Temporary

Chapter 5

[Sorry if this is boring, but I felt like now was a good time for a flashback. I kind of rushed with this, but I promise that it WILL get better.]

It was a dreary evening in April, gray storm clouds looming overhead with a light haze of fog. I was seventeen, pacing the area of our latest shelter and blowing puffs of warm air into my cupped hands. Sighing, I took a seat at the end of my bed on the bottom bunk and glanced at my dad's watch, which didn't yet have cracked glass. He was downstairs, checking in with the volunteers for what he said would be five minutes; it had been twenty. As I kicked my boots off, a shiver ran down my spine as I dropped onto the creaky, wooden floor. Wrapping my arms around myself and gritting my teeth as the clothes weighed down on me, I wondered how much longer my father would be and how long it would be before I began to dry off. The showers were completely occupied, which left me damp and reeking of rain and alley garbage until one became available.

There was one other man at the other end of the room, fixing the paper-thin sheet on his top bunk that sat against the wall with the door. His back turned to me. He wore tattered jeans with holes torn in the knees and white paint marked stained on the back thighs. His dark green Jets hoodie hung on his tall, lanky frame, and his black Converse were barely intact.

Before I could tear my gaze away, the man turned and raised a bushy, dark brown eyebrow at me. "Oh, didn't see you there," He said, running a grime-covered hand through a mop of greasy, brown hair reaching just above his shoulders. The weathering in his tanned face suggested that he could be somewhere around my dad's age. "You're quiet, ain't you?"

I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Instead, I rose from the bed and bent down for my duffel, sifting through it for an extra blanket; there wasn't one.

"This place ain't for people your age," The man spoke up over a loud squeak. I turned and stood upright, noticing that he was trying to situate himself on the squeaky mattress. He spit into a nearby, styrofoam cup and looked at me with glazed, green eyes. "You kids need to get your asses back in school before those streets eat you up and spit you back out."

A sour taste secreted in my mouth as I bit my tongue. "I'm not a drop-out."

The man hopped down from the bed, landing on his feet with a loud thud. "Then why you here?"

"I'm with my dad," I responded sharply, averting my eyes and stuffing my hands in my pockets. They were moist as I grabbed at the inner denim. "Why do you care?"

He snorted, an arrogant smirk plastered on his grimy mug. "Ah." He drew out the word and nodded slowly. "So he's the reason why you're in this hellhole for the night. My old man was the same way."

My hands emerged from their pockets and balled into fists, and as he raised an eyebrow at me for an answer, something set my blood to a boil. I felt my eyes narrow in on the man as I opened my mouth. "What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

Breathing a deep sigh, he took a couple steps forward, hands in his sweatshirt pocket as he made a tsk, tsk sound. "My dad was a deadbeat, I'm a deadbeat. Your old man, wherever in this place he is, happens to be a deadbeat. You're a deadbeat, and we're all deadbeats." He shrugged and pursed his lips into a straight line. "That's life on this side of town."

Teeth clenched and fists balled at my sides, my heart pulsated angrily as I stepped forward. My brain turned off and let my temper take over. "Don't talk about my father like that," I hissed, about two feet away from him.

Placing his hands on his hips, the man bit at his lower, chapped lip. His breath reminded me too much of my father's; reeking of alcohol and morning breath. "Don't mess with me, kid. Your dad's not here to stop you."