Don't Forget To Breathe

Chapter 3

Camila's POV

Eventually,  you get used to the depression.  It's something you learn to live with whether you want to or not.  

The anxiety as well. 

Even the fear

There is a lot that you learn to manage when you're out on the streets. You may be scared shitless but you can't show it, and you sure as hell better learn to fight back. 

Eventually the depression and loneliness settle in the pit of your stomach making a home for themselves. But you can't let them win, if you do,you die. 

It's as simple as that out here. 

There have been so many times where I don't want to stand up and look for food or a dry street to sleep in, but I have to, because eventually your head starts to hurt and your hands start to shake. Almost as if I can feel myself fading away from hunger. I sometimes fear a single blow of wind will evaporate me, and the worst part is that sometimes I wish it did. 

There have been so many occasions where I have thought to myself that if I just step out onto the road when there's a car coming, it'll all be over. I wouldn't have to fight anymore. So many times where I have considered going atop one of the countless buildings in NY and jumping. 

It's not like anyone would miss me anyways. The cops would probably sweep up my body like it were road kill and end up roll their eyes at the fact that some hobo decided to do this right before the end of their shift. 

But for some reason I haven't allowed myself to jump quiet yet. Maybe it's because my survival instincts are greater,  or maybe I'm still holding onto hope. 

That's what I like to tell myself, that I'm hopeful, but the truth is, I'm just too tired to die. I'm too tired to climb up the steps to the top of a building, I'm too tired to run in front of a car. I'm too tired to pull the trigger. I'm just too tired to die. 

I guess that exhaustion is all a part of the depression, so as I lie here behind the dumpster of the Jauregui building I allow myself to rest. 

Yes, I know it's not actually called the Jauregui building but it might as well be. It's what I've called it since the first time I saw her. 

She was wearing a long pea coat, bright red lipstick and a pair of pitch black sunglasses. She held a travel coffee mug in one hand and an apple in the other. I heard the doorman greet her as she exited, which is how I learned her name, though I still don't know her first one. I imagine it to be something beautiful, something worthy of her.  As soon as she stepped outside she realized it was too dark for sunglasses, and that's when I saw them.

Her eyes. 

I remember standing frozen in the entrance of the alley as she walked passed me, not taking a second glance. A part of me was relieved though,  if she focused those mesmerizing eyes on me I was 99% sure I would spontaneously combust. They seemed to have so many stories, experiences and knowledge hidden behind them , I wanted to know it all. But I know there's no way she'll ever tell me.

That didn't stop me from coming back though,  I made the alley beside her building my home, or the closest thing I have to one anyways. It's where I save the food I gather and where I have my winter coat put away for that time of year. I'd probably freeze to death otherwise.  

Looking up at the sky above me I notice it's getting dark and I immediately shed the multiple oversized shirts I have on, which I've collected from multiple shelters and dumpsters around the city, and bundle them up into a makeshift pillow laying down on the ground. I feel a bit of a chill and immediately remember what I had stored in a bag behind the dumpster.