Furtive

New Places

Chapter 2

The sun began to set and the sky started to turn a fabulous orange colour. I had survived one whole day in the city without anyone's help, apart from the boy from the coffee shop. I set myself down on the kerb and thought for a while. I couldn't live like this forever. Things weren't going the way I expected them to go, although I didn't really have any expectations in the first place. My money I had saved up for this break-out was all gone. I had nowhere to go. I buried my head in my hands and my eyes began to burn. I did not want to go back home, but I didn't want to live this way either. I was being selfish. Some people don't have a choice about how they lived, but I did, and then I was ruining it for myself. A hand wrapped around my shoulder and I sat straight up.

"There, there," the voice said. I looked over to the voice next to me, and to my surprise, it was the boy from the coffee shop.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"People call me Rhett," the coffee shop boy replied.

"That's an interesting name," I remarked.

"Yeah, it's not my real name though. The name I was born with was so faggy that I chose to change it," Rhett complained.

"It couldn't be that bad, I'm Acadia,"

"That's a pretty shitty name," he commented. Finally, I thought, someone who understands my pain. "Does anybody call you Cady?"

"Nah, my parents weren't into giving nicknames," I answered. We sat quietly on the cold pavement for a while before I remembered that I needed to thank Rhett for the muffin. "Thanks," I said. He gave me a confused look, "for the muffin."

"Oh!" he smiled, "It was nothing, really, just helping a friend out,"

"Friend?" I remarked

"Why not?" he laughed, "c'mon, it's getting late, maybe you should head home". Home. What should I tell him? Should I go with him? Should I just go my own way? Should I tell him I don't have a home anymore?

"I don't have a home," I blurted out, "not anymore".

"Really?" said Rhett. He got to his feet and just stood there for a few seconds. I could tell he was thinking. "Do you want to, um, come with me?" He asked as he bit his lip, still thinking, I guessed.

"Uh, sure," I replied, "but what's with the guilty face?"

"I'm not meant to bring random homeless girls home too often..."

"Oh, that's understandable, I'm not a criminal or diseased or anything like that" I promised. He shrugged.

"Come on then," he said. We walked together down to pavement silently. The sky darkened gradually until it was night and all the streetlights flickered on. I didn't know where we were heading, but it didn't look like the 'classy' part of town. As we travelled further, more and more graffiti covered building walls. There were dark alleyways that smelled horrible. Dirty water and garbage washed down the gutters. It was all quite overwhelming. My parents would never let me walk through a place like this, especially not with some boy I didn't really know. We stopped at one of the alleyways and Rhett smiled nervously.

"This is it," sighed Rhett, "sorry about the mess". He continued into the dark alleyway and I reluctantly followed him. A large dumpster bin was at the end of the alley. I was so confused. Rhett walked over to the dumpster and began to push it. The bin began to roll away slowly to the side revealing a metal door. Rhett took a key from his pocket and unlocked the door. It squeaked open and revealed a dark room. Rhett beckoned me inside and I walked over and stood just inside the doorway. He left the door and began to pull the dumpster over the doorway again. For a second, I thought he was going to trap me inside, but he pulled the bin over the doorway and jumped back inside next to me. I heard a click and the room around me lit up with a soft glow.