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Fresh, boiling tears spill onto my cheeks and sprint downward at gravity’s mercy.No one can hurt me. No one can hurt me. No one can hurt me. “No one is bothering me,” I rasp out. “But I promise, when they do, my boundaries are strong.” I swipe my tears away and swallow the crackle in my voice. “You taught me to be strong. Just like you are.”
“If anyone saw the incident on Monday night,” the reporter continues, “please call our station, and we’ll connect you with the investigative team.”
“You’re watching the news too, huh?” Mom allows us to change the subject, completely oblivious to the fact that the news is what hurts me most. It’s been three days since I ran from a madman. I should have called the cops. I should have gone straight to the police station and made a report of what I saw.
But is that what I did?
No.
I ran home, locked up the house, cried in the shower, and poured antiseptic on my torn palms. Besides a fast excursion to see my mom yesterday, I’ve stayed in and done absolutely nothing else.
Visiting her is a routine for us both. A pattern of behavior we both thrive on. It’s not something easily undone, which means that even under the threat of a gunman, it pushed me to go outside in the middle of the day yesterday.
But I lasted only an hour before I thought every voice, every bang, every noise made in the hallways would send me insane. I feel like eyes watch me everywhere I go. And tall men follow me every step I take. I feel the warmth of a gun on my back every moment I’m awake, and when I can manage a moment to rest, I see those shadows from the alleyway in my dreams.
Constant.
Unrelenting.
Unforgiving.
Like karma punishes me for being a coward and not reporting what I saw.
I can’t find yesterday’s courage today. That hour of bravery to escape my home and see my mom. I can’t get up from my place on the floor and go look out the windows. I can’t peek into the darkness and not risk my mental health as eyes seemingly stare back at me.
So, I stay down. I don’t answer the door. And I sure as hell don’t go to the police station and attach my name to a case that hasmobwritten all over it.
I can’t die yet. Not for as long as my mom lives and is at risk of grieving me. I can’t put myself in a situation where they bury me first, and she follows me to the grave days, or hours, later.
She’s too fragile. Too sweet. And deserves so much better. So I tell a lie, and stew in my cowardice.
“Rory?”
“Huh?” I drag my eyes from the window and focus again on the television set flickering across the room. “What?”
“The news,” she presses. “You heard about that guy who was shot?”
“Yeah.” My jaw trembles, but I lock it down and refuse to let weakness take over. “Crazy, huh?”
“It was just up the street from here,” she sleepily mumbles. “The police station is on this street too, so you’d think this would be a safe place. But sometimes, the wackiest things happen in the unlikeliest places, huh?”
“Yep.” I turn on my hip and reach out, my fingers stretched, for the strap of my laptop bag. I’ve kept it close for days, like I think I can study while the world outside this house is on fire.
I can’t focus.
I can’t calm down.
I can’t do anything except run through, a million times over, everything I saw that night. A man, only a couple of years older than me, shot point-blank in the head, after getting punched a handful of times. Four other men. Bullies. Killers. Mobsters. I look down at my scabbing palms and remember falling in the street. I massage my good leg, remembering how a car mercilessly clipped it.
I don’t have my cane anymore. But I have crutches, for the moments I do get up and walk more than a few steps.
Mom’s breathing grows heavier on her end of the line. Her body giving way to sleep. She rests, the way I can’t. So I grab the TV remote from beside my leg and turn Miranda London’s voice down. Then I mute our call, so I can hear Mom breathe though she can’t hear me, and set the phone on the floor beside the remote.
Finally, I sniffle back the tears and snot that hasn’t subsided since I watched a man die. Reaching out for a box of tissues, I snatch two out, fold them in half, and bring them to my nose to blow. All things that would startle a sick woman awake if she heard.
She hums the song we sang throughout my youth while she dozes. It’s a lullaby for me now. My comfort, as I open my laptop and wait for next door’s Wi-Fi to connect. They’ve named it “StopStealingMyNet” which takes skill and reasonable know-how to achieve, but they haven’t yet mastered the ability to change the easily guessed password.
Swallowing dread and opening an internet browser, I lick my dry lips and glance to the right again when a thudding sound comes from somewhere along the street. Cars pass, and people wander by. Some are coming or going to work, and others are eternally jobless and delirious with substances I couldn’t afford to buy, even if I wanted to escape reality.
