Chapter 2 #2
There was a dumpster in the back. It didn’t stink too bad in the cold, but the damp weather wasn’t doing it any favors.
Chase and I hunkered down beside it, where we could keep an eye on the back door of the gas station.
Nobody came out to yell at us for being there, so we figured they didn’t have cameras on this side of the building.
It didn’t take Chase long to go dumpster diving.
“Score!” he said, tossing a bag of chips onto the ground.
I snatched them up and squinted at them.
They were unopened. Maybe they were too old to sell?
The sun was coming up now, drawing mist out of the ground, but it was still too dark for me to read the date.
I would have eaten them if they predated electricity, though.
The two bites of sandwich were an ancient memory.
I waited until Chase had joined me again, and we opened the chips and ate them. It hurt my throat to swallow, but I didn’t care. I was hungry. Chase kept trying to push the bag my way, but I made sure he ate his share. He’d already done enough for me.
We finished the bag too soon, and I ran a finger around the corners of it, chasing stray grains of salt.
“Think there’s anything else?” I asked.
“Lemme look.” Chase hauled himself off the ground and climbed back into the dumpster, and a minute later a battered-looking protein bar landed next to me. I could hear Chase scratching around in there, but when he climbed back out he said, “That’s all I could find.”
I picked up the bar and opened the package and broke it in half, then shoved a piece in my mouth. It tasted like chalk and dirt, but I ate it anyway.
Chase didn’t eat his half. He folded the ends of the wrapper over and put it in the pocket of his jeans.
“You cold?” I asked him, which was a dumb question. I was cold, and I was wearing both our jackets.
“Sun’s coming up,” he said, lifting his gaze toward the lightening sky.
It wasn’t an answer.
“You think we should stay here for a while?” I asked him. It was freezing, but at least we were out of the wind.
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe later we can move somewhere we can see the cars coming in. Try to get another ride.”
I wondered how long that would work. We hadn’t even been gone a week, and we were already dirty and we stank. Chase’s dumpster diving hadn’t helped him on that account. Neither did the fact I was coughing all over the place. If I was a driver, I wouldn’t want us in my car.
I thought of Mr. Brandis, our high school physics teacher.
He used to talk about thermodynamics and entropy and how everything was in a state of decay.
Then he’d tell us it wasn’t just a scientific principle.
It was a philosophical one too, and part of the human condition.
Mr. Brandis was a weirdo, but I’d liked him a lot.
That was the reason I’d been passing physics.
Chase, who thought he was an asshole, had dropped the class altogether.
Well, we were living entropy in real time now, weren’t we?
Every hour, every minute, and every second, we got hungrier, dirtier, and smellier, and there was nothing we could do to stop it.
We were falling apart bit by bit, because that was how the universe worked, and the time was fast approaching when nobody even halfway decent would let us ride with them.
And the kicker? As cold and alone and broke and hungry as we were, it still beat being at home.
I shuffled closer to Chase and pretended I didn’t feel him shivering when I put my arm around his shoulders. I leaned in closer, and some of the tension left him when I rested my head on his shoulder.
“It’ll be okay,” I said. I wasn’t sure which one of us I was trying to reassure. “Maybe someone’s grandma will pick us up and take us home because we look like nice boys.”
Chase snorted. “Right. We’re a regular pair of fucking boy scouts.”
He pulled the rest of the protein bar out of his pocket and stared at it for a long second before wordlessly holding it out.
I shook my head. “You have it. I’m not hungry.”
He rolled his eyes but broke the bar in two pieces and shoved one in his mouth.
He handed me the other half, and we sat chewing in silence as the sun’s rays lit up the parking lot, highlighting the scattered oil stains and potholes that littered the cracked concrete.
I closed my eyes, chewed the dry, flavorless protein bar, and did my best to ignore how the cold air burned like a knife between the ribs every time I drew a breath.
The silence was broken by the sound of a door opening and slamming shut, and then, “What the fuck?”
