Chapter 16. Florian
I turned the corner to my landing, my keys already jingling in my hand, and froze. No, no, no, not now. I was too tired, too unprepared, and worse, my phone was dead. It died after my shift. I always forgot to charge it.
My landlord, Mr. Henderson, stood in front of my door. He wouldn't drag himself up four flights unless something was broken beyond repair or he wanted money. Today, he wasn't alone.
Two police officers flanked him. Their hands rested near their belts, casual but ready.
"Florian," Mr. Henderson said. He didn't look angry. He looked tired. He held a piece of paper in his hand.
"I have the money," I blurted out. I had what Knox gave me, but it wasn't enough.
I could ask for more. No. I couldn't. I wouldn't. I stepped forward, my grip on my backpack strap tightening until my knuckles turned white.
"My shift... I just picked up extra hours.
I can pay you by Friday. I promise, Mr. Henderson, please. "
Mr. Henderson shook his head, a slow, final movement. "It's Tuesday, kid. You said that last week. And the week before." He unfolded the paper. "Eviction order. Effective immediately. You're three months behind, and I've got a family to feed, too."
"But you can't just..." I looked at the officers. They stared back. They weren't villains; they were just machinery. I was the glitch they were here to remove. "I have rights. Thirty days? Something?"
"Notice was posted a month ago," the taller officer said, his voice flat. "We're just here to keep the peace while the locks are changed. You have ten minutes to grab your essentials. Anything else goes to the curb tomorrow."
The world tilted. Ten minutes. My entire life, my pathetic little kingdom of books and dirty laundry, reduced to a ten-minute countdown.
"Please," I whispered, the fight draining out of me as quickly as it had arrived. "I have nowhere to go."
"Ten minutes," the officer repeated, stepping aside to let me reach the door.
Mr. Henderson unlocked it with his master key. I pushed the door open and stumbled inside.
Panic spiked in my chest. I scrambled for my duffel bag, the one with the broken zipper, and threw it onto the bed.
Essentials. Essentials.
What was essential when you were losing everything?
My hands shook violently as I yanked open the dresser drawers.
Underwear. Socks. My one hoodie. I stuffed them into the bag without folding them, just wads of fabric to keep me warm.
I grabbed my textbooks from the wobbly desk.
That cost more than the furniture. I couldn't lose those. If I lost those, I lost school, and if I lost school, I was just Finn’s son, drifting toward the gutter.
"Five minutes," the officer called from the doorway.
I spun around, scanning the room wildly. My eyes landed on the nightstand. There, sitting next to a half-empty bottle of water, was the black debit card Knox had given me. His voice echoed in my head, deep and commanding and safe. I take care of what is mine.
I reached for it, my fingers hovering millimeters from the sleek plastic. It was a lifeline. One swipe and I could pay Henderson. One call and Knox would probably send a car, a lawyer, a moving crew.
But then another voice intruded. My father’s whine, wheedling for twenty bucks for vodka. Come on, Florry, don't be stingy. Family helps family.
I snatched my hand back. If I used that card to save myself from my own failures, I was no better than Finn.
I was just a leech, draining a host until I was swatted away.
Knox wanted a boy who was good, who had potential, not a charity case who couldn't keep a roof over his head without a sugar daddy bailing him out.
I couldn't do it. I would rather sleep on concrete.
I grabbed my wallet. I opened it, checking the hidden slot. Knox’s business card was there. I ran my thumb over the raised letters of his name, a quick, desperate prayer, before snapping the wallet shut and shoving it deep into my front pocket.
"Time's up," Mr. Henderson said from the hall.
I frantically looked around one last time. My toothbrush. A phone charger. I grabbed them, shoving them into the side pocket of the duffel. I shouldered my backpack, hefted the bag, and took a step toward the door.
My apartment looked back at me, indifferent. The water stain on the ceiling, shaped like a grimacing face, seemed to mock me.
I walked past the officers, my head bowed, shoulders hunched up to my ears. I couldn't meet their eyes. I didn't want to see the judgment, or worse, the complete lack of it. To them, I was just another statistic, another broke kid washing out of the city.
We walked down the stairs in silence.
At the front entrance, the officer held the door open. The street noise rushed in, sirens, the rumble of engines. It was starting to drizzle, a fine, icy mist that stuck to my eyelashes.
"Good luck, son," the older officer muttered as I stepped onto the pavement.
