Chapter 4 Bitsy
The heat inside the kitchen of the diner was a thick, greasy wall that pressed against the back of Bitsy’s neck the entire afternoon.
Fridays were relentless, a never-ending cycle of dirty plates, clattering silverware, and the sharp, rhythmic hiss of the flat-top grill.
By three in the afternoon, the lunchtime rush had finally trickled out, leaving only the stale smell of fried onions and old coffee in its wake.
Bitsy stood near the drink station, her fingers tightly wrapped around a plastic cup of ice water.
She took a long, desperate swallow, letting the cold shock her throat just enough to wake her up.
Her legs were already a dull ache beneath her black jeans; a heavy warning of the six hours left on her double shift.
"You're running on empty, kiddo."
Jake’s deep, gravelly voice cut through the quiet hum of the ice machine.
He was leaning against the stainless-steel prep table, a clean white towel slung over his massive shoulder.
Jake was easily twenty years older than her, with silver threading through his dark beard and hands that looked like they could crush a baseball, but he was the only person in the entire establishment who ever really looked at her.
Not with the predatory gaze of the late-night customers or the impatient frustration of Frank, the manager. Jake looked at her like a parent would.
He reached down and scooped up a heavy brown paper bag from the counter, holding it out to her. "Take thirty. Go out the back door and get some actual air. If Frank starts looking for you, I'll tell him you're restocking the basement paper goods."
Bitsy reached for the bag, her fingers brushing his calloused hand. "Thank you, Jake. You didn't have to."
"Yeah, I did," he said, his tone firm, brook-no-argument.
It was the same tone he used when he told her to wear a thicker coat or when he quietly stepped between her and a table of rowdy dock workers who had taken their jokes a little too far.
"There's a turkey club in there. Real turkey, not the deli stuff, and some fruit.
Eat all of it. Don't let me catch you throwing half of it in the bin. "
A small, genuine smile cracked through Bitsy’s exhaustion. "I won't."
She slipped out the heavy metal back door, the sudden blast of early spring air making her shiver as the heavy door clicked shut behind her.
The alley smelled of wet cardboard and damp brick, but compared to the kitchen fryer, it felt like paradise.
She didn't stay in the alley. If she stayed there, Frank would inevitably pop his head out to smoke a cigarette and drag her back inside early.
She walked two blocks down, her heavy-soled work shoes clicking against the cracked pavement.
Bridgeport’s industrial district slowly gave way to a tiny, forgotten pocket of green—a square of grass the city called a park, though it was mostly just a few patchily surviving oak trees and a pair of rusted iron benches.
She chose the bench furthest from the street, tucked beneath the shadow of a low-hanging branch.
Setting the brown bag on her lap, she pulled out the sandwich.
Jake had wrapped it in thick butcher paper, and he’d even cut it into perfect triangles, exactly the way her mind preferred things to be organized.
She took a bite, the crisp lettuce and savory turkey instantly reminding her how hollow her stomach had actually been.
She was halfway through the second triangle when a shadow fell across the gravel path in front of her.
Bitsy went instantly rigid, her heart performing a familiar, violent kick against her ribs. She didn't look up immediately, her eyes training on a pair of scuffed, dirt-caked leather boots that had stopped about four feet from her bench.
"Didn't mean to jump you," a quiet, raspy voice said.
Bitsy slowly lifted her gaze. The man standing there was old—older than Jake, certainly—with a weathered face mapped by deep lines and a faded flannel shirt that looked like it had been through a hundred wash cycles.
He was holding a plastic grocery bag filled with aluminum cans, the metal clinking softly as he shifted his weight.
He didn't look dangerous; he looked tired, his shoulders slumped with the specific weight of someone who spent their life trying to occupy as little space as possible.
"Just wanted to see if I could have the paper bag when you're through with it," the man said, pointing a gnarled finger at the brown sack beside her. "Good for separating the glass."
The tension in Bitsy’s shoulders didn't disappear entirely—it never did—but it loosened enough for her to breathe.
She looked at the bag, then back at him.
She recognized the look in his eyes. It was the same look she saw in the mirror every morning: the quiet, vigilant exhaustion of the unhoused.
