Slowly, she lowers her arm to her side and walks away, disappearing from my vision and taking a piece of me with her.
“It’s better this way,” I tell myself.
It’s a reality that I have to force if I’m going to protect her from me and my world. I’m already messing up left and right, I can’t afford to bring her down with me.
Even being her friend is a risk I’m not willing to take.
I can’t. I won’t.
And I will keep reminding myself that until I’m blue in the face.
I will be the bad guy if it means sheltering her from harm’s way.
A phone rings, but it’s not mine. I drag my attention back through the blinds.
She’s still out there, standing against the railing of the stairs. She holds the device in her hand, her body tense as she studies it over.
I crack the window open to get a better vantage point.
“Hello,” she says, a hint of something I can’t quite pick up in her tone. Annoyance, maybe?
A loud voice vibrates through the other end but I can’t quite make it out.
She shifts her weight. “Now’s not a good time.”
The person manages to get even noisier.
“I know I said I wanted to talk, but I’ve been busy. I don’t want to get into it right now.” She’s much calmer than the other person.
The person must yell at her for a solid minute before taking a breath.
She wipes at her cheek, and it’s everything I can do to stand here and watch this unfold. She doesn’t deserve to be treated like this. No one does. But if I intervene, she might not continue to see me as the bad guy, and I can’t let that happen. Still, it pains me to hear someone mistreat her. Like my heart is being ripped open alongside hers.
I can’t imagine she, the girl who hauled a complete stranger from a dingy alley and brought them soup the next day, would ever warrant this type of behavior from anyone.
I raise my hand to the cold glass.
“Why are you this way?” she asks the pissed-off person.
There is no response. Radio silence. Which could only mean one thing.
They hung up on her.
The coward got called out on their shitty behavior and that’s how they react? What a fucking loser.
She presses the button on the side of the phone and slides it into her back pocket. She rubs her hands across her face to wipe away the tears and does something I don’t expect; she glances toward my unit.
I nearly trip and fall backward to avoid her catching me. I wince as I bang my side against the table and curse under my breath.
My own cell vibrates, a reminder that I can’t hide from my problems forever. If I want to get my mind off this girl, I should focus on cleaning up the mess I’ve created.
I take the thing and do my best to navigate the busted screen. I’ll need to get a replacement, but it’ll have to be another day.
I click the last text that came through.
Unknown:!!!
I scroll down to Josey’s number and type a response.