Whitewashed

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Chapter 20: Collapse

Maybe I’m lucky.

How? You may ask.

You lost your job, your apartment, your parents, your best friend who also happens to be your (ex)boyfriend, and, to top it all off, you’ve gone and lost yourself.

All that resolve to be normal? All the effort to keep my life together? To stay true to myself? Wasted?

I don’t think of it that way.

For the past week, everyone has been exceptionally nice to me. Even Tommo. Maybe they feel sorry for the girl who just lost everything… or maybe I’m lucky. I’m alive, aren’t I? I have managed to defy all odds and live.

No matter how many times a gun has been pointed at me or a blow has been aimed in my direction, I’m still breathing. My heart is still beating, though sometimes it barely feels like it.

It’s all kind of surreal, like I never actually left Liam.

Like time has paused.

I sit in the same room, staring at similar maps with starting points and destinations given to me. I’ve made it like a game, like connect the dots married to minesweeper. Tommo, for some reason, has only assigned me this. No more training, which I am thankful for, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get to see Haz.

He brings me food at mealtimes, which is how I keep track of the day.

The curly haired guy also comes and sits with me whenever he can and sometimes brings POGs along too, that is, until Tommo tells them to “get the fuck out, she’s concentrating.”

As for Gia, I don’t know what’s happened to her, but I haven’t heard anything since her arrival. For all I know they could have killed her. Why? I have no idea- then again it’s not like that’s anything new.

Today, Haz told me he had to make a delivery, but also that he’d try to be back early.

That was five hours ago.

He had promised me a trip to the harbor this week and I will make sure he keeps it.

Just gotta finish this and I’ll be done.

Taking in a measured breath, I stare at the map on Tommo’s table. This sight has become routine to me, the lines and names often different, but the concept all the same. I have to get the package from here to there. Abscido, our rival gang, isn’t always an issue, but this time they are.

Those people are REALLY starting to get on my nerves-

“Ozzie, why don’t you take a break?” Prints’ head appears in the doorway.

“I don’t need a break,” my tone comes of as aloof, though I am only distracted. I really don’t need another one of his silly games. I run my index finger tip over the path I had been considering, trying to visualize it in my mind’s eye and ignore the guy at the other end of the room. “Besides, you know Tommo doesn’t believe in their existence, not to mention their usefulness.”

“I’m sure he’d understand,” he slowly, nonchalantly makes his way inside, eyes scanning the maps on the walls.

Speak of the devil, his voice reaches us in its usual booming nature, though he is in one of the rooms down the hall, the door closed, “PRINTS, leave Ozzie alone! She’s working.”

Prints rolls his eyes, “Well when you have time, Little Man wanted to know if we all could-”

At first, I thought it was just me, but as the multitude of light bulbs above my head begins to sway and what sounds like the deep rumble of thunder beats at my ears, I know something is wrong. My companion’s face pales a few shades.