Let It Be Me

Part 1

**Hi everyone! The first several paragraphs are the necessary background stuff. Stick with it! The guys come in soon! Thanks so much for reading. I hope you love it!**

I checked the clock for the third time in twenty minutes and then stared back up at the ceiling. It was an unusually cold night for October in Tulsa. Too cold for a drafty house with no heat. Too cold to stop the shiver that was working its way up and down my spine, making it impossible to relax enough to sleep.

I didn't know who I was angrier with- Mother Nature for deciding to make the always torturous winter weather longer this year, or my father for never being able to pay the damn bill and keep the heat on. I cursed him out under my breath and watched the resulting cloud that billowed up from under my nose, trying to pull the blanket up to my chin without exposing my feet to the air. I was curled into the tightest ball I could manage and somehow I still wasn't small enough for the irritatingly inadequate square of scratchy blue wool.

I was sure whatever barstool dad was sitting on was nice and warm. Or maybe he was already sleeping it off in a jail cell, warm and toasty with blankets that could cover his whole body. Wherever he was, I knew he wasn't thinking about his daughter alone in this house with no heat. Most of the time that didn't bother me. I'd been used to being an afterthought since my mother died seven years ago. I'd pretty much been on my own since then and that was fine by me. I was an independent person. I made my own rules and had way more freedom than most other fifteen year olds I knew. But nights like tonight made it hard not to hate him.

I finally gave in and threw the blanket to the floor. Sleep was not going to be happening tonight. Not unless I could find a way to get warm.

I yanked on the chain that brought the dim fluorescent light to life in our kitchen and shut the oven off. Even set to five hundred it hadn't been enough to heat the shoebox of a house we lived in. Hovering my hands over the last stream of warmth, I tried to come up with a plan. Normally I'd make the trek over to Eva's house. I had an open invitation to spend the night on her couch when things got rough at home, but this week she was in Kansas for her cousin's funeral. I had other friends, but no one I could pay a two a.m. visit to without having overly worried parents calling social services on me. I was already on their radar as it was.

I decided I'd head over to the all night laundromat and thaw out for a while, maybe even catch a nap if Paul the Pervert wasn't around. Having been out at all hours of the night since I was ten, I'd learned all about the people that come out late at night. The ones that lurk in the shadows that parents warn their kids about. Paul the Pervert, the Guarini brothers, the guys who were always sitting on the pavement in front of Paxton's. They weren't the obvious villains that they were made out to be in the tv shows and movies. Most of the time they were people like Paul who came off as the nice "grandpa" type while you were awake and then helped themselves to an easy target when you fell asleep.

Once my eyes were opened to what the world was really like, at least in my neighborhood, I started taking the pistol out of my dad's underwear drawer and stuffing it into the canvas army bag I carried with me, just for extra protection. In five years I'd never had to use it. Tonight would be the first time.

I slung the strap of dad's army bag over my shoulder and pulled the hood of my sweatshirt up over my head. Garry's All Night Laundry was a good two miles away and my feet were already sore from being stuffed into a pair of converse with three layers of socks on. But the thought of steamy heat and the soothing whir of the washer and dryer lulling me to sleep were enough to push me through the door and out onto Clayborne Street despite the bitter wind that was now whipping at my face and hands.

I gripped the bag at my waist and turned off the road, heading for the high school so I could cut across the football field and over to the park. Another sharp breeze stung my nostrils and I pulled the collar of my sweatshirt up over the bridge of my nose and stuffed my hands into the front pockets. A wave of anger started to grow in my stomach. I just wanted to get warm. I just wanted to sleep. Why did it have to be this hard?