Chapter 2
Two
Ari
I looked everywhere for the man with the red hair until I grew so desperate, I started asking random people if they had seen him. No one had. He had disappeared into the darkness like a ghost, and once again I was faced with the unrelenting feeling that I wasn’t someone who deserved to be wanted.
The bar’s last call was at twelve-thirty, but I was already hiding across the street in the shadows, watching the building’s two exits in case my red-haired man walked through one of them.
I knew better than to do this, I was better than this, but I couldn’t let it go.
I watched drunk patrons file out of the building like ants, wavering on their feet as they went home for the night.
An eerie quiet settled over the city, but my red-haired man was nowhere to be found.
I waited—lingered—with the tiniest flicker of hope still burning in my chest, but I felt like an idiot.
When the side door opened with a loud bang, my heart nearly leapt out of my chest, but instead of red hair or someone my age, an older man with an enormous belly appeared, stumbling around slightly while he whistled.
He slumped against the brown brick wall, pausing for a moment until I heard the unmistakable sound of his pant zipper and a groan of relief.
The noise carried through the air, sending a chill down my spine.
I had been so obsessed with my red-haired man, I’d completely overlooked the fact that I was out here in the dark. Alone.
My nose scrunched up in disgust as Mr. Beer Gut peed all over a black trash bag that someone had half-shoved against a commercial dumpster, and reality hit me like a ton of bricks.
This was stupid, and I was being pathetic.
I let out a defeated sigh as I shoved my hands into my pockets, pushing my body off the wall, and decided it was finally time to fuck off for safety.
I left my temporary residence in the shadows and stepped carefully, making sure my heels didn’t click against the pavement.
Mr. Beer Gut and I were the only two people out here, and every single one of my senses were screaming danger, so I was relieved to put some distance between us.
I had only taken a couple of steps towards my apartment when I heard a soft clatter from the alleyway behind me.
Glass bottles? Or a small trash can, perhaps?
The noise was too close for comfort, so my body startled as I held back a scream as I whipped around.
But instead of finding someone there, the alleyway was empty.
Just old buildings, lingering fog, and probably a few stray cats with an affinity for breaking things.
But as relieved as I was, the noise had drawn the attention of the one person I hadn’t wanted to attract, and my muscles turned to ice and my pulse jumped with terror as the man across the road smirked when he saw me.
“Heeeey! What’s a pretty girl like you doing out here aloneee?” he slurred, sloppily zipping up his pants as pure darkness flashed across his eyes.
“Nothing! Sorry! I’m just heading home, thanks!” I shouted over my shoulder, sobering up completely as my heart thudded in my ears.
The man’s response was unintelligible as I slipped out of my heels, but I didn’t ask him to repeat himself as my mother’s words echoed in my ears to the rhythm of my bare feet hitting the pavement.
“It’s better to run barefoot in the city than get caught like a mouse in a trap. Trust me, girl. I’ve lived it, so I know you’re too weak to survive something like that.”
— ?? —
I was too hungover to do anything but grab a coffee from the diner down the street, so I made my way through the city, squinting behind my darkest pair of sunglasses and a hoodie. I didn’t care if I looked like shit; I had made it home last night in one piece.
Adrenaline still thudded through my veins whenever I replayed it in my mind, unable to stop imagining how much worse things could have gone if I hadn’t gotten away when I did.
I wanted to blame it all on the alcohol—I had the raging hangover and headache that made it an easy scapegoat—but I had been completely and utterly stupid all on my own, so looking like I was committing the world’s worst walk of shame this morning was my punishment.
The smell of eggs mixed with pancakes, burgers, sandwiches, coleslaw, and fries hit me like a ton of bricks the second I stepped into the diner.
It had been here my whole life, the one solid rock I’d leaned on when life got hard, but instead of hunger, my stomach churned with memories of my childhood.
The idea of food turned to ash before I was even halfway inside, but it was fine.
I hadn’t planned to go to the dining side anyway.
I was alone, like always, and tables were reserved for parties of two or more.
