"You're beautiful."
The sleek, chrome walls echo back his voice, catching it and thrusting it back into my arms. There is a faint ringing noise in my ears that convinces me that it's not all a dream.
"I wasn't always like this," I whisper to my reflection off of the glistening walls. She looks scared as she trembles behind him. Detached. The roar of a train engine shakes my fragile palms. I meet his sapphire eyes and feel the corner of my mouth tremble. "I am not meant to be pretty."
"That doesn't matter."
A plastic bag flies by, and lone tumbleweed. My hair flies up in feathery layers before succuming to gravity.
"It matters to me."
"So you want to go back to who you used to be?"
The light is too bright. "No, I just--"
"You just wish I never chose you, that's all." He lowers his gaze. "You wish I never worked on you."
"You didn't choose me," I spit. Somehow, I know that this is a fight that I am destined to loose, but I will struggle anyways. In a way, defending myself is one thing that I can cling to. "You used me."
A bell rings- our car is coming, approximately twenty feet over our heads. We can get on the subway. We can escape to Tokyo. Neither of us moves.
"You didn't deny it," I say.
"You want me to lie?"
"I wanted you to deny it."
He clenches his fist on the holster in his left back pocket and curls his narrow index finger around it, as if out of instinct. That gun, along with the three hundred dollars crammed under the peeling rubber of my Nike's, is all we have left. "I am not a liar," he finally replies, teeth clenched.
There is another roar and a flash of light. My reflection blinks once, then twice. I am still not used to the sharpness of my cheekbones, the symmetric spatter of freckles spread across my nose like stars in the night sky. I want to cry. I bite my unusually plump botton lip and will myself to bleed, will my physical state to match my mental.
"Katherine."
I will my gaze to meet his blue eyes.
"We need to go before they find us. Do you have the number?"
I nod slowly, layers of my hair sticking to the back of my neck. There is no way that I could ever forget the image of glistening gold plastic, the small symbol of hope that he claimed could "change our lives". He was right. Our lives did change. Everything changed, and now we are poor and hungry and as desperate as ever.
He stealthily rises to his feet, as he was trained to do by hundreds of nights spent pocketing change, hundreds of nights shuffling through wads of money. My mouth is warm and tastes faintly of metal. Iron. I struggle to stumble upright, my right foot submerged in his shadow. I am still wearing my maroon Jin-Sun Steakhouse uniform. My sleeves are tattered and stained gray from dirt and grime accumluated from every alley he led me through. They are worn out from the "trust me"'s, ripped from the "it will be okay"'s, and beaten by the lies. I slip out of my heavy jacket, silently cursing my previous descision to not carry any food. He said that we had to move fast. Get away from the cops, cover some distance, and it would all work out. He never mentioned food. Or water. Or trust.
We both pad down the silver void of a tunnel, careful not to make too much noise even though we know that no one will be able to hear us. We both avoid the glistening rails that are now coated with layers of rust. I grasp onto the black railing of the stairwell, as if holding on to it will somehow help me hold on to sanity. I place one black shoe in front of the other, heels clicking. I feel each of his irregular breaths on my shoulder, magnified by the unforgiving walls. The concrete steps are stained with tar, tobacco stains and spilled beer.
We emerge into the light- stumble trip light blink once blink twice three times focus hazy light. We are in the station now. Bright lanterns light the overwhelming scene of scrolling TV scenes, buisinesswomen in suits screaming into phones, and Caucasian men with jagged Japanese selling dumplings out of carts. I feel exposed with my wavy, light hair and stained pants.
He looks around, his eyes scanning through herds of people who all have something to do, all have a place to go. We quickly weave through the crowd. We too have a destination, a place to be. So why do I feel like I am only going to another place where I will need to run, need to hide, need to catch another subway car?
The next car to Tokyo leaves in seven minutes. He paces up and down the dark tile floor anxiously, eyebrows knit.
"On the count of three, we run," he finally murmurs. "Jump in the car. If someone questions you, pretend you don't understand them."
I nod. I understand. In moments, we will be free, we will be on a subway car to Tokyo where no one knows who we are or what we've done. We will be innocent.
"One...two..."
