Boy Meet The Girl

Chapter 3

His arm hurts abominably. She'd dug her teeth into the flesh on the outside of his forearm and shaken him. From elbow to wrist the muscles feel unmoored and torn, kept alive and alight by fiery, crushed bundles of shattered nerve that itch and swell. He rubs and scratches at the overheating bite marks.

Watchers come to watch. Several taxi drivers have re-gathered and offer suggestions to each other more than to Bob because, hell, it's a laugh, isn't it. Wayward passengers with bags on wheels ease by. The woman lies still and moans quietly. The horrified college students have run off, been chased away by the officers, leaving him among no people he can speak to.

One taxi driver, a skinny giggler, has made off with Bob's bags. He has them at the curb and beckons. Bob swallows on a dry throat, free hand clasped to his wound. He should get up. Take charge.

A woman in a wool coat and high heels shakes a finger at the taxi men and speaks fast, admonishing. One driver sneers. A discussion opens up. Something patriotic and horrible about honesty and queuing and taking pride and the woman is too young to carry it with any force. She is shrill instead. And brief. The watchers with bags on wheels step out for the remaining taxis. Someone puts hands under his arms.

"Get. Off." He is angry and afraid.

The woman howls.

Her watchers rear back, but he wouldn't know because she's whirling and clawing and rolling on top of him again and he starts using his knees and elbows. They roll. He jams himself on top of her. She vomits up at his sweater. Many hands haul him backward.

He winds up a head taller than everyone and stumbling backward. He is patted and dusted and pulled back from when people see the vomit. He staggers. Where did she go?

"Rober'?"

Some girl is asking. Has been asking. Yeah, sure, he says. I'm Robert. He's dizzy. He looks down at himself. Some muck, black, and maybe some bad smell, across his thighs and splattered down his legs. He's shaking from the cold.

Here, says the girl. She has his coat. Snug in her own, one blood rusty-brown and fashionably rugged. Black hair pushed up inside a large ruffled collar. Round face. Pointed chin.

The coat would be warm, but his arm is bloody. The most astounding ache has started inside his head. You're from the school, he says.

"Shall we look a doctor?" she asks.

"Yeah okay," says Bob.