My eyes snapped open to find a young guy in a trucker cap standing next to the dumpster, holding a trash bag. His gaze flitted from me to Chase and back again, and I recognized the look. It always took people by surprise that there were two of us.
Chase stood, and I could tell he was ready to run.
I scrambled to my feet too. The sudden movement made my lungs seize up, and I doubled over in a coughing fit that went on and on, with Chase frantically rubbing my back like he thought that would help somehow.
By the time I dragged in a raspy breath, my eyes were watering and my throat was raw.
Cap Guy was still standing there staring, like he was trying to figure out what our deal was.
“Shit, are you dying?” he asked, a worried divot appearing between his brows.
I shook my head as I stood bent over with my hands on my knees like a half-folded pocketknife, my breaths still ragged.
“He doesn’t talk,” Chase said.
“He sounds really sick,” Cap Guy said, clearly unhappy about it. That made two of us. “Does he need to go to urgent care?”
“None of your fucking business,” Chase said, jutting out his chin. “Anyway, we’re leaving.”
We got about three steps before I had to stop.
While I was bent over coughing, the guy scooped up the empty chip bag off the ground and his gaze flicked to the dumpster, and I could tell the moment he figured it out. I waited for him to yell at us, but instead he said, “Hey, listen.”
We listened, because it wasn’t like we were going anywhere fast.
“You two got anywhere to go?” he asked quietly.
Chase glared at him. “The fuck is it to you?”
I elbowed Chase in the side and shook my head.
Cap Guy approached us slowly with one hand extended, like he was trying to lure a skittish cat. “I’m Danny, and my shift just finished. If you want, you can come home with me. You can have a shower and warm up, have something to eat. I’ve got a spare bed too, if you need to sleep.”
Fuck, that sounded so good.
“Why?” Chase’s voice cut through the quiet like a whipcrack.
Danny looked genuinely surprised. “Because it’s fucking freezing, and your brother looks like he’s about to drop dead, and it’s the decent thing to do?”
Chase narrowed his eyes, and I knew he was going through an internal struggle right now between his need to take care of me and his unwillingness to trust anyone.
And I understood that, I really did. But when I looked at Danny and met his gaze, I didn’t see anything there except what he’d already told us—it was the decent thing to do.
And maybe that didn’t mean anything except that I was so cold and sick that I was willing to believe anyone, but I got good vibes from Danny, like maybe he was genuinely trying to help.
And sleeping in a bed sounded so fucking good.
I leaned over and whispered, “We should say yes.”
Chase glared at Danny. “What’s in it for you?” He said it like he already knew the answer.
“Jesus,” Danny said. “Maybe I just don’t want to come to work tonight and have to report a dead homeless guy behind the dumpster.
Or maybe I just was raised right. Fucking pick one.
” He took a step back and swung his trash bag into the dumpster, and then he took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair and sighed.
“I’m going inside to grab my stuff. Wait here.
Or don’t. Your choice. But I promise I’m not some weirdo who wants to lock you in my basement.
” He gave us a crooked smile. “Shit, I don’t even have a basement. ”
And then he disappeared inside.
“We should go,” Chase said immediately, grabbing my wrist tightly.
There were a hundred different arguments I could have made, mostly centered around the fact that we were cold and hungry and filthy, but I didn’t have the breath to make them. I leaned against him.
“Chase, I can’t,” I whispered. “I can’t keep going.”
“You can! I’ll help you. We’ll—”
“I can’t.” My tears were hot for a second, then freezing as the cold air hit them, and I scrubbed furiously at my face with my free hand. “Please.”
Chase’s face crumpled, and I could tell it was killing him to think about trusting someone he’d just met—but not as much as seeing me cry apparently, because he said, “If he tries any weird shit, we’re gone. Deal?”
I nodded, and we both watched as the back door of the gas station opened and Danny walked back out. This time he was wearing a heavy jacket and he had a backpack slung over his shoulder. And he was carrying a hot dog in each hand.
“Hey,” he said, a faint note of surprise in his voice like he hadn’t really expected to find us here still. But he smiled. “You guys hungry?”