Overlap

Eponine

2017

I finished work in the afternoon, it was one of those days late in February when the suns come out for the first time in what feels like forever. Its such a shock that at first you don't recognise it - the warmth on your skin. At first it sort of blinds you, it takes you a moment too late to adjust your eyes and in trying to see where you're going you stumble into the middle of the road instead. 

Thats what usually happens to me anyway. It's what happened to me today at least. 

I was so tired after my overnight shift at the children's home and my half day at the cafe round the corner, that I didn't even realise I was in the road until it was too late and a white van man was rolling his window to shout something obscene out of his window. 

He hadn't been about to hit me, he was driving down the other side of the road, he was only shouting because he liked my skirt and my sleepy eyes with no fight left in them. He was only winding his window down to get his "desire" off his chest as he revved his engine, drooling smirking down at me as he raced past and made some lewd gesture out the window which shuddered me. Left my skin crawling. 

Still I shrugged it off, I saw him everyday. Or maybe not him but one of him, another nameless creep who saw the world in such a self centered way that he didn't stop to think about how his words made girls like me feel. 

Small. 

I yawned, pushed my hair from my face as I approached the subway and disappeared off the dusty afternoon street, relief curdling with the nerves as I ducked underground. 

Most people are nervous walking through a subway, but I never really found them all that intimidating. 

For a small time when I'd first left school, and then when I'd moved back home from London, I'd worked in a homeless shelter and so I knew a few of the people who spent their days sheltering from the northern winds in that little subway. Usually I carried extra food back from the cafe for them and elongated my walk home by an hour sitting, eating lunch with them.

So I'd never really been scared of the subway, just scared of who was waiting for me on the other side. Usually I knew exactly who would be there. 

When we'd lived together Niall had always waited for me on the other side of the subway, at the top of the stairs. He'd have been their to question why I walked that way and why I didn't just catch the bus, forgetting that there was no other route from my work to Sam's house, forgetting that I couldn't afford to catch the bus, forgetting that that was usually his fault too. 

"I've debts to pay," I'd sigh, smiling, laughing it off, trying to make light of the end of my sentence, "mainly yours," I'd tease and his smile would fall and though he'd know that I wasn't trying to hurt him, that I was only joking and messing around, trying to have the kind of childish fun we'd had when we were teenagers and it was I who was always in debt to him, he would drop my hand, give me a little shove, tell me not to be such a bitch. And we'd walk home in silence. 

Today I didn't need to worry about him however. Today he wouldn't be waiting for me. He wouldn't be there to ask me why I was late, he wouldn't be there to ask me why I spent so long talking to those "Low-lifes." He wouldn't be there to snap at me, tell me I shouldn't lead them on like that, that they probably think I'm going to shag them or something, that they think they can weasel their way into your heart, and then your head, and then your home. That If I wasn't careful one of these days one of them would try and take advantage of me. 

It was nice, not having to worry about that, but it wasn't peaceful. I didn't feel at ease. The nerves still came despite my knowing that I had nothing to be nervous about. The same familiar feelings still crept up on me. Like they couldn't quite believe that I was free, and maybe that was because I couldn't quite believe it either.