Instead, I slid into the only empty spot at the bar, and motioned to get the waitress’s attention.
“Black coffee,” I said weakly. She nodded immediately, running off to grab it, so I laid my head down on my arms and closed my eyes.
Technically, it was closer to dinner than lunch. I’d slept the whole day, but I knew this place served breakfast 24/7, so they always had a fresh pot of coffee waiting for me.
Various conversations across the diner faded in and out of earshot, and I listened to people talk about weather, politics, or vacations they wanted to take.
It was impossible to miss the little kid in the back corner whining about not having enough syrup to go with her pancakes.
Her screams were like nails on a chalkboard, and I winced as one of her parents carried her into the bathroom, kicking and screaming.
Must be nice to have two parents that cared enough to reprimand you for being bad.
My mother had been too busy drowning her sorrows and using men until her life faded away into oblivion.
I heard the ceramic thud of a mug as it hit the table, and I opened my eyes to see the waitress standing there with her pen hovering over her notepad.
“You want food, hon, or do you need a minute?”
“Just keep my cup full for now,” I mumbled, greedily reaching for my coffee like a little kid reaching for the grand prize at the fair.
Nothing else was said before the waitress walked off, disappearing through the swinging double doors that led to the dingy kitchen in the back.
It had been a few years since I’d bothered to look for a health inspection report, but they’d had a long bout of failed ones a few years back.
Maybe it was gross, but it never stopped me from coming in.
I wrapped my fingers around the mug as the warmth seeped into my hands, and savored the way the heat felt like a small lifeline in this overwhelming sea of life.
The pad of my thumb rubbed lightly along the edge of a small chip on the handle before I took the biggest sip of hot bean water I could handle.
I chuckled to myself at the silly thought, wondering what side of the internet I’d picked that up from, but I didn’t bother looking up from the bubbles floating along the surface of the brown liquid.
Maybe all of life’s mysteries were hiding in my mug.
Or maybe it was just a fucking cup of coffee.
It tasted the same either way.
My favorite part of this diner was their strict policy not to enter the twenty-first century, so I stared at the familiar old TV in the far left-hand corner surrounded by the cleanest cups.
The image was pretty fuzzy nowadays, and it was almost too small to really enjoy, but it didn’t matter.
It had spent years raising me, and I considered it an old friend by now.
Usually they kept it turned to something boring like bingo or one of those game shows the older crowd always loved, but it was something to stare at.
Except today, when I finally pushed my sunglasses up on my head and leaned forward to see better, I was surprised they had the news on for once.
It took me a second to process what I was seeing, but then I recognized the building behind the blonde reporter, and blinked a few times at the headline as if I was imagining things.
Body found near local nightclub
Victim still unidentified
My heart thudded in my chest and my head spun as I tried to read the captions on the small screen.
An unknown male had been discovered sometime around noon by a bar employee when they showed up for their shift.
The cameraman zoomed in to try to get a better shot, shakily focusing on dozens of officers standing next to the same commercial dumpster I had seen last night, and I spotted the pixelated image of the black trash bag Mr. Pork Belly had peed on.
The memory of last night flashed through my mind again, and I frowned. Maybe that creepy guy had killed somebody. Or maybe he had finally cat-called the wrong person just in time to earn himself an early debut in hell.
Either way, how crazy was it that they found someone murdered outside the nightclub I’d gone to last night? I knew logically I should have been more scared than I was, but a sick intrigue piqued my interest and I found myself running plausible scenarios in my head over what could have happened.
Maybe it was fucked up that it didn’t scare me more, but shitty things happened all the time in this city.
Especially to people on this side of town.
We were all poor and desperate, and a lot of us did all sorts of things in the middle of the night we wouldn’t be proud of in the morning just to earn a few bucks.
But cash was cash, and death was just another part of our fucked up ecosystem.
It was easier for the richer half of the population to pretend that people didn’t jump in front of the trains all the time to avoid a debt collector, or turn up dead in the park with questionable toxicology in their veins, but it still happened.
All I could really do was be glad it wasn’t me this time, and move on.