The heavy metal door swung shut behind me. The lock engaged with a decisive, mechanical thud.
I stood there on the sidewalk, the eviction notice crumpled in my fist. People brushed past me, heads down against the rain, weaving around the obstacle of my body without seeing me.
I was invisible.
I was fucking homeless.
I looked up at the fourth-floor window. A sob caught in my throat, a jagged thing that threatened to tear me open, but I swallowed it down.
Crying was a luxury for people with bedrooms. I hitched the duffel bag higher on my shoulder, turned my collar up against the biting wind, and started walking.
I didn't know where I was going, but I knew I couldn't stay here. I couldn’t stay with Luna, she lived a life as chaotic as mine, taking care of her sick grandma.
I started walking.
The shelter was a converted warehouse on the edges of town.
I had heard about it from a girl in my Sociology class who volunteered there for extra credit.
She talked about it with a detached, academic pity.
Standing in front of it now, clutching my damp duffel bag, I didn't feel like a case study. I felt like prey.
I pushed through the metal double doors. It smelled really bad. Bleach, sweat, and boiled onions. The lighting was horrible: banks of fluorescent tubes that buzzed like angry hornets and cast everyone’s skin in a sickly, jaundice yellow.
I approached the plexiglass window at the front desk. The man behind it didn't look up from his phone. He wore a faded security shirt and had the dead-eyed stare of someone who had seen every variety of human misery.
"Name?" he grunted, sliding a clipboard through the slot.
"Florian… Florian Freeman," I said, my voice sounding thin. I sounded like a child asking for a hall pass.
"Fill it out. No drugs, no alcohol, no weapons. Lights out at ten. You get caught stealing or fighting, you're out." He slapped a thin, gray blanket onto the counter. "Bed 42."
I took the blanket. It felt oily, like it had been washed in grease, but it beat sleeping outside.
The dormitory was a sea of metal cots arranged in tight rows, filled with shapes huddled under gray wool.
The air was restless, filled with the sounds of wet coughing, arguments, and the rustle of synthetic fabrics.
Every noise made me flinch. I walked down the aisle, clutching my bags to my chest, my eyes darting from face to face.
A man with a matted beard watched me pass, his gaze tracking me.
Bed 42 was near the back, wedged between a radiator and a wall stained with something dark. I sat down, the springs groaning in protest. The mattress was barely an inch thick.
I needed to wash. I needed to charge my phone.
I needed to pee. My bladder was aching. I had been ignoring it for hours.
Maybe then I could text my Dom casually saying that I may be unavailable until I figured something out.
I didn’t want him to feel like he had to rescue me. I had to figure it out on my own.
I couldn't take everything into the bathroom; the stalls were likely too small, and carrying two bags would mark me as a fresh target, terrified and hoarding.
I lifted the mattress. The metal frame beneath formed a cage.
I shoved the backpack deep underneath, right against the wall, and dropped the mattress back down.
I piled the duffel bag on top of the pillow to make it look occupied.
My bladder was SCREAMING. I need to go now!
It will be fine, I told myself, the lie frantic and brittle. It’s two minutes. Just two minutes.
I practically ran to the bathroom. The tiles were cracked and slimy.
I didn't look in the mirror; I couldn't bear to see the ghost staring back, it’d make me panic.
I splashed freezing water on my face, the shock of it momentarily clearing the fog of exhaustion, used the urinal, and hurried back out, wiping my hands on my jeans.
I was gone three minutes. Maybe four.
When I got back to Bed 42, the duffel bag was on the floor, unzipped and rifled through.
My heart hammered. I dropped to my knees, ignoring the filth on the floor, and shoved the mattress up.
Empty.
Of course it was. How dumb could I be?
The space where my backpack had been was a void.
"No," I whispered. The word didn't sound like me. It sounded like something dying. "No, no, no."
I scrambled up, spinning in a circle. The room was exactly as it had been. The man with the beard was asleep, or pretending to be. Two bunks down, a guy was reading a newspaper. No one was running. No one was holding my stuff.
I ran to the front desk, my socks sliding on the linoleum. "My bag was stolen," I gasped, gripping the counter edge until my fingernails were white. "Just now. Bed 42. Please, you have cameras, right? My phone is in there. My wallet. My ID.”
Knox's card.
The man behind the glass sighed, a heavy, long-suffering exhale. He didn't even put down his phone. "Read the sign," he said, nodding toward a laminated paper taped to the wall. Not responsible for lost or stolen items.