He was just trying to survive his afternoon, same as her.
"Of course," Bitsy said, her voice small but clear. She reached into the bag, pulled out the red apple Jake had packed, and set the empty sack on the edge of the bench. Then, on a sudden impulse, she held the apple out to him. "Do you... do you want this, too?"
The old man blinked, his gray eyes softening slightly as he looked at the fruit, then at her stained restaurant apron. He seemed to read the situation in a single glance, recognizing her the same way she had recognized him.
"You keep the apple, girlie," he said softly, reaching out with a surprisingly gentle hand to take the brown bag. "You’ve got a long day ahead of you. I can tell. Thank you for the paper."
He gave her a brief, respectful nod and walked away, his boots crunching quietly against the gravel as he headed toward the recycling bins at the edge of the square.
Bitsy watched him go, finishing the last few bites of her sandwich in the quiet shade of the tree, the temporary stillness of the park a small comfort before she had to face the rest of her day.
When her thirty minutes were up to the exact tick of her cheap wristwatch, she walked back to the diner. She entered through the rear, checking her reflection in the polished metal of the commercial refrigerator before stepping back into the fray.
Before hitting the floor, she ducked into the staff restroom to make herself presentable. The single lightbulb overhead cast a cruel, yellow glow over the small space. Bitsy leaned against the sink, gripping the cold porcelain as she looked up into the cracked glass of the mirror.
The harsh glare caught the telltale signs of the double shift—pale skin, heavy eyelids, and a tight, neat bun that was slowly surrendering to the steam of the kitchen line, fine dark strands breaking loose to fringe her temples.
She sighed, using a damp paper towel to wipe a stray smudge of charcoal grease from her cheek.
She did what she could to clean up the edges, tucked a few flyaways behind her ears, and adjusted her apron.
She couldn't fix the exhaustion, but she could keep it tucked behind the forced smile she put on for the tables.
"Bitsy! Where have you been hiding?" Frank's voice snapped across the line the second she stepped out of the back hallway.
He was standing near the pickup station with his clipboard, blocking the path to the coffee makers.
He looked her up and down, his forehead creasing with irritation as he tapped a pen against his thumb.
"The weekend crowd is already dropping in, and I've got tables waiting for refills.
Stop dragging your feet and get some refills out to table four. "
"I'm on it," Bitsy said, her voice flat as she reached around his shoulder to snag two clean carafes from the warmer. She didn't wait for him to say anything else, immediately pivoting toward the coffee machines to put the barrier of the counter between them.
She hurried over to table four, but as she passed the service station, she ran into Gina.
Gina was thirty-four, a mother of two who worked the weekend shifts to pay for her eldest’s braces.
She had a permanent crease between her eyebrows and a wicked, dry sense of humor that had saved Bitsy from walking out on more than one occasion.
Gina waited until Frank turned his back to look over the dessert case, then let out a heavy, dramatic sigh as she stepped up to the service station. "If that man tells me to smile one more time, I’m going to drop a bowl of hot chili right into his lap and claim it was an operational hazard."
Bitsy let out a quiet, sudden laugh, the tightness in her chest easing slightly. "He told me to move faster."
"He wouldn't know fast if it bit him on his lazy ass," Gina scoffed, expertly stacking three heavy porcelain mugs onto a tray with one hand. "Don't let him get under your skin, sweetie. He’s just mad because his wife makes him sleep on the couch."
Gina paused, her eyes scanning Bitsy’s face and lingering on the dark circles that the cold water hadn't managed to wash away.
"You look exhausted, Bitsy. Seriously. Are you taking on extra graveyard shifts somewhere else?
You can't keep pulling double hours like this without sleeping. You're going to make yourself sick."
Bitsy adjusted the heavy tray in her hands, avoiding Gina’s gaze by focusing on the dirty table across the room. "Just trying to clear some bills, Gina. You know how it is."
"I do," Gina said quietly, reaching out to give Bitsy’s forearm a brief, supportive squeeze. "But bills don't matter if you drop dead on the floor. Take care of yourself. If you need me to take over table nine for you later so you can sit down for five minutes, just tell me."
