Page 60 of Drown My Sorrow

I don’t look at her but watch her out of the corner of my eye as I continue setting up. My nerves jangle, and I focus completely on her movements as she gets closer and closer.

Two of her friends jog over to her. One of them I think she’s fucking because he flings an arm over her shoulder and kisses her cheek. It won’t last long, it never does. While the rest of town might be a threat, she’s a promise of danger, and those that follow her obey without questioning why.

She looks my way and whispers. I get that crawling sensation, that instinct that murmurs that something bad is coming. I listen to that voice now, I’ve learned the hard way to ignore it at my peril.

For an instant, all I see is the blue of the ocean as a wave curls ahead of me, reaching higher than the sky, and then I blink as they move towards my stall.

I rush out in front of it and try to meet them, to head them off, but they step around me. The first guy walks up and picks up a tiger’s eye.

“Wait, please, stop!” I try to wrestle it back, but he just holds it above my head.

The guy with short blond hair has nasty pinched eyes and a crooked smile. The other has brown hair and is slimmer, and when he laughs, it reminds me of the bullies I had at school.

“What’s this for?” the blond sneers

“It’s to give people strength and courage,” I murmur and resign myself to the inevitable.

They aren’t going to buy anything. No one is going to help me. I just have to endure.

I’m losing more and more days of work due to accidents like the one that’s about to happen. I’m late on my rent, and the electricity is about to be cut off.

I bite the inside of my cheek and lean around the taller blond guy with no shirt on.

“Please, put that down.”

He’s got a huge cave agate in his hand the size of an adult man's fist. It’s got the most beautiful teal, turquoise, and violet colours through it. It’s one of my favourites.

He turns to me and tilts his hand just enough so that it rolls out of his palm and crashes to the ground. It splits in two.

It cost me so much money. I try to kneel to pick it up, but my leg gives way. I grab one of the pieces and blink back tears when my whole stall collapses, rolling stones, gems, and my oracle card sets into the road.

The two guys burst into laughter, braying hysterically as they call me a loser.

Nobody stops to help, they all just avert their eyes.

I scramble after my belongings, trying my best to pick them up, even through blurred sight.

“You’re fucked now, Packer.”

Beau’s voice is dark with promise. I hear a yelp, but I don’t look up, not until someone crouches and starts helping me pick up my things.

Kelly reaches out and passes me a basket to hold. I take it and watch as he silently starts filling it.

“Help her!” Kelly demands of my neighbours. “What are you people doing?”

Gael and Ezy appear and fix the stall, then help gather the gems.

I hear a thud and look up. Keagan and Beau are beating the ever-loving shit out of the two guys, while Shale has Gwen on her knees by the hair.

“I told you to stop pushing me, didn’t I tell you? You really are a piece of shit, Gwen.”

“My dads are gonna hear of this!”

She screeches as he shakes her viciously.

“What are they going to do?” Shale laughs, but it’s a dark laugh. “What are your daddy’s going to do to me?”

She lets out a sobbing scream, which only gets higher when he tosses her at the ground. She hits hard, and when she gets up, she’s bleeding from her nose.

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