Page 59 of Silver Linings
“Fine, take it.” All the fight leaves my body, and I go a little limp, offering him my bag.
“Give me your necklace too.” He motions with the knife toward the dainty gold pendant around my neck. The necklace I wear every day without fail. The one my dad gifted to me right before he died.
“No,” I whisper softly, hardly audible.
I take a step back, uncomprehending what to do. He can’t have this necklace, anything but the last piece of my dad I have left.
The attacker follows my retreat, latching on to both of my arms to hold me immobile, spinning me around and pinning myback to his front. The contact makes me want to vomit. He’s banded his arm around my upper half in a vice grip as he snakes his knife-wielding arm up and settles the edge under the chain of my necklace.
A tear silently tracks down my cheek at what I’m about to lose.
I glimpse a tall shadow not far off in the distance, but my devastated mind can’t make sense of what it is, only that it’s lumbering closer and closer, faster than I even thought possible. Then, my gaze settles on eyes the color of sun soaked evergreens.
Hendrix.
He came back? For me?
The haze of resignation starts to retreat at seeing him, and it gives me the boost of strength I need to make one last ditch effort to get out of this. The attacker hasn’t noticed Hendrix is here yet, and I need to deploy distraction tactics and hope to God it works.
Striking like an asp, I bring my leg up and swiftly crunch it back down on his foot, hard enough that he bends forward, taking me with him. The sudden movement makes the blade under my necklace nip the side of my neck, and I feel my pendant fall to the ground. In our crouched position, he’s brought me parallel to his groin, and I sail my arm back with as much force as I can manage into his balls.
His hold finally weakens, and I push myself out of his grip and away from him just in time for Hendrix to take him to the ground like a seasoned NFL defensive tackle.
Safe.
Hendrix is here. I’m safe.
All the blood rushes to my ears, and all I can hear is a faint ringing. The adrenaline I had moments ago has fully worn off and my whole body has run cold. Vaguely, I can hear someonespeaking to me as I crouch down and pick up my necklace, now broken, from the pavement.
I stare down at the floral embossing on the face—frozen, ears buzzing, buzzing, buzzing.
The last thing my dad ever gave me is broken. I can no longer feel its soothing weight against my chest, can no longer reach for it when I’m sad or confused or pensive, expecting it to have all the answers. I feel cold with it gone, or maybe that’s just the air outside. I’m not sure.
The voices persist until something finally gets through to me.
“Silver!” Hendrix calls out my name, gentle yet ringing with authority.
He said myname.
Not another random name like he does when we play our little game. I almost forgot what it sounded like falling off his lips, and it’s everything I never thought to dream of.
I want to hear it a million more times.
“I need you to call 911. Can you do that for me, Sunshine?” I like when he calls me that too.
I nod at him, but I don’t say anything as I crouch down to my bag, discarded on the ground, and reach shaking hands inside for my phone.
Hendrix has the assailant down on the ground, straddling his back with the guy’s face pressed to the concrete, bones crunching and both hands gripped behind his back. He’s definitely not going anywhere if the flex of Hendrix’s biceps is anything to go by.
When I finally get through to a first responder, I answer all their questions, and within minutes, there is a police car on the scene, handcuffing my attacker.
With Hendrix no longer detaining him, he gently walks over to me, intuiting I may need some space.
I don’t. Not from him.
So, I bridge the final few steps between us.
His hands twitch like they want to touch me, check me over to make sure I’m not hurt, maybe hug me. I think I could use a hug. I’m about to step in and just take one from him, take what Ineed, what I’ve beencravingever since I told him we needed to be friends, when an officer comes over to get a statement.