"Thanks," Bitsy murmured, feeling a sudden, dangerous prick of tears behind her eyes. She wasn't used to people being kind to her, and when they were, it always felt like it might break the fragile shell she had built to keep herself together.
She spent the next four hours moving like a machine.
There was a man sitting alone at table eleven who made her skin crawl—he wore a heavy leather jacket and had a thick, jagged scar running down his left cheek, and every time she poured his coffee, his eyes stayed locked on her hands, watching the slight tremor in her fingers with a cold, unblinking intensity.
She didn't say anything to him, but she quietly asked Gina to deliver his check when the time came, unable to face that heavy, silent gaze again.
By nine o'clock, the diner was finally quiet. The dinner rush had dissolved, the floors had been mopped with pine-scented bleach, and Frank had already left for the night, leaving Jake to lock up the back.
Bitsy punched her card out at the time clock, the mechanical clunk sounding like a victory bell.
She collected her small tips from her apron, stuffing the crumpled singles into her pocket, and said her goodbyes.
Jake walked her to the back door, his large frame blocking the cool night wind as she stepped out into the alley.
"Lock your doors the second you get moving, Bitsy," Jake said, his eyes scanning the dark mouth of the alleyway before settling back on her face. "The docks are loud tonight. Too many drunks roaming around. Drive straight home."
"I will, Jake. Goodnight."
She walked fast, her body practically screaming for her to turn the key in the Honda’s ignition, drive to the gas station to wash her hair, and crawl under her wool blanket.
But her mind was wider awake than her body.
The craving was already there—the digital itch that she couldn't scratch anywhere else.
She needed to get back into the quiet space.
She needed to feel the weight of the city fade away.
She drove the silver Honda straight to the demolition block at 4th and Main.
The area was completely silent, a ghost town of cracked asphalt and towering shadows where the city's concrete past had been left to rot.
She parked the car in her usual dark corner, tucked behind the rusted industrial bins where the shadows were deepest. She didn't even set up her foam window boards this time.
She grabbed her duffel bag and her laptop, slipped out of the car, and sprinted across the gravel lot toward the rear of the condemned office building.
She slipped through a loose plywood panel covering a broken door at the back of the building, checking the gravel behind her one last time before pulling the heavy wood back into place. Slipping into the dark hallway, her shoes hit the damp concrete floor with a soft, muffled thud.
The air inside the building was freezing, smelling of old dust, damp drywall, and stone. It was a massive, empty shell, forty-two stories of dark concrete and exposed wires, but to Bitsy, it felt like a palace because it was empty. Nobody could see her here. Nobody could tell her to smile.
She walked the dark concrete stairwell, using the small, dim screen of her phone to light her steps until she reached the forty-second floor. Her legs were trembling by the time she pushed open the heavy fire door, but the moment she stepped into the vast, open space, the exhaustion seemed to lift.
The entire floor was empty, a concrete desert with massive floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the glittering expanse of the city.
In the far corner, hidden behind a massive drywall pillar, was her setup.
It wasn't much—just an old plastic milk crate she used as a chair and a small, battery-powered lantern.
Bitsy sat down, her breath pluming in the cold air of the room. She opened her laptop and logged in.
The connection snapped into place instantly, the speed so fast it made her pulse quicken.
The network was a marvel—steady, completely unthrottled, and locked behind layers of complex, beautiful encryption that she spent hours just studying like a puzzle.
She didn't know who it belonged to, and she didn't care.
To her, it was just Enigma. A digital back door where she could finally disappear.
She pulled up her diagnostic tools, checking the data streams just to make sure her tap was still holding clean. The lines were perfectly clear, a river of smooth, glowing code running across her screen.
Bitsy wrapped her thin jacket tighter around her shoulders, leaning her head back as the screen illuminated her pale face in a soft, blue light.
For the next few hours, she wasn't the girl with the flyaway hair and the tired eyes who took orders from Frank.
She was invisible. She was safe inside the walls of a world that didn't even know she existed, completely wrapped in the quiet, high-altitude dark.