Oh man.
She was going to fire me.
I was too weird even for her. Too awkward. Too something.
Finally, she spoke. “I heard about what happened yesterday . . .”
Another awkward lapse of time as Rachel searched for what to say.
What had she heard? Who had told her? Why did she care?
“Maybe if you had made the dress stronger—”
No.
This was the very last thing on the planet I needed to hear right now. Was she honestly trying to make me feel worse? Was she that evil?
I interrupted her before she finished. “Just stop. Yesterday was hard enough as it was.”
And she stopped. Her eyes expressed that she understood completely. Dare I say it, she looked apologetic?
“I’m sorry. I can’t seem to stop myself with you. I honestly don’t know why—”
“I don’t want to talk about yesterday with you.” Bold. I had been bold. So unlike me.
Straightening her outfit as if putting up an invisible wall between us, she pushed forward. “Well, too bad, because . . . I wanted to tell you that I’m proud of you for trying. It takes a lot of guts to do what you did, and no matter what happened, you should be proud of yourself for doing it.”
Huh?
I stood there in mute shock, and before I responded, Rachel swung around and walked out of the back room, leaving me to ponder what had just happened.
Edmond materialized next to the locker with an expression of surprise. “Well, that was unexpected.”
I barely nodded. I was still a little shocked. “That was almost . . . nice.”
“Maybe you were right. Maybe there is a decent person in there somewhere.” Edmond motioned to the locker next to him. “What do you say? Time to return the picture? She might not fire you after all.”
He disappeared as I opened the locker and pulled out Josh’s picture from my backpack.
Josh. Walked. In.
“Hey, you okay?” he asked.
Then he saw it.
The picture.
Me.
Holding the stolen picture.
“I . . .” What could I say?
“Is that the picture that was stolen?” Josh appeared genuinely confused.
It was all too much.
Dropping the picture to the ground, I grabbed my backpack and ran out the door.
“Jeraline!” Josh’s voice followed me out, but I ignored it. I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop.
In tears, I raced through the store, the front exit seemingly miles away.
Every few feet my attacker from the alley appeared, blood gushing down his face, until I was pushing my way through hundreds of him. Finally, I busted out and reached the front door, leaving the store.
I didn’t stop there. My feet kept pounding the pavement, running, running from everything, running from my life.
I stopped cold when I reached the alley.
The alley was the root of it all. The physical embodiment of everything wrong with my life. It kept pushing me down, taking away any progress I’d made. Death, guns, brutality, darkness, and fear. I had to face it. It was the only way to defeat it. It was the only way I could live.
I plunged into the center of the alley, swallowed whole.
Noises jumped out at every corner, whispering to me that I didn’t belong there, that I’d be consumed and devoured if I stayed a second longer.
Everything began to spin around me, and a shadowy figure approached me, gun in hand. He began to take form, but instead of my attacker, it was the young shooter that had killed my parents.
Gunshots and screams blasted all around the alley, coming from nowhere and everywhere all at once.
Then I saw them.
My parents.
Lying dead at my feet, blood soaking through their clothes and covering my shoes.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I slammed my hands over my ears to make everything go away.
It didn’t.
The noises overpowered my measly attempt to block them.
Barking, growling, screaming, gunfire.
I opened my eyes, the darkness closing in on me like black fog.
I had to get out.
I had tried to defeat it, but I failed.
It was too powerful.
So I ran.
Ran out of the darkness and back on the sidewalk where I was out of its reach.
The alley had won.
I had lost.
After racing the rest of the way home, I flew up the stairs and swung the front door wide, leaping into the apartment. My safety zone. Almost as if nothing could touch me here, though I knew that wasn’t true.
Entering my room, I slammed the door shut behind me even though I lived alone . . . habit. Sitting on the floor by my bed, I pulled out the gun from underneath it. As I held back tears, my hands fumbled along the surface of the revolver, and I began to hyperventilate. I dropped the gun back in the box and slid it under the bed.
I didn’t ever want to see it again.
Reaching up to my bedside table, I yanked the picture of my parents down and into my lap, tracing their faces with my finger. “You must be so disappointed in me.”
My mother stared up at me from the Empire State Building, tears in her eyes. “Jeraline, we love you. You could never disappoint us.”
“But I shot someone. I did what was done to you. I’m evil,” I cried.
Dad held Mom’s hand tight as he looked up at me as well. “You are not evil. You did what you had to do to survive.”
“That’s just an excuse! I’m making you say things I want to hear! You’re not here!” I threw the picture across the room, and the glass shattered as it hit the wall.
Everything was falling apart.
I was falling apart.
I jumped when my cell phone rang in my pocket. It was so surprising, I didn’t check to see who it was before I pulled it out and answered, “Hello?”
“Jeraline?” It was Rachel.
Yup.
The firing.
I sighed, knowing full well where this conversation was going. “Hi, Rachel. You don’t have to tell me. I know I’m fired.”
There was a pause, then her voice actually sounded . . . concerned? “No . . . I . . . wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
Huh?
“But I stole the picture.”
“Well, I knew you did that a
