Cricket: Ember's Story

City Angel

Where do you go when the world ends? When no one is left to help you and the night is your only home? Where do you go in a city full of thieves, liars, killers and junkies? Where do you go when you're an invisible girl with a bloody face?

Each step I take feels like a piece of myself falling off. An eye, an ear, there goes an arm, a spleen, a lung, a rib. There's a trail of me all the way back to Doc's place, I know it.

Jesse hit me so hard my head is ringing and I can't walk straight. I don't realize how drunk I must look until I trip on a stick and fall sideways into a couple of stacked trash bags. The world spins. I swallow the bile that rises and tries to escape from my mouth.

People look at me as I make my way from the ghetto to the train, from the train to downtown, from downtown to West's place. Mean eyes that think they know me.

I only have the night. I am nameless. I am nobody. I could start over.

That's what I think as I leave Jesse behind.

Then I remember Cricket. No, there's no reset button. I'll just have to take what's here and make it into something that I can give my son, however scarred and ugly it might be. I only have the night. Not the starry, pretty part lit up by the moon. No. I have the darkness that hides knives, the shadows that cloak the bodies of my friends, the unseen corners where the zombies shoot up.

I think I see Adam at the train station, and I follow him for a whole block. So young and so beautiful; a city angel, wispy wings made of cigarette smoke and winter breath. He walks with that ripped jeans easy teenage swagger, like he already knows the ending of his own story but he's cool with it.

I miss him so much. I miss them all. I am so lonely and sad that I say his name. "Adam."

Fake Adam turns to look back at me. The unfamiliar face hurts like a slap, and I wish I'd never said his name so I could follow the dream a little longer.

For the rest of the journey, I keep my eyes on my feet.

———————

"Is West here?" I ask the guy who opens the door of his apartment.

He's a pretty typical frat-boy looking guy: muscles, blond beachy hair, tanned, pretty face.

"No. Who are you?" he asks.

"West is my friend. Can I wait here?"

Frat-boy nods and moves away so I can get past him. West's room is locked. I slide down the wall to wait. My head throbs and throbs with the bass of some rap song coming from behind one of his roommate's doors. My blood finds the beat and matches it. I'm so sleepy, so sleepy, so...

I rest my head on my upraised knees and fall asleep as quickly as a light switching off.

"Ember!"

The voice jars me awake. I'm confused but recognize West crouched down in front of me. He looks worried.

"Are you okay?" he asks.

I shake my head.

"Come here." West helps me stand.

At our feet, there's a bag of fast food and West's keys, like he just dropped it all.

"You're bleeding," he says, seeing me in the full light for the first time.

"I'm okay," I say.

"No you're not. Let me see the back of your head."

I turn around.

"You were very asleep, which means I think you have a concussion. We have to go to the hospital," he says.

"No! No doctors!" I say emphatically.