Out in the Wind

Chapter 20

Let's get one thing straight. Trying to wash up in a sink in a different dirty restroom every day does not work at all. It is as if you never actually feel clean, and there is rarely, if ever any cold water. Sometimes my mom takes our kettle that we have with us and cook water in the restroom since some of them have power outlets. Only then it feels a little bit better and do I feel a bit cleaner, but for the most it's horrible. We also can't stop at the same gas station twice in a row. It's like they get to know us too quickly, and with the very first one, after about a week the manager asked us to move the car at night and not sleep there anymore, and he also complained about us using the restroom, refusing to give us the key to go into it. He acted as if he was doing us some massive favor in the first place, but believe me... That dirty bathroom was no favor to begin with. We have tried the restrooms in the malls, but it feels very weird trying to wash underneath your armpits with the chance of someone walking in on you at any given moment. For the past few days I have been going in to school much earlier. Trying my best to wash up a little bit by sneaking into the disabled bathroom. It's not just much cleaner, but the chance of being caught is way less as well.

I have come to discover that being homeless is not for the faint hearted.

"Cory! Wait up! Please!" Mandy shouts behind me, but I just keep on walking faster and faster. She is by far the last person I want to talk to, and even if I really did want to talk to her, it wasn't as if I could just let it go that she has been ignoring me for weeks. Maybe two weeks ago I would've still listened to her, but after all the cold baths in basins in strange places I was over it. I still wanted to kick myself for not having a shower that day I fell asleep on Patrick's bed. I could have at least gotten something more than a few hours' worth of sleep for all the anxiety I needed to endure because of my mom not knowing where I was.

"Please Cory! Wait up!" she yells behind me and I can hear her heels clanking on the floor, which means she is walking very fast to try and keep up. She might even break into a run.

I don't care that the kids around us in the hallway is looking at us. They all probably also know that we are not allowed to run in the hallways which means that Mandy might just actually catch up with me before I reach the outside of the building. Especially if she keeps on walking this fast. For some reason people don't make space when a guy, and a gay guy at that is walking as fast as he can. They do however make way for a girl very fast.

"Cory! Please just stop!" she yells again, making me feel like the entire hallway is actually looking at me.

She finally reaches me as I knew she would at some point, grabbing me by the shoulder, but she doesn't need to spin me around because I do it myself.

"What?" I sneer at her. The last thing I need is some soppy apology just because she feels sorry for my. I have already seen pity in her eyes once before. I don't need to see it again, although her eyes are not showing pity this time. She seems almost mad.

"Can we talk?" she says looking around her at the few kids still standing still to look at us, hoping for an interesting bit of gossip. The rest of them who were staring has luckily decided to go on with their lives. "In private please."

"Can this wait?" I ask with the fullest intentions of her saying yes and then me walking away and avoiding her for another few weeks.

"Not really. It's about you and Rich Rick," she says and I can almost see the ears of the kids around us sprint up to attention.

"Drama class? It's usually empty this time of day," I say softly. No need for anyone to hear exactly where we are going as well. They will have enough to talk about just having heard my name in the same sentence as Patrick's.