Page 25 of Liar Byrd
Alice, the woman who gave me a sandwich and a bottle of water, smiles at me as she gets up from her seat when the bus stops.
I wave at her, smiling as a small crowd of people surges forward and envelops her in hugs. They all look enough like her to be family. Alice said she had a big family, and it seems like they all came to meet her from the bus.
My heart aches. No one is here to meet me. I have no one to love and no one who loves me. I get up from my seat and stop.
A crisp twenty-dollar bill rests on the seat next to the one where Alice was sitting.
I turn toward the bus window, and Alice is staring directly at me.
She catches my eye and nods once as if to let me know she left it for me, then turns and lets her family walk her out of the bus terminal.
I pick up the twenty-dollar bill, smile as I tuck it into my pocket, and get off the bus. What would it have been like to grow up with a mom like that?
Guilt makes me instantly regret thinking it. While life with my mom wasn’t perfect, it feels wrong to want another with a woman I barely know.
The Massey bus terminal is downtown, and it’s only when I walk outside that I regret randomly picking a place I’d never heard of.
It’s not a big town, but it’s not exactly super tiny either. If Jeremiah’s men follow me here, it won’t be as easy to hide as it would be if I’d gone to a bigger city. But I’m here now, stuck for at least the next little while.
Downtown is growing quieter as the people from the bus I disembarked from disappear into the distance. With my stolen bag in hand, I wander the streets, turning my head from side to side, looking for a grocery store.
I don’t find a grocery store, but I do find the pharmacy, which is what I needed.
I nod at the woman who leaves as I slip inside.
Time to do something about my distinctive white-blond hair.
A woman is taking forever to make up her mind between red and copper brown. I’m a patient person, or I used to be. Now all I’m conscious of is the passing of time and how slow it can be.
Jeremiah taught me that.
Every minute with him felt like an hour.
I go on a slow wander around the store. I don’t pick anything up. There’s nothing else here I want.
When I return to the hair dye section of the store, the woman has moved on. I power walk to the brown hair dyes, grab a cheap one at random along with a pair of sharp scissors, and head to the checkout to pay.
Thirteen dollars and eighty-six cents is more than I wanted to pay, but these are necessary expenses. With only two items, I have practically no money left. Definitely not enough for a hotel or even a motel for the night.
Next on my bucket list is another quick trip to the bus station.
The bus terminal is empty. The bus that brought me to Massey has left, and other than a man in the ticket booth with his head down working, I’m on my own.
I decide to use the accessible bathroom with a baby-changing station, hoping no babies come through while I’m there. It’s late afternoon, almost evening, so the chances of that are low.
I lock the door behind me and get to work turning myself from a blond to a brunette. Maybe I’ve lost Jeremiah’s acolytes for good, but I need to be prepared. They found me before. They could find me again.
Before I get dye all over my hooded top and T-shirt, I take everything off and notice in the bathroom mirror how thin living with Jeremiah has made me. The bones in my ribcage stand out sharply under the plain cotton sports bra that a volunteer from the shelter gave me.
Before the compound, I was a size four. Now I’m all skin and bones.
I sweep my hair over my shoulder and start cutting. I don’t care if it’s even or straight; I just want more hair gone. Dyeing it will be a pain in the tiny bathroom sink already.
My head feels lighter now that my hair no longer reaches the small of my back. I scoop the hair from the sink into the plastic bag for the dye, and then I get to work.
It’s a messy job, using only the plastic gloves that come with the hair dye and a thick wad of paper towels I empty from the wall to use in place of a towel.
I ignore someone knocking on the door. They’ll go away soon.
