would make me feel better. Even if he said nothing at all and I just stood there and listened to him breathe, the knowledge that Dryden Roy was out there and doing okay would remind me that life isn’t so bad as it sometimes seems.

The cashier at the nearest gas station watches me with suspicion as I pull a bottle of water from one of the coolers and scowls when I ask for some of my change to be given in quarters.

“May I use the restroom?” I ask, glancing at the sign behind the register that says the bathroom is for paying customers only. I’d noticed it as I walked up—the exterior door that would be locked unless the cashier provided the key.

“No,” they reply. I nod, tucking my water into the crook of my elbow. Paying customer or not, there’s a fifty-fifty chance in any situation where I’m treated as less than human. Not being allowed access to the bathroom is on the tamer side of how I’ve been treated in the past.

“Okay. Thank you.”

There’s someone else using the pay phone when I walk back, giving me just enough time to wait that I start to second-guess myself. The headache throbbing in my temples is insistent enough to make thinking difficult; I’m struggling as though I’m working a particularly difficult arithmetic problem and not deciding whether to call Dryden. Forgetting the cut on my chin for a moment, I rub a gloved hand across my face and wince at the sharp stab of pain. Great. And now I’m probably bleeding again.

“Stop it,” I mutter to myself, stepping up to the phone. Either he answers or he doesn’t. Either I can go back or I can’t. I’m being stupid. Even more stupid if I start crying again, so I swallow a couple of times before I push the quarters into the slot.

It rings a dozen times. It rings for minutes. It feels like I stand there in the cold for an hour, listening as the hand I tentatively reached out for help is ignored. I gasp when the call connects, the inhale violent and painful in my chest.

“Hello?” Dryden’s voice isn’t quite right over the scratchy line, but it’s him. He sounds annoyed. I smile, uncaring of how this stretches the bruises on my skin, and don’t wipe away the tear that trickles down my cheek.

“Hey,” I reply, unable to make my voice come out louder than a whisper. “It’s me. Spencer.”

It feels like the connection sharpens at the same moment his voice does, a snap to attention that reminds me of the way he’d aggressively hold eye contact.

“What’s happened?” he asks.

“Nothing. I just…I just missed you.” I close my eyes. That sounded as pitiful as it felt to say, and I doubt even the shitty pay phone connection will disguise the way misery sat heavy with the words. Dryden pauses only a second.

“Whose phone is this?”