All I can manage to do in response is stand in the harsh breeze that’s now invaded Chelly’s diner. A police siren is flashing in the distance, but I can’t hear any noise. The world is cold and silent and it takes me a moment to realize that I’m shivering uncontrollably.
“... Nia!? Nia!” a familiar voice finally breaks through the stillness. I feel a long arm wrap around my shoulder. “Nia! What happened!? My god! Is that blood!? Are you alright!?” Carlos goes limp as he truly takes in the scene that surrounds us. It took less than a minute for my life to devolve into complete chaos. A new personal record.
The police lights from out on the street dissipate into the darkness as Carlos scans my eyes and gets on his cell phone. “Nia, what happened here!?” he asks, before someone answers his call. “Hello, 911? I’d like to report a shooting!”
Those words snap me back into my body. Holy shit—I was just in the middle of a shootout. My skin tingles with painful pinpricks as I blink into focus. “Carlos...” I call out. He immediately drops the phone from his ear.
“Baby, are you alright? Are you hurt? Who’s blood is this?” My head is swimming as I try to figure out the answers to his questions. Am I alright? I look down at my hands and see a splash of dark blood trailing up my arm. I search for a wound, but I can’t seem to find or feel any. I may not be hurt, but I’m sure as hell not alright. “I don’t think that’s my blood,” I whisper faintly.
Carlos gives the address of the diner to the dispatcher on the phone and then wraps his arms completely around me. I sink into his grip and my numbness slowly starts to thaw. Big, globby tears well up in my eyes, and then the floodgates open. Despite how badly my life’s been going lately, I haven’t really cried in far too long. Tonight, I fix that.
Carlos leads me to a corner booth as I bawl my eyes out. I almost just died. Even for someone who’s spent most of their life on the wrong side of the tracks, no one ever really thinks they’ll be the victim of something like this. A bullet shattered Chelly’s front window, the very same window I stood mere feet behind. How close was I to being wiped from the face of this earth?
I’m shaking like a skinny little tree branch in a hurricane by the time the paramedics show up. The cops aren’t far behind. After I’m given a hot cup of cocoa and a warm blanket, I give my statement to a uniformed officer and a detective in a long brown trench coat. I can barely look up at them, but I recount everything I can remember, including my best recollection of the only person I saw: the man who stole my gaze before the shootout started. I try to be as detailed as possible, but the truth is, I can’t remember shit right now. It’s like the last hour of my life has been a nightmare that I’m just waking up from—all the details are still so hazy. I do remember that I saw the lights of a police siren when everything was going down. That draws a few curious eyebrow raises from my interviewers. They don’t harp on me too much, though, and I’m thankful for their thoughtfulness. A paramedic offers to drive me to the hospital—they say nothing appears to be physically wrong with me, but it wouldn’t hurt to make sure. I disagree. It’d hurt my wallet. I can’t afford a hospital visit. If I’m not physically hurt, then I’m going home.
The paramedics are kind enough to give me a lift back to my dingy apartment, and when they finally leave me—after a final wellness check-up—I collapse onto my couch, still in my server’s uniform, and weep the rest of my tears into the raggedy cushions until I pass out from exhaustion.
I wake up from a deep sleep, sore all over and just as tired as ever. My whole-body aches, but I can’t rest. The alarm on my phone is buzzing off the hook. I go to turn it off and realize that it?
?s not my alarm that’s making my phone vibrate, it’s a call. It’s already 3pm in the afternoon—five hours after my shift was supposed to start. I recognize the number on my screen as my boss’s. Mrs. Cheng is calling. I have no desire to pick up. If she’s going to be mad at me for not showing up the day after I was in the middle of a shootout, then screw her, and if she wants to know what the hell happened to her restaurant, well, then she can call Carlos—I’m in no mood or state of mind.
I’m not sure I could even tell her what happened anyway. The whole event is still like a dark blanket pulled over my memory. All that stands out now is the big, glowing white dude who crashed through my window after setting my heart on fire.
My chest clenches at the memory of his steely blue eyes. Had he been sneering at me or smiling? I can’t remember. Everything had happened so suddenly.
I let my phone ring as I pull myself off the couch and shuffle towards my kitchen for a glass of water. My head is pounding like an annoying techno beat, but at least my phone finally stops ringing.
I sigh as I realize that I’m still in my work clothes. It hadn’t even crossed my mind to bring my stuff home last night.
I shiver with exhaustion as I understand that it means I’m going to have to go back to Chelly’s sooner than later. I don’t have enough clothes to get by without every hand on deck.
At least I’d had enough mind to stuff my phone into my apron after I’d fetched it from the backroom. I would have gotten changed too, if that man hadn’t rattled the front door. What was he looking for? Shelter? Could I have saved him?
Had he even been a man?
I try to remember. I take a sip of water. The stranger pulses in my mind’s eye more like a bright beacon of light than a person. The more I drink, though, the clearer he becomes, until the light fades and a snarling beast is revealed. I almost flinch at the vision.
Who the hell was that guy?
My phone starts to vibrate again. It shakes on my coffee table like a jumping bean. I go to it—not because I’m going to answer anyone’s call, but because I don’t have a computer, and I suddenly have a desperate desire to know who the hell brought all that chaos to my doorstep last night.
There’s got to be an article up by now about the shooting. Sure, this city sees a gunfight just about every day, but I only know that because the news never shuts up about them. This is no Eden we live in, and no one in the media is of the mind to let anyone forget it. Doesn’t matter that I can’t do anything about it, I have to know that death is lurking just around every dirty corner—that was a stressful enough idea before I’d had any direct contact with the violence, but now that I have, I can’t imagine this new, deep fear I’m feeling will ever leave me.
I let Mrs. Cheng’s call go to voicemail again before I start searching.
Shooting. Chelly’s diner. Early morning. I type in the keywords, furiously fascinated with what I might find.
Nothing.
My heart sinks. Am I really so unimportant that not even the drama hungry news channels and papers of this city would bother to cover my trauma?
I keep looking, but no matter what I plug into my cracked phone screen, nothing relevant comes up. It makes me shiver to think about just how many shootings might go unreported in this city. It must just be too early to write about yet, I convince myself, before finally putting down my phone.
My stomach growls and I find myself back in the kitchen, face stuck in my fridge. This time it’s my stomach’s turn to drop. Nothing. There’s a half-empty bottle of mayo, a ramen carton with no noodles in it, and some old shriveled celery. Reality’s sledgehammer hovers over my head once again. The shooting almost seems romantic in comparison. At least that chaos was exciting, in a way. There’s nothing even darkly fun about starving.
My phone buzzes alive again. Mrs. Cheng. I sigh with despair as I realize that the only food I’m getting today is if I go in for work. The threat of more monotony almost seems worse than the threat of more danger. At least there’s a quick out to the danger...
I shake my head free of that dark thought. Shape up, girl. You don’t have time to die. No matter how dark things look, there’s always hope as long as you’re still breathing. My end will come someday, but until it does, I’m going to keep fighting it off with all my fury. Nia Jones doesn’t just give up, no matter how peaceful a little rest sounds.