Note: I have only a vague idea of where this is going. It's an attempt to get me writing more frequently, and I will try to expand the plot every day or several times a week.
She glanced into the gritty mirror, searching for a slice of who she used to be among the aftermath of a sneeze and seven Windex streaks. Her eyes were brown and in need of an extra coat of comfort. She quickly reapplied coal liner and told herself she was no longer naked - not quite beautiful, but good enough for now. The soap was almost noxious and there were, of course, no paper towels, so she temporarily striped her thighs before retrieving her beige backpack from the piss-stained bathroom floor.
It was late November. Frost crept into the lonely bus station and laced its way around the sullen benches, cementing the already hardened hearts of all who called the station “home” in place. It crawled inside her jacket sleeves and enveloped her arms as if to scold her for not wearing any gloves. She shivered and stood watching Greyhound giants round the station’s lot or leave with several lonely faces kissing no one but the closest windowpane goodbye.
She checked her watch - the first she’d ever worn, albeit it hung awkwardly on her bone-thin wrist, and impatiently waited for both hands to align at 10:00. Then she plucked a ticket from her back pocket and read it’s story for the sixth time that day to distract her troubled stomach from its drunken butterflies:
Chicago, Il. 10:00 a.m. One way.
She sat and shivered, turning away a host of thoughts that told her to go back to Campbell’s soup, go back to that familiar kitchen glow; to forgive and forget; to slip silently atop her light pink threaded sheets, as she always slept, with little more than a pair of rosy cheeks to remind her of this bus station rendezvous. Or perhaps a crumpled ticket rendered useless in the bedside trash.
“Yousa pretty ‘lil lady, but what’s with the long face?”
His deep voice startled her, though it was gentle and crippled by a faint cold. He dawned a mound of mismatched clothes with awkward holes and the remnants of a life lived outdoors. His skin was dark and weathered, his roadmap wrinkles caked with dirt. A row of peppered teeth poked out from beneath fleshy lips.
She was not afraid.
“I’m running,” she replied with a surety she hadn’t yet found in herself, gesturing toward the lone beige backpack that teemed with celebrated labels someone else had always washed. She listened for a surly laugh; it never came.
“From what?”
She surveyed his worn features and the broken shopping cart that pinned six sand pails worth of meager belongings to his side before deciding to trust him.
“I killed a girl.”
His eyes widened. She liked the way they resembled egg yolks, bits of yellow mixed with white.
“So yous running from the law?”
“No. No one knows I did it. I’m just running from myself.”
It was the first time she’d ever spoke the truth aloud.
