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I watch as she moves around the restaurant not once looking up; she’s moving around like she knows where every table and chair is. She’s hiding her face away by looking at the floor, her long black hair falling over her shoulders to cover her from the outside world. She’s trying to make herself invisible, but I see her.
“Who are you watching?” Jackson asks as I finally sit down in front of him.
I choose not to answer his question.
"How long you been coming here?" I try to stop myself from looking at her again.
“Yesterday was my first time, but the food is amazing.” He hands me a menu. “I’m trying the waffles today.” He says as he peers down at his menu.
I glance down to see what I want, but I turn my head slightly to the left as the girl cleans the table next to us. If she would move some of her hair, I could see her face, but she doesn't. She's still hiding and doing a good job of it too. Her body looks thin, and I can see a slight rash on her wrists. She walks away, and I can't take my eyes off her. I want to see her face. Just as she is about to go into the back, the tray falls to the floor, causing everyone to stare at her. I can see her body tense up a little; she knows that everyone is watching her. Keeping her gaze on the floor, she lets more of her hair fall in front of her face so no one can see her.
I watch a man walking over to her; I can't hear what he's saying, but he doesn't look happy about her accident with the tray. The girl keeps her eyes down and doesn't look once at the man. What is she hiding from? And why can't I stop watching her?
A waitress walks over to us. “Hi, can I take your order?”
Jackson tells her he wants a coffee and waffles and then she looks over at me. “I want to know her name.” I nod to the girl behind her as she’s on her knees picking up the broken plates from the floor.
“That’s Hope, keeps to herself really.” The waitress looks over her shoulder at her. “We’ve tried to talk to her, but she doesn’t interact. Just cleans tables, goes home, then comes back for the evening shift.”
"I'll have the pancakes and some coffee," I tell the waitress, handing her the menu. When she's gone, I take my phone out as it beeps. I shake my head. "Dad again, telling me to read the pitch."
I see Jackson watching me, then glancing over at the girl. “Not like you to be so interested in someone.” He turns back to me and his eyes narrow. “For someone who can get any girl in New York, you’re watching a girl that you can’t even really see.”
As the girl walks into the back, I glance over at Jackson. “I don’t wantany girl in New York. In fact, I don't want any girl. Fuck ‘em and leave, no questions no drama," I tell him. I'm not a man that craves sex; I don't need to fuck a girl every day, or every week. When I need to let off some steam I'll go to the bar, find a girl, fuck her and leave, then I'm good to go until I need it again. "I'm not like you, needing a different girl in bed every night."
He laughs. “I know that you like to let out your tension in a different way and I’m all for it, you know I am. But maybe a girl…”
“Have you found him?” I ask changing the subject. I don’t want a girl. They would only have questions; questions that are none of their business.
“No. You’ll know as soon as I do.” We give the waitress a nod as she places down our food and pours the coffee. “He’s not the easiest person to find, but I’m looking into another one who got out of prison last week.” Jackson’s phone lights up. I know that he has a meeting this afternoon. He’s my lawyer but has a few other clients.
He knows about the killings so if anything does happen to get fucked up, I have him backing me, and he'll fix things for me, hell he will coverbothour arses.
I finish my breakfast. I have to say that it was really good, but I’m not going to tell Jackson he was right. He can do without me inflating his ego any further. I look over to the door and see Hope walking out with her coat on.
"I know that look, don't," Jackson tells me. He means the look that shows I want to get answers. Fuck knows what it is about her, but I need to know who she's hiding from. Maybe it's because I can feel the fear radiating from her. She is very closed off, whichever angle you look at her, you can't see her. She knows how to hide in plain sight; one thing I can tell about her is that she has been hiding for a long time.
Throwing some money on the table, I tell him, “Shut up, or come with me.” I grab my jacket from the back of the chair and follow her out.
“Can’t believe…”
"Shut up," I tell him again to stop him from pissing me off more. We follow Hope to wherever she's going and again, her head is down, and she's walking around people. She's avoiding obstacles and benches like she has done this a thousand times before. "Doesn't it look like she's hiding?" I ask Jackson as he lights up a cigarette and hands it over to me.
“The fact that she hasn’t looked up from the ground once? I would say so.”
She walks into CVS, and I watch her through the window as I smoke. I don't want her to see me, so I stay back. Even though she didn't look up once at the restaurant, I have a feeling that she takes in all her surroundings. I watch her at the counter, and I feel something is wrong. She looks up at the woman behind the desk for the first time, but I still can't see her face. She moves to the side as the person behind her says something and then she sits on the floor and starts counting her money. I see her hand move to her face, she’s trying to work it all out.
“What the fuck is she buying, that needs so much money?” Jackson asks the same question that I’m asking myself. Whatever she’s buying, she has just spent all the money she had, as I watch her pulling out money from all the pockets from her ripped up coat.
Once she’s given the money to the woman behind the counter, the assistant passes her the bag which Hope grabs from her hand. It looks as though the bag is full of medication. She exits the pharmacy and continues to walk up the road and instead of following her, I walk into CVS.
"What are you doing?" Jackson hisses, but I ignore him. He really is like the angelanddevil on my shoulder sometimes.
Walking up to the counter I ask the assistant, “The girl that just left, what did she get?”
The woman looks at me like I’m crazy, creasing her eyebrows together, as she looks between Jackson and I. “I’m sorry, but I can’t answer that, pa—”
“You have three choices, tell me what she bought, tell me what her illness is, or I go back there and find out for myself,” I tell her. She stares at me for a moment; she doesn’t know what to say. She knows if she tells me she breaks a lot of laws and ifIgo back there they have CCTV everywhere and she can just call the cops on me.
