Delivery Girl

Chapter 8

My heart pounds out of my chest. I think of all the things I could do besides this.

Run, hide, get a police officer, die.

Anything but this.

Anything.

My palms sweat. My mind races. I stare at the sidewalk. The rocks, the occasional gum wrapper or soda can. I must look like a ghost. I feel like I'm not in my body, but up in there air looking down on myself. My short hair cuts off at my jaw. Besides the blood sprinting through my veins, my face is blank and a porcelain white. The contacts jut out from the other hues in my face and irritate my eyes. My natural eyes. Why can everything just stop. I can go home and forget it all happened.

Somebody shoot me. Now. Do it. Before I have to meet my fate.

I'm so concentrated on what is right around the corner I don't even realize a tattoo-covered man crash right into me. He has a funny beard and mustache, and short hair on his head.

"Hey watch it!" he yells.

"Sorry-" I spat. I can't even muster my tongue to form words.

The hit was like a reality check. I compute my surroundings. City. Tall buildings while others remain squat. This part of town, is rather crappy in my opinion. It's too busy to empty at the same time. I never liked the city. Not ever. My parents went on a business trip to New York once, and came back with several pictures; I was fascinated. A school drama club trip to see a broadway show, changed my mind. A girl got sick on the bus to we pulled over. The lot of us flooded out of the bus. The air reeked of gasoline and cigarette smoke and burned my nose. I remember seeing a rat scurry along beside a condemned house. I wrinkled my nose and turned away; disgusted. All I can think about now is that rat.

I inch closer and closer to the corner. It's not a road, more like a pathway made of the gray gravel the roads are made of. It's full of potholes and white cracks.

One last step and Ill see the people. Ill give them the powder in my coat pocket. They'll give me money. Ill turn around and leave. That's it.

Right?

Yes. Has to be it.

I swivel around on my heels, hugging the white painted building to my left. I squeeze my eyes shut and open them quick. The pathway is a lot thinner than I thought. A group of men and women gather in the end of the path. My heart violently jumps into my throat as if its going to pop out my mouth. I swallow hard. I can barely move my feet.

Left.

Right.

Left.

Right.

Just keep going.

So I do.

Steam billows from a pipe exiting a wall. A breeze snaps by and blows an old news paper around. Shouts arise from a window. Cuss words flow out of their mouths like butter on a hot stove. I cringe and wait for them to notice me. And sooner or later, they do.

"Aye boys! Looky what we gotta here! A little white girl commin' to give us what we done now ordered!" A dark skinned man shouts over to me. Some of his teeth are missing. Gross. I stare at him-wide eyed. But I keep walking. I want to throw the power bag at him and run for my life.

Now I'm only about 10 feet from the group.

8 feet...

6 feet...

4 feet...

1.

The sly smile vanishes from his face as he looks at me grimly.

"Give us the goods, baby doll." He spits.

Blood rushes to my cheeks and all I feel like doing is crying instead of everything else.

My grandfather called me baby doll. He was a drunkard criminal. I hated him. He is in jail now. And I hope all of these worthless people are locked up too. All of them.

Suddenly all of the sadness and fear washes out of my body, and it morphs into anger and madness. I want to a scream and yell at them, tell them that they are stupid for wanting it or that they should see a doctor. But these people didn't seem to want nor understand advice about life. And I was in no shape to give it.

"What? Are you going to cry little girl? Huh? You gonna, cry?" A woman says. She reminds me on Nikki Manage but she has light skin, covered in make-up and an over dose of eyeliner.

But I say nothing.

I grimace at her. I just sit there and stare. She is so much taller than me because of her platform heels. Her arm moves swiftly across my face and my neck whiplashes to the side swiftly and painfully, both to my neck and face. The sound of skin on skin collision echoes in the empty lot-pathway. Even more blood rushes to the underside of my cheek. I squint my eyes. Her ring hit right underneath my eye and the cut freezes in the wind. I feel humiliated. The group laughs. I reach into my pocket staring at her, trying to hold back my tears. I feel the bag and slowly bring it forward. I hear the loading of a gun and look up to a barrel of a black gun pointed at my nose, and that is when the panic sets in.