The Fish Song

Head Above Water

I felt my hand hit the ground as I tried to catch my body to keep my head from hitting the hard pavement beneath me. I looked up from where I lay on the pavement. I seen the man that was following me before standing above me. I wasn't sure how I ended up on the floor or why he was standing above me but my anxiety made it so that I felt the need to apologize.

"I am so sorry sir," I said.

"Oh not a problem," he said reaching his hand down to me. I didn't know what to do, did I take his hand and allow him to help me up or do I impede the feeling in my stomach and get up and run? I pushed all the feelings from my stomach and head that were telling me to run and reached for his hand. He wrapped his around mine and reached a little lower on my arm with his other hand, pulling me up to my feet.

     "Thank you," I said bending down to grab my phone. I stood back up and turned to continue walking but his hand came around my arm stopping me in my tracks. The sinking feeling re-entered my body as he turned me back to face him.

     "Come have dinner with me," he said trying to pull me towards him. I tried jerking my arm away from him but his grip on me was to hard.

     "Uhm, Sir I am sorry. I can't. I have somewhere to be. I am meeting up with someone." I tried to pull again with no luck.

     "Yeah you do. You have to be with me," he said moving backwards pulling me along with him.

     "No. Please. Stop." I didn't know what to do. Memories started to flood back harder then ever as my brain began to shut down.

     "MAGS! There you are! I have been looking all over for you. Who is this?" I looked to the young lady walking towards us. I didn't know who she was and I didn't know who Mags was so she must have been talking to this stranger. I had no idea what was going on. All I knew was I wanted out of the current situation I was in. The man looked from me to the woman standing next to us. "Mags?" She said again looking me directly in the eyes as she widen them at me. I had a sudden rush of relief and felt like I could breath again.

     "Oh, hey yeah. Sorry I tripped and he helped me up. You ready to go?" I asked going along with her.

     "Yep. We better get going," she said as she placed her hand on my shoulder. The man released my arm and we turned from him, her hand still on my shoulder, as she began to lead me down the side walk and away from him. When we were far enough away from where the encounter happened I turned my head towards her as we continued to walk.

     "Thank you for rescuing me. I wasn't sure what I was going to do."

     "No problem. I got nervous for you. I'm Katy, by the way." She finally removed her hand from my shoulder, shoving it inside her pocket. I wasn't sure where she was headed but we continued to walk in the same direction.

     "Nice to meet you. I'm DJ. Where are you headed?"

     "To the arena just a few blocks up," she said pointing ahead of us.

"To see Harry?" I looked down at my phone. The show had already started and Harry would be on shortly.

"Yeah. I am running late, I didn't get out of work on time," she said. It was almost like an unspoken notion hit us both as we picked up our walking speed slightly.

"Well I appreciate you for stopping for me, even with the potential of missing Harry," I said smiling over at her.

"It wasn't even a question. You looked like you were in need and there was no way I wasn't going to help. Where are you headed?"