In Aid

1. One More Night

You don't have to do this. One more night. The bus station bench isn't that bad to sleep on. You can do this, Zed.

I took deep breaths as I repeated those words in my head over and over again like a mantra, the chilly spring night air burning my nostrils. My mantra was the only thing keeping me rooted to my spot. My eyes were trained on the women standing at the corner where the convenience store was. I knew what they were waiting for. Or rather, who. I was tempted to join them.

It had been three days and two nights since I was kicked out by my father, Peter. This time. Tonight would make the third if he didn't text me to come home soon. It happened every now and again, but this time I had been asking for it. He had drunk-pissed all over the rough paper draft of my essay, leaving me with vague memories of what I had written down and poorly edited. It was an essay I was already late in turning in and I had no sway over that particular teacher.

Since I'd been in a bad mood from being scolded in front of my college class because of Peter, I brought a guy home just to piss him off. It was his fault I wasn't able to finish the essay and at least make the late deadline. Peter, who knew too well of my 'disease', did just as I had expected him to when he got home to seeing me sitting shoulder to shoulder with a guy I'd quite literally picked up off the street. Peter had jumped to conclusions and started screaming about me whoring around with anyone who had a dick and threw me out of the house.

My temporary homelessness usually didn't last more than two weeks. However, since I wasn't caught doing anything other than sitting next to a guy, I thought my father would have made me suffer for a night and called me home already. I was wrong. It was my fault for testing him. I could have been smarter, but I had a knack for pissing people off.

It wasn't like I didn't have options on where to go. In fact, I was staring at one of those options. I watched a silver car pull up and a woman who'd disappeared two hours before came stumbling out of the vehicle. I could tell she was satisfied by the look of her hair and clothes. Fuck, that could have been me, I thought. Only, I always managed to convince them to let me stay the night. It didn't matter if I got the couch or the floor. As long as I had a roof over my head, I wouldn't complain.

I'd been trying to walk the straight and narrow for about three weeks now. The straight and narrow for me meant going to all my college classes, not getting kicked out as often, staying out of my father's way, staying away from any mind-altering substances, and not fucking around with random strangers. Trying to walk that thin line meant I had slept at the transit centre on the cold, hard benches for the past two nights instead of easily finding a roof over my head like I usually did. Spring nights weren't kind to the homeless.

I was so close to giving up. My eyes were focused on a woman who was sliding into her third car for the night. How much money had she made so far? Upwards of a thousand, I betted. She looked to be in her late thirties which made her older than the other women standing around, but she carried herself better, had more confidence, and stood apart from her competitors who didn't seem to like her very much. Out of the five women, two of them hadn't had any passersby take their bait.

Easy money, easy access to alcohol, drugs, or at least a cigarette, easy roof over my head. It had rained all day, and I could only hope it wouldn't start up again in the night. I was a fairly thin guy. My body couldn't withstand the cold.

You don't have to do this. One more night. The bus station bench isn't that bad to sleep on. You can do this, Zed.

I clenched my teeth as my knee bounced with my growing restlessness. I needed food, a shower, and a smoke, or I was going to lose my damn mind. I couldn't remember the last time I ate. The feeling of an empty stomach was something I'd gotten used to.