Page 85 of Savior

I don’t have the heart to tell her I’m like her; even though I have a home, I’m a nefarious spirit who wanders the worldwithout a proper place. I’ve never felt that I belonged anywhere before.

“Got no friends?” she asks.

“You’re awfully nosy today,” I spew, turning to meet her eyes.

They’re the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen, like looking into the crystal blue waters of an arctic river. Her hair is blonde and matted, grey streaking through some bits.

“I’m just saying, is all. You’re with me more than you should be, kid. I’m not a good influence.” Her face turns sad before she turns back to her honey bun. “Not that I don’t appreciate when you come around.” She raises the sweet treat in the air in appreciation.

I bite mine and sit silently with Mary for a few more minutes.

“I don’t have any friends,” I answer her question finally.

She doesn’t immediately reply, and I think she hasn’t heard me until she finally says, “Well, you’ve got one.”

I turn to her, hoping she won’t say something stupid like ‘Jesus loves you.’

She smiles, her decaying teeth covered in filth showing behind her lips. “Me.”

I can’t help it. I smile back at her. It might not be much, but it’s something.

My mom always says I have a way of latching onto people that I shouldn’t. She says I see down to the very soul that animates people and can judge it on instinct within the first moments I meet someone. It’s how I know my mom isn’t a good person and how I know Mary is.

“One day, I won’t be here, kid.”

Her words burn my chest, and I snap my face toward hers. “Don’t say that.”

Unruly anger seeds in my belly that I can’t control, but it’s out of sadness at the thought of losing her. She’s the only bright thing I have in my life; these moments with her are all I have.

“It’s just the facts, kid. I’m not getting any younger, and these streets aren’t getting easier. You’ll need to learn to survive on your own pretty soon. And let me tell you, it’s hard. But you have something I don’t: fire in your gut. If you keep that, you can live through anything this world throws at you, you hear me?”

I nod at her, my eyes burning with tears.

She smiles again. “Awe, now, don’t cry yet. I’m still here, ain’t I?”

I sniffle and nod, returning to watching the people on the street before us come and go as we eat the rest of our honey buns in silence. But I don’t shy away when Mary reaches for my hand to hold it. It’s the first time I’ve ever felt what it’s like for peace to shroud me.

The first time, I felt like someone loved me.

I snap awake,sitting up and gasping as tears fall down my cheeks in rivers. It was only two weeks later that I found Mary dead. Her foreboding had rung true, and I lost the only friend I had in the world that day. From then on, life got rough. She’d been right. But I never forgot her words. I’ve kept the fire in my gut.

“Sloane? Are you alright?” Luca asks from a corner near the end of the bed.

I wince as I look through the dark of the room for him.

He’s in a chair, covered in a blanket.

“What are you doing over there?” I ask him.

He clears his throat, folding his blanket as he stands, placing it to drape over the back of the chair as he stands and heads for the side of the bed nearest me.

“I wanted to make sure you were alright. I must’ve fallen asleep,” he says, sitting beside me and brushing my hair back off my sweat-covered forehead.

Losing Mary feels nearer tonight, like it wasn’t years ago. While I know it’s the dream, I can’t help but lean into it some and let the sting travel through me.

“It was only a bad dream.”

“Want to talk about it?” he asks, and I flutter my eyes to look at him.

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