Trapped in Forever

8 ~ Mo's Apology for Louis's Hit and Run

A large, wet, droplet of water fell and then splashed onto the skin of my neck as I pushed open the glass door, the rusty, orangey hinges creaking in response. Most of it slithered down my neck and under my jacket like an ice cold teardrop down my back, but the watery spatter from the drop remained on my neck as a woman, with blonde hair that swayed left and right as she walked, grasped the door from me and slid herself and her tiny thighs and waist through the gap between me and the door frame. As I turned, confused as to why she couldn’t just wait a second, another raindrop plopped onto the top of my hand.

Soon, as the door closed and the sounds of Jonathon Bennett’s character asking what day it was to Lindsay Lohan became muffled; thunder boomed over my head just as black dots began forming on the gray cement of the sidewalk. And as I stifled a sigh, crumping my So Fetch shopping back into a little small and shoving into the pocket on my hoodie under the Flash logo, I reached up and yanked the hood over my head.

As if the pedestrians around me had suspected of this—perhaps our weatherman finally managed to get a forecast right—colorful umbrellas started popping out of nowhere and into people’s hands as they pressed their thumbs down on obvious red buttons and the umbrella would shoot out and open, like a surprised butterfly but with tree frogs decorated on their wings. I didn’t know why I didn’t bring an umbrella, since it was cloudy when I got here, but I guessed it didn’t matter now as the rain went from random, fat droplets to drizzling. In a few moments it would probably look like sliver strings were falling from the clouds.

“Sarah-Anne!”

I turned my head, finding the name somewhat familiar, to look across the street. When cars weren’t speeding past me, I could see a girl, leaning against the brick wall beside a dumpster, kicking her legs out at random bits of wrinkled trash in front of her. One arm was crossed below her chest while the other one held a cigarette, which she lifted up to her lips when she wasn’t adjusting the gray jacket with a neon green zipper she was wearing. As she turned her head in direction of the voice, I noticed yellow and blue crayons rested behind her ear, and I realized it was the waitress from Mo’s, the one who worked with Louis and Orion.

The backdoor to Mo’s was open, and a guy, wearing a black T-shirt and a pair of jeans, held open the door. Rain was falling on his sandy brown hair, which looked tousled from where I stood across the street. When he spotted her, and the cigarette lodged in between her manicured fingers, he frowned.

“Come on,” he called out, thick eyebrows furrowed close to his eyes as he watched her lift it up to her lips. “It’s raining!”

She shrugged, and from where I stood, it almost looked like she was smiling at him as she twirled with the cigarette in her fingers, careful of the smoking butt. “I like the rain,” she replied. In response, I saw him roll his eyes. “Don’t you have a desert to burn or something, Oliver?”

“Ha, ha, very funny.” Actually, he didn’t seem to find it funny at all. “Will you get inside, please?”

Sarah-Anne, as she leaned her head against the bricks, a light smile adorned on her face, almost looked ready to reply to this when she turned her head away from him, standing in front of the door, white paint chipping off at the edges and centers—and just about everywhere else—and hinges even rustier than the ones at So Fetch, and in my direction. Tapping the gold embers from her cigarette, I swore her green eyes scanning the people, holding brightly colored umbrellas and sleek coats, and then narrow, slowly, when they found me.

I had hoped that because of the hoodie hanging off my hairline, with any luck casting a dark shadow down my face, that she wouldn’t be able to recognize me, and I turned away. I took a step forward, landing my black converse sneaker into a forming puddle, disrupting the reflection of the church steeple looming above my head and myself, splattering little pieces of my face and the small, stain glass window of Jesus, holding out his hands and descending from heaven where his disciples, clad with long, graying beards and sandals, waited for him. It was as the window and I began to reform around my soaked sneaker that I heard shouted from across the street, “Hey!”