The Smell Of Spray Paint

Three.

We ran for what felt like forever.

The backstreet that we had escaped from had long receded behind us and at some point my saviour had grabbed onto my hand. I squeezed it feeling protected as long as he dragged me along.

We were far away and panting hard when we stopped. He dropped my hand and we both spent ten seconds standing and gasping for air.

He took a deep breath,"What the hell...?" He gasped, "I cannot even leave you alone or you will just get into trouble!"

I swallowed, wiping the film of sweat from my brow; I couldn't believe what just happened. I felt angry and disgusted with myself. I sat down on a bench and gripped the edges of it, shaking.

"You okay?" He asked and I could almost detect concern in his voice.

"S-Sorry...!" I put my hands over my face.

He sighed and looked at me. I was so pathetic.

"I have some water if you want some..." He sat next to me.

I nodded, I felt acutely embarrassed to even be in this state. For letting myself give into those men back there.

He handed me the bottle and even unscrewed the lid, seeing that I was obviously not fit to do so on my own.

I grabbed it; I was shaking so much that I could barely find my mouth, but when I did I swallowed down half the liquid and then proceeded to douse myself in the rest, letting the cool water bring me down to earth and got away some of the filth that I could feel all over my skin.

I gasped shuddered, pushing up my glasses and rubbing my eyes, wiping some of the water from my face. That felt a little better, but I was still shivering, though now that was half from the cold. I still felt sick and my heart was in my mouth and I felt so, so violated and disgusting and pathetic. But a little better.

He coughed a little, looking like he was going to say something about his supply of water now soaking through my clothes.

Instead he hesitated before patting my hand once, "You can... You can cry if you want." He shrugged, "If you feel like it, I will not look."

"I don't want to cry!" I snapped, glaring at him.

He looked a little taken aback by my outburst and sighed, his idea of kindness having fallen flat, "You should go home; you obviously are not able to cope in a big city like Berlin alone, like I do!"

I shot him another sharp look, "I'm not going home!"

He rolled his eyes, "Whatever..."

I sat next to him but didn't look at him, my eyes staying trained at the ground.

"How did you find me?" I asked quietly

He shrugged like beating off a thug with a knife was no big deal, "I was out of paint, and the place I buy my cans from was just around the corner... You screamed out pretty loud and I recognised the voice."

"You did?" I felt flattered, though there wasn't anything that exciting about this guy recognising how I sounded.

"Well, you yelled at me this morning, so... Yes. I did."

"Oh..." I looked at him, for a second... He had a nice face, even with the piercings that dotted the white skin, "Sorry for that..."

"I am used to it." He sighed, "You want to come live with me?"

Wait... Was that an offer? Or just a question? It sounded like an offer...

"Do you mean... P-Permanently?" I sounded nervous, "But you said you didn't want that! You're a lone wolf!"