LITMIR.BIZ

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a lake of desolation. “I need to get away.”

      “From what?”

      She didn’t answer, but her teeth started chattering. I lifted the hood of my sweatshirt over her blonde hair.

      “Look, obviously things aren’t okay for you. What are you going to do?”

      “I don’t know.”

      I took a breath, looking at her and hoping some magical solution would suddenly hit me. It didn’t, and I was getting cold now.

      She shivered again and her arms crossed, her hands gripping the opposite elbows. She’d stopped looking at me. She was looking at the sky, like she was searching for answers too.

      I sighed, my fingers running over my hair. She was nearly as tall as me, and I was six foot one. She must be at least five eight. But she was slender, like a model. My sweatshirt swamped her figure. She looked fragile.

      Shit. There was nothing I could do. “What are you going to do, if I go?”

      Her shoulders lifted in a shrug, but she didn’t look down.

      My heart was thumping to the same rhythm as the bass beat now pounding out of the earphones dangling ‘round my neck

      I couldn’t leave her out here…

      “Have you really got nowhere to go?”

      She shook her head, making her blonde ponytail sweep over her back.

      Shit. What option did I have? What option did she have?

      “Have you got any money?”

      Her head shook again. But her stillness, apart from her shaking head, made me feel like she didn’t even care. I felt stupid then, of course she didn’t care. She’d just tried to end her life by throwing herself off a bridge. She obviously didn’t care about anything right now.

      What to do with her? I could give her money… But I’d have to go back to my apartment to get my card and take her to a cash dispenser. And what would she do with it? Maybe she’d already taken something. Drugs or drink. Maybe that was why she was so dead looking. I’d be stupid to give her money.

      I sighed again. I could call the cops and take her to a station. But what would they care? I found this girl and she’s got nowhere to stay. They’d say, yeah, right, join the line of a couple of hundred other homeless people in New York.

      There wasn’t any choice. “I could take you home with me, if you’ve got nowhere to go. Just for tonight. It would give you chance to get your head straight, and get warm. If you want?”

      “I … ” She looked at me again then, her eyes losing their depth once more and setting up shutters, locking me out.

      “What do you think?” I got another shrug, but her eyes suddenly filled with depth, letting me see into the thoughts behind her gaze. They were asking me questions.

      “What are you going to do if you don’t come back with me?” Another shrug. “Have you got any other options?” She shook her head, her ponytail swaying, but her gaze was clinging to mine now, like was she was considering me. Maybe she was trying to judge if she’d be safe.

      This was surreal, like I’d been lifted out of real life, and placed in the middle of a fucking film. Question was; how was it going to play out? Taking her home was a risk, but sometimes risks had to be taken. Like coming to New York.

      I sighed again. Sometimes taking risks didn’t pay off. But I still hoped they would.

      She shivered and her hands gripped her arms harder.

      I lifted my hands palm outward. “I swear. I’m the nice guy. And if you’ve got nowhere else to go…” Lindy would go mad, but this was devil or deep-blue-sea territory. How could I leave this woman here? She’d nowhere to sleep and it was twenty-one degrees Fahrenheit.

      Her shoulders shook as she shivered again.

      “It’s not far. I live in DUMBO.”

      “Down under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass…” she whispered. “It’s such a cool name for a neighborhood.”

      I laughed. She didn’t.

      “Have you got any other choice?”

      She shook her head.

      “Then on my life, if you come, I’ll not hurt you.”

      She said nothing just looked at me.

      “My apartment’s warm. You can’t stay out here…” Shit, I was probably just as crazy as her, offering to take a stranger back with me.

      “I…”

      “I swear, you’re safe with me.”

      She looked back at the wire, then down at the water.

      “You don’t want to do that. Just give it a night, you’ll feel different in the morning.”

      She shook her head, still looking at the water.

      If zombies were real, they’d look like her. My sweatshirt swamping her, she stood like a sorrowful statue, her complexion as pale as marble.

      I couldn’t just leave her. I rubbed her arms, gently, answering an instinct to put my arm around her, but I denied that. I didn’t even know her name.

      “Look, you can trust me. Honest. When we get back to my apartment you can call my Mom, or my friends, and they’ll all tell you I’m the nice guy. Seriously, if you need references…” I smiled as she looked back at me, trying to convince her. “What do you say? Are you a gambler? Are you going to try trusting me?” Silence and stillness. This girl was messed up. But then I’d known that from the moment I’d seen her. She’d been standing in the freezing cold, in a tee, trying to jump off a bridge.

      I held her gaze, trying to look inside her, as she looked back, trying to see inside me.

      Once more there was a sudden pool of desolation and a glitter in her eyes, and she simply nodded, making the choice to put herself into the hands of a stranger––my hands.

      Shit. I was taking her home. She could be a drug addict. I’d been so busy trying to persuade her, I’d forgotten about my own concerns. But I couldn’t leave her here alone; fragility and loneliness rang from her, like she was crying out for help. And the damned Good Samaritan story I’d been brought up on wouldn’t let me leave her in the street.

      But what the hell was I getting myself into?

      “This way.” My fingers carefully closed about her upper arm, and I guided her to turn and start walking off the bridge with me, like this was a normal thing to do––like every night of the week, I took a stranger home. My guts churned. This was crazy. But my fingers wrapped right about her skinny arm, and my instincts yelled at me that she needed protecting, and she needed safety. I could let her have a haven for a few days.

      She was probably a size zero, she was so skinny.

      Lindy would kill to be size zero. She would hate me taking this woman home. She wasn’t flooded with human kindness. She wouldn’t have felt any instinct to help this woman.

      “You haven’t told me your name yet?” I prodded as we descended the steps onto the street.

      She was moving robotically. I was a stranger to her, too, and she hadn’t questioned me verbally at all. She was going home with a guy she didn’t know.

      Maybe she did this all the time.

      Maybe her lack of concern should warn me off.

      As if sensing my thoughts, she stopped and looked at me, hard, really looking into me, like she’d done on the bridge just now, maybe at last deciding she ought to check me out a little more. “It’s Rachel.”

      “Rachel––pleased to meet you. My apartment’s in a block near here, it’s not far. You’re sure about this,

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